The Secret Hook-Up (The Copper Valley Thrusters, #6)

by Pippa Grant

“Let her go!” he barks as the door hits me right back, sending me flying backward against the opposite wall. “You don’t get to assault a woman in—oh. You’re alone.” I can’t see him, but he’s definitely a man. Vaguely familiar voice.

Let me guess, secret ex

Fuck. Me. Fuck me upside down and sideways and over a barrel and inside a fish tank.

WHA

Botticelli couldn’t do her curves justice. Her luscious ass and full breasts. Collarbones that could cut glass and biceps that say try me. The long legs with the thick muscles that I can’t look at without remembering how they feel wrapped around my hips, regardless of how long it’s been since we were together.

DUDE STOP

For a few months. In secret. At her insistence because she didn’t like the optics of being with a professional athlete who was friends with a lot of her players. Until I offered to teach her to ice skate and everything went to hell.

But when I realized Addie was completely oblivious to the way I was hearing wedding bells in our future, that she didn’t want me as anything other than someone to let off steam with in the bedroom, I broke.

Jaw dropped a little

And I apparently shouldn’t have been neglecting the sessions with my therapist that I started not long after our breakup because seeing her again today fucking hurts.

I pulled too hard. I pulled too hard on the dress and I didn’t listen to the sounds she was making because I recognized her body and her voice and I knew who she was while I was tugging.

That I could see all of the smooth skin on her belly. Her trim hips. The way her thigh and ass muscles were straining with all of the effort. That I nearly popped a boner when I spotted her tattoo. And I didn’t care that she was grunting and making little gasping noises.

PERVERT

Of course she doesn’t want me walking into the ballpark with her.

She’d have to admit she knows me.

When we were together, she didn’t want to tell anyone. You’re not one of my players, but you hang out with them, she said. This could impact my job, and I’ve never loved a job the way I love this one. Let’s just keep this to ourselves for now. I still don’t know if that was the whole truth, or if her insis...

“I’m sorry,” I grunt. “Not your fault.” “I pulled too⁠—” She looks over her bad shoulder at me, brown eyes igniting as hard as her jaw is clenched. “It. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”

She ate and left no crumbs just by waking up this morning.

Really bro.

Every time, I nod or cringe or mutter complaints with them, whatever seems appropriate, as if I’ve never met her before.

As if she didn’t fall asleep on my shoulder still mumble-singing along to one of the songs in Pitch Perfect on one of our early dates when she’d just gotten home from a three-week road trip right after training camp started for me.

The day I interviewed for my position with the Fireballs, I was positive I blew it.

That’s the night I met Duncan. He was jamming out on an acoustic guitar on stage, absolutely slaying some Levi Wilson pop song.

He came back to my hotel room with me. We banged. I told him I’d never be in Copper Valley again. Before he left, he gave me his number and told me to ping him if I was wrong.

An even bigger surprise, though, came halfway into my second season. I was out on the field, soaking in the sun and smelling the grass and talking to one of my players about what he was likely to see from the opposing pitcher that day, when Duncan strolled out of the dugout in a Fireballs jersey. I was so startled to recognize the guy from the bar that I almost tripped while standing still. And I don’t trip.

Our eyes met, and his jaw dropped, and I forgot what I was doing, which is the last thing I ever need to do on a ball field.

And when I said something along the lines of you didn’t tell me you were a professional hockey player, he responded something like you didn’t tell me your interview was with the Fireballs, but I’m glad it was. Wanna get a drink and catch up?

The right answer was no.

I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask him in person to please respect my professional boundaries.

And instead of setting those boundaries, I completely lost myself in enjoying what he called a cookie date at his place, and then we banged again.

Until I got hurt while he was teaching me to ice skate and he offered to move in with me to help take care of me, since we’re going to move in together eventually, and I freaked out and said I wasn’t ready to be serious, and he freaked out right back and asked what the fuck we were doing if this wasn’t serious?

now i see where it went wrong. y’all were both giving each other mixed signals n shit

“Duncan, you know Addie?” Cooper asks while Paisley whispers a soft, “That’s fire,” and shakes my hand.

“We’ve met,” I say shortly in answer to Cooper’s question.

“Was it a nice meeting?”

“I’m the reason she’s in a sling,”

Even Paisley snaps out of it to ...

“He is not the reason I’m i...

“I...

“Odds are extremely high that I would have dislocated my shoulder regardless of w...

“I pulled too hard trying to get her out ...

“In a dress store while I was trying on a dress that I kn...

“I had a pocketknife on me that would’ve been ...

“You can’t just cut up a dress ...

“Why ...

“It went on. It could ...

“Clearly...

“And then you have to pa...

“Oh, dear me. How would I have ever afforded to pay for a dress that I cut off a woman in a dress store? I’m so broke. It would’ve left me destitute and homeless.”

BRO HELP

“Stop being an ass.”

“Maybe if you’d let someone help you for once in your life, the people around you wouldn’t feel the need to be asses.”

When the real problem was that I liked him more than I’ve ever liked any man in my life, and it was terrifying. I liked him enough that I kept agreeing to see him even while that little alarm in the back of my head was reminding me that the longer you go, the harder it is to extricate yourself. That the man he showed me every day likely wasn’t the man he’d be for the rest of his life.

She was js scared 😞

Get out of your head, Addie. This isn’t about Mom.

I think I’m seeing red.

Lets not

Or is it green?

Shit. It’s...

Which is stupid. First, he left me. I can take being rejected, even if it hurt. I’m grateful that he rejected me. Made it easier to move on. Second, it’s been four damn years. And third, he has no say in who I see or sleep with, so why should the fact that I’ve seen him twice in ...