Off Limits (17 page)

Authors: Kelly Jamieson

Read on for an excerpt from
Icing
An Aces Hockey Novel

by Kelly Jamieson

Available from Loveswept

Chapter 1

Duncan walked into the bar tossing his car keys and looking around for any of the guys. It was still a little early for happy hour, the place was only half full, and he didn’t see anyone he knew. With a shrug, he took a seat at the bar.

“What can I get you?”

He looked at the girl who’d appeared behind the bar. To his surprise, he didn’t recognize her. Rupper must have hired some new
staff.

“Moens Ice draft, please.”

She nodded and moved away, reaching for a glass and then pulling on the tap to fill it with draft beer. He watched her move, recognizing the natural grace of an athlete. She was tall, though he couldn’t see if she was wearing heels. Some of the girls Rupper hired wore heels to wait on tables, but Duncan never got how they could do that. The Sin Bin had a reputation
for having the hottest servers in town, guys and girls, which might have accounted for some of the restaurant’s popularity. Although the food was good too.

This girl was okay-looking—long, dark blond hair pulled back from a center part into a low ponytail, high cheekbones, brown eyes, and full lips. Her eyebrows were thicker than he cared for. Her black dress was modest and plain, unlike the
skin-revealing, body-hugging dresses some of the other waitresses wore, and she didn’t wear much makeup.

She set the draft in front of him.

“Thanks.”

“Do you want to run a tab?”

He tipped his head. Usually the waitresses knew him and his teammates and didn’t have to ask that. “Uh. Yeah.”

She nodded and gave him a courteous smile.

“You must be new here,” he said as she went to move away.

She paused, still smiling in a polite way. “Yes. I just started this week. You must be a regular.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

Eh. She didn’t know who he was. He wasn’t going to tell her. He was tired of the puck bunnies, and he was especially tired of chicks who were interested in him only because of his fame and his money.

“I’m Amber,” she said. “Would you like a food menu?”

“No, thanks.”

She grabbed a tray and moved from behind the bar to go look after a table of four, picking up empties and taking their order. He turned a little on the stool to watch. Nope, no heels, just black ballet flats and long legs. Killer legs, actually.

He shouldn’t be looking at her legs. He was done with women.

He leaned against the bar and sipped his beer.
Damn.
He liked women. He just wasn’t very
good with them. In high school, when other guys were getting laid, he’d been at hockey practices or playing games. The other hockey players had girls hanging all over them, but not him. He’d been focused on his goal—making the NHL.

Now lots of his teammates were married and having babies. He’d always figured he’d have that one day. Yeah, he was only twenty-seven years old, not that old in the
real world, but in pro hockey, that was getting up there. He felt like he’d been an adult for a long time, and he thought about how long he’d been on his own and focusing so much on his hockey career.

His best buddy Marc “Super Duper” Dupuis was now “in a relationship.” With Duncan’s little sister, for Chrissake. Duncan rolled his eyes at that. He’d been pretty pissed to discover they’d been
screwing around with each other behind his back, in his condo no less, but it seemed things were actually pretty serious between them. Lovey was a bit of a flake, but he was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that she had her life on track. He sighed.

“That was a heartfelt sigh.”

He looked up at Amber, who was behind the bar again. “Uh. Sorry.”

“Hey, don’t apologize. You okay?”

“Oh
yeah. Fine. Great.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Want to talk about it?”

“About what a loser I am?”

She burst out laughing. “Right.”

He shook his head, lips twisted into a smile that probably didn’t look real happy.

“Girl trouble,” Amber said. “Am I right?”

“How’d you know?”

She pushed out her bottom lip and nodded. “Lucky guess.” She tipped her head to one side. “Get dumped?”

“No. I was
the dumper.” He drained his glass and held up the empty.

With a wry smile, she took the empty glass, set it on a counter, and grabbed a clean one. Seconds later he had a full one in front of him. He nodded approvingly. “That kind of service’ll get you a good tip.”

She smiled back. “So you broke up with your girlfriend and want to get drunk.”

It felt like a good night to get trashed. No game
until Sunday night. Hell yeah. His smile went crooked. “That’s right.”

“Are you celebrating or drowning your sorrows?”

He considered that. “Well, seeing as I’m the dumper, not the dumpee, I should be celebrating.”

She nodded. “Yup. But I have the feeling you’re not.”

“It sucks.” He sighed. “She wasn’t happy.”

Her brown eyes softened. “You’re a nice guy.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“A jerk
wouldn’t feel bad because he hurt someone’s feelings.”

“Well.” He pursed his lips briefly. “I don’t know how much I hurt her. Kinda feel she was more pissed than heartbroken.”

“Ah.” She set the glass onto a shelf, easily reaching it with her height. “Still. Breaking up is hard to do. According to Neil Sedaka.”

“What? Who?”

She grinned. “Neil Sedaka. Come on. Never heard of him?”

He wrinkled
his nose. “Uh, no.” He was pretty sure he wasn’t a country singer.

She shook her head.

“Thought maybe you were speaking from experience.” He eyed her as he lifted his drink to his mouth.

“Well, that too,” she said lightly. “Everyone’s been through that, right?”

“I guess. I actually don’t have much experience doing the dumping. I’m usually the dumpee.”

Her eyes widened briefly. “That’s hard
to believe.”

He rolled his eyes. Heat gathered beneath the collar of his shirt and started to spread up to his face.

“Oh come on. Good-looking guy like you? Don’t give me that.”

He shook his head, his face getting hotter. He scratched his head beneath the back of his ball cap and looked away. “Uh.”

Yeah, that was why he was such a loser with women. Scintillating conversationalist. Not
.

Jesus.

“Another draft.” He pushed the glass across the bar toward her. Maybe a few more drinks would help him. “Please.”

“Okay, but I’m keeping an eye on you. You wanna give me your keys right now?”

He frowned. “Why?”

“So you don’t drive drunk.”

“I would never do that.”

She held out her hand, palm up, and wiggled her fingers. Sighing, he pulled the keys out of his pocket and slapped them into her
hand. She grinned as she tucked them into a pocket, then got him another beer.

“My friends are meeting me here. Just so you know, I’m not sitting here getting wasted all alone. They won’t let me drive drunk.”

“That’s great. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. Good that they look out for you.”

He nodded. “They do. We all do. We have to.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

For some reason he didn’t
want to tell her it was because they were a team. A pro hockey team. She worked at the Sin Bin, she had to know her boss was a hockey player. At that moment, he just wanted to be Duncan Armstrong who grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm. Eh. The dairy-farm part wasn’t exactly sexy.

Why was he even worried about that? He did a mental eye roll at himself.

“We just have each other’s backs,” he finally
said vaguely.

“Well, that’s nice. Excuse me for a few minutes, I need to look after that table.”

She moved away again. This time he watched her the whole time, for some reason intrigued by her easy, friendly manner. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous like some of the other babes Rupper hired, but she probably made great tips just with that smile and the way she looked at people, all interested and
shit.

Yeah, the guys at the table she was serving were flirting and laughing with her. He narrowed his eyes at one guy who laughed too loudly and leered too lasciviously.

How the hell did he even know that word? What a dork. He shook his head and turned back to his beer.

“So you’re not heartbroken and drowning your sorrows.” She resumed their conversation when she returned.

“Not exactly.”

She leaned on the bar, eyes fixed on him with that undivided attention—even though he knew she was completely aware of anyone around them who needed service. “What does that mean?”

“It means I’ve given up on women.”

She gave a solemn nod. “Switching teams, huh?”

At first his mind went literally to hockey. As it would.
Oh wait.
Surprise made him laugh out loud.

“My best friend is gay,” she said,
straight-faced. “I could introduce you two.”

He caught the glimmer in her eyes. “Maybe I should switch teams.”

“That would be a waste.”

Christ.
Was she flirting with him? And she had no idea who he was.
Nice.

“You’re not gay.” She gave his shoulder a bump with hers.

“No,” he agreed. “And I guess I can’t just turn.”

“Pretty sure it doesn’t work that way.”

Her smile was really…nice. Warm.
Wide. Her straight white teeth gleamed and her full lips made him think about kissing them. His gaze dropped to her left hand. No ring.

He frowned. Christ, he’d vowed to give up on women and hadn’t even made it through the rest of the day.