Blog Tour - The Sin Bin by Nikky Kaye

BECKETT
Lucy Solomon showed up to watch a hockey game in a luxury box wearing jeans and a hoodie, and she didn't give a puck who I was. Now the hotter it gets between us the better my team does on the ice, and I'm getting superstitious. I'm not skating around my feelings--I want to win the playoffs, and I want Lucy. But something's gotta give.

LUCY
After being in a grad school cave for two years, it made sense that I'd be drawn to a caveman. I melted for Beckett Hallstrom's brazen moves and boyish charm when we first met, but things exploded when I found out who he really was. Beck wants me to be his good luck charm, but the press is relentless and now my career is in jeopardy. Every competition has a loser and I'm afraid it's going to be me losing my heart.

Someone knocked on the door. We froze, breathing heavily and entwined together like a Rodin sculpture. It was too dark for me to see the expression on Beckett’s face when he called out casually, “Yeah?”

“I have that jersey for you, Mister Hallstrom,” a man said quietly. Discreetly.

Awkwardly, Beck removed his hands from every part of my body and turned to the door. He cracked it open, the outside light and sound slicing into the tiny room but thankfully I remained out of sight.

“We’re three up now,” I heard. “End of the second.”

“Shit, three? Okay, thanks.” Beck took a plastic bag from the guy. Then he leaned back against the closed door and reached out with one arm to flick the light back on.

At my position on the counter, the light was bright above my head. I squinted reflexively. And then when I realized how I probably looked, I wanted to turn off the lights and screw my eyes shut again. Oh my god, how embarrassing.

My legs were spread, my jeans gaping open and pushed down on my hips. I was practically sitting in the sink on top of his bespoke suit jacket, but at least my butt hadn’t turned on the water. Yet. My breasts quivered over the shelf bra of my athletic tank top, the tips still wet from his mouth. I was a slutty mess.

But Beck looked at me like I was the Stanley Cup turned into a chocolate fountain.

Without taking his eyes off me, he raised his right hand to his mouth and licked his first two fingers. If he were a metaphor, there would be canary feathers sticking out of his mouth.

“I, uh, just want you to know that this is not normal behavior for me, Beckett Hallstrom,” I said shakily. Understatement of the year.

I couldn’t help it. I closed my eyes. Maybe if I couldn’t see him, he wouldn’t be there. But he was there, all right. I heard the rustle of the plastic and the stretchy snick of him ripping off the price tag. And his rough chuckle.

“It’s not exactly routine for me either, Lucy…” He trailed off as we both realized he didn’t know my last name. My embarrassment graduated to humiliation, and my eyes flew open as he pulled me off the sink. “Careful, there.”

With surprising gentleness he tucked me back in and zipped me back up, before slipping a jersey over my head. The guy he’d sent had actually found one for the opposing team, which I suspected was hard to find in the home team’s store. It was big on me, but so was Beck.

“Solomon. Lucy Solomon.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lucy Solomon.”

His mouth quirked as he pulled my hair out from under the collar of the jersey, like he’d done earlier with his jacket. This time, though, he wound my hair around his wrist and tugged my head back to expose my neck. He pressed his mouth to my thumping pulse, nipping softly.

I sighed. “The pleasure was all mine.”

He stepped back, adjusting his slacks with a wince and shoving half his shirt back into his waistband. “I wish my name was on your back,” he said.

“You used to play?”

He nearly bent in half with mirth. “Oh, Jesus.” He laughed so hard and so long that I wished I knew the punch line. If he didn’t stop soon, he would be the punch line.

“Ahem?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

Outside I heard the distinct sounds of another goal for the home team. Not Andy’s team. Not Beck’s team. We both looked to the door. How long had we been in here, anyhow?

I blinked at him. He reached behind me and plucked his wrinkled suit jacket out of the sink. Now that I was extra embarrassed about. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “Casualty of war. We should…”

“Yeah, we should. I’m sure people are waiting for you.” I tugged the jersey down over my thighs. It was big enough for me to wear it as a dress. Maybe next time.

He traced my lips with his broad thumb, pressing his own lips together in an obvious effort not to laugh at me. “You’re fucking adorable, Lucy. You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

“Should I? I already told you I’m not into hockey.”

In fact, I came from the least athletic family on the planet. It was a shock to my computer programming parents that Andy was even tangentially working in sports. Frankly I was proud that I knew hockey was measured in periods and not quarters. With regards to my knowledge of the sport, the bar was pretty low.

“That is the adorable part that I’m looking forward to fucking.”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

He smirked. “Let’s say, confident.”

“Cocky.”

“If you want.”

Hmmm. I did want.

Nikky Kaye is almost my real name. I’m a former Film professor who likes more than her movies to be black and white. Sadly, the world doesn’t work that way. I have worked with movie stars, Ivy League brainiacs, and the United Nations—all of which means that I’m familiar with ass-kissing, power struggles, greed and faking it. In my spare time I parent 5 year-old twin boys, serve on the board of an independent cinema, and run a medical consulting company.