“Gentlemen.” A half-british, half-ice king voice intrudes on our private party before we reach the food table. Never met the dude in person before—all our shit-talking happened over the phone—but I’ve seen his picture and I know his stepsister. “And… I’m sorry, madam, it seems I’ve missed your name.”
Like Chase, he’s tall and beefy enough for a regular dude—comes from some friggin’ cold northern Atlantic nation with enough sheep for his own harem—but Ares and I are towering over him too.
“This is Ambrosia,” Chase offers. “I have terrible taste in women.”
“Lick my tits,” I say to Chase before I grab the fucker and rub his face between my coconuts.
Ares grins.
Chase pinches my ass and I let him go. Two more servers do an about-face and scurry away with their trays of little vegetable appetizers that apparently pass as food at these things.
“You can call me The Goddess,” I tell the prince.
Manning Frey’s royal features split into a grin as he rocks back on his heels. Where I’m in a girdle, size 18 fuck-me pumps, and coconuts, he’s in some tan suit and white shirt getup that was probably picked for him by some royal ninny. “Overselling ourselves, are we?”
I like the fucker already. Not because he owes me ten grand, but because I’ve got a feeling he’d be a good companion in his own coconut bra and minidress if we wanted to crash another snooty function tonight. “Not if a pansy-ass like you passes as a prince. I’m still taking home the hottest girl here tonight.”
He juts his chin up, grin going wider. “You’re going to get a woman. While you’re dressed like that.”
Yeah, I know what it looks like. Me and Ares, we’re the biggest mother puckers to ever strap on skates and wield sticks in the NHL. I’m sprouting a five o’clock shadow before I’m done shaving every morning. Each one of my thighs is the size of one of those European sissy cars. Solid muscle too. My ma calls us big-boned. My sister calls us overgrown apes. I make one ugly-ass woman.
“Damn fucking right,” I tell Prince Manning anyway. Because you don’t get to be the biggest, hairiest, most feared badass on the ice by owning up to your shortcomings. No, I bear my teeth at those fuckers and take them down. If you ain’t got your balls, you ain’t got anything. “I’m gonna make her switch sides, then when we get back to my hotel room, I’m gonna make her switch back, and I’m gonna rock her fucking world.”
“As completely wrong as that sounds, I’ve seen him do it before,” Chase says.
Ares grunts an agreement, even though both of them know I’m full of shit and I know they’re each looking forward to watching me fail. I share a look with my twin.
You’re such a fucking dumbass, his says, because he knows it’s biologically impossible for any woman in this stuffy, exclusive clubhouse to seriously be attracted to me like this. I flunked biology, and I still know it too.
Two words, my look replies. Endorsement. Dollars.
I don’t give two shits if I score a chick tonight. I score plenty, on and off the ice, and everyone knows it.
The other thing everyone knows?
Zeus Berger doesn’t back down from a challenge. And I smell a challenge coming on.
“Care to put some money on that?” Manning says, right on time.
“Double or nothing,” I reply. Win or lose, no man will ever say I didn’t put my heart in it. And I’ve got my winning personality on my side. I might be ugly, but I’m not out.
Ares snickers again.
“Go on and pick the girl,” I tell Manning. “Wouldn’t want you to think I planned this.”
He rubs a hand over his dark blond beard while he scans the room. “I’m beginning to see why Willow speaks so ambiguously of you.”
“That means she only half-likes us,” I translate for Ares. “Probably intimidated by our awesomeness.”
“Or the fact that you threatened her fiancé with a ten-pound wheel of moldy cheddar,” Chase muses.
“Fucker needs to put his foot down with his mother.”
“On that, we’re in complete agreement,” Manning says crisply. He stops and nods toward the wall of windows overlooking the golf course with the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west. “Her.”
I squint, because that half of the room is backlit by the light glaring in. “The chick who just shoved her finger into Levi Wilson’s beer bottle?”
Ares perks up. “Boy band Levi?”
“Aw, shit, Bro’s gonna be pissed she missed this,” Chase mutters.
That’s right—my sister is a boy band ho. Got a thing for Levi’s old band, Bro Code—which she swears is a total coincidence, considering Chase has called her Bro since we were kids, a nickname she claimed to hate until she realized how much she liked Chase.
“Not the beer bottle-finger,” Manning says. “The woman with her.”
I shift my attention from the woman trying to shake a beer bottle off her finger while obviously stuttering apologies to the world’s reigning pop rock god, and a familiar beat takes up residence in my pulse.
Long, dark hair. Tall. She’s built—not heavy, but not turn-sideways-and-she’d-disappear slender either. She’s in pants that accentuate her curves and a no-nonsense blouse that can’t hide her rack. Even in the backlight, there’s a feline grace to her movements as she efficiently grabs her companion’s arm, neatly twists the stuck bottle off her friend’s finger, and hands it back to Levi Wilson.
I do love me some feline grace.
And even though she has the bearing of a woman much smarter than my usual type, there’s some stirring over my southern coconuts that suggests I might be about to start a bigger scene.
These rich mofos would shit a brick if I popped a boner in this dress.
Heh.
But while I’m damn proud of my Neanderthal heritage—gets me a big paycheck on the ice every year, and sponsorships for everything from deodorant to car jacks off the ice—even I know the quickest way into a lady’s pants isn’t always showing her the goods. So I tell Jupiter to cool it down there—what? You’re damn right both me and my junk are named after kings of the gods—and nod to Manning. “You’re on.”
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Pippa Grant Book List
The Girl Band Series
Mister McHottie
Stud in the Stacks
Rockaway Bride
The Hero and the Hacktivist
The Thrusters Hockey Series
The Pilot and the Puck-Up
Royally Pucked
Beauty and the Beefcake
Charming as Puck
The Bro Code Series
Flirting with the Frenemy
America’s Geekheart
Liar, Liar, Hearts on Fire
The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob
Copper Valley Fireballs Series
Jock Blocked
Real Fake Love
Standalones
Hot Heir (Royally Pucked Spin-Off)
Exes and Ho Ho Hos
The Bluewater Billionaires Series
The Price of Scandal by Lucy Score
The Mogul and the Muscle by Claire Kingsley
Wild Open Hearts by Kathryn Nolan
Crazy for Loving You by Pippa Grant
Co-Written with Lili Valente
Hosed
Hammered
Hitched
Humbugged
Coming Soon from Pippa Grant
I Pucking Love You (Thrusters Hockey #5)
Truth or Heir
The Princess and the Protector
The SEAL and the Starlet
Pippa Grant writing as Jamie Farrell:
The Misfit Brides Series
Blissed
Matched
Smittened
Sugared
Merried
Spiced
Unhitched
The Officers’ Ex-Wives Club Series
Her Rebel Hear
t
Southern Fried Blues
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About the Author
Pippa Grant is a USA Today Bestselling author who writes romantic comedies that will make tears run down your leg. When she's not reading, writing or sleeping, she's being crowned employee of the month as a stay-at-home mom and housewife trying to prepare her adorable demon spawn to be productive members of society, all the while fantasizing about long walks on the beach with hot chocolate chip cookies.
Find Pippa at…
www.pippagrant.com
pippa@pippagrant.com
Keep in touch with Pippa Grant!
Join the Pipsquad
Get the Pipster Report
Friend Pippa
Like Pippa
Hang with Pippa on Goodreads
Follow Pippa on BookBub
Follow Pippa on Amazon
Follow Pippa on Instagram
Join Pippa on Book+Main