Dirty Score, A Rough Riders Hockey Novel Read Online Free Page B

this. His gaze traveled back to the bar, where Rafe’s new teammate now stood very close to a woman he’d guided into a seat. Her dark hair was cut in layers and curved softly to her shoulders. She was slim, wearing a stylish, fitted dress that showed great curves. It was going to be hell getting him away from her.
    Rafe was wondering if he had Kilbourne’s cell number in his phone. Wondering what he could possibly offer the guy to come over here and make an excuse to get him out of this.
    Kilbourne put his hand on the back of the woman’s chair and leaned close to say something to her. She turned toward him, tilted her head back, and laughed. Her hair fell off her face and, wow , she was…
    She was…
    Shock stole his breath.
    Mia.
    The reality of it hammered his gut with fire.
    She was Mia.
    Emotions whipped through him, colliding at the center of his body—excitement, happiness, desire. They mixed, creating a physical yearning to reconnect with her.
    In that moment, looking at her from a distance for the first time in a year, he realized that not talking to her and not seeing her had only made him want her more , not less. And knowing he couldn’t have her, knowing he couldn’t break the trust he’d built with Tate, or the loyalty and respect he owed Joe, felt like a knife popping the balloon of joy in his gut.
    Then Kilbourne’s hand slid across her shoulders, jolting an angry sensation straight into the pit of Rafe’s stomach. Mia’s earlier text filled his head: I’m ready for something different. Very different. And I think I’ve just found it.
    Oh no. No, no, no.
    She was not going to be fucking Kilbourne while Rafe was still alive and breathing. No way was Rafe going to look at Kilbourne’s ugly mug every day knowing he’d had Mia in a way Rafe had fantasized about for years.
    He put down his fork and pulled his phone from his pocket, pretending he’d gotten a message. “Excuse me just a minute,” he murmured over Ashlee’s babble, tapping into his text messages. “It’s my agent. Go ahead, I’m listening. I’ll just text him.”
    “Oh, no problem,” Ashlee said. “I do that all the time, carry on several conversations at once. You know, with cell phones and social media nowadays, everyone’s always communicating with someone…”
    He tuned her out again, his mind suddenly stalling on what to say and how to say it. He had no right to tell Mia what to do or who to do it—or not to do it—with. After all but shutting her out of his life for an entire year and bailing on her tonight, Rafe knew he was the last person she would listen to.
    He’d have to go at this an entirely different way.

4
    M ia would give Rafe ten more minutes to act, because ten more goddamned minutes of Cole Kilbourne was all she could stomach. Unless Rafe was truly enthralled with the Baywatch babe sitting across the table from him—not exactly a surprise—he couldn’t have missed Kilbourne. She had put herself and Cole directly in his line of sight.
    While Mia had arrived with a come-hell-or-high-water determination to royally fuck Rafe Savage out of her life, the moment she’d seen him, she’d had second thoughts about the out-of-her-life part. Then she’d gotten a good look at Baywatch, and her hopes for the royally-fucking part dwindled to nothing.
    Now, as she cast a covert gaze their direction, she was planning more of an intervention. Because if Mia couldn’t get him into bed tonight, she was going to do her best to make sure no one else could either. Yeah, she was pissed. She had an entire year of pissed to whip out and wield against the man.
    “Are you going to come to watch me play against the Kings tomorrow night?” Cole’s question drew Mia’s gaze back. His hand slid over her shoulders, his fingers toying with the skin exposed in the openings of the dress she’d designed.
    Mia swiveled a little more, bumping his arm loose. She used her knee to push at his thigh, giving her another inch of