Puck One Night Stands: a grumpy-sunshine, best friend’s brother hockey rom com (Chicago Racketeers Book 1)

OUR PLANE TOUCHES down in Chicago around four-thirty. It’s been three days since I’ve seen Danielle and I’m beyond restless. I’ve texted her twice, but I’m not really the type to have long text conversations. I’m also not a talk-for-hours on the phone, so I haven’t called. I’ve jacked off multiple times to thoughts of her though.

And I miss her.

So fucking bad I ache with it.

Not just her body, but her sweet smile, her blushes, her sassiness, just…her.

Dammit.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. She could have just been a fun one-night thing. Even a fling for a few weeks. But I can already feel that she’s more than that.

For a man who never lets there be strings attached to my sexual relationships, there have been strings with this girl since the moment I laid eyes on her.

The possessiveness I feel for her when I know she’s been with McNeill and Hughes is unprecedented. The way I tried to stake my claim with them before we left for the road trip was insane.

And now, my guts are twisted thinking about how we move forward.

These men are not bowing out and Danielle clearly doesn’t want them to.

So…I’m left with a choice.

Let her go. Or find a way to make this work with two other men in her life.

Actually, there’s no choice.

I want her.

McNeill and Hughes are now a part of my life in a very non-professional way. And I have no idea how that’s going to look. Or how I will feel as we go forward.

I pull my phone from my inside jacket pocket the moment the plane’s wheels touch the runway.

Hughes is seated in the seat across the aisle from me. He also has his phone in hand. He looks over. “You better check your messages before you send your car for her.”

He knows exactly what I was about to do.

I also don’t know if I’ll get used to that. The man can read me—seemingly can read most people—with an uncanny accuracy. I’ve never had anyone around who notices or predicts my thoughts and reactions so easily. I’ve never had anyone pay that much attention to me. Now I have both him and Danielle.

I don’t respond to him, but I do open my texts. I have easily a dozen. Most are business. But there’s one from Danielle. I feel my heart kick against my ribs just at the sight of her name.

What the hell? I’ve never had a woman affect me like this.

I want to see you. Five-thirty. The Moonlight Bistro.

I start to respond. I don’t want to go out. I need to see her. In private. I told her as much the other day. But I pause and look over at Hughes, understanding dawning. “She texted you too?”

He nods. “Moonlight Bistro. Five-thirty.”

My stomach knots. Fuck.

I pivot in my seat. “McNeill!” I bark.

Crew’s head pops up over the seats. “Yeah, Boss?” He smirks.

Jesus, he drives me nuts. It’s like having this very private, very personal connection through Danielle makes him even cockier and more sarcastic with me.

“Up here. Now.” I’m still actually his boss, though, and in public, especially around the team, we will act our parts.

He undoes his seatbelt and ambles down the aisle toward me even though the plane is still taxiing on the runway. We get a frown from our flight attendants, but this is a private flight so we bend the rules.

He drops into the seat next to me. “What’s up?”

“Did you get a text?” Hughes asks, his voice low.

“Yep. Five-thirty date.” He grins.

“Not just you,” Hughes says.

McNeill’s grin dims slightly. “Oh yeah?”

I hold up my phone. “We’ve all been summoned.”

He nods thoughtfully. “Our girl has something to say.”

“To all of us. At once,” Hughes agrees.

Well…fuck.

We’re off the plane, bags gathered, walking toward the airport entrance thirty minutes later.

“My car is at the curb,” I say. McNeill and Hughes have both stuck close. I suppose we’re all feeling a little edgy. Danielle wants to see all of us, at the same place and time.

“I parked my car in the garage,” Hughes says, gesturing toward the covered parking garage.

“I’ll have someone bring it to you,” I say. I text one of my assistants who is still getting his bags inside.

Hughes starts to protest.

“We’re all going to the same place to see Danielle. We need to formulate a plan,” I tell him.

“A plan?”

“To talk her out of dumping our asses,” McNeill says.

Hughes looks at him, then at me. “Do you think that’s what this is?”

I press my lips together, but nod. “It could be. We’ve possibly overwhelmed her.”

Hughes seems to think that over for a second. Then he blows out a breath. “Dammit.”

He digs his keys out of his pocket. Brad, my young assistant, comes huffing up to the curb just then. “Yes, Mr. Armstrong?”

“Take Dr. Hughes’s keys and drive his car to his apartment. Then take a car home. You can put it on your expense report.”

He takes the keys and starts for the garage.

McNeill shakes his head. “It’s good to be the boss.”

“Remember that,” I tell him. Then I point at the car. “Get in.”

I’d love to be the boss in this group.

But I have a feeling the real boss of us is Danielle.

We drive for about five minutes, all of us seemingly lost in thought, before Hughes says, “Maybe I shouldn’t have had phone sex with her the other night.”

McNeill whips around to face him. “When?”

“The night before we left.” Hughes actually looks apologetic.

“You told us not to do anything with her!” McNeill says, his tone accusatory.

“When did I say not to do anything?” Hughes asks.

“You said not to see her or…” McNeill frowns. “Something. You basically said we should leave her alone.”

“I said not to do anything you wouldn’t normally do. Dani and I talk on the phone. That wasn’t unusual. It just got…a little out of hand.”

McNeill narrows his eyes. “Or a little in hand, right Doc? What the hell?”

“I didn’t call her for phone sex,” Hughes says. “We were talking about her writing and one thing led to another.”

“Her writing?”

“Yes, her writing,” Hughes says. He sounds frustrated which is a sure sign we’re all short-tempered. He’s always the cool one. “She’s a writer. She’s working on getting published and I’m helping her.”

“I…didn’t know that,” McNeill says with a frown.

I didn’t either.

“Anyway,” Hughes says. “It’s been a lot in a short amount of time. We’re all pretty intense guys. Maybe we just need to give her some space and time.”

“No,” I respond immediately.

“She might be about to dump us,” McNeill says. He’s leaning back in the seat, one ankle crossed over the other, looking completely relaxed. But his expression is serious. “We need to do something.”

He’s actually concerned about this meeting with Danielle.

He cares about her.

The thought shouldn’t be a shock. It’s not. He’s known her for a long time and they clearly have some chemistry. But Crew McNeill comes off as a cocky, do-whatever-he-wants, always-lands-on-his-feet Golden Boy. I know he cares about hockey. I know he cares about the Racketeers and playing for his hometown team. The ice is the only place I see intensity and anything other than smiles and nonchalance.

Until now.

Until Danielle.

“I agree with McNeill,” I say, the words surprising me as much as they clearly do the other men. “We need to convince her not to walk away. But I don’t think backing off is the right thing. We need to show her that we’re all serious about her. About this.” I look at both of the other men, meeting their gazes directly. “If we are serious about her.”

“I am,” Hughes says, easily.

“Me too,” McNeill says.

“I mean serious,” I tell him. “No other women. No partying. Committed.”

He nods. “I’ll propose tonight if you want me to.”

Jesus, I do not want that.

At least…I don’t think I do.

I frown. What would I do if Crew got down on one knee in front of Danielle?

Suddenly I don’t think I’d punch him.

I might…just get down on my knee next to him.

What?

I scrub a hand over my face.

This is all fucking with my head. But I do want them to be serious about her.

Danielle deserves to have commitment, people who are dedicated to her happiness, to protecting her, to making her happy.

And, as strange as it is, these men seem to be all of those things…and I like them for that.

McNeill had no reason to stand up to me the other day in my office. I’m more powerful than he is. I’m his fucking boss. I could have fired him on the spot. But he didn’t back down. He said he wanted her and he faced me straight on, honestly, without flinching, risking his position on the team—the team I know means everything to him—to say it to me.

Is it fucking weird that there are three of us who want to be involved with her? Yes. But why am I suddenly feeling relieved that I’m not walking into that bar to see Danielle alone?

With McNeill and Hughes with me, I have a really, really good deal for her.

“Then we all go in there, we tell her how we feel, that we want her, and—” I take a deep breath and say something I almost never say. “—we let her call the shots.”

I never let other people take charge. I never turn things over to other people.

But Danielle has me wrapped around her little finger. Already. And I’m ready to do whatever it takes to be with her.

Hughes nods. “Okay. We let her call the shots.”

“Unless her call is walking away,” McNeill adds. “That’s not happening.”

Yeah, McNeill and I are definitely on the same side here.

My life is just getting more and more strange.

We finally pull up in front of the bar. I instruct my driver to wait. If things go my way, we’ll be needing the car to take us to my apartment soon.

Hughes is the first through the door. McNeill holds the door for me and stops me before I step inside.

“We’ve got this, right?” he asks.

I nod. “We do. If we do it together.” And I realize I mean that. The three of us have something special to offer Danielle. All of us. Together. Something I think she wants and needs.

McNeill claps me on the shoulder. “Okay. Lead the way, Boss.”

And again, I realize that I’m probably the boss for only about another minute.

The Moonlight Bistro is a bar but it’s a sophisticated place that specializes in martinis. The interior decor is black and silver, with a marble floor, and a twenty-foot arched ceiling with a skylight in the center where a frosted glass “moon” hangs. There are high glass-topped tables with black leather stools throughout the room in front of a stage with a black baby grand piano. Around the perimeter of the room are black leather booths with high backs that promise seclusion and private conversations.

The hostess leads us to one of the booths where Danielle is already seated. With a half-empty pale pink martini in front of her.

She looks up as we approach and straightens when she sees us. Her mouth curves into a gorgeous smile and my stomach unknots slightly. She doesn’t look upset. Or like she’s about to break up with three boyfriends.

“Hi,” she says, slightly breathless as the hostess leaves us.

Michael slides into the booth next to her, draping an arm over her shoulders, leaving McNeill and I to sit together opposite them.

Hughes leans over and kisses her cheek, then nuzzles her neck. “Missed you,” he says softly.

She’s blushing prettily, but smiling up at him when he pulls back. “Missed you too.”

I want to kiss her so badly, my hands clench into fists to keep from reaching across the table. But I realize that I don’t actually feel jealous watching Hughes kiss her. I love the way she’s smiling at him. She looks so genuinely happy. Clearly she’s very comfortable with him. She leans into him, not bothered at all by the way his big hand rests on her shoulder.

“Give me some of that.” McNeill doesn’t care that there’s a table in between them. He leans over, hooks his index finger in the front of her blouse, urging her up out of her seat.

She giggles, but leans over the table, meeting him partway as Hughes sweeps her glass out of the way before they knock it over.

McNeill cups the back of her head and his kiss isn’t sweet. Or quick. He seals his mouth over hers and is clearly French kissing her deeply.

When he lets her go, she looks slightly dazed and the tip of her tongue darts out, running over her lower lip.

“Hi,” he says huskily.

“Hi,” she returns, smiling.

He lets her go and Michael tucks her up against him again.

Her gaze flickers to me. “Hi, Nathan.”

“Danielle.” I let my gaze travel over her face, her freshly kissed lips, down her throat and the pink flush there, to the upper swells of her breasts in the scoop neck blouse she’s wearing. “You look gorgeous.”

“Th-thank you.” She stutters over the words, and presses a hand to her chest.

I lift a brow. She seems nervous around me. She’s smiling, but it’s not the bright, happy smile she gave Michael, or the playful grin she gave Crew.

I reach across the table, palm up. She knows what to do without any words and that pleases me. She puts her hand in mine. I run my thumb over the back of her knuckles, then lift her hand to my mouth. I brush my lips over her knuckles, then turn her palm up and kiss the center. “I’m so happy to see you.”

She dips her head, but she’s smiling now. A more genuine smile. “I’m glad to see you too.”

“Thanks for the sweet pussy pics before the game,” Crew says. “My new favorite good luck charm.”

Danielle’s eyes go wide as she looks at him. “You got pictures from someone before your game?” she asks. Then she glances around and lowers her voice. “It wasn’t me.”

“No, I didn’t. But that would have been nice,” he tells her, one brow arched. “Were you too busy studying all the dick pics Doc sent you to even think about me and my needs?”

She blushes again but laughs. “I didn’t realize you were in need of a good luck charm from me. You could have asked.”

He’s watching her with amusement, but also clear affection and I feel a warmth in my chest that surprises me.

“First, it is noted that you’ll send pics if I ask,” Crew says. “Second, I guess I didn’t need them, since I scored three times, but maybe that was from actually being in your magic pussy.” His voice drops to a lower, rougher tone. “So we need to keep that in the routine. Third, I notice you aren’t denying studying certain photos from our hot Doc to the point of distraction.”

Danielle gives Michael a shy, but adorably sexy look. “It was a video,” she says, her eyes locked on Hughes’ gaze. “And I’m not going to deny it was distracting.”

“You did not record it,” Hughes says, his voice gruff. “Did you?”

Danielle lifts a hand and taps her temple. “It’s all saved right up here.”

He laughs and hugs her tighter, bringing his mouth closer to her ear. “Same, Cookie. And I’ve replayed it too. More than once.”

She’s fucking glowing. These men make her happy. She’s flirting and teasing with them, clearly feeling adored.

Because they do, quite obviously, adore her.

Crew is still his cocky, laid-back self. Michael is still composed and polished. But they’re both so noticeably happy to be here with her and her with them.

And clearly Crew and Michael are friends. They like each other. They’re comfortable there together. With Dani.

Every dynamic at this table makes me…want to be a part of it.

But Dani’s having a hard time making eye contact with me. I’m definitely more intense than either of the other two, and with all of us here together, it seems evident that she’s less comfortable with me.

I hate that. But I love what they do for her. They offer her something different from what I do. And from what each other does. And she’s basking in all of it.

“So what did you want to talk to us about?” Michael asks. “Or did you just want to be wined and dined by your three favorite men?” He looks across the table at both McNeill and me. “We’re all yours.”

McNeill stretches and tucks both hands behind his head. “Yep. Just tell us what you want sweetheart.”

I nod when her eyes find mine. “Anything.”

She nods. Then reaches for her martini. She lifts it to her lips, takes a huge gulp, swallows, and sets the glass down.

“Okay. Well, I did want to talk to you. And I thought seeing all three of you together would be best, and easiest, so you all hear the same thing from me and I don’t have to have this conversation more than once.” She looks at each of us. “And so we can all talk about it together.”

Michael hugs her even closer. “That’s a great idea.”

She looks up at him and smiles. His praise seems to calm her.

“We’ve all been thinking about you non-stop, Dani,” Crew tells her, abandoning his laid-back posture and leaning in. He reaches out and takes her hand between both of his. “Give us a chance to give you everything you want.”

She smiles at him and I see even more tension leave her. “Okay.”

He looks eager. “Okay? You’ll let us all give you what you want?”

She swallows, but then looks at me. Our gazes lock as she says, “That’s what I want. All of you. With me. At the same time.”

Heat and lust rock through me.

I brace for the jealousy, the possessiveness, the hell no to follow.

But it doesn’t happen. I’m shocked, but it’s true.

Looking at her cuddled up against Michael, her hand sandwiched between Crew’s two hands, looking at me hopefully, I realize there is only one answer I can give.

She takes a breath before I can respond and says, “I want you all. I have feelings for you all. I can’t choose. I don’t want to. So I either want all of you, or…none of you. And when I say all of you, yes, I want to go to dinner, and watch TV, and talk about my day, and make breakfast together. I love the surprise gifts, and the texting, and the phone calls, and missing you while you’re gone, and being excited to see you when you get back. I want to talk about books.” She looks up at Michael. “And I want to go to the circus and county fairs, and art museums.” She shoots Crew a little smile. Then she looks at me. “I want to learn all about hockey and go to every home game.” Then she focuses on the nearly empty martini glass. “But I also want the sex. With all of you. Maybe sometimes one at a time. But also…” She wets her lips and I see Michael squeeze her shoulder while Crew squeezes her hand in encouragement. “Together. All of us.”

Michael watches her for a few seconds, but she just sits quietly, not looking at any of us. Michael drags his gaze first to Crew, then to me.

Finally, he says, “If everyone is in and willing and we talk it all out, this can work. The time I did it, it was a lot of fun.”

Danielle looks up at him quickly. Her mouth is open in a little O.

He reaches out and lifts her chin with his finger, closing her mouth. “Yes, I’ve done this before.”

“You are full of surprises,” she tells him.

He leans in, their noses almost touching. “You have no idea.” He drags his finger along her jaw. “But I look forward to showing you.”

And fuck…I want to see it. I’m shocked as the thought hits me, but I want to watch Michael light Danielle up. He already does with just a finger against her face. I can only imagine what he can do given free reign over her whole body.

Crew gives a low whistle, also watching them. “Damn. I am in,” he says. He looks at each of us. “Probably no surprise, but I’m fine with letting everyone know what I think and how I’m feeling about things.” He turns his attention back on Danielle. “And Dani, sweetheart, right now, I feel like giving you about a dozen orgasms before the sun comes up tomorrow and making you feel like a fucking goddess.”

She sucks in a little breath.

“But making breakfast together and a trip to the circus…or another art museum is definitely also on my list.” He gives her a wink.

She grins at him.

Then she looks at me.

And I would give this woman the goddamned moon.

Even if it means having two other men help me pull it down and carry it to her.

So I say the only thing I can. “The car is right outside and my apartment is the closest.”