SWNOVELS Pucking Sweet: Chapter 54
Isn’t it ironic that the moment your life starts to feel just a little too perfect, chaos inevitably descends. I woke up naked in bed, nestled between my two beautiful boyfriends…feeling sick as a dog. I stumbled to the bathroom and barely got the door shut before I was puking into the sink.
Note to self: Don’t eat day-old sushi. Lukas brought, like, eight boxes of it home from the store because it was on sale. After a marathon of amazing sex, we ate it on the couch watching Night on Earth. It tasted good at the time, but now I’m fisting a bottle of Pepto as I argue with Julie in VIP services.
This day has officially gone to hell in a freaking hand basket. It’s a home game tonight, Rays versus the Kraken, and I’m expected at the arena in two hours. But a glitch in our computer system means we’ve oversold our behind-the-scenes “Meet the Rays” tickets by more than double. All the notifications have already gone out, and neither Todd in ticketing nor Julie seem to know what the heck we do about it.
Oh, and Bryson, the rookie who drove his car into a sand dune, was just handed two hundred hours of community service and a felony misdemeanor charge. The news already broke on all the networks. My contact over at the police department was apparently trying to warn me all morning, but my office phone still doesn’t work!
Did I mention my “check engine” light came on this morning?
See what I mean? Chaos.
Oh, and in a total bitch move, Violet just took away my “plus one” invite to the wedding. She says it’s because they had some last-minute asks for more invites. And since I’ll be so busy with my maid of honor duties, I don’t need a date there feeling bored and alone.
I swear, she is so freaking transparent. This really is my absolute limit. She just wants me there looking sad and pathetic. How can I do that if I’m dancing in the arms of my gorgeous NHL boyfriends? I get limiting me to one guest, but now she’s saying I can’t bring either of them? Who’s going to hold me back from cunt-punching Olivia when she says my dress looks unflattering on my body type?
Pushing back from my desk, cell phone to my ear, I keep arguing with Julie. “No—I’m telling you we’ll just have to postpone them to a later game.” I stuff my feet into my heels. “Because we don’t have permission to move that many people behind the scenes, Julie. I have approval for fifty people, not two hundred and fifty. Security will have a field day if we—ahh—”
A hissing sound in the ceiling is all the warning I get before the emergency sprinklers activate. I throw my hands over my head as icy cold water sprays down, drenching me, my laptop, all my paperwork.
“What the hell is happening?” I scream.
Moving fast, I sweep as much as I can off the desk and into my bag. I stumble out of my office into the hallway. Several other people have come out too, looking scared, confused, and very wet.
“Is there a fire?” asks Brandi.
“No alarms are going off,” says Greg, looking around.
“Does anyone smell smoke?”
“Greg, honey, call 911,” I say. “We’ll let the fire department figure out what the heck is happening. In the meantime, let’s all pretend it’s a fire. Not like we can work in hurricane conditions anyway.”
“I swear, this place is cursed,” Brandi mutters, following me toward the stairs.
We reach the first floor, our shoes squeaking, clothes dripping wet, and who should be waltzing toward me but Lukas, double fisting coffees? His smile falls as he takes us all in. “I swear, I did not do this,” are the first words out of his mouth.
“Okay, fire department says they’ve got no alerts for an actual fire,” says Greg, holding the phone away from his ear. “Looks like it’s just a faulty sprinkler. They say they’re en route.”
“Thanks, Greg. Hey, why don’t you all take an early day?” I say to the rest of the group. “I’ll stay here and deal with this.”
“Are you sure?” asks Brandi. “There’s still so much to do.”
“Well, take a break at minimum,” I reply. “Everyone, the coffee cart is open. No charge. And I’ll get one of the equipment guys to bring a stack of towels to the atrium.”
With muttered words of thanks, all my wet staffers wander away, leaving me with Lukas. “I came to invite you to lunch, but—Babe, what the hell happened?”
I take the coffee from him. “The sprinklers on the fourth floor are faulty. They just went off while I was in the middle of a phone call and—” I groan, glancing at my phone. I’ve missed two calls and four texts from a confused Julie and Todd. “Here—” I hand Lukas back the coffee. “I have to return this call. We oversold our VIP tickets and—”
“Well, wait. Just hold on a sec and talk to me.”
“I don’t have a sec, hon.”
He shifts his weight, blocking me from ducking around him. “Jesus, you’re not a surgeon being called in for life-saving brain surgery, Pop. It’s just some tickets—”
I scoff. “Oh really? I’ll have you know this is about two hundred tickets. It’s a security nightmare and—”
“Poppy!”
I blink, stepping back. “Lukas, what? Come on, I have to go and deal with this—”
“No, you have to stop for two seconds and deal with me.”
“But this is my job—”
“Yeah, it’s just a fucking job!” he shouts, finally breaking through my crazy fog of stress, adrenaline, and hyper productivity. “Poppy, this is a job that you’re grossly overqualified for and, frankly, it’s a job that has been treating you like complete dog shit.”
“That’s not true—”
“It is true! Poppy, you’re the director of public relations for a major international sports team. You coordinate multi-million-dollar brand deals before breakfast. You organize press junkets for Olympic team trials. You set up fundraisers that raise seven figures for pediatric cancer research. I mean, Jesus, you literally keep our asses out of jail. And Mark Talbot has you overworked and under-freaking-paid.”
“My salary is actually competitive for the market.”
“Pop, he shoved you in a shitty fucking office with no windows, no phone, and no fucking internet.”
“The internet got fixed,” I say in a small voice.
He just glares down at me. I can see it’s all he can do not to crush the piping hot coffees in his hands. “You are dripping on the goddamn floor right now. You are mine, and you deserve better. No one gets to treat you this way and fucking breathe.”
His words sink like an arrow through my chest. “These are just growing pains. The building is new—”
“Stop making excuses,” he shouts. “Stop making excuses for Mark. Stop making excuses for your mother, for your shitty fucking sister—”
“This isn’t about them,” I cry.
“Yes, it is! Because it’s all about you!” He steps in closer, eyes blazing. “Poppy, this is about you constantly lying down and allowing shitty things to happen to you, and I’m telling you it’s enough. Stop accepting less when you know you deserve more.”
Tears trail down my face, and he holds out the coffee cup again.
“Will you please fucking take this so I can touch you?”
I take the coffee and his warm hand instantly cups my face.
“Look at me.”
I glance up, eyes watery.
His caramel eyes lock on me. His touch is like a lifeline. “You deserve the world,” he says. “Poppy, you deserve everything. I won’t sit back and watch you struggle. Fight for yourself, or I’m gonna fight for you, and I fight dirty. Do you understand?”
I swallow, giving him a nod.
He steps in closer, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
I smile, my free hand brushing down the colorful tattoos of his arm. “I like possessive Lukas. He makes me feel so safe…so loved.”
He stiffens and leans away, glaring down at me. “You think my violence is a virtue? You really think you understand what I’m capable of?”
Holding his darkening gaze, my heart drops. His walls are lowering. He was just a little too vulnerable and it scared him, so now he’s going to deflect. My hand circles his wrist, ready to hold him to me. “I know you, Lukas—”
He twists away from my grip, stepping back, his shoulders tense. “No you don’t. Not really. How could you?”
“Lukas—”
“I mean, look at you,” he says, gesturing to me up and down. “You’re so polished and poised. So fucking perfect.”
It’s my turn to stiffen and lean away. Last night he said those exact words like a prayer. Poppy, you’re perfect. Now he’s lobbing them at me like a curse. “Lukas, please don’t—”
“Don’t what? Warn you away from me? Someone has to, before I ruin this. I was raised on the fucking streets, Poppy. I’ve been on my own since I was twelve years old, fighting for the right to fucking exist in a world that didn’t see me, didn’t fucking care.”
“I care—”
“Sure, you took me in and gave me a warm bed to sleep in at night. But I am the same fucking monster who was always too aggressive, too angry, and too out of control to do anything but put on a pair of skates and slam grown men into the boards. I am good at what I do, and what I do is hurt people. I hit them over and over, until they can’t get back up. That’s what I am.”
“You’re not,” I say, grabbing his shirt. “Lukas, honey, it’s just a game. You play it so well, but your ability to be a good defenseman on the ice is just one piece of you. You are so beautiful and complicated—”
“Stop.”
“No,” I cry. “I won’t stop complimenting you and telling you that you matter. I won’t stop coming home to you at night. Lukas, I will always come home to you because I love you.”
He goes still, his expression a riot of emotions—anger, fear, frustration, longing. So much deep, aching longing. I want to hold him to my chest, his ear against my heart, so he can hear and feel how it beats for him. “What did you just say?”
“I said, I love you. Lukas, I am so in love with you—”
He drops his hand away as if I burned him. “Take it back.”
I hold my position, unwavering. “No.”
“Poppy, take it back.”
I shrug. “I can’t. It’s done.”
He steps in, grabbing me by the back of the neck. “You still don’t get it. I wanna march up those stairs and kill Mark for upsetting you. I’m violent, Poppy. My thoughts are so fucking dark. I wanna set your sister’s hair on fire. I wanna hit her shitty friends with my fucking car. No one hurts you and gets away with it. That’s who you wanna love? That’s who you want in your bed? That’s a man of fucking virtue?”
I hold his gaze. “You won’t do it.”
He growls, lowering his face to mine. “You think I fucking won’t?”
“You won’t,” I repeat, my voice trembling. “You won’t because I’m asking you not to. You are mine, Lukas, and I love you, and if you do anything to jeopardize my ability to be with you, I will hound you to the ends of the earth. Do you understand me?”
He drops his hand away. “This is a mistake. I should’ve let you go.”
“Too late.”
“No. I’ll ruin this. I’ll—Poppy, let me go.”
“Never.” I extend my hand, silently asking him to take the coffee. His hand wraps around it, our fingers brushing. “You have a game to prep for, and I have to go hunt down Mark. We’ll finish this later.”
Turning away, I leave him standing there. I’ve said what I need to say. Now he needs space to retreat and panic and wrestle with his own feelings. I know he loves me too. He shows me every day. The words will come eventually.
I step into the stairwell, letting the door close behind me. My whole body feels like it’s humming. I’m angry, I’m tired, I’m so freaking stressed. But I’m alive, and I’m fighting, and he’s right, I am done accepting less than what I deserve.
And what I deserve is Lukas. With all his flaws, all his feelings of unworthiness. I deserve Colton too. I deserve the beautiful life the three of us can build together. I want that life. I want the house, and the high-powered jobs, and the adorable babies. I want my men rubbing sunscreen on my shoulders as our kids play at the beach. I want sunset sailing and cozy nights on the couch. I want a family who loves me, friends who make me laugh, and a job that respects me.
And, god help me, I’m going to get it.