A Bear Goal Read Free Page A

seasoned ease of people who’d been in professional sports for long enough. As much as the PR teams worked hard to prove that they weren’t all lecherous drunkards who enjoyed wild parties and plenty of booze, the opposite was true in a lot of cases. Even when it wasn’t, the parties were still crazy.
    “So, Miss Congeniality, what did I do to earn your scorn? I’m Heath Locklear, by the way,” he said, reaching his hand to her in an attempt of a handshake.
    She looked at his big paw like he’d tried to pass her a dead fish. He pulled it back quick enough.
    Fine, princess, we’ll play this your way, he thought with a hidden smile.
    “I know who you are, thanks.”
    “Oh, so you’ve heard the name? Basked in my glory?”
    “More like laughed at your paltry stats,” she scoffed.
    Heath took a step back, clutching his heart through his black shirt as if a heart attack was going to mow him down any second now. Fortunately for the both of them, it didn’t.
    “Shots fired, missy. Am I supposed to take your abuse all night? Is that what you like? A little warm-up where you act all tough before you end up with your legs around my neck, screaming my name?”
    She outright laughed at that. It wasn’t an unpleasant sound.
    “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to happen, buddy. I don’t see any reason why I should sleep with a twerp like you, Locklear.”
    “Not my boyish good looks? My dazzling charm? My massive biceps?” he asked, flexing his arm for show and getting a round of giggles from the closest girls in response. “None of that?”
    “Nope,” she replied, but he could spot the little twist of a smile that tugged the corners of her mouth upward, making her lips look almost painfully kissable.
    Yup, whatever this woman’s plan was it was working perfectly, because she was catching all of Heath’s attention, and the desire to make her stop looking at him like something that had crawled out from the sea moments ago was beginning to tug at him painfully.
    “Right. So do I get a name here or am I going to have to beat up another Lynderly to get a sliver of interest from you?”
    “You motherfucker,” she hissed, and Heath’s eyes widened.
    Guess I found a trigger.
    “Those were my brothers you pile-drived on the ice today!”
    Uh-oh.
    Things just got a lot more fun.
 

CHAPTER THREE
    Sable
     
    “No way! You’re far too hot to be related to those two misshapen gorillas,” Heath scoffed, and despite better judgment, Sable could feel the tips of her ears light up a little.
    She was praying the blush wouldn’t reach her cheeks.
    Why in hell did I decide to come here anyway?
    Of course, she knew exactly why. Because she’d been pissed the hell off at Mack... that is, pissed off at Heath for what he did that day during the game, and having followed plenty of hockey players both as a fan and for her work, she’d caught one of the retweets of Heath’s picture. A text later she found out that some of the boys were ambling over to the bar and she couldn’t resist the temptation to go and confront him face-to-face.
    With Heather having run off on a late-night errand, there’d been no one there to remind her what a colossally bad idea that would be, and so here she was, sharing shots with her number one persona non grata. And he was even hotter up close, which just made the whole thing perfectly infuriating.
    “Hey, I hit harder than both of them, so you really want to go about insulting my family here, wiseguy?” she asked with a quirk of her brow, giving Heath the closest thing she had to an evil eye.
    “Yeah? I wouldn’t mind seeing you get a little hot and bothered, I think,” Heath quipped back.
    She held her breath, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t run the joke into the ground like she thought he would. But of course he did.
    “Or a little bit ‘Heathed,’ if you know what I mean.”
    His grin was so wide and self-congratulatory that Sable couldn’t do anything but groan and shake her