Pucked Off, an all-new emotional and sexy STANDALONE from Helena Hunting is LIVE!!

Pucked Off by Helena Hunting
Genre: Contemporary Romance

businessman working on laptop in black suit

***A Standalone novel in The Pucked Series***

I’m NHL defenseman Lance Romero, AKA Lance “Romance."

I’m notorious for parties and excess. I have the most penalty minutes in the league. I get into the most fights. I take the most hits. I’m a player on and off the ice. I’m the one women with no inhibitions want.

Not because I like the notoriety, but because I don’t know how to be any other way.

I have secrets. Ones I shared with the wrong person, and she used them against me. Sometimes she still does. I should cut ties. But she makes it difficult, because she’s the kind of bad I deserve.

At least that’s what I believed until someone from my past gets caught up in my present. She’s all the good things in this world. She lights up my dark.

I shouldn’t want her.

But I do.

I should leave her alone.

But I won’t.

4 stars
Review by Lisa Kane

Pucked Off is a little darker than the previous books in this series. There's still lots of sexy banter but Lance Romero is a hot hockey player, but he's a tortured soul. His past is complicated and his present is even more complicated with a she vixen named Tash. Once employed by the team as the team's trainer, she lost her job when their relationship was outed. She's the bane of his existence, but for some reason, Lance can never cut her out of his life for long. He wanted an exclusive relationship with Tash, but she had other ideas. So he played her games and did the things she wanted and hated himself for it. His reputation with his kinky sexual needs is legendary.

"That's what you said last time, and look where that's gotten you. I don't know why she's got such a hold on you, man, but you need to get her out of your life. She's fucking toxic. You gotta cut her out like cancer."

Lance feels a little out of the loop. His buddies Randy and Miller are both in committed relationships. Their days of groupies and partying are over, they've worked hard for their happiness and aren't about to screw it up. Getting roomed with a rookie out to screw as many puck bunnies as he can isn't helping calm Lance down.

Poppy O'Connor is a massage therapist. When Lance needs to get the kinks out (no pun intended!) he goes to Poppy for therapy. Why does she look so familiar? Poppy remembers the one night that she and Lance shared but the ending was anything but a happy one.

My massage therapist is a ginger. A strawberry blonde. A redhead. A real one. Like me.

Because of his past, Lance can't stand to be touched. But for some reason, Poppy's touch makes him feel good. Strong. It's obvious they have chemistry but dating clients is not allowed. Lance is nothing if not resourceful. He's just torn about his feelings. And then there's still Tash...

I don't know how to exist without the chaos, and I seek it because it confirms the message beaten into me as a kid: I deserve to be a victim.

I have to admit I wish Lance was not so dark. His inability to cut ties with Tash drove me crazy. He had a million reasons why blocking her would not work for long, but I wanted him to try a little harder. Poppy is strong and independent and genuine. She can bring so much into his life. But will he ever leave his past behind?

"Poppy Leigh O'Connor, you're the most precious perfect person in my world."

Excerpt:

Armed with my clipboard, I walk down the hall to the waiting room. Lance is impossible to miss. Despite the fact that he’s wearing a sweatshirt and the hood is covering half of his face, he’s more than six feet of broad, hockey-playing man.

He’s so wide his shoulders encroach on the chairs on either side, which would explain why no one is sitting next to him. He’s slouched down so his head rests on the back of the chair, and his hands are clasped in his lap, a baseball cap hanging off one knee. His lips, plush and soft—I know since I’ve had them on mine; it might have been a decade ago, but I remember it clearly—are parted. He looks like he’s asleep.

I clear my throat. “Lance Romero?”

He doesn’t move.

Bernadette, the receptionist, gives me a meaningful look.

I clear my throat again and call his name a second time. He jolts awake and the hood falls back, exposing his face. It’s not in good shape. He has a black eye and bruises on his left cheek. There’s a fly bandage across one eyebrow.

Sadly, he’s still hot.

He blinks a few times, yawns, and smacks his lips, his tongue touching the split in the bottom one. His gaze sweeps the room and finally lands on me. Heat explodes in my cheeks and courses through my limbs, warming me from the inside out as he starts at my sneaker-clad feet and roams up over my yoga pants to my company-issued T-shirt before stopping at my face. I can’t look directly at him for more than a couple of seconds. I sincerely hope he doesn’t remember me. I cannot go there and also be professional.

I’m sure the smile he gives me has melted many a panty off a slutty bunny. Mine stay right where they’re supposed to, wedged up my ass.

I force a polite, professional veneer. “I’m ready for you now.”

poan