Underneath It All (Storm Series) by Cassandra Carr Read Free Book Online Page A

for Rob to operate in.
    The ride up was raucous, with guys yelling over one another to be heard. Seb and Rob were sharing a seat, since Sarah always sat with th e coaching staff. Rob tried to pay attention to his teammates, but his thoughts kept drifting back to Alaina.
    “Dude.”
    Busted. Rob looked up as Sebastian waved a hand in front of Rob’s face. How long has he been doing that?
    “You are not yourself. You’re distracted. What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing’s wrong. Just thinking about the game. You know how crazy they can get.”
    Sebastian looked dubious, but let the subject go , and Rob blew out a slow, relieved breath. Soon after, they arrived at the Air Canada Centre and Rob put his game face on.
    His line , the team’s checkers, was chosen to start the game; not entirely surprising since the Storm was the away team, and Jon, the head coach, almost always went for Rob’s line in a game like this to set the tone and make sure the other team didn’t think they could physically out-man the Storm.
    Rob skated to the left wing position against Toronto’s leading scorer, Magnus Araleous. Frankly, he was baffled about why the Toronto head coach would start his scoring line against Rob’s line, which was obviously the Storm’s strongest defensively. But he wasn’t paid to second-guess the actions of opposing coaches, so he settled in to do what he did best.
    Trash talk time.
    “Hey buddy, how was your summer?” Rob asked. Magnus ignored him, having played against Rob long enough to know something else was coming. And Rob couldn’t disappoint the man, so he continued, “Tell your lady I said hi and sorry about breaking that lamp.”
    Now the other man glanced at him, hatred and competitive spirit doing its best to transfer from his eyes in an attempt to melt Rob where he stood. Yep, Rob had him now. Magnus was so focused on him he didn’t notice the puck coming their way, and Rob had pivoted around him and passed off to Marc, his center, before Magnus could even react.
    “Son of a bitch!” Magnus screamed at Rob’s back.
    The sniper was many things, but a great skater wasn’t one of them, and getting caught flat-footed didn’t help. Rob held in a chuckle and streaked to the front of the net. He’d get pounded, but his job was to screen the goaltender with his big ass, or so Jon kept telling him. His line didn’t score, but a good first shift in a game could get the entire team going, and it appeared to work since Buffalo beat Toronto on their own ice by three goals. One of Rob’s favorite sounds in the world was hearing opponents get booed in their own building, and he reveled in the night.
    The team straggled onto the bus. Most of the guys were quiet, nursing sore muscles or trying to catch a little sleep, a much different story from the laughing and joking that went on during the bus ride up. After a two-and-a-half-hour drive, the bus pulled up to the Barn, the Storm’s arena. It was shortly after one in the morning, and he’d be back here in a little over seven hours. Sometimes it seemed silly to even go home, despite living only a few miles from the away. The next day would be long with lifting and practice then reading to Alaina’s class.
    He was ex cited to see the kids again. When he’d first found out he’d been chosen for this reading program, Rob had been sure some of his teammates would’ve been better selections—guys like Ben, who were quieter and more serious—but now he enjoyed his time at the school. Of course, the fact he was inexplicably obsessed with Alaina might’ve had something to do with that too.
    Normally he’d talk to Seb astian about something like this burgeoning lust, but he felt kind of dumb confessing an attraction to the schoolteacher. She was the polar opposite of his type. Not that Rob went for Barbie-like bimbos, but he wasn’t usually taken with women who wore drab, shapeless clothes covered in paint and glue.
    Well, the skirt with the glue debacle