Page 7 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter

Finally, she shrugs. “You’re hot enough, Ruiz. I don’t know why she’d say no. Except that you just called her prickly.”

“I thought girls liked that kind of thing.”

Oh, jeez. I face him. Them.

“Insults?” I plant my hands on my hips.

“Yeah.” His expression is a challenge. “Dance with me, Syd.”

“It’s Sydney.”

“I figured.”

What I should do is run in the other direction. But instead, I motion for him to lead the way. I don’t know where—really, just away from Lettie and her group of friends.

He still wears the amused expression, and he puts his hand on my back and guides me out of the circle of girls. All the way around to the other side of the fire, where he puts my hands on his shoulders and locks his arms around my back.

We’re suddenly a whole hell of a lot closer than I planned.

We’re fucking swaying in the sand like it’s an eighth grade dance, and the DJ put on a mandatory slow song—the opposite to what’s blaring through the speakers on the other side of the bonfire.

“You seem kind of familiar,” he says in a low voice.

“Do I?”

From here, the flames seem to reflect back at me in his eyes. The brown in the center is almost amber colored, and all the more captivating in the flickering light. Until he lifts one hand and blocks his view of my nose and mouth.

My heart fucking stops.

“Hmm, even more familiar.”

I step out of his hold, but his fingers catch in the fabric of my dress. He drags me forward, crashing into him.

“What did you steal?” he asks. “Was it a dare?”

“I didn’t take anything,” I lie, lifting my chin. “And you should let go of me.”

He sneers.

“Sydney,” he tries out. “How about you tell Masters that fucking with me won’t make anything easier on them. In fact, the opposite.” His gaze rakes down my body. From this angle, he probably has a perfect view down my dress. “And sending sluts to distract us is a tired trick. Time to retire that one.”

I jerk out of his grip and spin on my heel. I tug down the hem of my dress. Not that he made it ride up, it’s just stupidly short and annoying and I fucking hate that I’m not wearing my own clothes.

Oliver Ruiz thinks I’m a slut? That I wasn’t sent to his house to steal but to seduce.

It’s laughable.

Scarlett’s vision of me suddenly seems right. Achingly so.

Prudish.

And Oliver’s assessment: prickly.

No one sent me, but especially not the hockey team. Not to fuck Oliver or fuck with him. But now I have the strong urge to lower myself to the standards he thinks.

He’s an asshole. Plain and simple.

He judged me when he doesn’t know me, which makes him the worst sort of person.