Ten minute misconduct, p.1
Ten Minute Misconduct, page 1
TEN MINUTE MISCONDUCT
S.L. STERLING
TEN MINUTE MISCONDUCT
by
S.L. Sterling
©2024
Contents
About the Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
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Ten Minute Misconduct
Copyright © 2024 by S.L. Sterling
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved about, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Disclaimer: This book contains mature content not suitable for those under the age of 18. It involves strong language and sexual situations. All parties portrayed in sexual situations are consenting adults over the age of 18.
ISBN: 978-1-989566-77-0
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-989566-84-8
Harcover ISBN: 978-1-989566-85-5
Editor: Brandi Aquino, Editing Done Write
Cover Design: Thunderstruck Cover Design
About the Book
Lorelai Anderson got under my skin years ago and I’d never been able to get her out.
When I found out she had a crush on me I turned into the biggest dick around. I did what I did to keep her away. I knew I wasn’t the man she needed, and her brother agreed.
Then I left town to play hockey which was both a blessing and a curse.
When I got signed to the Dominators and returned to Vancouver, I suppose I got what I deserved. Not only did Lorelai hate my guts, but she had a boyfriend. So, I kept my distance from her, until her friend started dating one of my teammates. I had no choice but to come around. It got worse when I got the invitation to her brother’s wedding. There was no way I could back out.
As my luck would have it Lorelai and I end up on the same flight to Hawaii and that’s when I find out she is very single. I also find out that her ex is going to be at this wedding and despite having a new girlfriend, the cheating jerk is harassing her to get back together with him. When she breaks down in tears, I do that only thing I can think of. I make a split-second decision to be her boyfriend for the wedding and get Hugo off her back. I figure it’s helping her out but for me it’s the perfect opportunity to convince her I’m not the same guy I used to be.
I want her to know I’m the man she deserves and I’m going to put everything on the line to get her to be mine.
Chapter One
Lorelai - Two Weeks Before the Wedding
Knox Evans is and always will be the most obnoxious man I’ve ever met, I thought to myself as he lay on my treatment table.
“Don’t try to hide it, Lorelai. I know you enjoy grabbing my ass every chance you get.”
I clenched my teeth as I worked to stretch his hip and glutes, while he looked up at me with that shit-eating grin on his face, which I wiped off by forcing the stretch a little too far. He winced a bit, and I immediately backed off.
“Sorry about that.” I moved him into the next position.
I’d been the lucky recipient of taking on Knox as a patient while Stacy was off for a little while. To say I was counting the days until her return was an understatement.
“Ow!” Knox cried as I dug my fingers into his hamstring. “What part of injury don’t you get?”
“What have you done to yourself? This didn’t feel like this three weeks ago,” I replied, easing off the pressure a bit.
“Guess you could say it might be from lack of stretching after helping two people move into their new condo. Which reminds me, I still haven’t gotten an invitation for a drink yet.” He sucked in a breath as I dug my fingers into the tight muscle a little gentler this time.
I bent down and pulled out the tube of heat rub, placed a dollop in my hand, and began rubbing the cream into the back of his leg and glute.
“Who ever said you’d get an invitation for a drink?”
“You did,” he said, meeting my eyes. “And I quote, ‘Thank you so much, Knox, for helping me move all my stuff into my new room. I think we will have to have you and Dylan over for a drink to celebrate.’”
I rolled my eyes, placed the cap back on the tube of rub, and handed it to him. I actually remembered saying those words too, but I’d be damned if I were going to let on. After all, after he left that night, I’d had to move all the boxes by myself into my real room because I’d been too stubborn to agree with him when he’d suggested I take the room with the large floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Apply this tonight after a hot shower, and after practice tomorrow morning. You need to make sure you are taking care of this, otherwise it’s not going to get better. I’d like to see you again, but there won’t be time, so I guess we will pick up where we left off after the wedding. Just make sure you’re stretching,” I said, checking my schedule and adding him to the first appointment I had available after we were back. “Ten on the twenty-fourth?”
Knox sat up and hopped off the table, making his way to the door.
“Got it. You know, if you want to see me more often, all you need to do is ask.” He winked.
Again, I rolled my eyes, said goodbye, then grabbed my cell phone from my desk, checking my messages. I was midway through an email when my door opened again, and Knox looked it.
“What?” I questioned.
“Let me know what night to pop over for that drink, princess.”
It was only a matter of seconds after the door shut that I felt like I might explode from annoyance and took off out of my office.
I marched down the hall toward Aurora’s office. If I didn’t have time to calm down after my appointment with Knox before my next appointment, my poor patient would suffer the wrath. I pushed her door open without even thinking of knocking.
“What on earth!” she yelled as she looked up at me from the report she was working on. “Don’t you think you should knock first?” she questioned, turning her eyes back to the paperwork in front of her.
“I’m going to scream!” I cried, making my way over to her treatment table, hopping up and lying back.
“What is going on now?” She sighed, flipping the paper over and continuing to write, not paying much attention to me at all.
I’d not exactly been the most approachable person for the last little while, and I knew I’d been driving Aurora crazy because I hadn’t wanted to talk. Truth was, I was irritated about many things. The main problem was my brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law and their upcoming wedding. First, when the wedding invites arrived, Aurora had promised to be my plus one. She took that back only a few days later when her boyfriend Dylan had asked her to be his plus one instead.
I didn’t blame her; they are so in love it’s disgusting, and it really shouldn’t have surprised me she’d choose him instead of me. I’d have done the same thing if I had someone.
That wasn’t even what had made me truly angry. One night, I’d been over helping Candace, my soon-to-be sister-in-law, with some wedding things. She’d asked me to go over the dinner seating chart to make sure she hadn’t missed anyone who’d confirmed to attend the destination wedding. As I was cross-referencing, I came across my ex’s name on the completed seating chart.
I finally asked Candace about it since my brother had promised he’d drop Hugo from the wedding party, but he hadn’t. In fact, he’d made him one of his groomsmen instead. I was so upset when I’d gotten home, I couldn’t even talk about it, and I’d been harboring this information and these feelings for days.
Until now.
“You will not believe this!” I cried, burying my face in my hands.
Aurora continued to write out whatever treatment plan she was working on and let out a sigh. “I’m not a shrink, you know. That table was ready for my next appointment.”
“Could you please just listen?” I cried, shoving my fingers into my hair.
She looked up and put her pencil down, inspecting me.
“Okay, what’s up?” she asked, getting up and coming around to the front of her desk and leaning against the edge.
“It’s bad, terrible, and I’m doomed.”
“What is? Why are you doomed?”
“My brother, the idiot that he is, invited Hugo to go to his damn wedding, making him one of his groomsmen, even after he promised he wouldn’t even invite him. I’m going to have to spend a week in Hawaii with my ex-boyfriend. Do you know what that means?”
“Uh…it means you’ll be spending a week in Hawaii and your ex-boyfriend will be there as well.” Aurora shrugged.
“No, what it means is that he is going to continue bugging me for another shot with me. I just know it. I didn’t tell you, but there was a message on my phone the other night from him asking me if we could talk, and he left another message again this morning.”
“Did you call him?” Aurora asked.
“Are you crazy? No, I didn’t call. I deleted it instead, but still.”
“So just ignore him.”
“Easy for you to say Miss I’m in a Relationship with Someone Great.”
Aurora looked at me and shook her head before gathering up the paperwork she had been working on and shoving it into a file.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Because, as always, you are overreacting.”
“You know, I remember when you were insane before you got together with Dylan. I listened to you. I helped you.”
Aurora shrugged. “That is true. So how was your day?”
“Don’t get me started,” I said through clenched teeth. I had one more appointment left and then the weekend was here.
“That bad?”
“Yes. It was that bad.”
Aurora laughed. “You know, you are acting like you had to treat Knox today or something.” She giggled, shoving her file into her filing cabinet.
“It was hell, and you hit the nail on the head. Stacey’s off for a bit, and I was the lucky recipient of his case.”
“Stacy is going to be off for a bit, so you may as well get used to it. There is talk that she was overloaded with clients anyway, so you just might be the lucky winner of treating Knox Evans for good.”
“Even my best friend…” I cried.
“Is that why you are down here, because he was your last appointment, and you need to blow off steam?”
Aurora had tried to get me over this hatred I carried for Knox Evans. She figured that perhaps he’d grow on me, but she was wrong. There would be nothing in this world that would change my feelings regarding Knox Evans.
She walked over to me and placed both her hands on my shoulders and waited until I met her eyes.
“It’s going to be okay, you know. If you want, message Hugo and tell him he’ll need to get through me first before he gets to you. He’ll also have to get through Dylan.”
I studied her eyes, seeing the sincerity in them.
“I just can’t believe my brother would have invited him. Especially after…well, after I found out the truth about the end of our relationship.”
“I know, but they were friends’ way before you two ever dated,” Aurora said, once again defending my brother. “There was only so much that Candace could do.”
“He cheated on me. With my cousin! Candace shouldn’t need to do anything. He should have been automatically uninvited and banned from the family.”
The memory of finding out flooded my mind as Aurora met my eyes, sorrow filling them. It was then we heard a knock on her door and Dylan popped his head into the room.
“Hey, ladies.”
“Hey,” Aurora said, making her way over to him, placing a kiss on his lips, ignoring the fact that I was in literal breakdown mode.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Aurora shut the door behind him and looked at me.
“Hey, Dylan,” I muttered.
“Are you okay? You look a little messed up.”
“It’s the end of her world.” Aurora giggled as I flopped back on her table and began pouting again.
“What is?” Dylan asked, sitting down on the chair in the corner.
“My stupid brother and this damn wedding,” I said, burying my face in my hands, trying to shut the world out, even for a moment.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head. We will get you through it,” Dylan said, placing his hand on my shoulder, no doubt trying to comfort me.
“I don’t think it’s possible to get me through it,” I mumbled.
“Hey, they don’t call us the dominators for nothing.” He winked and grinned. “No one messes with us. Now, when you ladies are finished here, lets do dinner.”
“Sounds good, I’m in.” I said, running my hand through my hair, trying to let go of everything.
“Great! Knox and I have a craving for that new pizza place.”
Chapter Two
Lorelai
“Are you sure you’ll be okay getting to the airport alone?” Aurora asked for the hundredth time as she wheeled her suitcase to the door.
“For the millionth time, yes. I’ll be fine.” I shoved a book into my carry-on for the flight.
“I still don’t understand why you switched flights at the last minute. We would have been seated together.”
“No, you’ll be with Dylan,” I muttered, knowing full well that she’d traded seats with Knox, which would have forced us to sit together. I shoved a slice of green pepper into my mouth and looked over at my friend. “Besides, I told you, I had some things to finish up for work, and this will enable me to make sure that I get those finished before leaving.”
“You’re on vacation, Lorelai.” Aurora said, frowning. “You deserve this time. Besides, you’ve been busting your ass ever since we got hired, working late, taking on more patients than you probably should, working weekends. A handful of days off won’t hurt anything.”
Ignoring her, I made my way over to the fridge and grabbed a soda just as a loud bang caused me to jump. I looked up as Aurora opened the door to our condo. Dylan poked his head around the corner, a huge grin on his face.
“Ready to go there, sexy?” he asked, stepping inside and immediately meeting Aurora’s lips.
Their infatuation with one another was enough to make me ill. I rolled my eyes and went back over to the stack of books I’d set aside and ran through them again, looking for another one to read while he examined her lips yet again. There was no way I was going to make it through the next few days if I had to watch these two the entire time.
“Sure am,” she whispered. “Oh, and I packed your favorite bikini and the items I brought home the other night that were in the brown paper bag.”
I felt my stomach turn and swallowed hard as I tried to ignore their public display of affection. This was another reason why I’d changed my flight. There was no way in hell I could sit on a flight for six hours and listen to these two go at it. They had no shame.
“God, I can’t wait,” he said, devouring her mouth once again.
“Get a room, would you?” I barked, shoving another sappy romance novel into my bag, which would probably make me hate my life even more than I already did.
“Hate to break it to you, but we are.” Dylan winked, taking hold of Aurora’s bags and pulling them into the hall.
“Alright, you’re sure you’ll—”
“Yes, I’ll be fine. I will see you tomorrow at some point,” I said.
Aurora came over and stood beside me, studying me.
“What?” I demanded.
“Love you. I’ll see you tomorrow. Safe flight okay.” She wrapped her arms around me.
I weakened at her embrace and almost instantly returned her hug. “I’m sorry I’m such a grump,” I muttered.
Aurora let me go and placed her hands on my shoulders. “It’s okay, I understand. You’re going through a lot right now. Just know that it will all work out, okay.”
I nodded, fighting back the tears that were threatening to fall. I hoped she was right, but I seriously had my doubts. She let me go, smiled, and then headed out of the condo.
Once she was gone, I took a moment to take a deep breath. I’d been so excited for my brother and for Candance, until the other day when I was going over the final list of confirmed guests. It was there I saw Hugo’s name, along with a plus one.
