Free SPORTS ROMANCE: Wanna Puck? (A Secret Baby Pregnancy New Adult Contemorary Bad Boy Romance) by Bridget Lang

Chapter 1
    I stood outside the locker room for the Los Angeles Knights waiting to get in. The Knights had just lost their third game in a row after Aiden Cooper, their twenty-six-year-old center, and ‘bad boy brawler’ of the team, started a fight with one of the referees. It wasn't the first time that Cooper had started a fight out on the hockey rink, but it was the first time that I was covering such an event. In fact, it was first day on the job as a reporter for a national news station and here I was on the outside. I was a little pissed. I’d put in my dues to get here, and then some. I’d worked my way up through the ranks at local stations, to get noticed by the national news. My work spoke for itself, yet I couldn't even get back there for a damned interview. Sometimes it sucked being a woman in this business.
    I watched as male reporter after male reporter was let into the locker room. My camera man, Billy, stood patiently by, waiting for his opportunity to get some video footage. I hated the way he kept looking sympathetically over at me, as if I was a lost child wandering around in a sea of testosterone. 
    "Want me to go in?" Billy asked.
    "No," I said through gritted teeth. My stomach rumbled and I forced it to calm itself. These recent bouts of nausea were driving me crazy.
    I knew Billy was just trying to be helpful, but I couldn't send a cameraman in to do my job. This was bullshit. I'd worked too hard to get here. Besides, if the rest of the station found out I couldn't get the interview myself, it would confirm every whispered innuendo about me. They would all assume I'd gotten the job by sleeping with Troy Mannen, the station head. People were ridiculous that way- even other women. Always a judgement laid down on a woman who was comfortable with her own sexuality. I could tell the truth, but it wouldn’t matter. Yeah, I slept with Troy. He’d gotten me drunk and we had a one-nighter. No big fucking deal, and instantly regrettable. It didn’t mean anything to either one of us. Well, it didn’t mean anything to me . The truth wouldn’t matter, though. I mean, the part about a one night stand with the boss would, but not the fact that I'd already signed the contract long before we had sex, or that I had earned this job on my own merit as a reporter plain and simple. Nope. I’d be permanently labelled as the female reporter who slept her way up the ladder. Total bullshit.
    "This is ridiculous," I snapped, after Matthew Waters, the sleazy reporter for the country's biggest tabloid, was allowed inside. I turned to the security guard who stood blocking my entrance. "I need to get in there," I told him.
    My blue eyes raged with anger. My dark hair, which I had pulled back into a tight bun, began to come loose as my head spun around.
    "Sorry Ms. Larkin," the guard said, reading the name on my press badge. "I can't let—"
    But I was too tired and too irritated to listen to any more of his excuses. I stormed passed him and burst into the room. All eyes turned to me, the lone woman in a room full of half-naked men. Aiden Cooper stood at the back of the room, a towel wrapped around his waist. He grinned when he saw me. His lips curved up and met the light in his dark brown eyes, which seemed to shine even in the dimness of the locker room.
    I couldn't help it. My heart fluttered. Seeing Aiden in nothing but a towel, I realized that the rumors I'd heard regarding his body were woefully inadequate. His chest was not just chiseled with a hard lines of muscle rising and falling in peaks, it was as if some sculptor had carved him out of stone—the perfect specimen of man.
    "And who have we here?" he asked, approaching me.
    "I'm, um," I shook my head, trying to clear it. "Skyler Larkin, channel 10 news," I finally said, holding out my hand. "Mind if I ask a few questions?"
    "Not at all," Aiden said, but instead of shaking my hand, he dropped his towel and pushed his crotch towards me. Everyone in the room laughed.