Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MIA
O nly a matter of weeks ago, I was wondering what it would be like to spend a night with Jessie Callaghan.
This morning, it’s no longer a fantasy. With his arms wrapped around me, pulling me into his chest, I’ve never felt safer or more wanted.
Sunlight fights to break through the gaps in Jessie’s bedroom blinds, and I let its warmth settle on my face. Just like that Sunday morning in my dorm, all I can hear is Jessie’s steady breathing, but this time, I can feel it, too, as it tickles the back of my neck.
“Turn around for me, Sweetheart.”
The gruff of his early morning voice shoots a delicious tingle through my body, reminding me of the way he kissed and nipped at my neck all night.
He wasn’t lying when he said I was cute for thinking his bed was for sleeping.
Slowly, I turn in his arms. At some point last night, his T-shirt that I was wearing landed on his bedroom floor, but never made it back to my body, leaving me topless and in only my panties.
“Morning,” I say with a stifled yawn.
Pulling the duvet from around my shoulders, Jessie exposes my breasts. They’re hardly award-winning, but just like that day in my bedroom, he drinks me in like they’re the sexiest thing he’s ever seen.
He offers me a sleepy smile that fires off butterflies deep in my stomach and leans in for a gentle kiss. “I gotta leave for practice in a half hour.”
Jessie pulls me closer to him, his hard cock pressing into my stomach.
Maybe I’m naive or perhaps still struggling to believe this is all real, but the question threatening to fall from the tip of my tongue must also be written right across my face when he pulls his head back from another soft kiss and tips my chin to look him in the eyes.
“Ask me, Mia.”
I chew on my bottom lip, suddenly feeling like a young schoolgirl. “The first time, when we were sneaking around, we never actually talked about what we were to each other, but this ti?—”
He rolls me onto my back, cutting me off with his mouth. His top half hovers over me, his fingers twisting and playing with my messy bed hair. His tongue feels warm and soft as it massages against mine with a deeper level of passion than any previous kiss we’ve ever shared.
As he grinds against me, I know he wants to go further, and I do, too, but I know he won’t, not with only minutes left together.
When he pulls back from the kiss, his long fingers continue to dance in my hair as I look up at him, completely at his mercy.
“You are one hundred percent mine, and I am completely yours. I’d say calling you my girlfriend would make it official, but, Sweetheart, I never stopped belonging to you. We have to be careful about how we play this. We need to tell your dad when the time is right and when you’re ready, Mia. But do not doubt for even a single fucking second that we are anything but each other’s.” He chuckles happily, the sound doing things to my heart. “I’m going to let you go for a few hours while I head to practice and you go do some studying and shit.”
“And shit.” I giggle into his chest.
Jessie rolls us back so we’re facing each other, and he squeezes me tighter against him. “Yeah, and shit. But once you’re done, I want you to text me so I can send a taxi to your dorm to come get you and bring you right back here. To my bed, where you belong.”
Every nerve in my body fizzes with anticipation and excitement. “I’d like that.”
A cheeky smile breaks out across his face. “I bet you do.”
I bite down on my bottom lip, needing to address something else he just mentioned. “When are we going to tell my dad?”
Underneath the duvet, Jessie wraps a leg over mine. “ASAP. There’s a risk we’re gonna get caught, and it only grows the longer we keep sneaking around. To you, I’m just Jessie, but to the public, I’m the starting forward for the Scorpions. I get photographed a lot, mainly when I least expect it. That would be the worst way for him to find out.”
“Are you scared?”
Jessie’s brows pinch together. “Of what?”
“Of him finding out, of what the Scorpions will say. You were supposed to be staying away from me, remember?”
He shakes his head. “Nervous of Graham’s reaction? Yes. Scared? No. Once your dad figures it out, he can’t control us, and, yeah, Coach Burrows will probably be pissed, but in reality, there’s fuck all they can do. If they trade me, they trade me. I’ve made my bed, and I’m lying in it with my girl, no matter what.”
“I think you underestimate my father and his hatred of you.”
Jessie kisses my forehead, resting his chin on top of my head. “And he underestimates how far I’m willing to go for his daughter.”
Silence stretches out, the faint noise of the world passing by beneath us. We both know this is risky, mainly for Jessie, but also for me.
I love my dad with everything I have, but he’s a stubborn man, and I can’t help the niggling worry that by choosing Jessie, I might be simultaneously setting fire to the relationship I’ve built with my father. I’ve already lost one parent, and even though he’s wrong about Jessie, there’s a good chance he’ll never forgive my betrayal. Walking away from the career he wanted me to have at the Destroyers hurt him badly, but going behind his back again might be something we never recover from.
JESSIE
I’ve done some difficult things in my twenty-six years, but leaving Mia in my bed this morning while I hauled my ass to practice was fucking tough.
The way she watched and laughed while I raced around my bedroom, getting dressed, has gotta be one of the highlights of my life.
Having Mia, the girl I can finally call mine, wake up next to me was everything, even if I did have to tear myself away and leave her with a key to my place forty minutes ago. She might think the key is a temporary thing so she could take a shower and get dressed without rushing. But I have zero intention of removing it from her key ring.
So, when I push through the locker room door on time and without a hangover, the golden-retriever smile I wear is, for once, not forced. The genuine bounce in my step is every bit exhilarating as it is a foreign feeling.
“Wow, I’m practically blinded by sunshine.” Jensen nudges into my shoulder when he comes to stand next to me at the benches.
I don’t say anything as I take a seat and begin lacing up my skates, the smile still plastered across my face.
He comes to sit next to me and dips his head down, speaking quietly. “You just left her in your bed, didn’t you?”
Finishing up one skate, I shift the other foot forward and begin lacing it. “Yep.”
He throws his head back and laughs way louder than he likely intended, and Zach’s head whips over to us.
“Share with the group,” he says, inspecting one of the blades on his skates.
I pull off my hoodie, feeling thankful I wore a Dri-FIT today since the bruises marring my torso will be hard enough to practice with, let alone explain to my teammates. Especially when I can’t chalk these up to a hit, like I have in the past.
I look at Jensen, who raises a brow at me in question.
I know what he’s thinking—I should tell Zach the reason behind my smile and I should trust the guy who’s given me no reason to doubt him over the years I’ve known him. When Jon needed Zach to stand by him and have his back, he did.
The rest of the team starts to make their way to the ice, but there are still a few minutes until practice starts, so I wait a couple more seconds for the room to clear and then turn to Zach.
“I don’t know exactly how much you know already, but remember when I was traded here?”
Zach’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise like he didn’t expect me just to come out and tell him whatever it was. “Yeah, there were rumors of a love affair gone wrong.”
I nod and scratch at the back of my neck. “I know you’re my captain, but I need to know I can trust you as a friend.”
“You can trust him,” Jensen interjects, looking at Zach.
With a single tip of his chin, Zach stands and waits for me to continue talking. I take a deep breath and prepare myself to do something way out of my comfort zone—share my life.
“Right after I was signed, I met someone.”
Zach takes a seat on the bench next to me and begins lacing up his skates. “A girl?”
I side-eye Jensen. “Yep, and, well, she worked for the Destroyers.”
Zach’s head shoots up. “You broke staff-player fraternization policies? Shit, man.”
I wince and run a hand through my hair. “Annnnd … she also happened to be the GM’s daughter.”
If the bench wasn’t between his ass and the floor, I’m pretty sure Zach would be flat on his back right about now.
“Say fucking what ?”
“We got caught one day in her bedroom by her dad, and I got put on the instant trade list. After nine months of sneaking around, I had known it was getting riskier, but I couldn’t stay away from her.”
Zach comes to stand in front of me. He props his hands on his hips and shakes his head. “And you can’t keep away from her now.”
“Never have been able to. Tried my fucking hardest, but … she’s …” I drop my hand from my hair to my side. “She’s everything to me. Just like Luna is to you, like Kate is to Jensen, and like Felicity is to Jon. She’s the fucking one , man.”
“He just left her in his bed,” Jensen adds.
Zach runs a hand over the scruff of his jaw. “I’m guessing Graham Jenkins doesn’t know about this—you know, given the fact that you’re still breathing?” He winces. “Jesus, that guy made me look like a teddy bear on the ice.”
“He has no idea. Mia and I need to work out the right time to tell him.”
“Burrows is gonna be pissed too,” Jensen says, fixing a final pad in place.
I nod. “Yeah, I know. But if I can prove to Graham that I’m serious about Mia, then I have an outside chance of not being murdered.”
It’s not lost on me that, at this point, neither Zach nor Jensen knows about the depths of my past or the real reason Graham thinks I’m bad news for his daughter. Right now, those are truths I only want to share with Mia.
Zach points to the clock above the locker room door, indicating we need to head out onto the ice. “For what it’s worth, here’s my best advice. You are the most gifted player I personally have ever seen, but speaking honestly, I don’t think we’ve seen the best of you. Your eighty percent is another player’s dream game.” He looks me dead in the eyes, offering me a captain’s stare. “Bring it. Turn up for practices early; stay behind until the Zamboni hits the ice. Show them why you are so valuable to the team. Send a message to Graham that you’re every bit the player and man he wants for his daughter and make it so Burrows has no choice but to keep starting you, even when he wants to bench your ass for being a stupid prick.”
“I loved all of that up until the final two words.”
Jensen snickers at my side, but Zach maintains eye contact with me.
“If you bring your best, then you have no reason for them— or me —to question you. That buys you time and respect for when you go to Jenkins and tell him you’re fucking his daughter again.”
I roll my tongue across the roof of my mouth and smile at Zach. “Jesus, now I know why Jon always said you’re the guy to go to when you got issues. Technically though, I’ve never fucked his daughter.”
Jensen chokes on his own breath. “You’re telling me you had the girl of your dreams in your bed and didn’t fuck her?” He holds up a hand. “Sorry, make love to her.”
I roll my eyes. There’s zero chance of me telling them she’s a virgin and that her first time with me is going to be one she’ll never forget. Although I know if I did say it, they’d ten out of ten get it.
“We literally made things official last night, and we had a lot to work through, like over four years of shit to straighten out. I’d hurt her bad when I left Dallas and joined the Scorpions.”
Zach turns to leave, and I grab my gloves and follow, Jensen right on our heels.
“She’s the girl we saw in the café at Whistler, isn’t she?” Zach asks.
“Yeah.”
Zach stops just before we hit the ice and looks at me one final time. “Give the fans the best show of their lives, make yourself untradeable, and show her dad that he made the biggest mistake of his life, trading you in the first place. Then tell him about you and Mia.”
He shoves his mouthguard in and steps onto the ice, skating toward the rest of the team.
I feel a gloved hand land on my shoulder; the pain from the bruising is still there—a faint reminder of everything I’m still hiding.
“I know this might sound fucking weird, but I’m proud of you, man. Going after what you want. And for what it’s worth, Zach is dead right.”
“Thanks,” I reply, my throat growing thick.
Jensen tips his head at the ice. “Time to see the real Callaghan, starting now.”