Chapter 35
35
RHYS
W hen I look up to where Maddie’s sitting in the crowd, I have to blink my eyes hard three times to make sure I’m seeing right.
She’s sitting right where I expected her. Next to her friend Jasmine, which I also expected. And she’s wearing a Black Bears jersey. Nothing unexpected there, either.
Except for the number that’s emblazoned on her chest.
It’s not Lane’s number.
It’s my number.
It feels like I’ve just been knocked down by a blindside hit; no, more like I’ve just been flattened by a Zamboni somehow going sixty miles an hour.
The unexpected sight sends shockwaves through me, and my jaw hangs open as I gaze at her dumbfounded for a long, long moment.
Then, a powerful feeling of pride and satisfaction spreads through me, like I’ve never felt before. It feels like I grow three feet taller in an instant. Pure, masculine possessiveness is pumping thick through my blood, and I want nothing more than to toss my stick to the side, climb over the dasher boards, march to her seat, and sear her lips with a kiss as she wears my jersey.
The spell is broken when someone bumps into me from behind. I turn to see Tuck, wearing a shit-eating grin that’s smarmy and provocative even by his standards, which says a lot.
“Spot something interesting in the crowd, Rhys?” he taunts, his eyebrows arcing.
I beam a disgruntled look at him before turning on my blades and skating off to our section of the ice to do my stretching. His cackles follow me as I retreat.
If someone on the team had to get an inkling of my feelings for Maddie, why the hell did it have to be Tuck?
I sigh as I start to stretch. At least I know my secret is safe with him. He may love pushing people’s buttons, but he’s a good friend who’d never betray someone’s trust.
Right before puck drop, I let my gaze flit to Maddie again. I’ve dreamed of seeing her in my jersey for years—and just like kissing her, the reality is so much better than my dreams that I can’t fucking believe it.
During the game, I resist the urge to look at her, but the sight of her wearing my number is still seared into my brain, and it supercharges me throughout the game.
I play one of the best games of my life. I play like a man possessed. Electricity is simmering through my limbs, and I skate faster, hit harder, pass better, and react quicker than I can ever remember doing before.
But it’s not enough for me just to play my best. With Maddie looking on wearing my jersey, with my name on her back … fuck, I want to score a goal.
I’m a defenseman, and it’s my job to set up goals for our forwards rather than to score them myself …
But I want to. I want to send the puck into the net, hear the buzzer sounding because of me, and then look up into the crowd and see my girl jumping up and down in my jersey because of what I did out here.
In the second period, I get my chance.
Jamie’s just stolen the puck from one of our University of Maine opponents. Our forwards ahead of us are getting into position to make an attack on the enemy goal. Two of the Maine players swarm Jamie, so he unloads the puck to me.
And I see it. I see my opening. A slice of empty space from where I am straight to the Maine net.
I take the opportunity. I rear back with my stick and slam it forward, sending the puck careening through the air.
It flies right past their goalie’s right arm and collides with the back of the net.
The sound of the buzzer blasts through the frigid air. The crowd erupts, shooting to their feet in unison. My teammates rush over to me, showering me with cheers and gestures of congratulations.
My eyes go straight to Maddie in the crowd. She’s not just standing. She’s jumping up and down. The bouncing movement of my number on her chest is hypnotizing. Her mouth is wide open, cheering—cheering for me.
My heart pulses.
This is what I want. I want her in the crowd for all my games, wearing my jersey every time. I want her cheering not just for my team, not just for her brother—I want her cheering for me . I want to know I’m the one she’s watching on the ice, the one she’s here for.
For the first time, there’s a hopeful spark snuggled deep behind my sternum. Is that really so crazy?
The game ends in a 4-1 victory.
The first thing I do when we hit the locker room isn’t to get amped up celebrating like the rest of the guys. I head straight to my locker, grab my phone, and fire off a text to Maddie.
Meet me in the west hallway on the ground floor.
I need to see her while she’s wearing my jersey, and it very much needs to be just the two of us. I can’t go a moment longer than necessary without pressing my lips to hers, knowing that she’s wearing my name on her back.
Maddie’s familiar enough with the arena to know where I’m asking her to wait for me, it’s a section of the hallways in the bowels of the arena that’s almost always empty.
As I’m showering and talking with the rest of the guys, I’m buzzing with anticipation to see Maddie. I have to wait until everyone else is showered and ready to go to make my excuse to break away from them.
We’re all going to Loser’s Luck Tavern, our regular bar in Cedar Shade, to celebrate the win. Once we step out of the locker room, I tell the guys I need to head back to use the bathroom, and for them to go ahead without me.
I race through the locker room to the exit on the other side, heading to where I told Maddie to meet me, my heart pounding with excitement the whole time.
I turn a corner and see her standing there, and it’s like a lightning bolt flashes up and down my spine.
My steps slow as I drink in the sight of her wearing my jersey, her sleek black hair swept back behind her shoulders, an expectant smile lighting up her face, her gorgeous blue eyes looking at me behind her glasses.
“Maddie,” I rasp her name as I approach her, eyes feasting on the sight. “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”
Her eyebrows pinch. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
I can feel my eyes growing dark with hunger as they burn up and down her torso. “Wearing this …” I breathe out a curse to regulate the emotion beating in my chest. “Are you trying to get me to reveal our secret? To make it fucking impossible for me to keep my hands off you?”
A sly smile curls on her lips. “You really like seeing me in your jersey that much?”
My hands grip her hips as I pull her close to me, feeling the soft swell of her breasts against my hard chest. “I like it more than anything I’ve seen in my entire fucking life,” I growl, my voice low and gravelly. “Turn around,” I command.
Heat flashes in her eyes at my demanding tone. She takes a step back and turns.
There it is. My last name on her back. Intensity throttles through me, a raw and sharp possessiveness until anything I’ve ever felt before.
I spin her around and press my lips to hers, my control fraying at the edges as I press my tongue past her lips, drinking her up like a man possessed, drinking her up like she’s mine .
She’s breathless when I pull my mouth away, her swollen lips open to pull in a breath. Her eyelids retract and she pushes out a surprised laugh.
“I thought athletes going crazy for seeing girls in their jerseys was, like, just a trope,” she utters.
I grab her hand and hold it to my groin, right against the throbbing hard beam of my erection. “Does this feel like just a trope to you?”
Her throat bobs with a heavy swallow. Her cheeks turn that shade of pink that I love seeing stand out against her creamy complexion so damn much. She shakes her head to my question, desire simmering in her eyes.
She tightens her grip around my length, and a groan pulls straight from my chest.
“Fuck,” I rasp through clenched teeth. Right now, I want nothing more than to find somewhere to rip her pants off and fuck her from behind, seeing my name on her back while I thrust into her.
But the sound of steps pattering toward us from around the corner is a quick reminder to both of us that we can’t just do what we want when we want.
Besides, as desperately as I want to feel Maddie’s softness clench around my cock like I’ve felt it clench my fingers … at the same time, I’m in no hurry to go all the way. After all, that’s the whole reason we started this. So that she could have her first time the right way. And I’m damn sure going to give it to her.
But after that … all the reasons we’ve started this will have been checked off.
There’ll be no reason for us to continue, no reason for us not to go back to being just friends. She’ll have had her first time, it’ll have been good, and she’ll be as confident and unselfconscious about sex as she should have been all along.
It’ll be mission accomplished. I’ll have done what she asked me to, and all that’ll be left is for me to step back while she moves on to the kind of guys she should actually be with.
Guys who aren’t betraying the trust and confidence of their lifelong best friend in doing so …
The cold water that realization sprinkles on me makes it easier to take a step back from her as the footsteps grow closer.
“Guess we should head to the bar so everyone isn’t wondering where we are,” I say.
“Yeah,” she answers, a shadow of disappointment crossing over her features. “Let’s go.”
It won’t raise any alarm bells for Maddie and I to show up late to the bar. Well, Tuck will probably give me a smarmy look. But Lane won’t bat an eye. He’d never guess what we’re doing behind his back.
Ever since that night in the library, my emotions have been like a ping-pong ball bouncing between two extremes. Elation at the possibility that Maddie and I might develop into something more, and resignation that to even wish for that is inviting disappointment.
I don’t want to make the wrong move and ruin the last year I have with the person who might just mean more to me than anyone else in my life.