Forbidden Hockey Player

12. Rhett

RHETT

“Good boy,” she whispered.

I shivered as her hand ran its way through my hair.

Fucking hell, I’d never cut my hair again.

Her nails scraped softly along my scalp, and at that moment, I knew.

There was no way in hell I was ever going back.

Now that I knew what Victoria tasted like, I was done.

Properly done. There was no other woman after this.

Not for me. Whatever fans had thrown themselves at me before, whatever names I’d half-remembered in the dark, they’d all been background noise.

This was the song. She was the whole album.

Every version of me that existed before this moment had been waiting for permission to put her down.

Leading up to the woman I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off of since I got hired to this hockey team.

I wanted more of her.

All of her.

Every single piece of her.

Even the broken parts she thought she had to hide away from the world.

I licked my lips, savoring her taste as she finally slid off.

And even though I gasped for air, my lungs finally filling for the first time in what seemed like years, I still reached out for her.

I rolled with her, facing her with my glistening skin as my hand reached for hers.

I grabbed her wrist, pulled her toward me, her nightgown slipping her effortlessly across the silk sheets.

And when I had my arm caged around her, holding her closer to me, I knew I’d never want another. I knew I’d never need another.

I just needed her.

“Heeeeey, Miss C,” I said with a cheeky little grin.

She playfully pushed my chest as an adorable blush crossed her cheeks.

I couldn’t help but stare. In the three years I’d been on the team, I wasn’t sure I’d ever once seen her blush.

The red color tinted her tanned cheeks, trickling down a neck I wanted to spend a long time on.

Not to mark her, not to brand her. Victoria Caldwell didn’t belong to anyone, and that was half the reason I’d fallen for her.

I just wanted to give her the kind of attention she’d been refusing herself for fourteen years.

I watched her reach her thumb out before she slid it along my chin. “You’ve got something here. Hold on.”

I held back a groan as she slid the pad of her thumb over my cheek. But when I saw the glistening wetness of her pussy against her skin as she pulled away, my hand snatched her wrist. I gazed into those curious gray eyes of hers as I pulled her thumb into my mouth.

I lapped her salted goodness off her skin and watched as her lips parted, her eyes watching my mouth’s every movement.

“Mmmm,” I hummed as I pulled her thumb from between my lips, “delicious.”

Nope.

I was a goner.

I wanted her taste on my lips every night. I wanted it before every game. As a reward for every win. As a punishment for every fight. As a promise for every goal. And as I lay there in bed with her, gazing deeply into those gorgeous gray eyes, I knew what I had to do.

Whatever it cost me. Whatever the league did. Whatever the press did when they finally figured it out. I was already hers. The math had been done for three years. I was just waiting for her to be ready to do it too.

“Rhett?”

Her soft voice pulled me out of the recesses of my mind. “Yeah, Miss C?”

She laid her head on the edge of her pillow, not invading mine, but definitely attempting to get close.

My grin spread across my mouth as I captured her leg in between mine, pulling that pillowy thigh of hers in between my muscles.

Her hips seated softly against me. Our breath, coating each other’s faces as I slipped to the edge of my pillow as well.

Our noses were only inches from one another before her whispered voice poured forth.

“I don’t know how to fix this for my daughter.”

I reached out and cupped her cheek. “One day at a time, okay, sweet girl?”

She swallowed hard. “Why is that always the answer when things go to shit? One day at a time?”

I had a feeling she was talking about something deeper than what we were going through. But I stayed with her just the same. “Because sometimes, that’s all you can do.”

Her eyes grew unfocused before she brought them back to my face. “My mom would know what to do if she were here. She always knew what to do.”

I clocked the past tense. “How long has she been gone?”

She studied me for a bit before swallowing hard. “Long time now.”

“I’m sorry, Victoria.”

She just shook her head, and I didn’t like that we were ending the conversation there. I brought my hand to her face and straightened her glasses with one finger. She went still under my hand the way she always did, like she hadn’t decided yet whether to let me.

“Were you close to your mom?” I asked.

She nodded softly. “She was my best friend. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you close with your mother? I don’t normally see family congratulating you after the games or anything.”

I grinned. “You watch me after the games?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean, Rhett.”

I chuckled softly. “I bet you noticed I don’t set aside tickets for family, either.”

Her face fell flat. “Shush.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle again. But then I answered her. “I’m not too close with my family, to be honest.”

She blinked. “Why’s that?”

I shrugged softly. “Mom left when I was young. Dad was pretty absent and heartbroken after that. I kind of just… learned how to be on my own.”

Her face fell. “Rhett, I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”

I shook my head, cutting her off. “You’re okay, Victoria. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Her eyes searched mine. “Did any of your family members play hockey?”

“They were fans, but no one played. My first-ever hockey team was sort of the first time I ever really got a taste of what a family was supposed to feel like.”

“Is that why you work so hard to hold onto your title of captain?”

I grinned. “Why? You watching me work hard or something?”

She clicked her tongue and pushed at my chest playfully. I chuckled as I grabbed her wrist, bringing the palm of her hand to my lips. I kissed her skin delicately, my stare never leaving hers.

I placed her hand on my chest before I drew in a deep breath. “I’m not close with my family. Never have been. Never will be. But this team is my family, and that’s why I’m so dedicated. I show this team the love I hope to show a family of my own some day.”

She sighed, her eyes dancing along my face as if she studied me. She opened her mouth, drawing in a breath, but instead of saying something, she closed her lips.

Did I say something wrong?

“What?” I asked.

Victoria shook her head. “Nothing.”

“It isn’t nothing. You’ve never had an issue voicing your mind, ever. What’s so different about now?”

And when she gave me a defeated shrug, I knew exactly why. I figured I’d get the conversation started for her.

After all, it was clear she’d needed to talk with someone.

“You haven’t been with anyone since your late husband, have you?”

She snickered and pulled her chin away from my grip, but all I did was snatch it back and guide her gaze back to mine.

“Don’t run, it was just a question. I’m worried you’re not comfortable right now,” I said.

“I’m fine,” she said insistently, but she didn’t move away from my grip that time.

“What were you going to say?”

“Nothing that’s appropriate for right now.”

“And why wouldn’t it be appropriate?”

She snickered. “After what we just did? I’m pretty sure if you rattled on about an ex, I’d punch you in the throat.”

I barked with laughter before I released her chin, allowing my hand to cup her cheek.

At that moment, as my hand practically cupped the whole of the side of her face, I realized just how small and fragile she was.

Sure, she had curves for days. Yes, she stood damn near six-feet-tall in those impossible six-inch stilettos of hers.

But lying here with me? Clad in nothing but a thin sheet of silk?

She seemed impossibly delicate. Like something spun from glass that the world hadn’t figured out was unbreakable yet.

Her laughter only added to that. A delicate sound that, while robust, held a crisp quality to it that told me she didn’t use it often.

I silently vowed to make her laugh every single day for the rest of the days she allowed me to be at her side.

“Then,” I said after our laughter died down, “it’s a good thing I’m the one doing the asking.” I slid my hand into her hair, gripping her tendrils softly as I held her gaze with mine. “What were you going to say, Victoria?”

She swallowed thickly, her voice a bit heavier when she spoke. “You remind me so much of him.”

I blinked. “Your late husband?”

She nodded softly. “Ryan.”

“Ryan,” I muttered.

She sighed heavily. “He was… massive. Dwarfed me in every way. Such a ray of sunshine, despite my ‘black cat demeanor,’ as he always called it.”

The thought made me smirk. She, indeed, was very black cat energy.

Always prowling about. You never heard her coming until she intentionally clicked her heels across whatever floor bowed to her mercy.

She always kept her face impassive and impossible to read.

Her mere presence sometimes felt like an omen of something to come.

“I can see that,” is all I said.

She shoved me playfully, but her smile reached her eyes, and that’s all I cared about.

This woman deserved to smile more than she did.

Then, she sighed heavily before pulling the comforter up to her chin, as if she was comfortable at my side.

Not even the apocalypse could have pulled me away from her.

“Do you know how he died?”

The entire fucking team knew. Brynn was always very open about what happened to her father. But it was clear that Victoria didn’t speak on it much. So I told as much of the truth as I could.

“Why don’t you tell me?” I asked, sliding my fingers over and over through her hair. “It sounds like you need to get it off your chest, and I’m all ears.”

She grinned. “And tongue.”

I stuck it out at her, and her giggle filled me with such delight that she could have dropped an anvil on me as a surprise and I would have died happy.

But then, her face grew somber once more. “Ryan played for the team when it was still minor league. Worked his way up to coaching it before I bought it and moved it up to the PHL.”

“Sounds like the team was always in your blood.”

She smiled. “Those two were always close. Brynn was in middle school when the shooting happened.”

My stomach clenched as she drew in a deep breath.

“I’ll never forget it, Rhett,” she whispered, tears filling those gray eyes of hers.

“I was so bogged down with work at home that I didn’t even realize what was going on.

Ryan had just stopped to fill up the tank on his way home.

Wrong place, wrong time. That was all it was.

” Her voice broke on the last word. “There were no warning signs. No reason. Just a man at a gas station who never came home.”

I just stayed silent, giving her space to say whatever she wanted to say.

“The second I opened that door, everything fell away, you know? Like in the movies. I mean, you see it in the movies, but you never really understand that…”

“That it’s true?” I asked softly.

Her lower lip quivered, and it broke my heart. But I kept listening all the same.

Because something told me she’d never told anyone this before.

“Yeah,” she whispered as a tear cascaded down her cheek. “He just looked at me with that face, you know? And immediately, I just said, ‘Brynn?’ And when he shook his head, for just a moment, there was nothing short of relief.”

I nodded. “Until he told you about Ryan.”

She choked back a sob, and I couldn’t take it a second longer. I reached my arms out, pulled her flush against my body, and tucked her head beneath my chin.

“Oh God, Rhett, I’ll never forget it,” she said with tears clouding her voice.

“I just ran right past him. Out of the house. Into the driveway. I was in my robe. Sandals. No heels. Legs unshaved. Dry shampoo in my hair. Glasses fucking lopsided. I just kept thinking if I could get to the hospital fast enough, if I could just get there before they—before he—”

“I know,” I said quietly, my hand moving up and down her back. “I gotcha.”

She hiccupped with sobs against my chest. “This team… makes me feel… closer to him. But every day… I feel him… fading, Rhett. Every day… mo-mo-mo—moving further… away.”

I blinked back my own tears as I rolled her on top of me. Her body rested against mine, limbs draped over my sides, and I cradled her in both of my arms. She cried into my chest as I stared up at the ceiling, forcing my own emotions to the side to make way for hers.

But suddenly, I understood her.

I understood all of it.

Why she became the owner of the hockey team.

Why she single-handedly built this franchise from the ground up.

It was a shrine to her late husband. A place where she could go and remember and relish days gone by.

Days she could never get back. She cried harder, and I held her tighter, hoping she could feel that she wasn’t alone.

That she’d never once again be alone.

So long as she wanted to keep me around.