Chapter 19 Kane
Kane
Ikeep having the same dream since I met Ollie.
I’ve had it occasionally for years, but now it’s playing on repeat every night.
It never changes. It’s fixed in my mind as a permanent reminder of how screwed up I am.
It was back when I was twenty, the year after I’d broken Timber’s nose.
The dream always starts with a distant laugh, echoing down a straight road as I stumble out of a bar into a brightly lit street at 2 a.m. We're already sweating in the thick Nashville summer air. I’m tipsy as hell, holding up one of the other guys on the team who’s flat out drunk.
My teammate grins as he throws his arm around my neck, dragging us both toward a cab.
“So. Right. What I said… the way we won is, okay, it’s…
Fuck!” He bursts out laughing as we topple over, and I grab the lamppost before we fall.
Hitting hard concrete in shorts is a hundred times worse than hitting the ice in padding.
Besides, I’m not paying attention to him.
Music beats out from both sides of the street. There are bars facing each other and gaggles of people on either side. But the beauty of it is that most of them are so drunk that they don’t care that two whole hockey teams are out laughing and dancing with them.
We’d played and beaten the Scented Scorpions earlier that day. And all I wanted to do was get close to Timber.
I tracked him on the ice throughout the whole game, and he straight-up ignored me. But since the teams came out to party together afterward, I thought it was my chance.
I tried to visit him in the hospital after the accident last year, and whenever we were in Tennessee, but I could never reach him.
I'd been his fan my whole life, and the first time I met him, I ruined everything.
Seeing him again was so rough, because he looked like a shell. I knew he had to take a year off from hockey, but the shock is still hounding me.
I just want the opportunity to say sorry. But five other guys circled him the whole night and wouldn’t let anyone near him.
My blurry vision hops back and forth along the street looking for him. I can’t concentrate with my teammate rambling about the game.
There’s a groan from behind us and a crash. We both spin around to find Timber with his hand against an industrial waste bin, his mouth open as he breathes too heavily.
My heart skips as he turns, his face highlighted in the streetlight. He’s definitely too drunk. Drunker than us. And we’re drunk off our asses.
“Hey, take him, would you?” I say to one of my teammates who’s finishing up a cigarette.
He gives me a look before he sighs out a puff of smoke, dropping the butt to the ground and stomping it out with his heel before he strides over.
“You owe me for this,” he says with a warning in his voice.
“Man, add it to my tab.” I laugh.
As soon as I deposit my load, my attention races to Timber.
I’m surprised they left him alone, considering how protective they’ve been of him.
I’m not too good at staying upright, but it’s enough to wobble over to him in the dim alley.
Timber is so hot, even when he’s off his face.
The first time I met him, I couldn’t stop staring because I’d never met an alpha that was so…
alpha. He rises over me, his chest heaving like a bear as he growls.
The first time he looked at me, my whole body fired awake, and when I scented him, I knew I’d do anything to be closer to him.
But there's a dead look in his eyes like life isn't worth it anymore, and it terrifies me.
It's all my fault, and I want to fix it somehow. Whatever it takes so that he knows he's not alone, even when he's surrounded by people.
“Timber?” I say carefully, and a shiver runs through me as he groans. “Are you okay?”
Before I can react, he shoots straight up and grabs my shoulders.
“Why are you here?” he whispers with pain in his hazy eyes. He steps nearer, dragging me to his wide chest, filling me with a bitter hit of aching coffee that sizzles inside me. “Why can’t you leave me alone?” he asks, though he’s the one clutching me.
I’m sure he’s talking to someone else, but it’s the emotion in his voice that makes me want to take more than I should.
Even if I wasn’t drunk, I would go for it. Because Timber Holtz is the sexiest player I have ever met. That year ago, when we shook hands before the game that changed everything, his solid look made me want to follow him anywhere.
Doctors and plastic surgeons had to completely reconstruct his face after the accident.
I didn’t just break his nose, I smashed his cheekbone and his jaw.
Part of me didn’t understand how he was still alive, but I saw the pictures of him when they took him to the hospital.
Looking at him now, you’d never be able to tell how bad it was.
So it had to be okay to touch his nose, right?
I bring my arms up, returning his hug, taking another drag of his hard coffee.
He could be crying, he might be drooling. Hell, it could have just been my imagination that I felt damp on my shoulder. But his chest expands as he pulls in a heavy breath.
“Just take it away,” he groans, rubbing himself against me. “I’m so fucking tired, Kane. Take away these shit feelings like you took everything else from me.”
My body tenses. With a sharp stab of pain, I realize he really is talking to me. He knows who I am, and he still presses himself into me.
I’m a kid who thinks I know everything. I don’t see a difference between thirty-three-year-old Timber and a twenty-year-old me, except he’s been playing hockey longer than I have.
So, when Timber tips back, his body knocks against the dumpster, and the sound reverberates through the alley, all I can focus on is the way Timber looks at me.
His eyes are half-lidded, and he clings to my upper arms.
“Kane,” he murmurs. “This is your fault. Take responsibility for me.”
A lightning bolt shoots through my body, and I can’t hold myself back.
He cries out as I slip my hand downward, my fingers nicking his hard nipples through his tight shirt. It’s on him for having such well-defined pecs.
I push at him, keeping him upright as he clings to me.
“Kane,” he sighs again. I’m worried that if I go too hard, he could throw up, but he’s softening under me.
He pushes his hips out, his hard cock against mine, grinding on me as his hands drop to my ass. I groan against him as my cock answers.
Timber’s so strong, and he pins me against him as he grinds on me.
If he didn’t keep saying my name, I was sure I could be anyone.
I pitch forward, slotting my knee between his thighs, my chest against his. I mold my body to him, and it’s when I press my lips against his neck that I know I have him. Or he has me.
A soft moan echoes from him, and I won’t stop myself. I roll my hips, testing the waters, loving how even the slightest thrust makes his head fall back as a high moan escapes him.
I brush my tongue from the dip in his collarbone, up to his Adam’s apple, savoring the strong hit of coffee sweat, and the vibration of his moan that hums on my tongue.
“Kane,” he groans as I softly kiss his Adam’s apple. His taste is so sharp, and I can’t wait to see how strong it is in other places.
His thick fingers dig into me, and the way he sighs is so incredibly perfect that I pull my lips back from his neck.
“Don’t stop, Kane. You have to make it better,” he says, blinking heavily as he drops his chin.
“I only stopped so I could do this,” I say as I grab the front of his shirt and yank him forward into a kiss.
Coffee burns on my tongue, and he moans, his hips instantly jerking against mine.
I plunge further into his mouth, and he buckles under me.
Sparks fly through me as he parts his lips further, letting me explore him with everything I have.
Every lick over his tongue, every tug of his lips, the way I stroke his nipples and grind hard against him as the dumpster rattles behind us; it’s the best.
The only thing that makes it more perfect is the tiny moans he gives as he clings desperately to me.
I never thought making an older guy collapse under me would be so insanely sexy.
“You taste good,” he slurs as I pull back from the kiss. The haze in his eyes grows stronger, but the lust in his voice is the same. “You taste amazing. I didn’t know alphas could ever taste so good.”
I’m sure he’s lost his sense of smell. There’s been this whole thing in the news about how he can’t taste anything either, along with all that drama still going on with his divorce.
I can’t figure it out because Timber refuses to do interviews, but his wife has been on chat shows for years ‘representing’ Timber.
My inner bullshit alarm goes off whenever I see her talking.
For someone who storms the ice when he plays, he holds me so softly. His moan is gentle as he takes my lips, making me fall for him even harder.
I’m meant to be the one who’s kissing him, but he’s taken me over. His other hand sweeps to my lower back and holds me tight, leaning over me to deepen the kiss.
I sink into the sensation of his stubble scratching my cheeks, his hot taste, his moans vibrating through me as he drinks me in.
“Kane,” he slurs my name, looking deep into my eyes, and stealing my heart in one second.
I grind my cock against him again, and his eyes flutter closed.
“Yes, like that,” he groans, answering me with a rub of his own before his hand slips down to cup my ass. I throw myself back into the kiss, stealing his breath as our tongues meet in the middle.
“Hey, Kane! Hurry up! The taxi’s waiting!” A teammate calls out from the street, totally ignoring how we’re dry humping against the dumpster, and I seriously don’t want to be disturbed.
But that’s where the dream ripples, and I’m sent back a year to the day that changed everything.