TWELVE
Luca
O h shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
Too many instincts roared to life at once watching Max collide with Miles Hayden so hard he flipped into the air before falling flat on the ice.
Max isn’t in danger here, so I took a moment to get fitted with skates after arriving at the practice arena. I planned to get in his face on the ice. That’s where he seems to want to be all the time. I need to berate him for leaving me in his house. Prove to him that I’m not fucking around.
This is my job he’s messing with.
I’m strong enough to take on any opponent who will dare to touch him.
“What the fuck?” Max bites out, currently on his back, moaning in pain.
But a second later, he’s on his feet. Hockey players are known for looking dead on the ice one second and skating away like nothing happened the next. A shadow covers me from his height. Those skates and blades add around five inches to this already mammoth of man.
Anger teeming off him, he wipes the ice chips from his face, some already melted down his chin. They take on a pearly hue, and I swear, it looks like cum.
God, I want my cum dripping down his chin.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
It’s never going to happen.
“Ryan...” One of the trainers pushes me aside. “What the hell is the matter with you today? ”
Max, staring at me, spins the trainer around in my direction. “Is there a problem, Sheppard?”
“There sure is,” I answer to get out front. “This tough guy’s not happy about having a bodyguard. It’s clearly affecting his focus.”
“How dare you—” Max roars.
“Ryan!” Coach Beck hikes over wearing ice cleats that he and the rest of us wear during games.
I’m the show-off who wanted to be on blades.
Beck sends the trainer back to the bench and signals me and Max to follow him.
In his office, Beck slams the door. “Max, get a hold of yourself. It’s a bodyguard. We’re not asking you to give the guy a kidney. What’s the matter with you?”
Max slides me a look. “Nothing, Coach.”
It’s the heat between us when no one’s around that’s the real problem. The fire he’s trying to smother.
“I heard he left the apartment without you.” Beck turns to me in an accusatory tone.
“Guilty. It was my first night in a new place. My phone died in the middle of the night and I didn’t get up in time.”
Beck turns his gaze to Max. “And you just let him sleep? You left your apartment—”
“I was safe in my car,” Max argues.
“Is it bulletproof?” Beck asks.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Max’s cheeks blaze in a rosy shade, and steam looks ready to float out of his ears.
“Are your tires made of lead that they can’t be blown out?” Beck adds.
“Stop.” Max scrubs a hand down his face. “You made your point.”
Beck pulls down Max by the back of his neck. “Richmond hurt you because they don’t play by the rules. ”
“Last I checked, those who choose violence rarely play by the rules,” Max smarts off to Beck.
“Bratva and rules don’t mix,” I say under my breath.
“Max...” Beck points. “If I see you and I don’t see him, I’ll make sure he’s fired. Do you want that on your conscience?”
Beck is bluffing. That would be a shitty thing to do to someone. And strategically ill advised, knowing I could show up on any competitor’s doorstep with a shitload of security information about the Crushers to sell in exchange for a big paycheck.
“No, Coach,” Max grunts.
“Keep it that way.” Beck leaves us alone in the office.
I close the steel door and twist the white metal blinds, giving us privacy.
“What the fuck?” Max steps back.
I want to throw him on Beck’s desk, but I don’t.
I want to knee him in the balls then suck his dick until he feels better, but I don’t.
Instead, I amble to the calendar on the wall. It’s a 60-day fill-in type that someone updates with games, practices, travel days, and other events.
Signing my own pink-slip for fucking with Beck’s carefully color-coated schedule, I take a black sharpie and circle the days left before playoffs.
“How long have you been playing hockey?” I ask over my shoulder.
Max doesn’t answer. With his gorgeous face flushed red, he comically falls into a seat. With all his gear and his jersey, he massively overpowers the metal guest chair made for a normal human.
Not a god.
“Well?” I push.
“Since second grade.” Max’s answer halts my writing.
“I should have figured.”
It makes sense why he’s a phenomenal player. When young kids are exposed to sport, what they learn grows into their DNA.
Everything Max does is on instinct like the rest of us muggles walk and talk.
“Have you noticed as we get older, time goes by quickly?”
“Depends,” he argues.
“Your time is valuable, let me cut to the chase. I get a bonus at the end of the season. I need that money.”
“Jesus Christ, Sheppard,” he scoffs, condescendingly. “Do you know how much I make? I’ll take care of you.”
My cock thickens. Yeah, take care of me, big boy.
God, it’s like I’m a different person around him. Submissive and wanting to be on all fours.
For him.
I shake that away. “Your money is useless if you’re six feet under.”
We stare for a moment and with the blinds closed and heat between us, I make the first move.
“Tell me the real reason you don’t want me guarding you. Not a bodyguard. Me. Be honest,” I say through clenched teeth, the way a person asks a question they know the answer to.
Max shifts in the seat, and I take him in. Damn, I already had a massive crush on him from afar. I’ve followed his career before I worked for the Crushers. In person, it’s intimidation and lust overload.
“You...bother me,” he grits out.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
“Bother how?”
He drags his gaze up and down my body. “You married?”
“Widower.”
That jerks his head back. “How did she die?”
“Car Accident. With my son.”
The color drains from Max’s face. “Jesus, man. I’m sorry.”
“It was an arranged marriage,” I say.
His brows dip, and now he looks thoroughly confused. “Arranged? They still do that?”
“In the mafia they do.”
“You’re in the mafia?”
“I was. I got out.”
“Did they...kill your son?”
“No. My wife did.” I draw a fist to my mouth, not voicing if I think she did it on purpose. “She was leaving me and had been drinking.”
“Oh, man. I can’t even imagine. That’s terrible. Did you love her at all?”
“We were friends. We grew up together. Her brother was my best friend.” I don’t say Ivan’s name. It will freak Max out. “He made me marry his sister.”
“Wow.” He shakes his head and winces.
I feel terrible keeping him from a trainer’s healing hands that will make every ounce of pain go away.
“It was a long-time coming.” I fold my arms, ready to drop a bomb. “She left me after catching me going down on her bodyguard.”