Chapter 7
The bass pulsed a violent rhythm against the soles of my sneakers, a low thrumming that clawed its way up my calves and rattled the bones in my knees.
It vibrated through the sagging floorboards of the "Hockey House"—a dilapidated Victorian off-campus rental that exhaled a permanent stench of stale keg beer, damp earth, and dry rot.
The air hung thick and humid, a soup of churning body heat, cloying cheap perfume, and the sharp, underlying tang of marijuana smoke.
I stood pressed into a corner of the kitchen, the chipped linoleum cool beneath my feet.
My fingers were clamped around a red Solo cup, its plastic flimsy against my palm, filled to the brim with lukewarm tap water.
A black hoodie swallowed my frame, the hood drawn tight, its drawstrings pulled until the fabric nearly obscured my eyes.
Sweat slicked my skin, a sheen across my forehead and down my back.
The heat inside the house was a suffocating blanket, but the cotton offered no relief, only a denser insulation.
Beneath it, on the curve of my neck where it met my shoulder, a bandage pressed against a patch of skin that felt raw and bruised.
Jax’s bite, a furious purple-black, lay hidden there, a brand two nights old.
It pulsed in time with the music, a secret, aching beat.
My gaze swept across the room. A churning sea of bodies swayed, pressed shoulder to shoulder, a dense mass of college students.
The entire hockey team, a hulking presence of muscle and bravado, was here.
Half of sorority row glittered amidst them, their laughter shrill.
Scattered throughout were the puck bunnies, their eyes bright, scanning for a jersey to claim before the night ended.
Jax dominated the living room's core.
He perched on the back of a beat-up leather sofa, his feet propped carelessly on the cushions.
A beer bottle rested in one hand, condensation beading on its glass.
He looked like a king on a throne of trash, surveying his kingdom.
A tight white t-shirt stretched across his chest, emphasizing the tanned swell of his biceps, and a backwards cap sat low on his head.
His mouth stretched into a wide, easy laugh that cut through the surrounding din.
A blonde girl, a volleyball player he’d mentioned, or perhaps another one – they all blurred into a single, glittering image tonight – leaned into his space.
Her hand rested on his knee, her fingers splayed casually against the denim of his jeans.
I watched her hand.
A sudden, hot constriction seized my throat, tasting like bile.
My fingers tightened on the Solo cup, the plastic groaning under the pressure.
The urge to crush it, to splinter it into sharp, jagged pieces, became a physical ache in my palm.
I had no right. The words echoed in the hollow space behind my ribs.
I wasn't his. Not in any way that mattered to the outside world.
I was his dirty secret, the collateral he kept in the dark to keep his head straight, a desperate, shameful bargain.
But the sight of her hand, so casual, so public, so utterly fearless, made my stomach clench.
Jax’s head snapped up.
His eyes, dark as bruised plums, sliced through the haze of smoke and bodies.
They found me instantly, pinned me in the kitchen corner.
No smile touched his lips. No flicker of recognition, not even a subtle nod.
He simply stared, a long, unblinking gaze.
His eyes drifted down, settling on the bulk of my hoodie, lingering on the spot where the bandage lay hidden.
Then, they climbed back to my face. His pupils seemed dilated, glossy and unfocused, not exactly drunk, but loose.
A dangerous, uncoiled edge shimmered within their depths.
He lifted his beer bottle, took a slow, deliberate sip, his eyes never leaving mine.
The blonde girl whispered something into his ear, her lips brushing his lobe. He didn't flinch. He didn't respond. He simply watched me watch him.
"Tom? Earth to Tom."
My head jerked to the left, a sharp, involuntary movement. Tyler, the assistant captain, loomed beside me. He was a mountain of a man, a defenseman with a nose that had been broken three times and a wide, a “suck my dick” grin that promised trouble.
His eyes scraped down my body, slow as a blade drawn across skin, tracing the rise of my chest under the shirt's fabric, then dipping lower to fix on the bulge at my crotch, a raw, perverted gleam igniting in them that sent heat flushing through my veins, prickling every inch of exposed skin until I shifted under the weight of his stare.
"Hey, Ty," my voice rasped, thin and dry.
"You look like you're at a funeral, man," Tyler bellowed, his voice straining over the pounding music. A heavy hand clapped down on my shoulder—the wrong shoulder, thank God, the one free of the bandage. "Drink up. We beat Ohio State. It's a celebration."
"I'm good with water. Big test on Monday."
Tyler rolled his eyes, the gesture a practiced dismissal. "Nerd. Jax said you were studying your ass off. Said you've been practically living in the library."
My stomach muscles drew tight, a knot of apprehension. "Yeah. He's been... helping me focus."
Tyler laughed, a booming sound that reverberated in my chest. "Jax?
Focusing? The guy's been an animal this week.
Whatever he's doing, it's working. He's playing out of his mind.
But he's wired tight. Snapped a stick in practice yesterday just because Mills missed a pass.
" Tyler leaned closer, his voice dropping, a conspiratorial murmur against my ear.
"Between you and me? I think he needs to get laid.
Like, seriously laid. Maybe that blonde will fix him. "
My gaze darted back to the living room.
The sofa back was empty. Jax was gone. The blonde girl stood alone by the discarded beer bottles, her head swiveling, a small frown pulling at her lips.
A cold, sharp prickle crawled up the back of my neck, the immediate onset of dread.
"Yeah," I mumbled to Tyler, the word barely audible above the bass. "Maybe."
"I'm grabbing a refill. You want a shot? Tequila?"
"No, I'm—"
A hand, warm and calloused, clamped onto my bicep.
The grip was familiar, a hard, possessive squeeze.
Fingers dug into the muscle with enough force to leave bruises.
I didn't need to turn to know who it was.
The scent enveloped me—cedar, stale beer, and the electric hum of raw aggression that was uniquely Jax.
"Borrowing him," Jax’s voice rumbled, low and guttural, directly into my ear.
Tyler looked up, a flicker of surprise in his eyes, then grinned. "All yours, Cap. Try to get him to drink something other than tap water."
"Oh, I'll get something down his throat," Jax replied, the words thick with a double entendre so blatant, so reckless, that my breath hitched. Tyler, oblivious, simply saluted with his cup and melted into the crowd, heading toward the keg.
Jax didn't wait. He spun me around, his grip never loosening, and marched me out of the kitchen.
He didn't steer me toward the front door.
He didn't turn toward the stairs that led to the bedrooms. Instead, he shoved me down the narrow hallway that snaked toward the back mudroom and the downstairs half-bath.
It was a bottleneck, clogged with a queue of people waiting for the toilet, but Jax plowed through them like an icebreaker.
"Move," he barked at a couple plastered against the wall, locked in a fervent kiss. They scrambled apart, eyes wide.
He reached the door of the coat closet tucked under the stairs. It was not a bathroom. It was a tiny, angled space where the team tossed their winter parkas and muddy snow boots. He yanked the door open, shoved me inside, and then stepped in after me.
The space was microscopic, suffocating. It reeked of wet wool, dust motes, and old rubber boots. Heavy coats hung from a rod, brushing against our faces, their damp fabric clinging. The slanted ceiling of the staircase pressed down, a claustrophobic weight.
Jax didn't close the door.
He left it cracked open, a six-inch sliver.
A sharp blade of hallway light cut across the planes of his face. The music still blared, the bass thumping a relentless rhythm against the thin drywall. Laughter, fragments of conversation, and the shuffle of feet passed just feet away.
"Jax, the door," I whispered, my voice tight with panic, my hand reaching instinctively for the handle.
He slapped my hand away. "Leave it."
He crowded me back, his body a solid wall, until my shoulders hit the rough plaster. He pressed his length against mine, hip to hip, chest to chest. His heat radiated, a furnace through the layers of my hoodie, soaking into my skin.
"You were looking at her," he growled, his voice a low rumble, slurring slightly, the words thick with accusation.
"What?"
"The blonde. You were watching her touch me."
"I was standing in the kitchen, Jax. You were the one letting her paw you."
"Jealous?"
"No." The lie tasted bitter, sticking to my tongue like gravel I couldn’t spit.
"Liar."
He grabbed my chin, his fingers digging into my jaw, forcing my head up.
His eyes were dark pools, pupils blown wide and black in the dim light.
"You looked like you wanted to kill her," he whispered, a note of dark delight in his tone.
"You looked like you wanted to walk over there and tell her who owns you. "
"I... I didn't..."
"You did. I saw it. I felt it."
He released my face, his hand dropping, a heavy weight, to my crotch. He squeezed the denim of my jeans. I hissed, a sharp intake of breath. My cock, already thick and heavy, had been straining against the fabric since his hand clamped onto my bicep in the kitchen.
"See?" he murmured, a low, satisfied sound. "Hard for me. Always hard for me."