Chapter 3 #2
"Is that right?" I took a step closer. I was crowding her now, using my height to shield her from the rest of the room. "And Russo? Was he stimulating your intellect? Or was he just trying to figure out if those leggings are as tight as they look?"
Her breath hitched. A flush of pink rose on her cheeks. "He was being nice. Which is a foreign concept to you, I know. But some people actually talk to women without barking orders."
"He doesn't want to talk, Ivy."
"And you do?" She arched a brow. "You've been staring at me from the stairs for five minutes. You looked like you wanted to snap his neck."
"I was assessing the room."
"You were assessing me."
"Don't flatter yourself."
"I don't have to," she whispered, stepping forward. She was brave. Stupidly brave. She was now inches from me. She looked up, her eyes challenging. "I saw your face, Ben. You were jealous."
The accusation hung in the air between us, heavier than the humidity.
"Jealous," I repeated, letting the word roll around in my mouth like a stone. "Of a backup linebacker with a 2.0 GPA?"
"Jealous," she insisted, "that he was making me laugh. And you can barely make me look at you without scowling."
My hand twitched. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to wrap my hand around that defiant throat and tilt her head back. I wanted to prove to her that I wasn't jealous—I was possessive. And there was a difference. Jealousy was fear of losing something. Possessiveness was knowing it was already yours.
"I don't care who makes you laugh," I lied, my voice dropping to a gravelly murmur. "I care that you're wearing my name on your chest while you flirt with my teammates. It’s disrespectful."
She looked down at the logo on the hoodie. BLACKSTONE HOCKEY.
"Technically," she murmured, "I'm wearing the team name. Not yours."
"Turn around," I said.
She blinked. "What?"
"Turn around. Let me see the back."
She hesitated, then slowly pirouetted.
On the back of the hoodie, in bold block letters, was the name: STERLING. And the number 4.
She was wearing my name.
Seeing it branded across her shoulders hit me with the force of a cross-check. It looked right. It looked... permanent.
She turned back around, a smug little smile playing on her lips. "Satisfied?"
"Take it off," I said. The words were out of my mouth before I could check them.
Her smile faltered. Her eyes widened. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. It's mine. Take it off."
The air between us sizzled. The music seemed to fade away. The people around us blurred into background noise. It was just me and her, and the challenge I had just thrown at her feet.
"Here?" she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper. "In the middle of the living room?"
"If you want to keep wearing my name," I said, leaning down until my mouth was right next to her ear, "you have to earn it. And right now? You haven't earned a damn thing."
She shivered. I felt it ripple through her body.
"You're a tyrant," she breathed.
"I'm the Captain," I corrected. "And in this house, what I say goes."
"Ben! My man!"
The moment shattered.
Jax appeared out of nowhere, draping a heavy arm around my shoulders. He smelled like tequila and bad decisions.
"We need a ruling!" Jax shouted, oblivious to the fact that I was about two seconds away from committing a felony. "Rook says a hot dog is a sandwich. I say it's a taco. You're the tie-breaker."
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, fighting the urge to throw Jax through the window.
I pulled away from Ivy. The loss of proximity was immediate and painful. I felt cold.
"It's a sandwich," I muttered to Jax, not looking away from Ivy.
"Ha!" Jax pointed at Rook across the room. "In your face, Vane!"
I looked back at Ivy. She was still pressed against the mantel, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She looked rattled. Good.
"Go upstairs," I told her quietly. "This party is going to get messy. And I don't want to have to rescue you again."
She stiffened, her "armor" sliding back into place. She lifted her chin, transforming back into the untouchable heiress.
"Don't worry, Sterling," she said, her voice icy. "I can handle myself. I don't need a savior. Especially not one who's afraid of a little competition."
She turned on her heel and walked away. But she didn't go upstairs. She walked straight toward the kitchen, where the tequila was.
I watched her go.
Competition.
She thought Russo was competition?
She had no idea.
Twenty minutes later, I found myself in the pantry.
It was a narrow, walk-in space off the kitchen, stocked with industrial-sized bags of rice and crates of Gatorade. It was quiet, dark, and cool.
I had come in here to get a new sleeve of cups, ostensibly. In reality, I was hiding.
I grabbed the red cups from the shelf, my hands shaking slightly. I was losing control. The way she had looked at me... the way she had challenged me...
The door creaked open behind me.
I spun around, ready to snap at Jax or Rook.
It was Ivy.
She slipped inside and closed the door behind her, plunging us into semi-darkness. The only light came from the crack under the door.
She locked it.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
"What are you doing?" I asked, my voice low.
"Hiding," she whispered. She leaned back against the door, her hands behind her back. "Russo tried to show me his 'touchdown dance.' It involved a lot of gyrating. I needed an escape route."
"And you chose the pantry?"
"It smelled like you in here."
The admission hung in the air.
I dropped the cups. They clattered to the floor, rolling away in the dark.
I took a step toward her. There was nowhere for her to go. She was pressed against the door. I placed my hands on the wood on either side of her head, caging her.
"You're playing a dangerous game, Ivy," I warned her. "Coming in here. Locking the door."
"I'm not playing," she said. Her voice was trembling, but her gaze was steady.
She reached out, her hand hovering over my chest. She didn't touch me, but I could feel the heat of her palm through my shirt.
"You keep telling me to leave. You keep telling me I'm a distraction. But you won't stop looking at me."
"Because you're everywhere," I growled. "You're in my kitchen. You're in my shirt. You're in my head."
"Is that so bad?" she whispered. "Being in your head?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because," I leaned down, my forehead resting against hers. I breathed in her scent—vanilla and fear and desire. "Because when I think about you, I don't think about hockey. I don't think about the draft. I think about this."
I moved my hand, tracing the line of her jaw with my thumb. Her skin was soft, impossibly soft. She leaned into the touch, a small sound escaping her throat.
"I think about how small you are," I murmured. "I think about how easy it would be to pick you up. To put you on one of these shelves. To make you forget your own name."
She gasped, her fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. "Ben..."
"I think about ruining you, Ivy," I confessed, the words tearing out of me. "And I can't afford to ruin anything right now."
"Maybe..." she breathed, her lips brushing against my jaw as she spoke. "Maybe I want to be ruined."
The invitation was there. Explicit. Undeniable.
My control snapped.
I moved my hand to the back of her neck, tangling my fingers in her hair. I tilted her head back. Her lips were right there. Parted. Waiting.
I was going to kiss her. I was going to devour her. I was going to break every rule I had ever set for myself.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Yo! Who locked the pantry? We need chips!"
It was Tank Russo. Pounding on the door right behind Ivy’s head.
We froze.
The reality of where we were—a pantry, in the middle of a rager, with my teammates three inches of wood away—crashed back in.
I pulled back. It took every ounce of physical strength I possessed to remove my hand from her neck.
Ivy looked dazed. Her eyes were blown wide, her lips swollen even though I hadn't kissed her.
"Open it," I whispered, stepping back into the shadows of the shelves. "Open the door."
She blinked, disoriented. "Ben..."
"Open it, Ivy. Before I do something that gets us both in trouble."
She stared at me for a heartbeat longer, a look of hurt and confusion flashing across her face. Then, she turned around. She unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Russo stumbled in. "Whoa. Ivy? What are you doing in—" He saw me in the shadows. "Oh. Captain. Uh... chips?"
"Top shelf," I rasped. "Take the whole bag."
I pushed past them, storming out of the pantry and into the kitchen. I didn't look back. I couldn't.
Because if I looked back, I knew I wouldn't leave.
I needed ice. I needed silence. I needed to get the hell out of this house, but the storm trapped me here with her.
And the storm inside me was getting worse than the one outside.