Chapter 15
Wes
Hours after Isla and I verbally sparred in the gym, my body still buzzes.
She tilts my world on its axis, wreaking havoc on my emotions and making me question long-held decisions about my life. After my divorce, I chose to focus on my career and my family and not date. I never wanted to hand someone the power to decimate me again.
It’s never been a decision I’ve struggled with until Isla walked into my life, magnifying the loneliness that accompanies my choices.
I need a fucking drink.
“Davey!” My friend, Sam, shouts from the far side of the bar, which draws cheers from the rest of the guys huddled around him. The team has a standing happy hour each week at Crossroads, the only bar in our small town. One of our teammates, Victor, owns the place.
Sam pushes off the bar to greet me, and I smack the hand he holds out before we bump shoulders. “Wasn’t sure we’d see you tonight. Heard you got your hands full with your niece and her wicked right hook.”
I love it when the Boston comes out of Sam. We usually only see it when he gets fired up about a call or when he’s chirping our opponent.
I shift to his other side so he’s not speaking toward my ear with hearing loss. “She’s at a friend’s house under supervision.”
“No grounding? I thought you’d be stricter as a guardian,” Sam muses.
“It was self-defense, and she got a week.” I grab the glass that the bartender slides over to me, my usual beer on tap. I take a swig. “How’d you hear about this anyway?”
“How I hear about everything else. My wife.”
I glance around the bar, looking for Heather. “Where is she?”
“The sitter was running late, but she’ll be here.” Sam’s hands land on my shoulder. “Damn, I thought he got nowhere with her.”
I follow his gaze to the front door, to Max walking in with a woman—the one I can’t evict from my mind.
Heads turn as he leads Isla to this side of the room. Her hair flows down past her chest, the color popping against her plain black crop top beneath a thick gray cardigan sweater. That damn naval ring taunts me again, drawing my attention to a place my eyes have no business straying.
“Ah, fuck.” I hear Sam’s words distantly while my gaze remains on Isla walking towards us. “You like her.”
“I don’t.”
Sam narrows his eyes in disbelief.
“Fine,” I admit. “She’s gorgeous but she makes me want to rip out my hair. And no, I don’t like seeing her with Max be—”
“Because you want her for yourself,” Sam cuts in, his voice low enough to be drowned out by the din of noise in the bar.
“It’s not a good idea.”
“Wes, it’s been five years since your divorce, and I’ve never seen you look at a woman like this. Stop letting life happen to you, dude. Do something.”
Isla looks my way, and it’s game over. Her blue eyes, rimmed in black, pop even more tonight. It’s torture being this close to her, watching her beside someone else.
Maybe Sam is right. I can’t keep doing this to myself.
I lose my window to reply when Max reaches us. “Y’all remember Isla?”
“Despite my best efforts to forget,” I mutter, keeping my gaze on her, daring her to react. I’ve become so desperate for her attention that I’ll accept any, even if it’s not the kind I crave.
She scoffs, red lips twisting into a half-smirk. “Yeah, well, we can’t always be successful or it would become meaningless.”
Max throws an arm around her shoulders. “You’re such an ice queen. I dig it.”
Isla’s jaw tightens and her hand balls into a fist, but she doesn’t shove Max away like I expect her to, like she had when they first met at the rink weeks ago. She continues to glare at me, rosebud lips pursed, nostrils flared, eyes the color of a frozen lake.
The sick sense of satisfaction from her paying more attention to me than her date should concern me. But I cling to it as I fight the zip of anger from seeing his arm over her shoulders.
“Let’s get a drink,” he says.
She picks up Max’s arm, removing it from her shoulder. “A drink sounds good.”
“We’ll be back,” Max croons with a devious, knowing grin that makes my blood boil.
Sam snorts.
“Don’t fucking say it,” I snap, which breaks his laughter wide open.
Sam holds up his hands. “Wasn’t gonna,” he gasps.
I watch Isla with Max, ordering drinks at the bar and talking to Victor. She nods along and sips her beer. She’s not looking at him the way she did at me this morning, studying my body like she’d later be quizzed on it. There’s no banter between them, no current of energy.
They don’t have chemistry, not like we do. So, why the fuck is she with him?
I thought she didn’t remember me, but she knew all along that I was her first kiss. And now, Isla knows I didn’t forget her, that I always found her beautiful. Still, she’s here with some other fucking guy, and I’m supposed to stand here like it doesn’t have me in agony.
The next hour passes tortuously slow, like I’m watching particles of sand fall from one side of the hourglass to the other.
Isla stands across from me in the circle composed of my teammates and their significant others.
I try to focus my attention on my beer and ignore the sound of her voice.
She’s still her, with sharp one-liners and a ball-busting attitude, but she’s loosened up in a way I haven’t seen before. Maybe it’s the alcohol.
Or it’s an act to make me jealous, the way she smiles and nods along to Max. I catch her glancing over at me, or at least, I think I do. I might be projecting.
My entire body burns with jealousy. I don’t want any of these men to look at her, or talk to her, or buy her drinks.
They’re my teammates—my friends—but I want to deck every single one of them.
I want to throw her over my shoulder and carry her out of here, force her to face what she’s too stubborn to admit.
“Be right back,” I hear her say.
Fuck it.
Despite the crowd, it’s easy to track the color of her hair, illuminating each time she passes close to a table’s hanging light fixture. My long strides catch up with her, but I wait until we’re in the back hallway of the bar to speak.
“Did you come tonight to torture me, Isla?”
Her head whips around. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“No?”
“No, Wes,” she says. “I thought you retired to your crypt each night and charged up your curmudgeonly energy for the next day. You with friends? Blows. My. Mind.”
“You know what blows my mind?” I motion to her lengthwise, suffering the consequences of looking at her again, knowing I can’t touch her. “You, dressed like this, for a guy like that.”
A wire has tripped in my brain, switching from my usually logic-driven behavior to this emotional caveman who can’t see straight.
She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m here to drink and meet new people. I definitely didn’t think I’d see you.”
“So, all of this isn’t for Max?” I stalk toward her, and she lets me, her gaze devouring me from head to toe. She’s dealing with these unwanted feelings, too. “Because he’s a waste of your time, Isla.”
Surprise lights her eyes. Maybe she didn’t expect me to end our unspoken game. Or maybe she’s surprised I’m folding first.
She juts her chin. “I know what guys like him are good for.”
“You need someone to get you off?” I continue walking forward, and this time, she moves with me, allowing me to back her up against the wall.
She swallows hard. Her eyes lock on mine, pupils dilating by the second.
“Do you?” I press.
She nods, her lips parting, but she doesn’t say a word.
“Use me,” I tell her, keeping my gaze trained on her mouth, on that damn freckle on her bottom lip.
“What?”
“Use me, Isla.”
“But you don't like me.”
“I don't?” I press my lips to the side of her neck while my hand slides between her legs, over her shorts. It’s a tease, but her head hits the wall as she lets out a needy, desperate moan that sends all my blood pumping to my groin.
“Show me how much you don’t like me, Red,” I murmur breathlessly against her ear.
She bucks her hips against my hand, desperate for more pressure. I’m worried that she might change her mind, that she’s giving me a glimpse of exactly what I want before ripping it away. But I shove the thought from my head, focusing entirely on her.
I undo the top button of her shorts. My hand dips inside, between her legs, as I continue to kiss my way up and down her neck.
She’s soaked, coating my fingers as I apply pressure to her clit.
We’re in public, in a bar hallway, where anyone could stumble upon us, but I can’t find one part of me that cares.
Not with Isla finally at my mercy. Her eyes close as she lets out shallow breaths. Lost to my touch.
“Fuck, Isla. You need me to take care of you badly.”
The realization nearly buckles my knees. I need to hear it from her lips that she’s turned on because of me, not some other fucking guy.
I withdraw my fingers, and she groans in frustration. Her eyes pop open. “Why are you stopping?”
I run my thumb along her bottom lip, spreading her wetness. “Tell me who’s got you this worked up, Red.”
“What?”
My fingers are on her again, rubbing tight circles against the sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs. “Tell me who you want, Isla. Who you’ve been thinking about all night, who’s got you so worked up that you can barely think.”
“Wes.” She sighs my name, breathless and desperate, and my pants tighten. “I can’t stop thinking about you, and I fucking hate it.”
Isla palms me through my pants, bringing me to the edge with a single touch. I suck in a sharp breath, jerking away from her before I explode.
The bathroom door swings open, and the two of us snap apart from each other.
I maneuver my body to shield her from view of the guy coming out of the bathroom.
My brain sparks online again. I don’t want anyone else to see her like this, begging me for more with her body, moaning my name. We need privacy.
I clutch her hand in mine. “Come with me.”
Isla allows me to tug her down the hallway until we reach Victor’s office. I fumble in my pocket for the keys Victor gave me a couple of years ago when I worked at the bar part-time to earn extra money. With my shaking hands, it takes a few tries to find the key and insert it into the lock.
I heave a sigh when it clicks open.
“Do you own this place too?” she asks, with a smile in her voice. “Because I don’t know if I can take hearing about how you own the rink and the bar—”
I spin around to face a pink-faced Isla who bites her bottom lip to keep her smile in. Dammit, I want to see that smile even if it kills me.
“Don’t mouth off, Covington.” My hand twists open the knob, and I shove the door open with a thrust of my ass into it.
“Or what?”
“I leave you to take care of yourself.”
“Fine. Send Max. I’m sure he—”
I lift Isla into the air, tossing her over my shoulder, and head into the office. She lets out a yelp, but I’ve placed her on the ground before she has a chance to protest. I kick the door shut with my foot and walk her backward until she’s pressed against it.
“You’re such a fucking brat, you know that?”
“You seem to like it.”
I tuck a piece of strawberry-blond hair behind her ear, drunk on the way she studies my face. “I hate it, actually. I hate that every fucking thing you do distracts me, leaving me desperate to see what you’ll say next. What you’ll do next. I—”
Isla rises to her tiptoes, slides her hands around my neck, and crashes her mouth against mine.