Chapter 18
eighteen
MAINE
The club is a study in sensory overload—strobing lights that turn the crowd into a stop-motion film of writhing bodies, bass that pounds so hard it replaces my heartbeat, and the mingled scents of sweat, cologne, and spilled liquor creating a cloud of Saturday-night desperation.
Perfect.
Chaos and mess and irresponsibility.
Exactly what I need.
Because the past few days in our apartment have been… wrong. Ever since The Blanket and Lasagna Incident (and yes, that’s what I’m calling it in my head because giving it any other name would require acknowledging what it actually was), there’s been this shift between us.
A dangerous softening of the edges.
We’ve continued having sex and calling it casual, but it’s what’s been happening around that that’s starting to worry me. Shared moments, tender touches, laughs aplenty—and not just because I’m buttering her up to win the bet.
I’m feeling something for Maya I absolutely cannot afford.
Because the bet still looms large over me and over us, and is in fact the reason Rook has organized this night out at the club. He wants to get eyes on his investment, so he invited Sophie and Maya and some other girls as well, and the rest of the hockey idiots are along for the ride, too.
“Yo, Hamilton!” Rook’s elbow catches me in the ribs, jolting me back to the present. “Cold feet?”
The entire hockey team knows about the bet—word travels fast when there’s money on the line—and I can feel their eyes on me like spotlights now, waiting for the next act in the Maine Show.
Most of the guys think I’ve got it in the bag, but little do they know I’m actually developing real feelings for Maya.
Well, time to give them what they want.
“Just scoping the territory,” I tell Rook, forcing my trademark grin, the one that says I’m completely in control and that this is all just another Saturday night.
Maya is across the room with her friends, and even in the chaotic lighting, she’s impossible to miss.
She’s wearing a dress that should be illegal—black, tight, reaching mid-thigh—and when she turns to talk to someone, the fabric shifts, and I catch a glimpse of the curve of her ass that has me staring.
“So?” Schmidt slides up beside us, beer in hand. “Are you making any progress? The clock’s ticking, man. Finals are in, what, six weeks?”
I have six weeks to make Maya fall in love with me or I owe six guys a hundred bucks each. Money I literally cannot afford to lose, not after my latest donation to the ‘keep-my-parents-out-of-the-shit’ fund, and when I’m basically eating Maya’s food when mine runs out.
I wouldn’t feel like such an asshole about that—or about my feelings for her—if I could get out of the bet or if I’d never made the damn thing.
Because, then, her falling in love with me would be a positive, rather than starting a ticking time bomb that would detonate her heart when she finds out the truth.
So, here I am, getting crushed.
Between feelings I can’t afford and a bet I can’t afford to get out of.
Just playing for time.
“Progress?” I force a laugh that sounds more confident than I feel. “Dude, I’m playing the long game here. You can’t rush perfection.”
But Rook’s not buying it. “Long game, my ass. You’ve been fucking her for weeks and there’s no evidence she’s on her way to Love Town.”
The challenge in his voice sets my teeth on edge. This is the problem with my reputation—I’ve spent so long being the life of any party, the guy who makes big claims and then backs them up—that now I have to live up to it. So I do what I always do, decide it’s time for a grand gesture.
I flag down a waitress and slip her a twenty-buck tip. “Your boss is Danny, right?”
She nods. “So?”
“Well, he owes me one, so ask him to comp me a bottle of champagne—the good stuff—and send it over to that table.” I point at Maya’s table. “Cool?”
She gives me a look that says I better not be wasting her time, but twenty bucks on the table for her combines with my confidence.
I’ve got no doubt Danny will agree to the request, because while I’m short of cash, I’m big on social currency, and I’d taken his kid under my wing last year before he moved schools.
“And give her this.” I grab a cocktail napkin and scrawl a brief message: For the queen.
It’s cheesy, but it’s also public and visible, the kind of move my teammates expect from me. It’ll get them off my back about the bet for a while and stop them from calling it in early when they don’t see any progress. It’s a hit down the ice to buy time for a line change.
But it’ll also do absolutely nothing to dispel the growing magic between Maya and me.
And, if I’m being honest, I don’t want it to, even though that magic is getting me into hot water.
So I just have to hope that in buying time I can find a way to score the girl and pay off the bet, because fuck knows I want the girl.
Get her to declare her everlasting love, say it back to her, win the bet, and don’t tell her , my mind helpfully suggests, not for the first time, but I disregard it.
Because if Maya and I are going to be anything, it can’t start on a lie.
No, I need to figure this out.
Sure enough, when the waitress delivers the bottle and Maya reads the note, every hockey player in the vicinity takes notice. But I don’t give a shit what those idiots think right now, because Maya’s eyes find mine across the crowd, and she smiles at me.
“See?” I tell Rook, clinking my beer against his. “Progress.”
But as the night wears on and the alcohol flows, the inhibitions start to erode even more. The dance floor becomes a magnet, pulling everyone into its sweaty, pulsing center. I watch Maya disappear into the crowd with her friends, and something hot and possessive flares in my chest.
“Dude, she’s right there,” Mike says, appearing at my shoulder like the world’s most helpful wingman. “What are you waiting for?”
He’s right. I’m standing here like an idiot while she’s out there, probably grinding against some random asshole. So I wade into the crowd, letting the mass of bodies part around me, and find her in the center, because of course she is.
Maya doesn’t do anything by half.
She’s dancing with Sophie and another girl I don’t recognize, her arms raised above her head, completely lost in the music. The strobe lights catch on her skin, turning her into fragments of light and shadow, and I want nothing more in this moment than her.
I don’t ask.
I don’t announce myself.
I just move in behind her, close enough that she has to feel my presence even before we touch. It’s like the night of the party but so much more, because this time there’s no hesitation. She melts back against me like we’ve done this a thousand times, her ass grinding against me.
My hands find her hips, and, through the thin fabric of her dress, I can feel the heat of her skin and the subtle play of muscle as she moves. This was supposed to be for show, for the dozens of eyes I know are watching us, but the second we connect, something shifts.
“You feel good against me,” I murmur in her ear.
She doesn’t respond with words. Instead, she reaches back, her hand finding my thigh, nails digging in. It’s possessive, intimate, and mind-blowingly hot, doing nothing to fix my dilemma—the bet versus my real feelings for Maya—but right now all I want is her.
The crowd presses closer, the darkness between songs providing cover, and I decide that’s either brilliant or completely fucking stupid. My right hand slides from her hip, down to the hem of her dress, already riding high from her dancing and barely covering anything…
Don’t. This is insane. You’re in public. You already have feelings for her and ? —
But then she shifts, a subtle adjustment of her hips that gives me better access, and my brain short-circuits entirely.
My fingers slip under the fabric, finding smooth, warm skin.
She’s wearing something lacy, barely there, and when my middle finger presses against the fabric, I find it already soaking.
Fuck. Fuck .
She grinds back against me harder.
And it’s clear permission to take this as far as I want to go.
The crowd provides perfect cover. Everyone’s drunk, focused on their own grinding and groping. The lights are chaotic, disorienting. No one’s paying attention to my hand disappearing under her dress, to the way my finger slips beneath the edge of her panties.
The first touch of slick heat nearly brings me to my knees. She’s soaked, and the knowledge that I did this—that our dancing got her this worked up—sends a bolt of pure possessive pride through me. I sink one finger inside her, slow and deep, and feel her whole body shudder.
But here’s the thing that’s absolutely destroying me: she keeps dancing.
Her face stays neutral, maybe a little flushed, but to anyone watching, she’s just another girl lost in the music.
Only I can feel the way her inner muscles clench around my finger.
Only I can sense the tiny tremors running through her body.
Only I notice when she bites her lower lip, hard, to stifle a moan.
It’s the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced, the best episode of the Maine Show yet. This secret, this shared knowledge that I’m finger-fucking her in the middle of a packed dance floor and she’s taking it, working with it, turning it into part of her performance.
I add a second finger, curling them just right, moving faster and with more pressure. In return, her rhythm falters for just a second, and her hand on my thigh tightens to the point of actual pain, and I lean down to whisper in her ear again.
“You’re incredible,” I tell her, and I mean it.
Not just for the obvious reason—though Christ, the way she feels around my fingers is driving me insane—but also for the control, the daring, the way she’s turned what should be my move into our conspiracy. The way this woman can match me more than anyone on Earth.
And I love it.