28. Penn
twenty-eight
penn
Someone follows Sydney.
Someone who breaks into her house the same way I do, who rifles through her belongings—particularly her underwear drawer. Someone who counted the cash she took from me but left it exactly where it was.
It’s easy to be obsessed with her.
Oliver told me about the break-in and the girl with the strange, silver eyes, and I couldn’t grasp how someone from SJU could be so bold and so fucking stupid. But then, later, he finds her at a party. He sees her full face. He learns her name.
Sydney, sure. But Windsor .
Frank Windsor has been in our lives for years. Since Ollie was first learning how to skate, anyway, and then when I came along a few years later.
Even thinking back, though, I couldn’t remember him having a daughter. I have vague memories of a young girl on the ice with us, but she always did her own thing. And at that age, ten or eleven, girls were gross.
Hockey was cool.
Her father is who put me in the crease for the very first time. Goaltending isn’t for the faint-hearted, and my father did everything he could to discourage my interest in the position. I still remember how he planted me in the net and sent the puck at me as hard as he could.
It didn’t dissuade me. In fact, I stopped more than half of his shots.
And when I got to practice the next day, I was fired up and Coach was ready to direct my energy.
Moral of the story: I owe him. It’s why I chose FSU, why I worked my ass off in high school to excel and get a scholarship. I don’t really care about professional hockey, but I do want to find kids like me and help them excel.
All that to say, Sydney Windsor should’ve been off-limits. And in a way, she definitely is. If Coach were to find out the extent of my interest in her…
And Oliver’s, I allow. The asshole doesn’t want to admit it, but he finds her every bit as fascinating as I do.
But most recent nights, when I slip into her apartment and find things rearranged, I’m concerned. I put things back the way they should be, closing her drawer and straightening things that just feel off. I don’t want her to worry.
I’ll handle worrying.
I climb the fire escape, and the feeling of being watched hits me. Ironic, since I like to be the watcher. I pause in the shadows and scan the road below me.
Empty.
After the fight, and our final show with Bear, she left with Maddy. She didn’t seem particularly intent on talking to either of us, and I can’t really say I blame her.
I didn’t want to see her either.
She smelled like sex. Her hair had been messed with. Her glorious, thick, dark hair. Even after sitting through a hockey game and traveling to the warehouse, the scent clung to her like perfume.
I have a suspect in mind.
The window slides open easily. I thought it might be locked, but there’s a little paper taped to the sill. It flutters as the breeze catches the edge of it, and I use my phone’s screen light to make out her loopy handwriting.
Does he visit?
I smirk at that, because I do visit.
I have been visiting.
My feet touch down on her carpet noiselessly, and I slowly lower the window behind me. It’s cold outside. The chill might wake her up, even if fucking her doesn’t.
She’s buried under blankets, her hair fanned out on her pillow. I toe off my shoes and cross the bedroom to her. It’s lit by the moon and a streetlight that shines in a warm yellow light, although the blinds on the window closest to the road are mostly shut.
My dick wakes up at the sight of her. I peel the blankets off her slowly, careful not to disturb her. She sleeps in panties and an oversized shirt most nights, and today is no different.
I’m obsessed with her.
I can’t get enough of her.
It almost doesn’t matter that Oliver saw her first.
I leave my jeans in a pile at the edge of the bed and climb over her. I want to touch her, so I fucking touch her. I push her shirt up to get a look at her full breasts. She’s got some curves—more than some, less than a lot—but I love the feel of her.
The bruising stands out in sharp relief, and it makes me sick all over again.
The extent of the trauma didn’t become clear until I arrived at the warehouse. They wanted to lock me out. Oliver came to confront me, to get me to leave.
Bullshit .
“I’m doing this because of you,” he said at the time.
So kind of him.
We’ve always gotten along well. He’s more family than my blood relatives, that’s for sure, and it only took spending one holiday alone—Thanksgiving last year—for his family to invite me along.
Honorary Ruiz.
Still, I was tempted to deck him.
He wanted Sydney to give up secrets to them—he wanted to prove she was untrustworthy.
I know she’s the opposite.
When he finally gave up and agreed for me to come in and get her, we found… Bear. Her skin was almost blue in the face, her eyes wild. I’ll never forget the way she looked, and the visceral panic that claimed her as soon as I got the knot undone.
His dick wasn’t out.
That, I think, is the only reason Oliver didn’t murder him. Not that either of us have committed murder. But for her? I’m leaning toward that being a viable fucking option.
She shifts onto her back, her head rolling to the side. There’s a new little nick on her neck, a scabbed-over cut…
I hover over her, and regardless of what’s been done to her, my cock is already fucking dripping for her. I tug her panties aside and stroke her clit until she squirms.
I push inside slow enough that my muscles tremble. This is an exercise in patience. Once I’m fully seated inside her, I exhale. My body aches from the fight, but I put it out of my mind and lower myself down.
My weight settles on hers. I’ve been experimenting with how much she can take without waking, and the answer is—a lot. My girl is a deep fucking sleeper. Before, I was hesitant to touch her more than necessary. But now, I know I can settle my hips against hers and lower myself so we’re chest to chest.
She moves less when I fuck her like this.
Eventually, we’ll do this when she’s awake. I shift my hips, my movements miniscule. It sends little zaps of pleasure up my cock and along the base of my spine. My lips touch her bruised throat, but her breathing remains even.
The first time I did this, I couldn’t believe she stayed asleep. I kept expecting her to wake up halfway through, for her eyes to open confused and switch to fear or surprise.
I’ve never met anyone who sleeps this deeply. And unlike when she’s awake, her face is free of worry or stress. I didn’t realize how much tension she holds in her face until I saw her without it.
Unconscious.
I move faster, my forearms braced on either side of her head, until the racing pleasure shoots down my spine and down my dick. I close my eyes and clench my teeth. I stay inside her for a moment, moving to feel more. To plug her up for just one more minute.
When my cock softens, I pull out. I adjust her panties back into place and lower her shirt. I touch the pendant around her neck, smiling to myself. This part is more of a ritual than anything. I cover her with the blankets, clean my cock on something in her hamper. Put my clothes back on.
Sometimes I check her apartment. Other times, I just leave the way I came.
And when I get home, I sleep like a fucking baby.
Tonight, I decide to do a walk-through.
Tonight I slip out of her room and come face-to-face with her stalker.
He stands in the center of the living room with his hands in his pockets, his expression carefully blank. It must be work for him to keep it that way and not show me his cards. Ollie gets like that sometimes, too. He strives to be a closed book and ends up looking constipated.
“What a surprise.” I mirror his stance. “Carter Masters. I didn’t hear you come in.”
He clenches his jaw. “I have a key.”
“A stolen key?”
He doesn’t answer. He seems to be considering something. Me, more than likely. But I’ve played against him enough to know some of his tells. That’s the hazard of rival schools so close together.
We play each other a lot. And this feels a lot like a shoot-out, staring down the opposing player and wondering who’s going to give in and move first.
Anything I know about him can also be applied to what he knows of me.
“Did you see my handiwork?” he asks.
I narrow my eyes.
“I’ll take that as a no.” He smirks. “How about this: you stop sneaking in here like a fucking creep, and I won’t call the cops.”
“Did you peek into the bedroom when you got here?”
His smirk fades while mine grows.
“Carter Masters, her ex-boyfriend stalker and peeping Tom. That’s not much of a stretch.” I cross to the living room windows, looking out at the street. “You must have a good hiding place out there. I didn’t see you.”
He grunts.
My gaze lifts to the building across the street. “Did Masters rent himself an apartment in Framingham to spy on her?” I muse to myself. “If I were him?—”
“Fine.”
I glance over my shoulder. “So our nighttime activities will remain off her radar?”
He nods once, his jaw muscle popping.
Lovely.
“Nice doing business with you, Masters.” I pass him and head for the door. No use climbing down the fire escape if he’s just going to lock the door behind me. “If you wake her up, make sure she knows the cum between her legs isn’t yours.”