21. RYAN
RYAN
“Ready to eat ice, McKinnon?” I say, bent over for the face-off. He smirks, and the motherfucker takes off with the puck. I hate that McKinnon has the perfect family life and he’s just that good at hockey. It’s not fucking fair that he gets both.
But we win, and Coach Bruce is so happy that he actually tells us good job in the locker room.
It’s a double Shadowridge weekend at North Point, a game on Saturday and Sunday.
I sign out with the guys to attend the post-victory party we have to throw off-campus—there are no parties at North Point—but I don’t go to the party.
They drop me at the hotel Tate requested I meet him at.
Saturday night is the only day we can meet without arousing suspicion.
I thought about telling him to go fuck himself and heading to the party instead.
I’m nothing but an afterthought to him, I should at least give the impression that he’s just as unimportant to me.
But there’s no way I was going to do that.
I’m pathetically in love with him. Against my will.
Love takes hostages, and that’s a hill I’ll die on.
So even if it’s just me yelling at him, and him threatening to lock me in his dungeon next to Kline, I’m going.
“Um, for VanCourt,” I say to the receptionist. It’s one of those hotels where you need a card to get up to your desired floor.
She smiles, giving me a look that says she knows I’m about to fuck or be fucked. “Yes. Here you go. Your husband is waiting for you in the penthouse.”
He told this Gen Z girlie pop he was waiting for his husband? I flush, still not used to that. And it makes me feel owned, which apparently, I find hot. At least my body does, about to combust. I clear my throat. “The penthouse?”
Her head turns side-to-side as if she’s checking that the coast is clear. She leans forward. “Is it a special occasion?” she whispers. “We’re low-key curious.”
“We?”
“The staff. Sorry. I know it’s so unprofessional, I could lose my job for asking, but hardly anyone reserves the penthouse at this hotel. So, is it a special occasion? Or, oh my god, oh my god! Do you have one of those dreamy husbands who’s always doing super romantic things for you?”
There’s a pang in my chest. I don’t even need “super romantic things,” but a husband who talks to me would be nice. Ugh. To which I once again have to remind myself, I knew what I was walking into with this marriage. He’s a fake husband, not a real one.
Still hate him, though, almost as much as my pathetic ass loves him.
“We just got married,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
She’s so excited, and I want a piece of that thrill before I have to go upstairs and fight with said husband.
“We haven’t had the chance to go on our honeymoon, so he’s trying to make up for it.
I told him he doesn’t have to, but he refuses to take no for an answer. ”
She squeals. “I knew it was something like that.” She winks. “Shoo. Get your man. I could tell he was anxious to see you.”
That’s odd. I roll that thought around as I head toward the elevator. Tate doesn’t have feelings. For someone to claim to see anxiousness on him makes me anxious. Did something happen?
It’s a long ride up to the penthouse. Tate might not feel much, but I feel everything, and every feeling imaginable congeals in my stomach.
Even excitement. After weeks of not seeing him, and having a long, one-sided conversation, I can’t even help the tingling in my chest. I can’t believe I still want to see the asshole.
Taking a breath, I knock on the hotel room door.
It opens immediately, as if he were waiting there, and he yanks me into the entryway.
The door slams closed, lighting dim but enough for me to see his steel-gray eyes. Front-desk girl was right. There’s anxiety in them, but Tate will always suffocate anxiety with scrupulous control.
I’m in for a night.
There are two wars. The one Tate and I fight—begrudgingly—together, and the more violent and destructive one we fight against each other. If we’re unsuccessful, it’ll be because we’ve killed each other. It’s my only way out of this marriage, so murdering my “dear husband” isn’t off the table, yet.
I never got a copy of the marriage certificate. That’s Tate’s property, like everything else.
Including me.
All the words I’ve been waiting to scream at him die on my tongue.
We come together at the same time. Vicious lips and vicious tongues.
The only thing that really matters to us.
We don’t care about anything, not even breathing, if it gets in the way of kissing each other.
Every second of every day that I’ve craved him comes out of me.
The sounds of us mauling one another fill the entryway.
I need to get closer to him. Closer. Closer.
Need our hands on each other.
Can’t keep our hands off each other.
And it means he craved me, too. Maybe I don’t have anything else, but I have that.
We pull away panting. Glaring at each other.
“In,” he says, yanking me by the wrist. This place is wow.
No wonder the front desk woman was squealing.
It’s the height of extravagance. A couch that could seat twenty in front of floor-to-ceiling windows.
Full kitchen. Fireplace. He drags me to the stairs, and at the top is a large, round bed covered in buttery black silk. “Clothes. Off.”
I’m too goddamn horny to resist. I need him. Want his big cock fucking me into that ostentatious mattress. We undress at the speed of light, both of us taking the opportunity to leer. Tate’s magnificent. Looming. Lips puffy from the way I was sucking them.
He steps toward me, close enough for his aura to swallow me and make me forget anything else but him. His thumb finds that place, the one between my bottom lip and the edge of my chin, nestling there, large fingers cupping my jaw. “God, you’re beautiful, dollface.”
Tate’s other hand palms and strokes my dick a few times, as he comes in for a kiss, and I moan into his mouth. “Want you,” he murmurs.
“Want you so fucking bad,” I admit.
“Can’t fucking believe you were showing this to your friends,” he growls, squeezing harder.
I wasn’t. We got into a conversation about our dick sizes. Don’t ask. But when Tate assumed that I was whipping my dick around the locker room, I loved how jealous he got. I knew it would get his attention.
“Guess you’d better stake your claim,” I say instead of admitting the truth. “Or maybe I do more than whip my dick out.”
Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I’m having a hindsight moment, but taking a metaphorical cattle prod to the possessive beast in him brings me unparalleled joy. There’s a solid shove against my chest. I land on a bed of silk.
He tosses something at me, neon moonlight filtering over his taut skin. Tatum VanCourt is a mountain of a man. They must begin injecting VanCourts with steroids at birth. He’s bigger than I am, and I’m not a small guy by any stretch of the imagination.
“What’s this?” I say, turning it over in my hands. It’s a brown leather wrist cuff with a bold letter V in elegant font embossed into a square of paler brown.
“That’s your fucking collar, and I’d better never see you without it.”
I grit my teeth. “You’re a fucking asshole.”
He grabs my face, my jaw in one hand, digging his thumb and pointer finger into the cheeks, squeezing.
“Watch your fucking mouth when you speak to me.” He releases me roughly. “Put it on. Now.”
It’s okay. It’s okay, Ryan. One day you’re gonna put a knife through his fucking eye, and you’ll get to watch the life bleed out of him as you twist it.
Could I actually kill Tate? No. I know it in my bones, but they’re comfort thoughts. And who knows? If this keeps up, maybe I’ll be the one to fucking snap one day.
The cuff fits my wrist perfectly, as if it were made for me.
I secure the snaps, turning my arm over and over to get a good visual.
To see what other people will see. A sign of his ownership.
Something that says I belong to him. A thrill goes through me.
Straight to my fucking cock. I wish my body wouldn’t do that.
“What am I supposed to do? Pretend I’m involved in some sort of sex cult? Because my father won’t like that.”
He tries to grab my face again, and I slap his arm away this time, putting real strength behind it. He laughs like I’m a kitten swatting at a tiger. I’ll admit it, I am. I had no fucking clue what getting involved with him was really gonna be like. But I’ll never let him know that.
“You don’t belong to him anymore. You belong to me. You should be worried about what I want, dollface.”
My teeth grind. That name. Because he says I have the face of a pretty doll. Only him. No one’s ever mistaken me for a fucking doll before. They’re usually running the other way from me.
“Whatever. Are you gonna fuck me, or should I go? There’s a victory party that—”
In a swift motion, he flips me onto my stomach and cages me in with his body. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re fucking mine.”
Sticking my ass out, I hope that’s enough of a sign for him to stick his cock in me. I don’t want to beg tonight or ask. I just want him to take me. Even if he’s low-key making me. I need this. Need him. But I also don’t want him at the same time. I want to shove him away, make him fight me.
He backs up. The bed dips behind me. A thick thumb pushes its way inside. I cry out. It’s the best thumb in the world. I haven’t done anything but play with my own dick for weeks.
“Look at your ass, begging for it.” Goddamn him. I’m not even trying to beg for it. How have I become so obsessed with one man—the wrong man? “Your body knows it’s mine. Let’s hear you say it.”
I won’t. I won’t, I won’t, I fucking won’t.
But there’s lube and more fingers and then his cock, and I’m undone. I bite my lip in half to keep the words in, only desperate moans and cries getting out as the head of his cock beats a ruthless pattern against my prostate.
“Tell me you’re mine.”