Chapter 22
COLE
Hours later, Tristan and Eva laid in her bed, tangled up in one another, sleeping soundly.
I should have stood up hours ago, should have walked away the moment Tristan’s mouth touched her skin.
Instead, I’d sat here like a voyeur, watching him give her everything I’d been too proud and too cruel to offer.
My legs were numb, my back ached, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t stop torturing myself with the sight of what I’d thrown away.
Every minute had been agony—watching Eva’s face transform with pleasure, hearing her moan Tristan’s name. But leaving would mean accepting it was over, that I’d lost them both forever.
The door opened downstairs then closed. Her father. We were so fucked if he peeked in.
Footsteps ambled past Eva’s door, and I listened to him get ready for bed as I stared at his daughter, her pale skin luminescent in the moonlight.
Tristan, too, glowed with preternatural beauty.
They deserved each other, far more than I deserved them. I’d watched Tristan make love to her with a tenderness I’d never shown. All I’d ever done was take from her—her body, her dignity, her trust.
I’d resolved to be a better man, and that had to start now. By leaving them.
Mind made up, I stood, wincing at the scrape of the chair against Eva’s desk. This was what being a better man looked like—walking away from what I wanted, giving them the peace they’d earned, even if it destroyed me to do it.
Eva rolled over sleepily. The sheet slid off her, revealing one perfect, teardrop-shaped breast and her rosy nipple. I ached to worry it with my teeth, to use our sheer physicality to convince her to forgive me.
Watching them sleep, I finally had to admit I would have done exactly the same thing she’d done to protect the people I loved, that I needed to do the same thing to protect her, and Tristan, and Alek, that I’d do anything for them, like she’d done for her father.
Fuck, I was an asshole.
I must have made a noise, because her eyes snapped to mine, and she jerked the sheet up.
I couldn’t look away.
She was so fucking beautiful, with her tousled red hair and her eyes blinking the sleep away.
I remembered how she used to arch into my touch, how she’d beg for more even when I’d been cruel. Now, she covered herself like I was a stranger—a threat.
We stared at each other for long moments.
“Cole?”
“Yeah, sparrow,” I rasped, unable to remain silent.
“Come to bed?” Her voice was raspy with sleep, and for a moment, I thought I’d misunderstood.
My heart stopped. After everything I’d done, she was still inviting me into her bed.
I didn’t deserve this mercy. Then, she snuggled closer to Tristan, making space beside her, and lifted the sheet, inviting me in.
I’d never moved so fast in my life. I kicked off my shoes and slid in next to her, resting her head on my bicep and twining my fingers in Tristan’s over her hip.
“You’re not forgiven,” she mumbled softly as she snuggled up to my chest and, a moment later, dropped back to sleep.
I didn’t believe in God, but lying here beside Eva and Tristan, I thanked whatever it was that had bought me this brief moment of peace.
When Eva’s alarm went off, she sleepily reached over to her bedside table to hit snooze then blinked awake with surprise when she had to reach over me to do it.
When her alarm rang a second time, Tristan woke up too. He rolled over and nuzzled into Eva’s back, kissing up her shoulder, but she jerked her face away before he reached her face.
His face went blank for a moment before he smiled against her skin. “All right, kitten,” he murmured. “I deserve that.”
Her eyes remained on mine. “It’s game day,” she said finally.
I nuzzled into her hair, breathing in her citrus and vanilla scent. “We need to talk,” I rasped, my voice still rough with sleep.
“No, we don’t,” she said firmly.
“We do,” Tristan said, sandwiching her between us, running his hand up her shoulder, then kissing her freckled skin.
“We have to talk about how to stop my father,” I said finally. “All three of us.”
Eva went completely still. On her other side, Tristan propped himself up on an elbow, his eyebrow raised, waiting for me to speak.
“Oh?” Eva said.
I traced idle patterns on her hip, over the sheet, needing the contact to ground me. “I think he’s in trouble financially,” I said finally. “And I think—”
“I think so too,” Eva said, interrupting me. “Your credit card has been super helpful, by the way.”
I huffed a laugh against her neck. “Good.”
“You didn’t stop the charges,” she murmured.
“No,” I answered, unwilling to examine why, just as I hadn’t been willing to examine it before.
“What’s your plan, baby?” Tristan asked, his hand finding mine on Eva’s hip.
“Take him down,” I said, as if I were discussing the weather. “Any way we can.”
“We need proof,” Eva sighed. “I’ve been interviewing players on all the teams. He never puts anything in writing, never makes an outright demand. It’s all implied threats, rather than explicit.”
“I’m too fucked up to be a threat,” I said bitterly. “Too busy drinking and fighting—”
“And wallowing in self-pity,” Eva interrupted sharply, “which is exactly where he wants you to be.”
My eyes flew to hers.
“We can fix this together,” Tristan said softly against her shoulder.
Eva’s laugh was sardonic. “Right. Together. After you two destroyed me, blackmailed me, turned me into your personal fuck toy, and abandoned me, after calling me a whore for doing what it took to save my father’s life.”
She shoved at me until I sat up so she could crawl out of the bed. I stared at her perfect curves as she pulled an oversized t-shirt over her head. She whirled to glare at us. “We’re not a team.”
“Eva—” Tristan started.
She held up her hand. “I haven’t forgiven either of you, and maybe I never will.”
“I know,” I rasped.
“Good.”
The house creaked, and Eva froze. “Shit! My dad!”
The panic in her voice snapped me back to reality. Right. We were in her childhood bedroom, and her father was somewhere in this house.
Tristan and I exchanged a look over her head, the same look we’d shared a hundred times on the ice when we needed to work together without words.
“Window?” I suggested.
“This isn’t an ‘80s movie,” Tristan huffed, but he was already crawling out of bed and getting dressed.
“Shit shit shit,” Eva swore softly, shoving him toward the desk.
Tristan wrestled with the window, muttering curses under his breath until it finally gave way with a screech that probably woke half the neighborhood. We all froze, listening for angry footsteps that thankfully didn’t come.
“Go go go,” Eva whispered, and Tristan poked his head out to check the drop before sliding through feetfirst.
I started toward the window then stopped, turning back to Eva. She looked so fucking beautiful, standing with her hands on her hips and her eyes blazing, her hair wild and beautiful. The urge to take her into my arms and hold her was overwhelming.
Forcing my touch on her wasn’t being a better man, though, so I forced myself to move to the window. The drop wasn’t bad, and Tristan was waiting below, grinning up at me like an idiot.
The moment my feet hit the ground, he caught me in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles against my scalp.
“Missed you too, asshole,” I laughed, letting him roughhouse because it felt normal and good and like maybe, we could actually fix this mess.
When he finally let me go, his expression turned serious. “We gotta talk to Alek.”
“About protecting Eva?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, running a hand over his braids. “And about taking your father down.”
My eyes shot to Tristan’s.
“Be the man Eva deserves,” he said quietly.
“The man you both deserve,” I corrected, my voice barely a whisper.
“Yeah,” he agreed, but his eyes said what we both knew—I had a long fucking way to go.