Zero Pucks Given (Arctic Titans of Northwood U #9)

Chapter 1

ONE

Damon

Selene’s ass was still pressed against my leg when I woke up. She hadn’t bothered with underwear in the devil’s hours in the middle of the night when our strength had finally failed.

Neither had I.

The thin cover lay in folds over my waist and down my legs, a tent pitched just nicely over my crotch, the pole itching for action. The light that pierced through the window curtains was bright and hot, promising a terrible August day ahead.

I didn’t need to check the time to know I had none. Still, the warm body under my left arm fitting so nicely against the length of my torso was too inviting not to linger for a moment longer.

Then a hand moved from the right side, crawling up the bare side of my rib cage, and the intense eyes of Selene’s boyfriend, Harry, bored into my soul. “Morning,” he said.

“Morning yourself.” My voice was groggy and deep from sleep and Prosecco. “Selene’s still asleep.”

Harry glanced at her with a devilishly handsome smile. His eyelashes batted twice as his hand moved over my abs and to Selene’s hip. “Rise and shine, baby girl,” he whispered.

The soft yet commanding quality of his voice made my dick just a little harder, turning the likelihood of me joining the team meeting on time severely low.

Selene’s shoulders pulled back, hair falling down to bare her neck. My lips tingled with the desire to kiss that soft skin and feel the pulse underneath. The places where Harry’s hand had touched me burned with want.

They had scouted the Thinker last night, and I’d seen the unholy wish list in the way they’d smiled, the way Harry’s thin, black eyebrow rose, the way Selene’s slender figure curved a little as her gaze undressed me.

I’d sent them drinks. They’d waited for the team to fall away, guys leaving the tables one after another, until I was the last man there.

Selene rolled off my numb arm as Harry sat up. He uncovered his body and let me enjoy one last look before he pulled his underwear on. My attention turned away from his big cock and flat, tight stomach to Selene’s wider hips.

“Coffee?” Harry asked.

“Please,” Selene said.

I thought about it. A glance out the window reminded me that I owed it to the team to be no later than I already was. “None for me. Gotta dash,” I said. “I’ll have a spare toothbrush if you’ve got one.”

“Top drawer on the left side,” Harry said.

He put on his pants, torso still bare, waist narrow, and shoulders broad.

He was all bones and taut skin, pronounced joints, and quiet endurance.

He might not be a muscled jock like me, but his stamina was mind-blowing.

As was Selene’s. They’d almost lost me last night, late into the game.

I walked over to the bathroom shamelessly naked because my underwear was nowhere to be found.

My dick gave up on hope, so it wasn’t like I was waving a sword around. I brushed my teeth and splashed the sleep out of my face, then examined the dark circles around my eyes. Worth it. Was a good night, for sure. What else was a guy supposed to do?

I walked out and found my sweatpants. Felt odd wearing them commando, but it wasn’t my first rodeo.

Honestly, I was the patron saint of accidentally gifting my underwear to people.

I’d kept the supply steady for the last two years, leaving little cotton trophies in rooms around Detroit like a freaking Easter Bunny of the kinkiest kind.

The T-shirt hugged my shoulders and covered my abs while the sounds of breakfast came from the living room.

When I stepped out, I found that the French balcony was open and a small table set up with two chairs on either side.

A pitcher of cold orange juice sat in the middle, two glasses, two plates, two croissants just heated up in the oven, butter, boiled eggs, cups of coffee, and the scent of toast rising from the kitchen.

Selene sat on one of the chairs, sunlight bathing her gold, piercing the silken, see-through nightgown. “Are you sure you don’t want to join us, Damon?” she asked.

“We’d love to have you,” Harry said from the kitchen. He’d put on a clean T-shirt that fit his physique perfectly, his hair a little shaggy in an adorable way.

They’d had me plenty, to be perfectly honest with you, and I needed to go.

I didn’t belong here. These people had their shit together.

There was no pile of clothes on the back of the reading chair.

There was no dust on the bookshelves. There were no crumbs on the tiled kitchen floor.

Their balcony had a gorgeous view of the lake and the manicured park along its edge.

This place was for a finer class of people, not the brutes like me. I’d spent yesterday afternoon smashing my teammates into the boards during practice, drinking beer and bonding, then downing glasses of a fine, bubbly wine in their nice home.

Harry and Selene were both doctoral students at Northwood.

Both were researchers, though Harry was a physicist, and Selene specialized in some deeply specific form of methodological research in the age of the internet.

I understood less than half the things they said.

My language was more physical than that, and the power couple seemed to find that refreshing.

“Thanks,” I said, feeling like I was so far out of my comfort zone just now that I’d have to take a bus to return to it. “I promised the team I’d be in for a meeting.”

This was the kind of behavior that had automatically disqualified me from taking over the captaincy after Phoenix had graduated and departed to join the Blackhawks.

I didn’t blame the coach, though. I’d never had my eye on the prize.

Never would. I was happy to be a loyal follower and a devastating force on the ice.

But there was still some ego left beneath the rotting layers of my soul that it stung not to even cross anyone’s mind for the position.

I stretched and picked up my duffel from the floor where I’d tossed it last night. It was the only imperfection in this home. A sweaty old duffel with dirty clothes and smelly shoes. Eh. I was leaving, anyway.

“Got an address in case we find your boxers?” Harry asked, his thin lips stretching into a flirtatious smile.

“Keep ’em,” I said, grinning. “A little souvenir for old times’ sake.”

“Thanks for last night,” Selene said.

“Yeah. You too.” I turned on my heels and made my way to the floor. Just then, music swelled from the speaker. Harry played some piece of classical music that evoked the images of spring winds melting away the snows, bringing life back into the world. “What’s that?” I asked.

Harry and Selene exchanged an amused look. “Vivaldi,” Selene said.

“Best of the best,” Harry added.

I nodded. I didn’t know the guy. I forgot his name by the time I reached the elevator.

Nice people, I thought to myself as I descended to the ground floor and stepped out.

Nice people with nice lives and a nice relationship.

I’d seen couples desperately fishing for threesomes to save their deteriorating relationship, to bring back the spark into the cold hearth of their bedroom, but it was rare to run into a pair that was so comfortable with each other.

I was the third, though. I was the observer. Had they decided to buy a toy instead, it would have done my job. That was what I brought into this world.

As I walked to the bus stop, I wished I’d run into an unhappy couple instead. Unhappy couples had nothing to lose. Unhappy couples never left me feeling like I’d been an intruder in their perfect little homes.

Not that it was their fault. They simply were all that I had never been, all I never could be.

Sweet Harry and sweet Selene. Damn. Leaving them behind with the knowledge that they had their perfect world intact and I was no longer inside it made my heart ache a little more than it should have.

By the time I returned to the team house, the meeting was almost over. Griffin had a mischievous spark in his eyes as I entered the house, poking Andrei with his elbow to look at me. The corners of Andrei’s lips ticked up in a knowing smile.

“What did I miss?” I asked.

Keiran rolled his eyes. “Everything, but you’ll catch up as usual.”

I gave him a two-finger salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

One by one, the teammates left. Mason grabbed snacks from the cupboard and went to his room.

Toby waved us goodbye and went out. Sunday mornings were slow around here.

Some guys went to the gym; others went back to their dormitories if they didn’t live with the team.

Griffin and Andrei remained on the sofa, and I flopped into the large armchair.

“So,” Andrei said. “How was your night?”

I narrowed my eyes and read his sneaky expression. “I think you already know.”

“We weren’t stalking you,” Griffin said.

“Let me guess. You were having kebabs across the street when I passed by with a girl under one arm and a guy under the other,” I said.

The two of them chuckled. Andrei’s eyes glimmered with curiosity. “Are you in a throuple, Damon?”

I snort-laughed. “God, no. I can barely put up with myself. Imagine the horrors!”

“Where do you find these people?” Griffin asked.

“Why? Are you already looking for a third?” I asked with genuine concern. “You guys don’t need that.”

They looked at each other so lovingly that it made me clench my teeth to stop a moan from leaving my body. It was so sweet it hurt.

“Us?” Griffin laughed. “No way. But you gotta see it. I’ve never noticed so many open relationships until I became friends with you.”

“Welcome to the modern times,” I said, opening my palms like a clerk at a hotel front desk. “People realized that sex has nothing to do with loving one another. Why not drink and screw and fill the hole in your chest with cheap thrills?” I shook my head. “Fuck, I sound bitter. Don’t mind me.”

“You do, though,” Andrei said. That, too, was a real concern. “Did something happen?”

“No,” I said. “No, not at all. They’re perfect. They’re like you two. Perfect for each other.”

Griffin cocked his head to the side. “But you don’t seem happy with the way things are.”

“I should be,” I said honestly, then got up. There was the scent of coffee in the air. The pot was traditionally empty, but that was a small problem to solve. “Fuck, but I should be,” I muttered to myself.

“Why don’t we go out one of these nights? Just the three of us. Forget about the team and everything,” Andrei said.

“Sounds like fun,” I said without committing to it.

I liked these guys. I liked them enough to want to be friends with them, especially since they had been put through hell in order to say the things they had never dared utter aloud.

Griffin had declared his love for Andrei on a livestream before hundreds of thousands of viewers.

The clip of him kissing Andrei on the ice in front of a cheering crowd of hockey fans had exploded, getting fifty million views on the Blades of Northwood TikTok alone.

That didn’t even come close to the number of fan edits that took the internet by storm in the months that followed.

But his speech about the way we’d all lost parts of ourselves to the newfound fame had shifted something critical last year.

The show had switched its tone and production rate to be more respectful of its subjects.

We had all lived a little freer last semester, thanks to Griffin. We all owed him for that.

I’d never had the balls to fall in love like that. Well, almost never. I’d come close a couple of years ago. It was something I didn’t like thinking too much about. It had gone nowhere, so it didn’t warrant dwelling on.

As the coffee maker slurped the water from its container and heated it into the steam above the filter and the finely ground coffee, my gaze wandered out of focus.

A July evening replaced the August morning.

Instead of the house and the coffee and the teammates, there was a field of grass, an apple tree, and a shirtless young man with hands tucked under his head, a round face satiated and glowing with comfort, eyes twinkling with mischief, and the shadows of defined muscles still trembling from exertion.

He’d pulled his shorts back up, as had I, but the taste of him still lived on my tongue.

That was a week after his nineteenth birthday, though I hadn’t been invited, of course.

I was returning to Northwood soon for my sophomore year, and he was leaving home for the first time, going to Chicago.

Something had finally broken free from the ice between us.

I’d gotten him a gift. Helluva trouble to find it.

But it was packed in a neat, blue box with a golden inscription.

The ribbon was a lighter shade of blue, like a morning sky over a deep ocean.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“Happy birthday,” I said, licking my lips as if there would still be traces of him left there.

That had been my first time with a guy, as was his, and we hadn’t gone beyond each other’s mouths, but it had been more exhilarating than anything I could have imagined. “It’s also a parting gift, I guess.”

“Should have gotten me two gifts, cheapskate,” Seth whispered, narrowing his eyes at me.

“Don’t like you that much,” I muttered.

His cheeks burned brighter as he untied the ribbon. “Fuck, D. You should have,” he said as the brand name was revealed.

“A future marine biologist,” I said, shrugging. “Felt right.”

He shot me a scolding look, then opened the box, already knowing what was inside. The brass compass sat on a fine silk cushion.

Seth threw his head back and laughed so loudly I was sure his family would hear us, sure his brother would come running. “You asshole,” Seth said, gleaming. “You took out the needle.”

I nodded. “So you could get lost at sea,” I said agreeably.

He shook his head, still laughing. “Fuck you, D. It’s too sweet.”

We shared a look that was all playful hatred, masking the mutual recognition that this had lasted way too short.

“Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t get you anything.”

“No more than I’d expect from you,” I said, but the humor was leaving my voice.

A year before that, just before I’d left home for the first time to join the Titans at Northwood, Seth had walked with me into a forest not too far from our homes, and we’d kissed.

It had terrified me, awakening a dormant feeling that I had been aware of for years.

The kiss had shattered something in me, breaking it like I’d broken the compass, and I hadn’t been able to find my way back.

Then, Seth left, and so did I, and a year passed before we were in the same little town again.

But if I hadn’t wanted to remember our first summer together, I absolutely refused to think of the last.

My coffee was done, fresh and hot and bitter like sins. I poured a full mug and carried it out to the front porch, memories threatening to drown me.