20. Rhys
Rhys
I woke exhausted, bones heavy with a sleep that never came. The ceiling blurred above me—same white expanse, same emptiness. I'd stared at it most of the night, trapped in a loop my mind refused to break.
Olivia's wrists pinned above her head. Delicate bones under my calloused grip. Her pulse hammering against my thumbs.
Her whisper, cracked and desperate: The first time wasn't a mistake to me.
Her kiss—hot and trembling and everything I had no right to take.
My hands on her waist, her hips, sliding up her ribs like I could memorize her through touch alone. My mouth on hers, swallowing her gasps, tasting her need.
Desire slammed into me hard enough I had to brace one arm against the mattress. Heat flooded low and vicious, my body betraying every promise I'd made myself. Every wall I'd built.
Then guilt followed—crushing, suffocating, immediate.
I squeezed my eyes shut and dragged air through clenched teeth.
The truth sat ugly in my chest: I would have fucked her against that wall if I hadn't stopped. Would have stripped her bare in that hallway, claimed her mouth and skin and every sound she made. Would have taken everything she offered and more, consequences be damned.
I'd wanted to claim her. Every part of her. Wanted to mark her so thoroughly no other man would dare look at her twice. Wanted her beneath me, around me, ruined for anyone else.
Sick. I was a sick man for wanting what I wanted.
She was too young. Too vulnerable. Too good for the darkness that lived in me.
I'd done the right thing by stopping. Had to believe that, had to cling to it like a lifeline. Walking away had been the only decent choice in a situation I never should've let happen.
Leaving her standing there—wrecked and wanting and so damn beautiful it hurt—had been the hardest thing I'd done in years.
But it was right. Had to be.
I pushed myself upright, joints cracking in the quiet. My reflection caught in the darkened TV screen across the room—haggard, hollow-eyed, beaten.
One rule. Simple. Clear.
Avoid her. Completely.
No more hallways. No more cafés. No more stolen moments that splintered my control.
I'd stay away if it killed me.
Even if every cell in my body screamed that staying away would destroy us both.
The ice welcomed me with a sharp, familiar cold. Blades bit the surface, a crisp sound that usually centered me. Today it felt hollow.
I dropped into a warm-up lap, letting muscle memory take over. One stride, then another. Controlled breathing. Measured pace. The kind of automatic precision I'd built over two decades of playing and coaching.
Around me, players stretched and joked, voices bouncing off arena walls. Maddox shoved Wyatt playfully. Sam boomed something about last night's game-winning goal. The usual pre-practice energy hummed through the team.
I felt none of it.
My body moved through drills—crossovers, backward skating, edge work—while my mind ran loops I couldn't stop. Olivia's hands on my chest. The tremor in her fingers. The way she'd looked at me when I pinned her wrists, like I was simultaneously salvation and damnation.
Don't.
I carved hard into a turn, ice spraying.
Greyson glided past, all easy confidence. "Coach looks intense today."
Andrew laughed somewhere behind me. "When doesn't he?"
I ignored them. Focused on the burn in my thighs, the slice of cold air in my lungs. Physical sensation over mental chaos. Control through repetition.
Dominic skated up beside me, matching my pace. "Running power play adjustments after warm-up?"
"Yeah."
"Need me to—"
"I said yeah." The words came out sharper than intended.
Dominic's eyebrows rose. He fell back without another word.
Tension knotted between my shoulder blades. I shouldn't have snapped. Dominic hadn't done anything wrong. None of them had.
But I couldn't shake the restless fury crawling under my skin. The kind that came from wanting something I couldn't have, from touching something I had no right to claim, from walking away when every instinct screamed to stay.
I reached the boards and stopped hard, sending ice chips flying.
Coach Barrett glanced my way from across the rink. Studied me for a beat too long. I felt the weight of his assessment—twenty years of reading players and coaches, knowing when someone's head wasn't in the game.
I looked away first.
"Line up for transition drills," I called out, voice flat and commanding.
The team obeyed without question. They always did. I was good at this part—the structure, the discipline, the cold precision that made great players better.
What I wasn't good at was the mess inside my head. The war between what I wanted and what was right. Between desire and duty. Between the man I'd tried to become and the one who'd pinned Olivia Bennett against a wall and kissed her like she was oxygen.
Wyatt fumbled a pass. Easy mistake, barely worth noting.
"Focus," I bit out. "That pass should be automatic."
He blinked, startled by my tone. "Yes, Coach."
The other coaches exchanged looks. Even the players went quieter, skating with extra care.
I knew I was being an asshole. Knew my control was fraying at the edges, bleeding into my work where it had no business being.
But I couldn't stop it.
Because every time I tried to focus, I saw her. Felt her. Wanted her with an intensity that bordered on madness.
I gripped my stick tighter and barked another instruction. Told myself I was fine. Knew I was lying.
Practice ended with the sharp blast of Barrett's whistle. Players peeled off the ice in clusters, voices echoing as they disappeared into the tunnel. Skate blades scraped against rubber mats. Equipment bags thumped. The usual post-practice noise faded gradually until only silence remained.
I stayed on the ice, running through cleanup routines I didn't need to do. Stacking cones. Straightening nets. Anything to delay returning to the locker room, to the café hallway, to anywhere I might cross paths with her.
"Hey."
I turned.
Maddox stood near center ice, stick in hand, watching me with that sharp-eyed intensity that made him dangerous on the ice and impossible to fool off it.
"Need help with my shot," he said.
I stared at him. Nicholas Maddox—one of the league's top scorers, lethal accuracy, could pick corners in his sleep—needed help with his shot like I needed skating lessons.
He didn't move. Just waited, shoulders loose, expression unreadable.
Privacy, then. Whatever this was, he didn't want an audience.
I grabbed a bucket of pucks and skated toward him without a word. Set the bucket down harder than necessary. Ice chips scattered.
"What are you working on?" My voice came out flat, professional. Coach mode firmly in place.
Maddox didn't pick up his stick. "You tell me."
I met his eyes. "Your shot's fine."
"Yeah. It is." He tilted his head slightly. "So why are you acting like you want to murder everyone on the ice today?"
Tension locked my jaw. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Bullshit." No heat in the word. Just fact. "You've been wound tighter than a tripwire all week. Today was worse."
I turned away, grabbed a puck from the bucket. "If you don't actually need—"
"What the hell is going on with you?"
I didn't answer. Kept my eyes on the puck, stick tapping ice in a rhythm that meant nothing.
Maddox skated closer. Not aggressive—just deliberate, the way he moved when he'd decided something mattered enough to push.
"You were snappy all practice. Unfocused. You left early yesterday without telling anyone where you were going." He counted off each point like he'd been cataloging them. "You're avoiding eye contact with everyone, including Barrett. And you're carrying tension like a live grenade."
My knuckles went white around my stick. "I'm fine."
"You're lying." He stopped three feet away, close enough I couldn't ignore him. "I've seen this before. Hell, I've been this before."
I forced myself to look at him. "I don't—"
"You got someone under your skin."
The words landed like a physical blow.
I froze. Stick still against ice. Breath caught somewhere between my lungs and throat. Every muscle locked down in defensive rigidity I couldn't hide fast enough.
Maddox's eyes narrowed. "Thought so."
"You don't know what you're talking about." The denial came automatic, hollow.
"Yeah. I do." He shifted his weight, settling into a stance that said he wasn't moving until he'd said his piece. "Because I looked exactly like you do right now when Kennedy got under mine."
I wanted to skate away. Walk off the ice. End this conversation before it went places I couldn't afford to go.
But my legs wouldn't move.
Maddox's expression shifted—lost the sharp competitive edge he wore like armor and showed something rawer underneath. Something almost vulnerable.
"Listen." His voice dropped, quiet and fierce. "If you want her—lock that shit down."
Heat flashed through my chest. Denial. Terror. Something uncomfortably close to hope. "It's not—"
"I don't care what it is." He cut me off. "What I'm saying is this: if someone ever looked at Kennedy the way I look at her?" His jaw tightened, eyes going dark with possessive intensity. "I'd fucking kill them."
The words hit like electricity down my spine.
Images slammed through my head unbidden: Ben leaning close to Olivia at the café counter. The rookie asking her to dinner. Any man touching her, wanting her, thinking they had the right to claim what I'd already marked as mine in every way that mattered.
Rage coiled hot and vicious in my gut.
Mine. The word screamed through me with primal certainty I had no business feeling. She wasn't mine. I had no claim. No right.
But every cell in my body rejected that logic.
Maddox watched my face, reading whatever I couldn't hide. "Yeah. There it is."
I dragged air through clenched teeth. "She's—"