23. Dan #2
“What do I have to stay for?” He closed his eyes, tipping his head back against the wall with a sigh. “Other than my uncle and cousin… Yeah, I’d miss them, but they have their own lives. It’d probably make their lives less complicated if I wasn’t around.”
“The fuck?” I stared at him. “How would you not being around make it less complicated? What about your parents? They’d miss you. And your friends.”
He laughed, low and with zero humour. I hated it.
“Yeah, alright. Whatever. Next question.” His eyes flickered open, but he kept staring up at the ceiling, hiding his expression from me.
“Why are you really worried about Operation Foxglove? It’s not all about your friend Attwood, is it? Are you in trouble?”
“You think I’m gonna talk to you about that? The future lawyer? The son of the man who had a vendetta against my dad? You know who my family is. We look out for each other. You and me…we might’ve messed around a bit tonight, but you’re still my enemy. We’re still on opposite sides of the law.”
His jaw clenched, his hands fisting the duvet at his sides. “It’s not— You don’t know anything about my relationship with my fucking parents.”
“Answer me this,” I bit out. “Would you choose to be on my side of the law or the right side? Remember you said it. I’m bad news.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Just answer the fucking question, Lincoln.”
“Obviously, I’d pick my uncle and cousin, but my parents— It’s not that simple.”
“It is. And that’s why any topic of conversation about anything my family does is off-fucking-limits, okay?”
“Fuck you, Daniel.” His gaze finally met mine, unguarded for once, and his expression was tormented.
That made two of us. Fuck him. I’d missed out on that whole emo teenage angsting stage, and Lincoln bellend Bellingham would not trick me into going through a late one.
There was only one thing for it. I curved my hand around his nape and pressed my mouth to his.
“That’s it, baby,” I coaxed. “Open up for me.”
He growled under his breath, but his mouth opened, and I took his bottom lip between mine, kissing and nipping it until he was fisting my hoodie and tugging me into him. I released his lip, and our tongues slid together, slow and so fucking delicious, it gave me full-on butterflies.
We ended up lying down, wrapped around each other, kissing, and kissing, and kissing.
We were both still a bit skittish about what we’d done earlier, so neither of us attempted to take it any further, but I could feel his big dick pressing against my thigh, and my own, almost-as-impressive erection was insistently hard inside my borrowed shorts.
Eventually, I pulled myself away from his ludicrously tempting mouth, because I didn’t want to do something else I may or may not regret in the cold light of day.
“Hockey or lacrosse?” I mumbled into his throat, my mouth drifting lazily over his skin.
“Hmm?”
I drew back so I could see his face. “Back to the questions. You used to play lacrosse. Which do you prefer?”
He blinked his dark lashes at me. “I… Hockey. Lacrosse was something I was good at, and there was no opportunity to play ice hockey while I was at boarding school. I played field hockey for a bit, but…I dunno, I always wished I was on the ice, so it frustrated me. I skated during the holidays, and I got to do a summer training camp with the Cheltenham Storm. It’s something I always loved.
I liked lacrosse, and I liked being part of a team, but it wasn’t the same. ”
“Yeah, I get that,” I said softly, my fingers sliding over his collarbone so I could play with his zipper, tugging it down a bit so I could see the top of his chest. When all that smooth, tanned skin came into view, my mouth watered a bit.
He really was so fucking hot. His arms were covered, so none of his tattoos were on show, and it made me think…
“How come you only got tattoos on your arms? Do you want to get them anywhere else?”
“It’s my turn for a question.” He stroked his palm down my back, tugging me into him. Our legs tangled together as I slung my thigh across his, and really, this was far too cosy for two people who were lifelong enemies. But I was way too comfortable to move. “Why did you decide to play hockey?”
“Uh…” Where did I begin? “It wasn’t really my decision? King’s—uh, Ryker’s dad—”
Lincoln huffed out a breath. “You can call him King; I know who you mean. I know you call Jayesh ‘Banks’ too.”
“I only call him Banks on special occasions. He doesn’t really like nicknames for himself.
Anyway, so Ryker’s dad has this whole thing where he has high expectations, and he wants his son to be the best and bring honour to the family name, y’know—typical overbearing father.
Except Thorpe Senior comes with fun psycho side effects.
Long story short, he wanted to ensure the team would be better than Whelford, and his bright idea was to use his son to achieve that.
Like Ry doesn’t already have enough family shit to deal with, without his dad’s bonus side quests on top of it.
Then there was the fact that Volkov was gonna be on the team, and with the whole agreement thing…
” I rubbed my palm across my face. Stop talking about shady mafia contracts, right now.
“Agreement? The marriage between your goalie and Thorpe’s sister?”
“Uh, yeah, not that any of that is relevant to this. So he signed Ry up for this intensive training regime, and me and Jay joined him in solidarity, and yeah…we found out we were good at it. I dunno, it wasn’t something I’d ever really thought about doing before, but when I got the hang of it, I realised that it was something I loved doing.
Something separate from the rest of my life.
It’s like…on the ice, for those three periods, all the other shit doesn’t seem to matter.
It’s just you, the puck, and your team, all working together for the same goal, y’know? ”
Lincoln swallowed hard. “Yeah. That’s how I feel too. It’s simple. There’s only one thing to focus on, and you don’t have to think about the outside world.”
“Except when you play me, and you remember that you have to see me off the ice as well as on.” I smirked at him, and he rolled his eyes, dragging me into another kiss.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“You shut—” A wide yawn cut off my words, and I slammed my hand over my mouth. It seemed to be contagious, because he yawned a few seconds later.
“We should go to sleep. It’s late.”
I turned my head to see the bedside table, where I’d left my phone. Shit, yeah, it was late or early, depending on your POV. Three twenty-seven, to be exact. I also needed to charge my phone. It was barely hanging on at twelve percent. RIP to my battery.
The tiredness hit me all of a sudden, and I yawned again, stretching out on the mattress. “Are you making up the bed?”
“Are you?”
“No. Not my house,” I mumbled, turning over and pressing my face into the pillow.
I thought he said something like, “Just sleep here,” but I couldn’t be sure because I was already drifting off.
Something woke me. A sixth sense, maybe, kicking in from the years I’d spent preparing for every eventuality.
Ever since my dad had passed away, Neil and my mum had been paranoid about making sure we were all prepared for anything, to the best of their abilities.
And so I listened, making sure my breathing remained slow and even, keeping my body still.
The warm weight next to me had disappeared from the bed, and I could hear the soft tread of footsteps on the carpet to my left.
I carefully cracked one eye open.
When my vision adjusted, I saw Lincoln looming over the bedside table. What the fuck? It was a struggle to keep my breathing calm, especially when my default setting was to immediately confront him, but I needed to know why he was creeping around in the middle of the night.
His hand reached out, his fingers skimming over the surface of my phone. Then, he crouched down next to me.
Breathe. Keep breathing. Slow and even, I reminded myself over and over again, but my breaths stuttered when he picked up my phone and gently curled his finger around mine, pressing it to my screen.
I slammed my eyes closed as my screen lit up.
I heard his breathing get faster, heavier, and when I dared to open one eye again after a few seconds, he was staring down at my screen with an unreadable look.
He scrubbed his hand over his jaw, muttered “Shit,” softly, and then quietly placed my phone back on the table.
With one eye still cracked open, I watched him fumble around on the floor for a minute, and then his hand reappeared, holding a cable that he plugged into my charger port.
Straightening up, he padded out of the bedroom and disappeared into the lounge area. It was only then that I dared to roll over. I stared at my phone, my heart pounding and my body on full alert.
What was he doing? There had been that moment in the gingerbread cottage when he’d looked at me as he’d taken his uncle out of the room, clearly to discuss me. Then there were the questions earlier. And now this.
I waited in the dark for an hour, until I was sure he’d fallen asleep on his sofa. Then as quietly as he had, I crept across his apartment and left.
Two things were clear. One—Lincoln Bellingham was up to something. And two—our temporary truce was over the second he’d picked up my phone.