Chapter 9
Bliss
The gym suddenly felt too warm after that conversation.
Or maybe it was just him.
The treadmill hummed steadily beneath my feet while Cade moved back toward the weight bench, one hand hooking beneath the collar of his black sleeveless KFU Hockey shirt before dragging it over his head in one smooth motion.
The fabric caught briefly against his stomach, exposing hard lines of muscle and warm tan skin before he tossed the shirt carelessly onto the bench beside him like removing clothing in front of women wasn’t basically an act of terrorism.
And honestly?
It should’ve been illegal.
I tried not to stare. Honest, I really did.
But the man looked unfair. Like somebody genetically engineered the perfect hockey player in a lab fueled entirely by violence, arrogance, and protein powder.
His broad shoulders flexed every time he reached for another dumbbell while sweat still glistened faintly across his chest and collarbones from practice earlier.
Veins shifted visibly beneath his forearms when he lifted, silver chain sliding against warm skin while dark curls kept falling messily across his forehead.
The worst part was that Cade wasn’t even trying.
He moved through workouts the same way he moved through hockey games. Focused. Controlled. Intense enough to make everything around him feel quieter somehow.
The clank of weights echoed softly through the room while music vibrated low through the speakers overhead, bass humming beneath the steady rhythm of the treadmill.
And somehow, the problem wasn’t even that he was attractive anymore.
It was that I liked him. Actually liked him because somewhere between the coffee runs, late-night phone calls that drifted way past project discussions, study sessions where he pretended not to notice when I stole food off his plate, and the Sunday dinners he kept surviving like a man determined to earn hazard pay, Cade Mercer had stopped feeling like an assignment.
He had become routine. One of my favorite parts of the day.
Which was horrifying because athletes were absolutely not my thing.
Didn’t matter how charming they were. Didn’t matter how attractive they were.
Didn’t matter how safe they felt in quiet moments when they looked at you too softly.
I knew athletes. I worked around them constantly.
Covered them for campus media. Served them drinks at The Sin Bin.
Watched girls cry over them in bathroom stalls while the same guys walked back into bars grinning thirty minutes later like heartbreak was just collateral damage.
Athletes were trained to prioritize themselves.
The sport came first.
Always.
And Cade Mercer was collegiate hockey royalty. Hockey wasn’t just something he played. It lived inside him. In the discipline. The obsession. The way his whole body seemed physically wired for violence and precision.
I knew better than to toy with a crush on Cade Mercer. I would never seriously date an athlete. Especially not one who looked at me the way he had started looking at me lately.
Except now my brain had become deeply annoying.
Sometimes—completely against my will—little flashes slipped through anyway.
Cade standing in my kitchen while I sat on the counter talking to him.
Cade at Sunday barbecues with my brothers.
Cade existing inside my life in ways that felt way too natural way too fast. Dangerous, messy thoughts that got women hurt every time.
And honestly, the worst part was that I had practically invited this entire disaster onto myself because I’d seen the bruises before leaving my apartment tonight.
I knew exactly what sat beneath my skin before I changed clothes, and instead of reaching for one of my oversized sweatshirts like I normally would, I stood in front of my mirror holding the tiny sports bra in my hands while my brain made the dumbest decision imaginable.
Wear it, you idiot.
Some reckless, selfish part of me had wanted Cade looking at me tonight. I had wanted his attention. Thrived off the tension. Wanted to feel attractive under that dark, focused stare he got sometimes when he watched me too long.
Which honestly made me feel pathetic considering the bruise wrapped around my wrist had come from Luke shoving me against his truck three nights earlier outside The Sin Bin.
The memory hit hard enough that my stomach tightened instantly.
Luke leaning casually against the driver-side door waiting for me after closing like he belonged there.
Like I belonged to him. The second he realized I wasn’t willingly getting in the truck, his hand wrapped around my wrist hard enough to make me gasp before he twisted my arm backward, trying to force me toward the passenger door.
I could still hear his voice low against my ear. “Stop making scenes, Bliss.”
Then Carolynn walked outside, and just like that, Luke changed.
His grip disappeared instantly. His expression softened into concern while he reached for me gentler this time, laughing quietly like I was the dramatic one.
“Baby, calm down. You’re overthinking this.”
Carolynn ate it up immediately.
Luke always knew exactly when to become charming. That was the terrifying thing about him. He didn’t look dangerous when people were watching. He looked calm. Handsome. Sweet. Protective.
People loved Luke that was half the problem.
The treadmill sped up another level beneath my feet while I forced my eyes toward the mirrored wall instead of the shirtless hockey captain ten feet away currently destroying my emotional stability one dumbbell curl at a time.
“You’re staring,” Cade said casually.
My eyes widened immediately. “I literally am not.”
One dark eyebrow lifted slowly as heat crawled straight into my cheeks.
Fuck.
Remember the bear, Bliss.
He smirked slightly before leaning back onto the bench again, dumbbells lowering toward his chest in slow, controlled motions. “It’s okay, Pip. I’m very attractive. We can be honest about it.”
I snorted despite myself. “Your ego is actually exhausting.”
“And yet,” he grunted softly between reps, “you keep coming back.”
He had me there.
I rolled my eyes and walked faster instead, fingers tightening around the treadmill handles while I tried not to notice the way his forearms flexed every time he lifted.
The room filled with late-nineties to early-two-thousands alternative rock, the hum of machines, and the rhythmic clank of weights while Cade moved through another set with irritatingly beautiful focus.
Everything about him was disciplined. The food. The workouts. The sleep schedule. The structure. His entire life revolved around keeping his body strong enough to survive hockey.
And goodness, it showed.
“Okay,” he said between reps, slightly out of breath now. “What should I expect from your brothers regarding this weeks street hockey match?”
I laughed softly. “They legit play and scream, ‘Kill them all’ as if they are gods on the asphalt
“Yeah.” He sat up slowly, forearms braced against his knees while he caught his breath, chest rising and falling hard enough to drag my attention straight toward the sweat sliding slowly down the center of his stomach.
I looked away immediately.
Absolutely not.
“Are they immediately gonna check me every thirty seconds?”
I smiled despite myself. “No. They’ll fight over you being on what team because you’re Mr. Hockey.”
He groaned immediately, dropping his head back dramatically. “That’s concerning.”
“You literally skate into a screaming arena every weekend.”
“Still concerning.”
I stepped off the treadmill long enough to grab my water bottle, condensation cooling my fingertips while I took a long drink.
“They trust me though,” I said more quietly after a second. “My dad and brothers, I mean. They know I am bringing the secret weapon.”
Cade’s eyes lifted toward me instantly, attention locking onto me so completely it almost made my stomach tighten. That was the thing about him. When Cade focused on something, the rest of the world seemed to disappear around it.
And lately, he had started paying way too much attention to me. Not surface-level attention either. Cade noticed everything.
The bruise on my wrist. The way I automatically scanned exits walking into rooms. The split-second tension that hit my body anytime voices got too loud unexpectedly before I forced myself to relax again.
I had slipped letting him watch me the way he did. That was the terrifying part, because I never slipped.
Normally I kept long sleeves on until marks faded. Normally I covered bruises with makeup or jewelry or clothes that would hide them. Normally I stayed aware enough not to get comfortable around men.
But Cade distracted me.
And honestly, that scared the hell out of me because comfort made women careless. Luke had taught me that lesson thoroughly enough for the scars to live in my nervous system now.
That was the terrifying thing about Luke. He didn’t look dangerous when people were watching. He looked calm. Protective. Handsome. The kind of guy parents trusted automatically.
Now every time Cade paid too much attention to me, part of my body reacted before my brain could catch up.
Not because Cade and Luke were the same. They weren’t. That was why it felt even more dangerous. Luke’s attention was about ownership. Cade’s attention felt like safety.
Which honestly might have terrified me more.
Because if Cade met Luke, would he fall for the act too? Would he see the calm, charming version everybody else saw? Or would he notice the cracks the same way he noticed everything else about me lately?
The thought twisted uneasily through my chest because eventually those worlds were going to collide whether I wanted them to or not.
Luke knew where my family lived. He knew my routines.
He knew Sundays usually meant Bennett house chaos and grilled food and cheering for whatever game was on the big screen loud enough for the neighbors to hear.