Chapter 17 #3
Her laugh came out before she could stop it. That was the sound I wanted. Luke’s expression went flat and he charged on the next play.
Predictable.
Men like him always got stupid when they felt humiliated.
They forgot strategy and turned everything into punishment.
I knew the type from hockey. Guys who threw dirty hits when skill stopped working.
Guys who hooked, slashed, grabbed, chirped, and waited for refs to miss it because losing clean offended their sense of self.
Luke tried to clip my ankle behind the play.
I saw it coming.
I let his stick hit mine, used the contact to pivot, and shoved my shoulder into his hard enough to knock him off balance without making it look like anything more than competitive contact.
He stumbled not enough to fall but definitely enough for everyone to laugh.
Knox whistled. “Careful, Dempsey. Pavement bites.”
Luke’s eyes cut to Pip. Wrong move. I stepped directly into his line of sight as his gaze snapped back to mine. I smiled small and mean and saw that inner prick emerge just like I knew he would.
Got you.
The game kept going, but I stopped playing like it was a game and started controlling the entire street.
Every pass he wanted, I cut off. Every lane he moved toward, I closed before he reached it.
Every time he tried to build speed, I angled him toward the curb or into one of his own players.
I didn’t need ice to dominate him. I didn’t need pads. I didn’t need a crowd.
I just needed him to understand there were men in the world he couldn’t intimidate.
By the time we stopped for water, Luke was sweating hard and breathing harder.
I wasn’t.
Pip stood near the cooler, handing out drinks to kids while pretending not to watch me. Her hair still fell over one side of her neck.
Still hiding.
I walked straight to her and her eyes lifted. Something in them softened before she could stop it, then sharpened when she realized I was coming right at her in front of everyone.
“Water?” she asked, holding one out like a shield.
I took it, but instead of stepping back, I moved behind her and hooked one arm around her waist again, pulling her against my chest while I drank over her shoulder. Casual. Public. Infuriating to the man watching from the street.
Pip stiffened for one second, then relaxed back against me.
“Cade,” she murmured.
“Pip.”
“My brothers are going to lose their minds.”
“They already lost them.”
“You’re being obvious.”
“I know.”
She turned her head slightly, and the curve of her mouth brushed dangerously close to my jaw. “You’re doing this on purpose.”
“Yeah.”
Her breath caught.
I lowered my mouth near her ear. “He doesn’t get to make you shrink because he is smaller than you.”
Her fingers tightened around the cooler lid.
“He’s not—”
“Don’t.” My voice stayed quiet. “Not with me.”
She swallowed.
The yard noise went on around us, but for one second, it felt like we stood inside something separate. Her back against my chest. My arm around her. Luke’s eyes burning across the street. Her family laughing nearby, completely unaware of the war that had started beneath all the smoke and sunshine.
“I don’t know what you think you saw,” she whispered.
“I saw enough.”
“You didn’t.”
“Then tell me I’m wrong.”
She didn’t.
My jaw tightened, but I kept my hand gentle against her waist. Not soft. Not hesitant. Just controlled, because the anger inside me had nowhere clean to go yet.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
She turned slightly in my hold, and for a second I thought she might snap at me. Instead, her gaze flicked to Luke and back.
Fear again, small but real. My grip tightened once and her eyes jumped to mine.
I bent closer. “Look at me.”
She did.
“Fuck that guy,” I said again, lower this time. “You’re untouchable with me.”
Her lips parted.
The words hit her. I saw it. Felt it in the way her body stopped fighting the support of mine.
Then Daniel yelled from the street, “Penalty over. Stop flirting with my daughter and get back out here.”
The whole neighborhood started cheering obnoxiously.
Pip laughed softly, cheeks burning as she stepped away from me, but her fingers brushed mine before she moved. Tiny. Quick. Intentional. That one touch told me more than any confession she wasn’t ready to give.
Luke saw it.
Good.
I walked back onto the pavement beside him with my stick loose in one hand and the rest of my body coldly, violently focused.
“I get it now,” Luke said under his breath as the others reset around us.
I glanced at him. “I doubt that.”
His smile was all teeth. “You think you’re special.”
“No.” I looked toward Pip, then back at him. “I think she is.”
His expression cracked. That was the hit. Not the goals. Not the steals. Not the body position or the way I’d made him look slow in front of the whole neighborhood.
That.
Because men like Luke didn’t understand wanting a woman free. They only understood ownership.
The ball dropped again and I took him apart.