6. Fresh Air
Chapter Six
Fresh Air
MILES
Dylan’s complexion blanched. His entire mood shifted in the span of a single heartbeat. “What? What is it?” I looked around the empty park, wondering if he saw something that had him spooked.
He rubbed at his neck and shook his head. His leg bounced up and down, shaking the bench. “Nothing.”
It clearly wasn’t nothing. “You can talk to me,” I said.
Without thinking twice, I reached over and put a hand on his bouncing leg.
It didn’t mean anything more than a simple sign of friendly support.
The fact that my heart started to beat a little faster and my core became warmer at the touch didn’t mean anything. Nothing at all.
He looked down at my hand and stilled. He took a deep breath.
I left my hand on his leg, not wanting to break contact in case this helped with whatever he was going through.
He closed his eyes and tried to smile again, his lips twitching.
“Iron collars and I have a fucked-up past. It’s been seven months now, but, well, long story short…
I was kidnapped by a rival pack because a rogue hunter wanted to bring us all out into the open so he could kill us. ”
He said it all in one single breath. My jaw dropped and my head fell forward. “Excuse me, what? You’re going to need to give me the longer version of that.”
And so he did. Dylan started at the end—just like he had taught me—and walked me through everything that had happened.
I was shocked. Emmy had told me about something going down but he didn’t go into full details, and certainly didn’t tell me about what happened to Dylan.
As he spoke, his voice became choked up by the painful memories, and a protective flare flashed inside me.
I wanted to find this hunter and tear him apart limb from limb for causing this, then I wanted to throw an iron collar on the alpha of the rival pack so that he could get a taste of his own bitter medicine.
Fighting and confrontations weren’t my thing, but listening to Dylan’s trembling voice made me want to burn the world down for him.
I’d sit with these feelings later and try to figure out where they were coming from.
For now, I wanted to make Dyl feel better.
I rubbed his leg. His muscular thigh twitched under my hand.
I ignored the heat that flooded up from his skin through mine.
“Fuck, man, I’m so sorry you went through that. ”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.”
“It’s clearly not.”
“It is, though. I guess I haven’t talked much about it, and thought it was dealt with, but guess not.
This helped.” He offered me a genuine smile, showing me a set of perfectly aligned pearly white teeth.
Rare for hockey players, but not for shifters.
“Are you sure you’re just a trainer and not a secret therapist on the side? ”
I chuckled at that. My hand was still on his leg. I didn’t want to move it, but the longer it remained on him, the more I wanted to inch it upward. I removed my hand and placed it on my lap.
“I’m just an anxious person,” Dyl continued. He started to bounce his leg again. “I’ve gotten better at handling it. I don’t spiral nearly as much as I used to. I can sort of confront the bad thoughts and rework them, but sometimes shit creeps up on me.”
“I get that. Anxiety is a beast, it grabs you by the—” Shit, that was a bad metaphor.
He looked at me from the side of his eye. “Throat?”
“Um, no, I was going to say, um…”
“The dick?”
“Yes. Yes, exactly.”
Dylan started to crack up, which in turn made me laugh. “If that were the case then I’d be anxious twenty-four seven.” He looked at me and gave me a wink. “Who doesn’t like being grabbed by the dick?”
My thoughts immediately swirled downward, toward a territory I needed to stay far, far away from.
Control yourself.
“Anyways,” Dylan said. “Sorry I sidetracked you. Back to your situation.”
A bright red cardinal flew in front of us, landing on a thick branch before being spooked away by a squirrel. I shook my head. “Let’s talk about something else. No need to make this such a dark and dreary day.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
With Dylan? I was finding I wanted to talk to him about anything and everything. “Are you ready for the season to start?” I asked.
“Oh, hell yeah. I’ve been itching to get back on the ice and play.
I’m determined to get the Calder Cup this year, and I think we can do it.
Actually fuck that, I know we can do it.
And now that we’ve got a great trainer to keep us fit and functioning, I’m even more confident about it.
The humans on the team definitely need you. ”
“Only the humans?” I teased.
“Maybe a couple of the shifters, too. Soren’s always shit at stretching. You can help him with that. Keep his mobility up.”
“Soren’s the goalie, right?”
“He is.”
“And what about the left winger?” I asked, knowing damn well that was the position Dylan played.
“I guess I could use a couple good stretches and massages, too.”
“You know I’m not a glorified massage therapist, right?”
His cheeks turned pink at that. “Oh, I know, I’m just joking.”
“But I am also really fucking good at massages.”
“You are?” Dylan arched a suggestive eyebrow, the white streak drawing my attention.
Why the hell did I want to kiss it? How fucking weird would that be?
And hot… it would be pretty fucking hot having my lips anywhere on Dylan’s body. I swallowed and tried to ignore the swell of lust before it dragged me in too deep. “I am,” I said. “Have to have strong hands with what I do.”
“Hmm, going to need some proof of that.” Dylan licked his lips.
I wasn’t sure if it was a conscious move or not but he spread his legs wider, his shorts riding up to show off what appeared to be miles of thick thighs dusted in light brown hair.
The winds shifted and his scent filled my lungs.
Sweet like strawberries, earthy like wet grass, clean like a babbling brook.
Perfection.
Something inside me shifted. Like a caged bird was slamming itself against the bars of its prison, trying to sneak out through my ribcage.
It was an odd sensation. Almost like my body was actively fighting something.
Was this the kind of nerves people talked about when they met someone they were really into?
I’d dated in the past and had a few hookups here and there but never felt that spark people always talked about.
This couldn’t possibly be that, could it?
“Might have to let me know when you’re free then,” I said.
I absentmindedly twirled the bracelet around my wrist, trying to focus on anything other than how close Dyl’s leg was to mine and how the sensation of his leg hair brushing against me made my dick twitch.
All thoughts of stalkers and iron collars were quickly diminishing.
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Dylan rolled his shoulders back and pushed his arms back. His biceps flexed, shadows forming under the defined muscles. “I’ve been sore as fuck lately.”
“You can stop by my office. Or”—don’t say it, don’t say it—“I have a massage table at my place.”
He perked up at that. “You do, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Nice, I’d like that.” There was a suggestive tone to his voice now.
“Don’t get any funny ideas,” I said, trying to sound as stern as possible even though I was already getting hard thinking about him lying naked and covered in oil on my table.
“Oh, trust me, what I’m thinking isn’t funny at all.” His cocky grin made my pulse quicken.
Half of me wanted to get up and run, knowing this was dangerous on so many levels.
The other half of me wanted to say “fuck it” and succumb to the gentle throb between my legs, aching for me to take action, to learn how Dyl’s lips taste and how his hands feel roaming my body.
To massage his tense muscles and make him moan in pleasure as I teased out the knots.
I’d start with his thighs, using my knuckles to dig into his thick legs, my hands moving up higher and higher.
Fuck.
It’d be so easy to pull those shorts and let his dick out for some fresh air. I wanted to do the same with mine.
A hundred different reasons why that would be a bad idea crossed through my mind. We were out in public, we had practically just met, he was a player on the team I worked for, maybe he wasn’t even into me the same way I was into him…
And yet the only thing I could think was: Make a fucking move.
It was one of those moments I knew I’d look back on and wonder what might have happened if I wasn’t such a cautious coward.
If maybe I just followed my instincts for once instead of being scared of imaginary consequences.
Because at the end of the day, most of the bullshit I envisioned happening never came to pass.
Maybe that fear of the unknown was passed down to me by my father, who had to suffer one of the most earth-shattering consequences of all.
How could he have? He never would have imagined my mother dying during childbirth, and yet that’s what happened.
He lived cautiously ever since. From keeping me out of rough-contact sports to putting off getting my driver’s permit for as long as possible.
It didn’t matter that I had shifter genes and he knew I could heal from most injuries that would take out a regular human.
He tried to keep me in a protective bubble, always worried about what tragedy could happen.
Even when, ninety percent of the time, there was nothing remotely dangerous to worry about.
I loved him for it—for trying to keep me safe—but the unfounded fears had stopped me from having many life experiences that would have been normal and formative for a growing kid.
It was long past time for me to pop the bubble.
I licked my lips. My eyes darted down to his.
They were shining, plump, pink under the sunlight.
He wasn’t wearing any cologne—only a pleasant deodorant that reminded me of fresh laundry—so his natural scent filled my nose as I inhaled, drinking him down into my lungs.
My senses were only slightly heightened when I was in my human form, but even that didn’t explain just how intoxicating he smelled.
The desire to taste him was what broke the bubble.
POP.
Fuck it.
It was time to make my decision. I threw every shred of caution to the wind.
Let the consequences come. Or, better yet, let them never materialize. Let the consequences turn to ash along with the what ifs.
I leaned in, following my gut, my lips landing on Dylan’s and the world stopping the second he began to melt into the kiss.