12. So Much For Professionalism
SO MUCH FOR PROFESSIONALISM
SUTTON
How the hell do I lose a girl ten minutes after I said I’d keep an eye on her?
She was here one second, then vanished the next.
Slipped off my arm somewhere amongst the unpredictable ebb and flow of the guests.
Thankfully, she’s not so intoxicated that I’m worried I’ll find her half-asleep in a laundry hamper somewhere, but I am worried that she’s sniffed out trouble like a bloodhound.
I’m so stupid. I should’ve invited her. I wanted to, I did, but I didn’t want her thinking that I thought a party would be a prime place to spend time with her.
I wasn’t even a hundred percent committed to coming tonight, but my teammates practically dragged me here by the scruff because they said they never see me anymore.
That’s only half true, okay? They see me at hockey practices.
I admit that my mind has been…elsewhere…
these past few weeks. It’s getting bad, folks.
I’m stalking Lake on Instagram, I’m reading her newspaper articles, my subconscious is planting fast-growing seeds of obsession inside of me that want to strangle and choke me with thick, tuberous roots.
The girl clings to me like goddamn cigarette smoke, and I’m beginning to love the smell too much.
I don’t know how much longer I can take the late-night spirals, the fitful dreams, the unmitigated desire to take her by the face and invade her mouth with my tongue in the most reprehensible way.
I…Jesus—jerking off in the shower thinking about her has become as routine as my morning dose of caffeine.
My scruples have a hard time keeping me in check when it comes to her. I’m like Icarus flying too close to the sun, but the only difference between me and him is that I’d suffer through a lifetime of first-degree burns if it meant I could be close to Lake.
Heat-blasted with sweat rinsing down my neck, I finally find her staring at Buford Montgomery from a few feet away, as if her eyes alone could make the asshole spontaneously combust. A snarl twists her lips, and unfortunately for me, vengeance has never looked hotter.
That skin-tight dress she’s wearing has been plucking the seams of my self-restraint, just waiting for me to burn this place to the ground if I don’t rip that fabric right off her body.
I’m but a powerless man.
When I follow her line of sight, I get a disgusting eyeful of Buford making out sloppily with some poor girl. Despite being stone-cold sober tonight, my stomach isn’t against the idea of rebelling my late lunch.
“She should know that he’s a lying, cheating piece of shit,” Lake growls, her incisors coruscating underneath the low light. She’s all animalistic vitriol, and I know I should probably be talking her down, but I honestly wouldn’t mind watching Buford get his ass kicked.
Scared that I’m about to be torn apart by a five-foot-seven, bloodthirsty huntress, I gently reach out to touch her arm, prepared to endure whatever long-winded tirade she has poised like an arrow’s fletching between expert fingers.
But it never comes.
Instead, she melts on contact, losing the magmatic fight that gives her that external, volatile glow. Her eyes are wide—lubricated with a thin sheen of tears from relief—and wounded with a pain that I could never understand.
“I know. Trust me, I want him to hurt for everything he’s done to you, but I don’t think your boss would like it if you compromised the articles.”
Lake palms her forehead with a groan. “Ugh, why do you have to make sober sense?”
“Look, if it’s any consolation, I’ll give him hell out on the ice, okay? I promise. That way you won’t get into trouble,” I say, feeling her cheek with the back of my hand as discreetly as possible. She’s warm. Febrile.
I’m really not looking to stay at this party long. I need to get Lake out of here before she contracts some airborne disease or runs into another imbecile who deserves a belated circumcision with a pair of kitchen scissors.
“You always take good care of me,” she whispers under her citrus-tinged breath, listing into my body as all fight evaporates into the air, merging with the miasma of alcohol, body odor, and the nauseating stench of sex.
I bristle. “Do you want me to…not…take care of you?”
I never asked her if she was okay with me playing bodyguard. I know she’s capable of taking care of herself, but she shouldn’t have to. At least, not all the time. It’s my default setting. I show people I care by protecting them—shouldering their burdens.
Lake shakes her head frantically, enough to give her poor neck whiplash. “No! No, I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I like being taken care of, but you can’t tell sober Lake I told you, okay? It’s a secret.”
A smile clips my mouth, and I pat down a few of her flyaways. She glances up at me through hooded eyes, clinging to my body as if it’s the only buoy in the ocean, a dazed grin adorning those hot-to-the-touch cheeks of hers.
“I promise I won’t tell her,” I swear.
“She really likes you, you know? Wanted you to—hic—kiss her at the protest.”
For the first time since I met her, my nerves take a much-needed break from tormenting me, and I have to fight every atom that’s telling me to kiss her while she’s halfway into the stratosphere.
Fuck, she looks so beautiful. I mean, she always looks beautiful. And it’s not even the dress—although it’s doing irreparable damage to my tumescent cock. It’s the way she clings to me; it’s the way her baked strawberry aroma makes my mouth water.
I don’t want her to stop touching me. I don’t want to end this night without giving her the kiss she deserves, but she has to sober up for that to happen.
“We need to get some water in you.” I try to shake off the tightness in my groin without her noticing.
My muscles are girding for a reckoning that’s never going to come, and the surfeit of lust that weighs down my chest is responsible for flatlining all brain activity.
My mind is the equivalent of a shredded VHS tape.
Lake ascends to her tiptoes so she can assess my terrible poker face, her gaze drifting from one of my eyes, to my mouth, then to my other eye.
Great. She’s perfected the triangle method. Of course she has.
“I don’t want water,” she purrs, capitalizing on my weakness and deliberately running her tongue over her bottom lip, knowing that I’d have no choice but to chase the insinuation.
Fucking hell. I have to resist her. I can’t resist her. I can’t…I can’t walk away from her. Nothing in this godforsaken world could keep me from her.
I change the subject quickly, knowing that I’m about to cream my pants in the middle of this party if I don’t. “You’re thirsty. Water is good. I need to get some food in you too,” I decide, brooking no room for argument.
She blows a raspberry. “We’re supposed to have fun tonight. Don’t you want to have fun with me?”
YES. OH GOD, YES. I WANT IT MORE THAN ANYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED BEFORE. USE ME, STEP ON ME, MAKE ME BARK FOR YOU.
“Of course I do, Trouble, but you’re under the influence, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing anything you can’t consent to a hundred percent.”
I have no idea where that nickname came from—it kind of just slipped out.
Nevertheless, it was second nature. Everything I do with Lake is an involuntary response, as systematic as breathing.
I don’t have to put up a front when I’m around her.
I don’t have to be this grander person in order to impress her.
She sees my flaws and still chooses to embrace them.
Lake pouts and kicks the toe of her boots against the grimy floor, but her disappointment vanishes like a cover of mist receding from the height of a bedewed morning. “So if I sober up, you’ll kiss me?”
Shit. She’s making sense. This is bad. I’m a mess. I’m concealing a DSCA-approved weapon in my jeans that’s about to become incredibly too noticeable.
It perplexes me that she even has to ask.
My body and mind are two separate entities right now, and the latter has no control over the pathetic display of arousal attempting to poke apertures into my unconvincing stonewall.
The stuffy atmosphere rivals the heat tunneling through my jellified limbs as acid sloshes violently against the inner walls of my belly.
“I’d kiss the hell out of you, baby, but not tonight. Not like this.” I pull her toward the kitchen in search of one hydrating fallback.
Either her disappointment has egressed or she’s giddy that we’re finally moving, because soft giggles trail after me, and the hand that’s currently intertwined with mine gives my palm a reflexive squeeze.
Pushing past the buildup of drunkards isn’t dissimilar to the obstacles I outskate on the ice, so my quick legs make it to the sink just in time to grab the cleanest-looking glass from the cabinet and fill it to the brim with tap water.
I thrust it in Lake’s direction, and she thanks me silently by gulping two thirds of it down, then going “ahhh” to show me how good of a job she’s done. “Now will you stop being a party pooper and come dance with me? Pleeeaaaseee?”
Dancing. Dancing requires rhythm. And coordination. Despite my profession, I have sea legs off the ice. I’m bound to step on all her toes or elbow her or completely embarrass myself because some selfless bystander will think I’m having a stroke.
My ironically dry throat clicks with a swallow. “Don’t you want to do something less strenuous? Sitting down seems like a safe bet.”
A frown slashes over those plump, perfectly pink lips, which are lathered in a thin glaze of gloss that sparkles when the light hits them just right. “This is a party, Sutton. Live a little. Get out of your comfort zone. You don’t need to protect me from the dance floor.”
She’s the only person I’ve ever met who can see right through me. Who cares enough to see right through me.
“Parties, uh, aren’t really my thing,” I admit, rubbing the back of my neck, anxiety crash-landing into the brunt of my chest.