36 - Haven
HAVEN
Cold air chased us through the house as we made our way to the back.
The hot house.
I wanted this. I needed it. I couldn’t wait for that blissful feeling of first stepping inside. To sit there and let the heat envelop me, hugging me like a warm blanket.
But I also knew we had to get to work.
Mercer had sent us ahead for a reason: captain, goalie, and the enforcer fresh off suspension. The Motor City Barrage would be one of our toughest matchups yet. If anyone needed a jump on strategy, it was us.
“After this, we’re sitting down and reviewing film,” I said plainly.
“Yeah, yeah,” Grayson waved his arm.
“I mean it,” I reiterated. “If Mercer gets here, and we’re not—”
“Shit.”
Sebastian had stopped walking, halfway down the hallway. He was staring at his phone.
“What?”
“The bus never left. Highway’s shut down.”
A beat.
“They tried to wait it out,” he said. “Didn’t work.”
My stomach dropped.
“They’re where?” I asked.
“Some motel,” he said, frowning slightly. “Closest thing they could find. They barely made it.”
My phone buzzed. A message.
Zack.
Zack: This place makes the last one look like a spa
Zack: I swear something in the bathroom just moved
Zack: Also it smells like someone painted this one in blood too
Despite everything, a small helpless laugh escaped me.
“The game?” Ares demanded.
“Canceled,” Sebastian said. “League already called it. They’ll reschedule.”
Grayson had a satellite image up on his own phone. I edged closer to get a look.
The entire screen was swallowed by a swirling, gray-and-white storm.
“Upgraded to blizzard,” he muttered. “No end in sight.”
My mouth dropped open.
“How long are they saying—”
“Forty-eight hours at least,” he said. “Maybe seventy-two.”
Silence. It settled over us slowly.
No team.
No Mercer.
No structure.
Just—
Us.
I shivered. Ares noticed, and started moving again.
“Let’s go warm up,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
The walk felt longer than it should’ve been. Cold air clung to everything. My breath fogged with every step.
I was aware of them. All of them.
Ares ahead.
Grayson, beside me.
Sebastian, behind.
This wasn’t about heat anymore.
The hot house was electric, and thankfully on. It was used so much the guys never turned it off. The door opened with a creak. Warmth spilled out instantly — thick, heavy, almost suffocating, after the cold.
Immediately the guys began shedding their clothes.
All their clothes.
“Wha—”
“Towels only,” Ares said.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard him,” Grayson said, already grabbing one.
Sebastian hesitated, but only for a moment. He grabbed one too.
I stood there for half a second. Then—
Sebastian handed me one.
I stared at it.
Holy shit.
The remainder of the guys’ clothes hit the floor. I tried not to look.
Failed.
Ares didn’t hide anything. Grayson was deliberate. Sebastian turned just enough to make it worse.
My heart became a jackhammer, thundering away in my chest.
This is nothing.
It wasn’t nothing.
We stepped inside, and the heat wrapped around me instantly. It soaked into my skin, pulling something loose in my chest that had nothing to do with temperature.
Ares sat first, then Grayson across from him. Sebastian took a seat beside him.
Leaving—
Me.
In the middle.
Again.
“Comfortable?” Grayson asked lightly.
“Thrilled,” I shot back.
Ares huffed.
We absorbed the heat, soaking it in, as the cold was driven from our bodies. Sweat formed on our skin, turning it shiny and beautiful.
I tried not to focus on the three shredded bodies, riddled with muscle. Their biceps and triceps, flexing subtly, whenever these athletes moved.
But it was impossible.
Ares’s shoulders went on for days, tapering down to iron-like arms that I could still feel crushing me against him.
Grayson’s square jaw and steel-colored eyes still left me breathless, but it was the thin sheen now coating his sculpted chest that was driving me crazy.
My eyes shifted to Sebastian, whose flat stomach was a landscape of chiseled planes and shadows.
My gaze dropped lower — those sharp lines just above his hip nearly undoing me.
They tapered tantalizingly downward, disappearing beneath the front of his towel.
“You always stare this much when you’re nervous?” Ares asked.
“I’m not nervous.”
“Yeah,” Sebastian said quietly. “You are.”
I turned toward him. “Oh, now you’re chiming in?”
“Just observing,” he said.
My gaze drifted again, despite my best attempts to control it. There was very little I could do.
“You’re all very… distracting.”
“That a complaint?” asked Grayson.
“Undecided.”
For a while we just sat there, warm. Secure. Surrounded by heat and safety, as snow swirled just outside. It felt strangely amazing, having just barely beaten the storm.
“You know Spreadsheet,” Ares offered, jerking his chin at my legs. “You’re not exactly hard to look at either.”
I swallowed at the statement. My stomach thrummed with butterflies.
“How long we doing that?” I asked.
“What?”
“Calling me Spreadsheet.”
His massive shoulders moved slowly up and down.
I noticed they were all staring now, down at my legs. The towel Sebastian handed me was strategically smaller than the ones they had on. It rode so high on my thighs, I had to keep my legs together.
I swore they could hear the beating of my heart.
“You gonna keep pretending this isn’t happening?” Grayson asked quietly.
It was suddenly getting hard to breathe. I couldn’t pretend anymore.
Not here.
Not like this.
“I—”
The word died in my throat. I’d already forgotten what I was going to say.
And they knew it.
All of them.
The storm howled outside. Louder. Closer.
But it didn’t matter.
I found myself looking up into Grayson’s eyes. His mouth curved slightly, into something resembling a wolf’s grin.
“You ever lose a bet you didn’t know you were making?” he asked.
“That sounds like something you say right before being incredibly annoying,” I said.
He nodded toward Ares.
“Kiss him.”
Silence.
I stared at him.
“You’re insufferable,” I said.
“Kiss him.”
A beat.
Then—
“You’ve already kissed me.”
The revelation hung in the air, occupying the space between us. Grayson’s gaze didn’t leave mine.
Sebastian suddenly shifted.
“She kissed me too.”
I froze.
Grayson’s head turned slowly. Ares didn’t move. Didn’t react.
But he also didn’t look away.
“Well?” Grayson asked.
Ares finally leaned back slightly, one arm draped casually along the bench.
“Yeah,” he said.
A beat.
“Been there.”
Something in his tone made my stomach flip.
Grayson looked between us, then back at me.
“Well,” he said quietly. “That changes things.”
I felt queasy now. Not necessarily in a bad way.
“What things?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he nodded toward Ares again.
“Go on,” he said.
This time, no one spoke. The air shifted. My pulse roared in my ears.
This is insane.
I knew that.
Still— I moved. Slowly.
Closing the space between us.
Ares didn’t help me, didn’t lean in. He didn’t move at all, which somehow made it worse.
I kissed him… and immediately lost control of it.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t careful.
It was heat. Immediate, scorching heat.
His hand came up instantly, grabbing my hip, pulling me closer as his mouth took over the kiss like he’d been waiting for it. I gasped into his mouth, lips grinding hungrily, as our tongues rolled…
Finally I pulled back, breathing hard. The hot house was silent. No one moved.
“That doesn’t count,” Grayson said.
I turned sharply. “What do you mean it doesn’t—”
“You didn’t kiss him,” he said calmly. “He kissed you.”
My head spun.
“That’s not—”
Grayson stood, slow and controlled. He stepped toward me. Every inch deliberate.
“This is how it works,” he said quietly.
Then he kissed me.
And fuck… it was completely different.
Grayson kissed me slow and deep, like he was testing something. Learning something. My fingers curled against his chest without thinking, falling into his arms as he inhaled my every breath.
He didn’t rush. Didn’t take.
He waited.
Then pulled back just enough to look at me.
“That counts.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. There was heat all around me, yet none of it matched the heat rising up from within.
“Your turn,” he said, gliding past me.
I spun, and Sebastian was already looking at me.
Not hesitant. Not unsure.
Just— waiting.
“You don’t have to,” I said softly.
“I know,” he said.
Then he stepped forward anyway, and took my face in his hands. His thumbs brushed lightly along my jaw before he kissed me.
And everything stopped.
Not because it was softer — because it wasn’t. It was somehow deeper. He kissed me like it meant something. Like it wasn’t just happening in the moment.
Our mouths moved slowly, deliberately. Letting the heat between us linger.
When he pulled back, I felt it.
All of it.
Ares.
Grayson.
Sebastian.
All around me.
“It’s just kissing,” someone said.
It wasn’t.
Not even close.
The heat pressed in harder, as sweat poured from my skin. The guys were sweating too. Glistening. Broad chests and strong arms shining magnificently, under the heat.
“I—”
This… this was too much.
Was it?
I stepped back. The three of them, looking at me.
“I need—”
My voice broke, betraying anything I was about to say.
I took another step backward. No one stopped me. No one said anything, and that was the worst part.
They just let me go.
One hand clutched the towel around me, as my other hand found the door. I turned and left. Fast.
The heat vanished the second I stepped out. Cold rushed back in.
But it didn’t matter. I was still burning.
I barely remembered getting upstairs. My door shut behind me. I got changed, and climbed into bed without thinking.
Then I stared at the ceiling… replaying it.
Ares — heat. Force.
Grayson — control. Precision.
Sebastian — soft. Deep.
All of them. Together.
I should’ve shut it down. I should’ve stopped it before it started.
Instead—
I turned onto my side, pulling the blanket tighter around me.
And wondered… how far I’d let it go.