I thought I stayed away long enough to get her out of my system.
Unfortunately, I was wrong.
The moment I saw her alone with Sully, I had only an ounce of control. That control kept me from punching his lights out and then zip. I was spent.
There were 800 reasons why I should have continued on my way after removing my hands from her waist. She did it. She skated. She did a triple lutz—something I knew because I studied a diagram of figure skating lingo. The only reason I scrambled onto the ice after I watched Sully leave was because I could tell she was unfocused, and being unfocused on the ice usually resulted in injuries.
But then she smiled at me, and I was too foolish to stay away. I’d been in timeout like a toddler since Friday. I fell asleep that night, listening to her sweet, singsong laugh while she sat in my living room with my friends, playing poker. And every night since, I refused to make myself known while she stood on the ice and contemplated skating. I watched from afar, like a stalker. I knew she would do it eventually. I just didn’t know that all it would take was for me to reveal a possessive side to myself that I rarely ever showed.
I might have scared her or, at the very least, confused her.
But regardless, she flew over the ice gracefully, like an angel, and I’d regret it for the rest of my life if I turned around and went home.
“Aasher!” The echo of her shout made me smile. “You’re a lot faster on the ice without all your gear.”
I leaned to the right as I turned and reached out to grab her. She yelped, and I chuckled. I scooped her up and placed her over my shoulder, just like the time I carried her home from the frat party. Only this time, I couldn’t fester in my irritation with her to keep my hands to myself.
The shelf of her ass rested against my arm, and I looked down, wanting to take a bite out of it. Shit. I needed another timeout.
“Put me down!”
Ignoring my conscience, I threw her words back at her. “Or what?”
She wiggled against me, and I finally let go of her. I smirked before skating away and falling to center ice. My arms rested against my knees, and before I knew it, she was only a foot away, sinking down to her butt and then eventually lying on her back. I only let myself look at her for a few seconds, but it was plenty of time to feel the punch in my gut. Her ribcage extended with heavy breaths, all the way to the knot tied below her belly button from when she shrugged off her thin hoodie and tied it around her waist. The light-pink long-sleeve shirt she had underneath was more of a second skin, and the tiny pebbles of her nipples were hard enough to see through her bra.
I couldn’t get her out of my head. I couldn’t stop craving her sweet breath, and I couldn’t stop silently rooting for her to get on the ice and prove to everyone that she was the best, because I had truly never met a more determined person.
It was inspiring, honestly.
If getting on the ice made me panic to the point that I couldn’t breathe, I would have given up a long time ago.
Not Riley, though. She was stubborn, fierce, and determined. It was beyond attractive.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked.
I stared at the penalty box, wanting to put her in there for all the trouble she was causing me. I had a feeling her question was only going to add to that trouble.
“Sure,” I replied.
“Have you only been helping me because of Savannah?”
I stifled a groan. I knew she’d ask eventually. After all, she was forced to hear my side of the story on Friday, just like I was forced to shove her in a locker to save my ass. The scruff of my facial hair against my palm was the only sound between us. I could feel her eyes lingering on me.
She huffed. “You told me I could ask you something.”
“I didn’t say I would answer.”
A pouty noise left her, and my mouth twitched. I glanced down, and her blue eyes trapped me. If anyone else would ask me about my ex, I’d blow them off and move on. But Riley was different. I’d never felt so comfortable around another person. She wasn’t asking to be nosey, and I knew, after everything, I could trust her to keep anything I said to herself. Somehow, after being forced together the last several weeks, I’d built a relationship with her that was full of trust. She trusted me with her fears and failures, and who was I to deny her mine?
“No,” I finally answered her, but I turned away when I did. I flicked the tongue of my skate to give my fingers something to do besides twitch with the need to pull her in. “I mean, not specifically. After everything with Savannah happened, I…changed.”
“How?”
I shrugged. “Well, after I got over the guilt of fucking up my future—”
“It was unfair, though. You shouldn’t have guilt over something you had no control over.”
I looked at her. “I could say the same to you.”
Riley’s cheeks reddened, and she pulled her eyes away and stared at the ceiling. I traced the outline of her delicate jawline, wondering how a guy like Gray Loretto could ever let her slip through his fingers. What an idiot.
“I deserve to have some guilt,” she whispered. “I allowed some guy to mess with my head and turn me into something that—”
“You never want to be again.”
She clasped her hands on her belly after I finished the sentence for her. “Yeah.”
“After everything calmed down and I realized I could attend Bexley U, with the help of my parents, my priorities shifted. I grew. I matured…some.” She giggled, and I grinned before continuing. “Things that I didn’t realize were important became important.”
Like when your coach asks you to watch out for his daughter or your future will be fucked, it’s a no-brainer. Only I was having a really hard time staying on task. The thought of having her and securing my spot in the NHL with a team that would value me and secure a career that I had dreamed about from a very young age was becoming harder and harder to ignore.
There was no use in pretending that what I felt for her was only attraction. We weren’t even touching and my heart was skipping beats. I had avoided her for five whole days, and the only thing it did was make me irritable. It was so bad at practice that Theo pulled me aside and asked if I was still bothered by the whole Savannah thing.
I wasn’t.
I didn’t give a shit about her dad sucker punching me.
The only thing I thought about from that night was the hidden moment between Riley and me in the locker room.
“Can I ask you something?” I went back to flicking the tongue of my skate so I could distract myself from the insanity of my thoughts. Why can’t I stop myself from wanting her?
“It’s only fair,” she answered.
“Why do you skate?”
I heard her head roll over on the ice, but I couldn’t look at her. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I mean, before everything happened with the guy I’m going to hunt down and murder one day…”
I chose then to look at her, and I raised my eyebrow. She rolled her eyes.
“Why did you skate before all of that happened?”
“That’s easy. Skating felt right.”
“Right for who?”
She was quiet for a second. “Me…I guess. Why? What are you getting at?”
I leaned back and rested my hands against the floor before the icy bite worked itself down to my bones. “And who did you skate for after?”
“After…?”
“Yes, after.”
She knew what I was implying, and if she made me say it out loud, she’d see just how much it bothered me knowing that someone touched her without permission. I was well aware that it happened in the past, but to my benefit, I only found out about it recently. I wasn’t over it.
Riley’s neck moved with her swallow, and her eyes bounced all around the rink as she thought about her answer. She slowly turned, and her eyes were glassy. She blinked once and then twice before opening her mouth and whispering, “I see your point.”
“Skate for you,” I said. “Don’t try to prove something to him or try to fix what happened in the past. Don’t skate to prove something to Gray, because if he broke it off with you over the fact that you stopped skating in the first place, then he’s the biggest fucking idiot in the hockey league.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Don’t skate for your parents to make them proud, because as much as your dad loves you, he’s already proud. And don’t skate for the figure skating team, because none of those people matter when it comes to what you want. You were afraid you’d get lost in the demands of figure skating again to prove something to everyone else, but if you just skate for yourself, that won’t happen. The only approval you need is yours.”
I reached over the ice with my thumb and pulled her bottom lip out from her teeth. Then I ran my finger over the little indents and said, “Skate for you, and you’ll do fine.”
The only indication that she heard what I said was a slight nod after I dropped my hand. We sat in silence for so long that it made me feel things that I had no business feeling when it came to her. I rested my palms against the ice again, but this time it was to ground me because the hold on my control was slipping the longer I listened to her soft breathing.
Fuck. Do something.
“Can I ask you one more thing?”
She slowly sat up and met my eye. “Yes.”
It was a poor attempt to irritate her, because maybe if I did, she’d get up and leave, and I wouldn’t have to fight with myself about whether I should grab on to her hand and drag her closer. “Does it make you mad that I won our bet? We both know how you hate to lose.”
A laugh abruptly flew from her mouth, and I smiled.
She stood up on her skates and skated a circle around me with her arms crossed. She was adorably annoyed with her nose scrunched and her cheeks flushed.
“You’re annoying when you win.”
“And you’re cute when you lose.”
The next thing I knew, I was being pegged in the head with a hair tie. I snatched it up before standing and towering over her. I held the thin elastic in between my fingers and dangled it above her face. “Was that supposed to hurt?”
Her lips smashed together to smother a laugh. She failed, and her giggle made my heart skip. “It was either that or take my skate off to throw instead.”
I lifted my hand higher so she couldn’t reach the hair tie when she tried to snatch it. “Wow, an entire skate?”
She shrugged. “I decided to use my hair tie because if I hurt you with my skate and you couldn’t play on Friday, my dad would lose it. Beating Rosewood was his New Year’s resolution this year.”
“Ah, Rosewood.” I clicked my tongue. Her old stomping grounds. “Are you coming to the game?”
“I come to all the games.” Riley tried to grab the hair tie again, but I smirked and pulled it away at the last second. This was what we called flirting, and I shouldn’t have been participating.
“You gonna sit in the first row again?”
“I guess you’ll just have to see.” She reached up one more time and failed.
Her hand landed on my chest as she steadied herself. My palm splayed on the small of her back when she peered at me.
A hot swallow worked itself down my throat. I briefly glanced around the rink when the temptation grew stronger. We are alone. No one would ever know…
I ground my jaw and chucked the hair tie halfway across the rink. “First one there wins.”
She gasped in surprise when I took off skating, listening as she created tracks across the ice just as quickly as I was. I swooped down, snatched the hair tie, and put it on my wrist. I smirked and did a half-turn, only to be knocked backward by her speed.
My head nearly cracked on the ice, but I tightened my abs and gripped on to her torso, keeping her pinned to my front as I broke our fall. Her laughter vibrated against my chest, and I rested my head back, laughing too. “Fuck, you’re fast as shit, Riley.”
“You cheated. I want a redo.”
“Sorry. You lost.” I lifted my head and found myself an inch away from her face. My laughter faded, and my pulse flew. Shit. Her pretty lips fell open, and the very second she moved her playful eyes to my mouth, it was game over.
Riley didn’t lose.
I did.
