Page 19 of Body Check

I don’t wait for him to say my name or plead his case before bolting out the door.

He pushed, and he got his answer, but I can’t guarantee that he’ll like what I had to say.

I can’t tell you no.

I’m going to need some crash 101 courses in doing just that if I plan to survive the next four months. Otherwise, I’ll be right back with the wine, the tears, and the Chinese food all over again.

And something tells me that I won’t survive another round of heartbreak with Jackson Carter.

7

Jackson

“Cap, take your turn or I’m forcing you to buy me some fancy-ass steak when we land in Nashville.”

My gaze snaps from the front of the airplane to Weston Cain, who’s seated across the aisle from me. With his suit undone at the neck and his blond hair slicked back all prim and tidy, you’d never guess that he has an obsession with the board game Battleship.

But here we are: him handing me my ass so swiftly my ships are going down in lightning speed, and me constantly glancing for sight of Holly making her way onto the team’s jet for our first preseason game against the Nashville Predators.

I clear my throat, my back pressed to the window as I sit facing the aisle, my long legs sprawled out in what little space the row allots. “Rules were that loser buys the steak. I’m not losin’.” I stare down at my grid, then look to the plastic backing of Cain’s board. “D-4.”

Cain’s mouth lifts in a smug smile. “Miss.”

“Fucker,” I grunt, fitting a white pin in the corresponding slot in my grid.

Beaumont’s dark head pops up from the row behind me. Forearms pressed into my chair’s headrest, he leans forward and sweeps his gaze over my spread. “What kind of fancy-ass steak you thinking about, Cain?”

“Wagyu. I like it when my meat is massaged.”

I cock a brow. “You like it when it’s chopped off, too? Because after you’re done with your massage and your specialty diet of grass and ice beer, that little bastard is gone and being served on a porcelain plate with potatoes au gratin.”

“Maybe he likes the pain,” Beaumont muses, rubbing his chin dramatically. “You like pain, Cain?”

“I like free steak.” Cain twirls a finger in the air, not even perturbed by the shift in conversation and his impending lack of dick, and then adds, “C-3.”

One glance down at my grid and I’m tempted to do the cock-hacking for him. “Dammit.”

“Is that a hit, Cap?”

Beaumont snaps up one of my red pins before slipping it into the second hole of my Destroyer. “He’s been hit!”

Narrowing my eyes, I glare up at our enforcer. “Why the fuck are you so chipper? It’s four in the goddamn morning and you’re wearing a suit.”

He only flashes me a grin. “I took a hit, if you know what I mean.”

From the row behind him, Josh Kammer jumps up like a mole emerging from compact dirt. “You really want to be talking about weed like that, Sin? Pretty sure that shit’s against protocol.”

Beaumont’s dark brows furrow as the easygoing expression on his face dies a quick death. “Someone tell the rookie to take a seat before I help him do so.”

“What? All I’m saying is—”

“He’s talking about sex,” I cut in, meeting Kammer’s gaze. “He got laid. Now sit down unless you’re up for another round of rope climbing.”

I swallow a chuckle when the kid promptly collapses back into his seat. It’s safe to say that he’s not in the mood to press his luck so soon after our last one-on-one. I’m not into hazing the newbies, but I sure as hell will put them in their place when they start talking shit—especially if it involves Holly.

As though thinking her name has conjured her up, I hear the strains of her voice as she enters the plane, andgoddamn, it takes every inch of self-control not to lift my ass off the cushioned seat and scope her out.

“Matt,” she says to the attendant, “it’s so good to see you again!” There’s quiet murmuring, and then, “For me? Are you sure?”

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