Page 19 of The Breaking Point

Then he was gone, almost like the entire thing had been a figment of my imagination.

BRADY

Since when did Grace have a boyfriend?

Lying in bed, I couldn’t stop imagining Grace with that bug-eyed little guy she called a boyfriend. When I’d shaken his hand, I’d half expected I’d break his weak paper bones if I squeezed too hard.

I growled under my breath. I was being fucking ridiculous. But my mind was stuck on who this Will guy was. Maybe I’d missed something about him. Something that made Grace think he should be her first lover.

She’s still a virgin. Fucking hell.

I didn’t want to think about that. If I did, I’d lose my goddamn mind. Because the thought of another man kissing her, touching her, pushing inside her—

I got up and grabbed my phone, which I’d left charging in the living room. Then I proceeded to fall down an internet rabbit hole to learn everything I could about Will.

I didn’t even know his last name. But it didn’t take long for me to find his Instagram account, which followed Grace’s. He’d posted three photos in the past three years, all of which were pictures of the insides of computers.

I snorted. What a fucking dweeb.

I had nothing against nerdy dudes. Hell, plenty of my friends played shit like D&D and loved video games.

But Will just seemed fuckingboring.Did he even know how to please a woman? Make her moan his name and beg to let her come?

I doubted it. He was probably a sad sack in bed.I bet he cries when he orgasms,I thought darkly.

I then went to Grace’s profile, where I found a recently posted photo of her and Will. They were side-hugging. Will appeared vaguely constipated, while Grace looked stunning—as usual.

But they looked like siblings. Despite Grace’s impromptu kiss, I hadn’t detected any chemistry between them last night. Will had seemed like his head was going to explode when she’d kissed him suddenly.

How is she still a virgin?I couldn’t believe it. She was gorgeous: tall, blond, with legs for days. She could have any guy she wanted. How had she attended college and never slept with anyone?

It made zero sense. I scrolled through her photos, going back to when she first left for college four years ago. She was the Grace I’d known best: the Grace I’d made a point to avoid as much as possible.

In one photo, she posed with duck lips. In another, she was making some goofy pose with a bunch of her friends from high school. But that goofiness had disappeared from her latest posts, which I found intriguing.

Then again, it’d been four years. Grace wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was a grown woman, moving up in the world.

And I was some hockey punk who didn’t deserve to so much as kiss the bottoms of her feet. No matter how much my body screamed to take her and make her mine.

I hated the thought of Will fucking her. But I also knew that I couldn’t keep lusting after her either. Nothing could come of this attraction I had for my coach’s daughter.

So I tossed my phone aside and forced myself to stop thinking about the woman who’d haunted me for too many damn years.

Practice later that afternoon was a joke. I’d thought I’d gotten Grace out of my head until the woman appeared in the arena.

We had a big game with the Blizzards in a few weeks,, and we’d lost the last time we’d played them. Coach had been drilling us hard. He told us if we lost again, he’d skin our hides.

“Carmichael!” Coach roared from the stands. “Did you hear what I said, or are you too busy daydreaming?”

I scowled. Mac shot me a grin, and I could tell he was stifling a laugh.

“Yeah, I heard you,” I shot back, making sure Coach couldn’t see me rolling my eyes.

Even though we were all grown-ass men, Coach Dallas never failed to make us feel like kids sometimes. There were some occasions when I half expected the old man to put us over his knee if we dared to sass him.

I passed the puck to Riley when I saw Grace. At first, I just saw a woman with blond hair, but when we stopped to regroup, I heard her laugh.

I’d know that laughter anywhere. It sounded like wind chimes. Which I knew was fucking bonkers, but it was true.

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