Page 144 of Ice Dance Hockey

“Do you want one of your best skaters to tear his meniscus?” Rhett says. “Do your job and coach him, or your employers are going to get a long letter from my lawyers about what I saw here today.”

An ocean of pride smashes in my chest. He might love a good brawl on the ice, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind teaching Scott a lesson in a back alley, but he’s intelligent enough to know how to go for the metaphorical Achilles in a legitimate way that won’t land him in jail.

Though, if Scott does this again, I don’t think he’ll care.

“I’m not going to tear my meniscus,” Scott says.

“Um, you might with how tight those hips are,” Coach admits. Finally! Fucking finally.

Scott glares at Coach hardest, but we all get a share of his icy stare. Rhett incinerates it with his fury.

“The only person Logan needs notes from are your coaches, am I understood?”

Rhett doesn’t lay the threat down explicitly, but it’s threaded through the undercurrent of deadly energy in the room. Scott gets the message, nodding his locked jaw.

“Do your job better,” Rhett adds for the coach. “C’mon, baby.”

Rhett grabs my hand and I stumble off the ice. I’d say he needs to calm down, but I don’t want that. I want to eat all this energy up. Bathe in it. He’s a warrior defending his man and I’m all for that. I think we’re headed for the locker room, but I’m wrong. We’re headed to the exit; my skates dig into the rubber floor.

But these are my good skates, the ones from Jack and Merc. I’m not ruining them on the cement.

“Rhett!”

That wakes him from his rampage, and in one swift move, he swings me up and into his arms. I latch my hands around his neck and tie my legs around his torso by crossing my ankles over his ass. I feel like Ann Darrow being abducted by King Kong.

“Dorm,” he says, using single-word sentences like a caveman.

I point and direct from where I sit on my human chariot, curious to see how he’ll get into Furnald Hall without my keycard—it’s in the locker back in the arena where my bag was left.

“Hey, Rhett, my man!” a kid wearing over-the-ear headphones says from where he’s sitting, vaping in the smoking section near Furnald.

Does Rhett know him?

“Could you let us in? My boyfriend lost his card.”

Rhett’s new bestie—who I don’t even know by the way—obliges, so I continue directing him to my room. Don’t have the card for that either, but it’s okay, I have a human battering ram. He sets me down long enough to smash through the door with a hockey-style shoulder check. Thank God everyone’s in class right now or they’d think I was in trouble.

Dragging me inside, he shuts the door, which surprisingly still shuts—but no longer locks—and takes several deep breaths.

Maybe I should run for the hills—not that I’d make it past the door—but instead, I yank at his shirt. Yeah, to gain the attention of the rampaging gorilla. He snarls, slamming me against the broken door, pinning my wrists over my head. Then, hot lips are on mine. I let myself go pliant for him, wanting all his powerful energy to consume me.

He pulls away suddenly, his handsome and bewildered face taking stock of me. His thumb sweeps across my bottom lip. “I wanted to kill him.”

“For what it’s worth, me too.”

“It’s affecting you badly. Are you eating?”

“This talk is way unsexy,” I pout.

“What’s way unsexy is the thought of you fainting in the middle of class, or worse, on the ice.”

“I’m eating. I’d rather be eating your dick right now.”

The crack of his palm against my ass might be louder than the sound of the door breaking was. A sharp world of hurt blossoms over my right ass cheek and the sting of it makes my thighs quiver. I inhale a much-needed breath. Wow. What that does to me.

It’s the best stamp of non-sexual ownership I can fathom.

Behave because you’re mine.

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