Page 122 of Breakneck Hockey

That does it, cools some of my burning rage. “Yeah, guess I can wait. Are you, uh, are you dropping me at home?”

“What part of abduction don’t you understand? You’re not getting more than three feet from me. Do I have to tie your ass up?”

Whatever I was pissed about vanishes into oblivion. Sutter bringing me with him—wherever the hell we’re going—blows all my angry smoke away. I add that to the growing list in my mind of things about Sutter I’m gonna have to have a conversation about myself over.

“Nah. You can do that later when you’re fucking me with your bare cock.”

I swear he growls. “All I know is that this better be a real emergency, or I’m gonna be pissed.”

Soooo, Sutter has a storage unit. A fucking large one that holds a monster truck—the kind you have to climb into—and a whole bunch of other stuff I’m positive would see us through the end of times. The truck has massive snow tires, and a back seat big enough for fucking.

Yeah, this totally suits Sutter’s personality. A helluva lot better than that other car he drives, but this truck would be horrible in the city. There’d be nowhere to park it, for starters. It can’t be good on gas. He tossed me a pair of ski gloves and a toque and told me in no uncertain terms to “put them the fuck on”. Spare winter attire, a big-ass truck … what else does he have stored away in case of the apocalypse? The whole place was lined with plastic totes organized on shelves. I spotted a workstation, too, but it was dark, and I didn’t get the chance to have a good look around. I’m for sure making him take me back there at some point.

“You couldn’t have kept your bike in there?” I ask him over the low growl of the diesel engine as we head onto the highway. There would have been no one to walk in on us in his storage unit.

“I don’t keep the bike at my parents’ house just for me,” he says. Right. I guess his mom likes to see it too. It’s actually pretty damn endearing that he thinks of his mom to that extent.

“I heard something about snow. Are we driving up to Whistler?”

“No. Other direction.”

“The Valley?”

“Yep. They got a dump of snow, and the highway’s a little slippery. We’ll be fine in this thing, though.”

“Pretty sure we could get bombed in this thing and be fine, Sutter.”

Stepping on the gas, the man actually fucking reaches over to take my hand. We’ve held hands exactly two times before this. I don’t know what’s going on, but I think I like it. Too much. I didn’t think I could do shit like this, but there’s something in the air. It’s felt like this before and it was a vibe like this that had Sutter threading his fingers through mine.

But we don’t do this. We fuck. We fight. We have awkward post-sex “get the fuck outs”.

He also brought you to his parents’ house for Christmas Eve.

He showed you his dad’s bike—which now that I think about it might have been Sutter’s way of introducing me to his dad.

When he struggles, he finds his way to you.

Ugh, when did I become fluent in Sutter?

Instead of pulling my hand away, I squeeze his. “Whatever’s going on, I’ll help,” I say. That’s all I can offer, honestly. Things might not be okay, but I can always help.

“How the fuck do you always know what to say to me? It’s like you’re fluent in?—”

“Do not say I’m fluent in Sutter.”

“I was gonna say fluent in Mitchell, actually.” He smirks.

“Wow, Sutter. Didn’t know that letting you fuck me bare was the key to your soul.”

He groans. “You need to stop talking about that. My dick’s so hard, and I need to have my game face for whatever we walk into.”

“Not preparing for this by asking questions isn’t very Suttery of you. Just sayin’.”

“Yeah, well. My game face can handle anything.”

“We’re nowhere near the valley yet. I’m gonna tease the living hell out of you until we get there.” That’ll distract him.

“Better fucking not, brat. It’ll be my turn at some point and you really don’t want me on that kind of sex-fueled warpath.”

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