Page 63 of Unsteady

You took everything from me.

“Enough.”

The only voice that can stop this isn't booming; it’s soft and firm in the way only Coach Harris can be.

It takes a moment for me to realize I’m still locked on Toren Kane, hands gripped into his shirt while he only smiles with a trickle of blood sliding over white teeth, his lips and chin.

“Let him go,” Bennett says. “It’s pointless to fight like this.”

I follow Ben’s instruction, a reverse of how it was between us for so long, letting him lead me away.

Coach Harris stands in the center of the dressing room, holding our attention easily, as he always does. Even, I notice, Toren Kane’s.

“I know that there are a lot of emotions in here right now, but get it together. Let it out on the ice; not on each other.” He looks towards me and sighs. “Toren is a part of this team now, and I expect you to act right and treat him like he’s any other member of this team. Whatever you need to do to get to that point—I don’t care. Just don’t do this shit on my ice or in my dressing room. Hell, nowhere in my goddamn complex. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” we all agree.

“It’s gonna be a long practice. Get the hell out there.”

TWENTY

SADIE

Falling into Rhys feels like falling into addiction, or what I imagine that might be like.

Everything with him feels easier. This isn’t the first time I’ve had some sort of friends-with-benefits agreement with someone, but it’s the first time it’s felt likethis.Before, it was all just to get rid of the boiling inside of me, a form of exercise and relief. With Rhys, waiting longer than adayto see him again, to touch him feels like torture.

I’m torn between loving the way it feels to be with him, and hating how much I love the way it feels to be with him.

Not to mention, the man eats my pussy like it’s his fuckingjob.

Even currently, stuffed into a storage closet before all the parents of the Learn to Skate classes have vacated the building—when it would make more logistical sense for me to be on my knees for him—he’s got me half-hoisted in the air, his face pressed between my thighs as my bare ankles dig into the muscles of his back.

I’m on the cusp of it, canfeelmy legs starting to shake, when he pulls back and I nearly slap him as my hands grab for his silky hair to push him back where I need him most.

“What the hell, hotshot?” I gasp, voice whining as much as I try to make it harsh. “I’m so fucking close.”

“My birthday’s next week,” he says, as if now is a perfect time to have this discussion.

“Happy birthday,” I growl, gripping his scalp a little harder, which only makes him smirk.

“Thanks,” he sighs, pressing a kiss into my inner thigh that has me grappling for the wall again because I’m so close that he couldbreathea little harder on my clit and I’d combust. “But I figured you could tell me that the day of.”

My stomach sours a little as I realize what he’s asking. And yet, my traitorous body is still reacting like this man isn’t holding my orgasm over my head like a carrot.

“Rhys.” I breathe.

He licks a solid, hard swipe against my pussy and I bite out another curse.

“If you want to come,” he threatens, his voice dropping as I see the darkness he’s always trying to hold back bleeding into the edges of his golden boy persona. “Then you’ll agree right now to be there, as my birthday present, if that makes it less serious for you.”

I can barely register is words because he’s fuckingbreathingthem into my pussy, dark brown eyes glazed and half-lidded, staring up at me. That one stubborn dimple pulling his smile up lopsidedly.

“Please, Rhys.”

“Need an answer, Gray. Then you can have whatever you want.”

I close my eyes tight, trying uselessly to erase the image of him on his knees that’s forever burned into my brain. I shouldn’t. Ireally reallyfucking shouldn’t. But—

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