Page 15 of Ice Bet

“You may have won the game, but I’m going to be winning later.”

Is this guy serious?

I was the first to admit that I had a bit of a temper when I was younger. I struggled with controlling the raging testosterone flowing throughout my teenage body, but after my high school coach showed me how to channel my anger on the ice, I knew how to cool my jets.

But I had my limits, and I was reaching the end of them.

I stopped walking, letting Emory and Theo get farther ahead before I spun around. “We’re off the ice, man. You can stop with the mind games.”You lost. Time to go home.

Just the sight of the Westin jersey made my fingers twitch. Each defenseman that I had the pleasure of going up against had been making remarks about which Bexley U girls they were going to fuck after they won.

It was a shame they didn’t.

It was an even bigger shame that I was about to put him through a wall.

“I’m not playing any mind games.” Sweat swiped down the side of his forehead, and I noticed that there wasn’t a hint of humor on his red face. “I just wanted to know if you had Riley Lennon’s number.”

My jaw flexed.Is this a joke?I calmed my tone, but my arms were tingling. “What kind of player would I be if I gave you my coach’s daughter’s number after you and your teammates talked about running a train on our girls?”

I had a pretty big hunch that Riley wasn’t the type of girl who would let one of these players take her behind the arena to fuck her brains out like they had been indicating. I would bet my life that she was just as uptight in the bedroom as she was out of it. Unfortunately for me, though, I instantly became engaged when her name was mentioned.

I could thank Coach for that.

“Is Riley your girl? You were awfully concerned on the ice after I said her name.” He laughed, and my neck cracked. “Can I borrow her for the night?”

That isn’t happening.

“If you lay a finger on her, I will break it off—withmy coach’s permission.” He was right. Iwasconcerned. I was riled up.Tooriled up. “If you were talking about asking her out on a date like a real man, maybe I’d have no issue.” Keyword beingmaybe. “But you and your teammates are a bunch of disrespectful dicks talking about her like that.”

Number nine shook his head, and his grin boiled my blood. “Riley Lennon has been untouchable since being on the arm of Gray Loretto, but word has it that they’ve broken up, and with the way he talked about her during the preseason, I think everyone wants a piece of that pussy.”

The hallway caved in. I pushed away the edging thought that maybe this whole thing with Riley was going to be harder than I thought. Assumptions had been made on my part, and admittedly, I didn’t think she was going to cause me too much trouble. But here I was, standing inches away from a Westin player with my blood pressure flying through the roof.

“This is why you lost the game.” I grinned, but it was a sick one. “You’re focused on a girl, whereas I’m focused on winning.” I stepped so close to him I could smell his sweat. “But now that we’ve won, I have no issues focusing on putting you through the fucking wall.”

I watched the flare of anger burn in his eye, but before he could do anything, I wrapped my hand around his throat, relishing in the way his windpipe was being held hostage against my palm. For a split second in time, I was pulled back into the past, remembering the last time I had someone’s throat in the palm of my hand.It’s always over a fucking girl.

Things happened quickly. Theo’s voice hit the side of my face, and Emory’s hands dug into my jersey. He shoved me into the silent locker room where I came face to face with Coach.

Whoops.

“What the fuck was that? Can we get through one fucking game without there being some conflict? You’re lucky we weren’t on the ice when you pulled that shit.” Theo turned to Coach and waited for his reprimand to follow.

His bellowing echoed throughout the locker room. “You better give me a good fucking reason, son. Or your ass is going to be running suicides at practice on Monday.”

Anger rushed through me.This is his fault.“You sure you want to know?”

Murmurs traveled throughout the locker room, and I was damn lucky that someone spoke loud enough for Coach to hear, because if it were up to me, I would have told him, word for word, what the other players were saying about his daughter.

“For fuck’s sake.” Coach threw his hands up and stalked over to his office. “This is why I cursed the moment my wife told me I was going to have a baby girl.”

His door slammed so loud the metal lockers rattled. My teammates wasted no time talking among themselves about how dirty the Westin players were on the ice.

I shut my locker and turned around half-dressed. “Those Westin players deserved to have their fucking faces bashed in.”

I was hoping that some of my teammates had a guilty conscience and realized that it was just as bad to have a bet over who could fuck Riley as the shit-talking was from our opponents. If so, then maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about their intentions with her.

After inhaling deeply, I pinched the bridge of my nose. I wasn’t going to let the last few minutes ruin the rest of my night. We won our first game, and I was heading to the football house to celebrate, and the chances of Riley being there were slim to none.

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