Page 11 of The Pucks We Freeze
His nostrils flared. He shifted, muttering under his breath as he moved beneath me just before I heard the rip of the condom wrapper.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and I barely had time to register the words before he tore my panties away with a single pull.
My mouth fell open, stunned. Straddling him, I felt every shift of his body beneath mine, but he only smirked, lining himself up with slow precision.
“Take what you need from me,” he said, voice hoarse. “Fuck me.”
The words made something in me snap loose. I sank down slowly, inch by inch, until he filled me completely.
His hands roamed my body, as if he were memorizing every inch. When he found my breasts beneath the sweatshirt, his cool fingers grazed my nipples, and I gasped, rocking against him.
“Goddamn,” he muttered, eyes locked on me.
One hand found my clit, rubbing tight circles that had me chasing the edge with reckless abandon. His mouth fell open slightly as he watched me lose control.
“My Birdie,” he murmured. “My Willow.”
The words slipped out so quietly that I wasn’t sure he even realized he’d said them out loud, but they sparked heat under my skin, leaving me breathless and burning.
My cry echoed through the darkness, ripped from somewhere deep as I came apart in his arms. Kade groaned deep, grippingmy hips and thrusting upward in a brutal rhythm until he followed me over the edge, collapsing with a guttural sound, dragging me down with him.
The room was quiet again, only the wind and our breath filled the space. I rested my head against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around me.
And when I finally found my voice again, I asked, barely above a whisper, “Where’d you come up with Birdie?”
He let the silence stretch before answering, his voice low, almost reverent.
“You feel like my Birdie,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to my hair. “Wild, impossible to hold… and even harder to forget.”
Chapter Four
Kade
The plows didn’t reach Rixton until late Monday afternoon, but by then, I’d already managed to make it to practice, although barely. The roads were a mess, the kind of slush that turned into black ice if you so much as blinked wrong. But the rink had heat, hot water, and maybe more importantly, distance. I needed that.
Even if I’d woken up warm for the first time in what felt like months.
Willow curled against me sometime after the storm knocked out the power again. Her fingers had found the hem of my hoodie in her sleep, and her legs tangled with mine like she belonged there. As if we hadn’t spent two years pretending none of it ever happened.
And now she was back.
She hadn’t said much this morning. Just slipped out of bed and into her clothes, her face still flushed with sleep, her eyes flicking to the window like she wasn’t sure if it had really happened. I didn’t push her. Instead, I simply handed her a cup of lukewarm coffee from the lodge’s communal pot and gave her a ride back to her dad’s house. Our house, technically.
It was surgery day. Jed had gone under that morning, and the update came through while I was lacing up at the rink: the procedure went fine, and he was already in recovery. Willow didn’t mention it, but I could tell the weight hadn’t fully lifted.
She didn’t ask where I was headed after I dropped her off. She probably thought I’d go back to the house with the guys, but I couldn’t. Not with her back in town. Not with the memory of how soft her breath felt against my throat or how the sound of her whispering my name had embedded itself in my head.
I wasn’t going far, and I wasn’t going to let my Birdie slip away. Not this time.
Now that she was home, I had to figure out how the hell to make waking up next to her happen again.
That also meant keeping my distance from the distractions at the hockey house and staying closer to the lodge. Or closer to her.
After practice, I headed over anyway. The porch sagged under a thick coat of snow, and the driveway was barely shoveled. Probably Rowdy’s version of good enough. I shoved my notebook under my arm and knocked once before pushing the door open.
The place smelled like stale pizza, eucalyptus muscle rub, and the unmistakable scent of too many dudes living under one roof with a broken air purifier. I knocked once and pushed the door open, already bracing for whatever chaos lived inside.
Cooper Rowden, or as we lovingly call him “Rowdy,” was the first one I saw. He was sprawled across the couch in full post-practice glory, a gaming controller in one hand and a bag of frozen peas resting on his thigh. Shirtless, naturally. The guy had a strict no-shirt policy after games, after practices, and sometimes just for Tuesdays.
