Page 16 of Price of Victory
The worst part was how good it had felt. How right it had seemed to have him take control, to feel that raw power radiating off him. Even now, walking through the quiet library with my heart still racing, I could feel the ghost of his touch on my skin.
I grabbed a random armload of books and headed for the checkout counter, suddenly desperate to get out of there. The librarian barely looked up as she scanned my selections, and I realized I had no idea what I’d actually picked up. I just knew I needed to leave before I did something stupid.
Like go back and take him up on his offer.
The cool night air hit me with its crispness as I stepped outside, but it did nothing to clear my head. I was still thinking about the fear in Aiden’s eyes when he’d talked about his father, the way his voice had cracked when he’d mentioned the collapse. And I was still thinking about the way he’d looked at me when his hand was around my throat, like he was seeing something in me that I’d never seen in myself.
This was dangerous territory. The kind of attraction that could destroy everything I’d worked for, everything I’d built. But as I walked back to my dorm through the chilly night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was already in too deep to turn back.
EIGHT
AIDEN
The ice felt different today,sharper under my blades, like it was waiting for something to happen. I could feel the tension radiating off the team as we lined up for drills, that electric anticipation that came when everyone knew someone was about to snap.
That someone was Rhett Morrison, and it was probably my fault.
He’d been sulking since we’d gotten on the ice, his usual focused intensity replaced by something darker and more volatile. Every stride looked angry, every stick movement aggressive. Even his warm-up laps had been faster than necessary, like he was trying to outrun something that kept pace with him no matter how hard he pushed.
I told myself I didn’t care. Rhett was perfectly capable of shooting back when I pushed his buttons, and he’d proven that plenty of times already. If he was upset about our library encounter, that was his problem. I wasn’t responsible for his feelings, especially when he’d made it crystal clear that he wanted nothing to do with me.
But watching him move around the ice with that barely controlled fury, I felt something that might have been guilttwisting in my chest. It was an unfamiliar sensation, and I didn’t like it.
Coach Webber was setting up for body-check drills, dividing us into pairs for controlled contact work. The goal was to practice clean hits while maintaining possession, the technical fundamentals that separated college hockey from the brawling mess of beer league games.
“Morrison, you’re with Whitmore,” Coach called out, because the universe had a sense of humor that bordered on sadistic.
Perfect. Just what I needed when my head wasn’t entirely in the game. I skated over to where Rhett was waiting, noting the way his jaw was clenched so tight it looked painful. His brown eyes were dark with something that went way beyond competitive focus.
“Try to keep up,” he said as I approached, and his voice carried enough venom to kill a horse.
“Always do,” I replied, because I wasn’t about to let him see that his mood was affecting me.
The drill was simple enough. One player would carry the puck along the boards while the other came in for a body check, trying to separate man from puck without crossing the line into illegal contact. We’d done variations of this drill a hundred times at Michigan, and I was good at it. Clean, technical, effective.
But when Rhett came at me with the puck, there was nothing clean or technical about the hit that followed.
He slammed into me with the full force of his body, legal by the rules but loaded with every ounce of anger he’d been carrying around. The impact sent me stumbling backward, my skates scrambling to stay on the ice as I fought to remain upright. It was a perfect check, textbook execution, and it hurt like hell.
I recovered my balance and couldn’t help but grin. So that was how he wanted to play this.
“Nice hit,” I said, skating back toward the center for the next repetition. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”
His response was a glare that could have melted the ice beneath our feet.
When it was my turn to carry the puck, I made sure to give him a target worth hitting. I came down the boards with speed, puck dancing on my stick, daring him to try and take it from me. When he did, I was ready.
The collision was brutal and satisfying, two bodies meeting with the sharp crack of protective equipment and the deeper thud of muscle against muscle. Rhett absorbed the hit better than I’d expected, riding it out and maintaining his balance, but I saw the flash of surprise in his eyes.
“My turn,” I said, close enough that only he could hear me.
We went back and forth like that for the rest of the drill, each hit a little harder than strictly necessary, each contact loaded with subtext that had nothing to do with hockey technique. Coach watched us with the calculating gaze of someone who’d seen this before, senior players working out their issues through controlled violence. He said nothing, which meant we were staying just inside the bounds of acceptable.
But my concentration was shot to hell. Every time Rhett lined me up for a hit, every time I felt his body against mine in that split second of contact, my brain went somewhere it had no business going. The weight of him, the controlled power in his movements, the way his breath came hard after each collision. It was all mixing together in my head, desire and competition and something else I didn’t want to name.
The guilt was there, too, nagging at me like a persistent headache. I’d been pushing Rhett’s buttons since we were kids, finding his pressure points and pressing them because that was what I did. It was second nature by now.
But watching him now, seeing the way that controlled fury was radiating off him in waves, I was starting to think maybe I’d pressed too hard this time.
