Page 18 of Price of Victory
The question hung between us, loaded with all the tension that had been building since the moment I’d walked into the locker room weeks ago. His face was inches from mine, and I could see his pulse jumping in his throat, could feel the heat radiating off his skin despite the cool air of the rink.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I am.”
For a moment, neither of us moved. The air between us felt charged, electric, like touching it might result in actual sparks. I could see the conflict playing out across Rhett’s features, the war between his rational mind and whatever he was feeling.
Then he stood up abruptly, shouldering his gear bag with more force than necessary. But instead of walking away, he paused next to where I was sitting, close enough that I could feel the brush of his leg against my shoulder.
“You want to know what I think?” he said, his voice low and rough. “I think you’re dangerous. I think you’re the type of person who destroys things just to see if you can and then acts surprised when people get hurt.”
The words should have stung, but there was something in his tone that suggested he wasn’t entirely convinced of their truth. And when he moved past me toward the exit, his hand brushed against my arm in a contact that lasted just a fraction of a second longer than it needed to.
It was deliberate. Electric. And it left me sitting there on the bench with my heart pounding and the absolute certainty that whatever was happening between us was far from over.
I watched him disappear through the doorway, and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure who was really in control of this game we were playing.
But I was starting to think that might be exactly what I wanted.
NINE
RHETT
The gym was nearlyempty at ten thirty on a Tuesday night, which was exactly how I liked it. Just me, the steady rhythm of my feet hitting the treadmill belt, and the sound of rain drumming against the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the far wall. The campus looked different in the dark, softer somehow, with streetlights creating pools of yellow light that the rain turned into watercolor smears.
I’d been running for twenty minutes, trying to exhaust the restless energy that had been crawling under my skin since practice ended. The odd, sickly feeling in my chest hadn’t gone away, and my mind kept wandering in directions I didn’t want to examine too closely. Running usually helped clear my head, but tonight, it felt like I was just going through the motions.
The steady thump of the treadmill was hypnotic, and I let myself zone out, watching the rain streak down the windows while my body found its rhythm. This was what I needed. Quiet. Space. Time to think about anything except hockey and family drama and the way Aiden Whitmore’s voice had sounded when he’d whispered those words on the ice.
Of course, that’s when I heard footsteps on the treadmill next to mine.
My heart sank with the knowledge that the universe would absolutely do this to me. I didn’t even need to look to know who it was. There was something about his presence that I could feel even before I turned my head, like the air pressure had changed in the room.
But when I did look, my mouth went dry and my heart stuttered against my ribs.
Aiden was stepping onto the machine with that casual grace he brought to everything, and he looked nothing like the perfectly polished version of himself I was used to seeing. His dark hair was slightly mussed, a lock falling across his left eye in a way that made my fingers literally itch to brush it back. His workout shirt was one of those sleeveless things with the armholes cut so low it barely qualified as clothing, revealing the lean lines of his torso and the defined muscle of his shoulders every time he moved.
The fabric clung to his chest, damp with the beginning of sweat, and I could catch hints of his cologne mixed with something earthier underneath. His shorts were trimmed high enough to show off legs that belonged in a fitness magazine, and when he started running, I could see the flex and release of his calves with each stride, the way his thigh muscles bunched and released with hypnotic precision.
Everything about him screamed expensive gym membership and personal trainer, but there was something raw about seeing him like this, slightly sweaty and focused, that hit me harder than it should have. My pulse was already elevated from running, but now it was racing for entirely different reasons.
I was immediately flustered, and I hated myself for it.
I tried to focus on my own run, on the music playing through my earbuds and the rain outside, but I could feel his presence like a magnetic pull. The sound of his breathing reached me despite the music, steady and controlled at first, then slightlyrougher as he pushed himself harder. When I glanced at his treadmill display, I saw he was running at exactly the same speed I was.
My palms were getting slick with sweat where they gripped the handrails, and I had to wipe them on my shorts. The scent of his cologne was stronger now, mixing with the clean smell of his sweat in a way that made my mouth water despite myself.
Fine. Two could play that game.
I bumped my speed up half a mile per hour, just to see what would happen. Within thirty seconds, Aiden had matched it. I increased it again, and again, he kept pace. We went back and forth like that for another ten minutes, neither of us acknowledging what we were doing but both of us completely aware of the silent competition happening between our machines.
The other students in the gym probably thought we were insane, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. There was something addictive about the challenge, about the way Aiden rose to meet every increase in pace without even glancing in my direction.
When I finally decided I’d had enough cardio, I slowed the machine to a walk and then stepped off, grabbing my water bottle and towel. I was planning to move to the weight area, maybe work through some of the tension in my shoulders with some basic lifting.
Of course, Aiden followed.
I tried to ignore him as I loaded plates onto the bar for the bench press, but it was impossible when he settled at the machine directly across from me. Every time I looked up between sets, he was there, and every time, he was looking back.
The weight room became our arena, a dance of proximity and avoidance that had me wound tighter than I’d been in weeks. When I moved to the squat rack, he found a reason to use the lat pulldown machine right behind me, and I could hear thecontrolled exhale he made with each rep, a sound that went straight to my dick. When he went to work on his arms with free weights, I discovered a sudden need to do shoulder presses at the bench next to his.
