Page 83 of The Wildest One
“I—”
“I don’t give a fuck if you signed a million NDAs. Today was wrong, Jolie, and deep down inside, you know it.”
“Jolene.”
His face reared back as if I’d slapped him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I can’t have the entire team knowing you call me by my nickname. All that will do is raise suspicion, and the last thing I need is for them to find out I’ve had sex with their captain. I can’t even imagine what my dad would say about that.” I held my temple, the headache of that drama causing my brain to pound. “Trust me, Dad would have a whole lot to say on that topic, and none of those words would be pretty.” My hand dropped, and I tried to regroup. “I need the team to respect me, Beck. I need them to work with me. What I don’t need is them thinking I’m some puck slut who spread my legs the second I met you at a bar in Boston—even though that’s exactly what happened.”
He looked down at the chair, and I could tell the eye contact was hard for him to break. I could also tell he had this burning desire to throw the chair through the glass wall next to us.
That was confirmed when he glanced up, his eyes fierce, his mouth like a rabid animal.
“What are you saying to me, Jolene? What does all this really mean?”
I finished the rest of my drink and was tempted to pour more, but I had to drive, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I would be getting in my car.
But this was the part that hurt the most.
The part where the game ended in a loss.
There was no overtime.
No shoot-out.
“What happened between us”—I attempted to take a breath and couldn’t—“can never happen again.”
“You’re saying, even if you want it to …”
“What I want doesn’t matter.” My hands turned clammier; my stomach flipped in a way that made me nauseous. “My dad owns your team. I work for your team. You’re their star player and captain. There is no space for anything other than professionalism.”
“Did your dad make you sign a nonfraternization policy? The league doesn’t have one, but some individual teams do.”
“No. I signed nothing like that. But I did sign a code of conduct clause, and in there it specifies things like respect and integrity and conducting myself with professionalism at all times.” I hesitated before I said, “What’s happened between us isn’t professional, Beck. It’s downright naughty.”
“But what you’re saying is that, legally, we’re safe.”
I shook my head. “I never said that.”
“We’re grandfathered in, Jolie. We were a thing way before you signed that clause.”
“Regardless—”
“What about what I want?”
Please don’t say it, Beck. Oh God, please don’t say it.
“You fucking live here now,” he continued. “You’re going to be around me every goddamn day—at the arena, at practice, on our plane.”
“And I’m going to treat you like every other player.” I was doing everything I could to shut off my emotions, folding them into a part of my heart that I wouldn’t ever open. “And you’re going to treat me like?—”
“Like I’ve never seen you naked? Like I don’t know what your pussy tastes like? Like I don’t know all the different waysto make you come?” He slammed the chair down, its legs hitting the wood beneath, making a noise much louder than his voice. “I can’t act as if I don’t know any of those things.”
I sighed. It was that or moan, and I certainly couldn’t do that. “You’re going to have to.”
“Right.” He nodded sarcastically. “And you want me to just listen to my teammates go on and fucking on about you?”
I stared at him, oblivious to what he was talking about. “On and on about what?”
