Page 35 of Troublemaker
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“What the fuck has gotten into you? And what the hell did you do to your hand?”
Trey stood in front of me, hands on his hips, glaring.
On the ice, our team was in the middle of a bag skate. More than one player had paused to puke.
It was only 7:00 a.m., and I’d called for an emergency practice at 5:00, citing disappointment in their performance. It was complete bullshit. I was angry—mostly at myself—and decided to take it out on the team. It was a dick move, but it was a day of dick moves for me.
If I shut my eyes, even for one moment, I could picture Lucy asleep in bed, her head nuzzling the pillow I’d been using, dreaming peacefully—probably expecting I’d be there in the morning when she woke. I could just as easily picture her yawning, stretching, reaching for me—only to realize I wasn’t there.
I was an asshole. But staying would’ve been worse. I’d been so caught up in the smell of her, the taste of her, and seeinganother man with his hands on her, that I’d temporarily lost my mind, lost all control, and behaved heinously.
What the hell was I doing, fucking someone half my age, taking a young woman’s virginity,hurtingher with my demanding body and cock, making her bleed and bruise, covering her with my own blood, and taking advantage of the one person I was supposed to protect?
Shouldn’t I be protecting her from disgusting men like me?
“Are you going to answer me?”
Trey watched my face, shaking his head. He wasn’t backing off.
I shrugged.
“It’s good for the team. And don’t worry about my hand.” I’d cleaned it again and re-bandaged it. It stung a little, a reminder of how unhinged I’d gotten the night before.
“Is it good for the team?” he rolled his eyes. “Or do you have demons you can’t exorcise so you’re trying to take them out on these kids? Because they’ve been running drills for two hours and today is supposed to be a day off for them.”
“There aren’t days off when we need to win,” I pointed out, even though his words hit their target.
Iwastaking my demons out on these kids. I was frustrated, I wanted to be back in bed with Lucy, I wanted to be the kind of man who didn’t care about the consequences of my actions. But I did, and I wasn’t, and so here we were.
Trey shook his head, opening his mouth to retort, when we heard whistling.
I turned my head toward the noise and froze.
Because there she was.
Whatever a walk of shame was, this was the opposite. It was like everything had stopped in time, and there was only her. I started from her feet and scanned up, partially to reassuremyself she was okay, but mostly because I wasn’t ready to look her in the eye and see how much I’d hurt her.
Her toes peeked out of those flip flops I hated—a dare, a fuck you. Her legs were bare, shapely, solid, and as my eyes traveled up and up, I saw one hip jutted out, covered—just barely—by a short pink, orange, and white plaid skirt which barely hid her pussy from me. From everyone. I caught the growl in my throat. Her stomach was a bare, pale gold, and even though I’d seen her in crop tops so many times, seeing naked skin reminded me of last night in the bath, her skin wet and shining, when she’d been wrapped in my arms in the tub. Skin I’d pressed kisses all over. A little crop top—of course—covered her tits, but she wasn’t wearing a bra, and I could see her areolas through it. Rose-colored. I knew now.
And if I could see them, so could every other goddamn person on the rink.
This time, I couldn’t contain the growl.
Trey’s head whipped toward me. Hell, everyone’s did—the growl echoed so loudly through the arena, the only sound that had been made since trouble came walking back in.
I continued my perusal, up past her breasts—breasts I hadn’t paid enough attention to the night before, and damn, did I want to rectify that now—to her neck.
My eyes lit on something, and breath whooshed out of me.
A hickey.
I’d given her a fucking hickey.
And she wasn’t even hiding it. I’d claimed her there, and all I wanted was to bite all the way around her neck until she wore a collar of bruises from my teeth, a signal to every other man in the universe to stay away.
