Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41634 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Then Jaxson completely loses his mind.
He claps a giant palm on my ass and smacks me, the sound echoing off the glass like a gunshot. I yelp and laugh, dizzy with power and lust. “Told you, baby. Couldn’t let you get away with teasing me like that.” He’s grinning, wild and wicked, like a wolf that just locked onto his prey. The look in his eyes is pure freaking hunger. Possessive. Obsessive. Like he wants to memorize and put his mark on every inch of me.
His hands reach up, and his thumbs circle my nipples until they are tight, aching peaks. My pussy clamps down on his cock, the first waves of an orgasm beginning to ripple through me. He feels it, his thrusts becoming faster, more desperate. He’s pounding up into me now, his muscular body wound tight beneath me as the sound of our bodies meeting echoes around the room.
"I’m coming," I gasp. "Jaxson, I’m—"
The orgasm hits like a physical blow, a white-hot explosion that starts at the point where we are joined and radiates outward until I’m shaking, my vision swimming with stars. He thrusts one last time, deep and hard, and then he’s erupting, filling me with hot spurts of his cum as a low, guttural roar breaks from his throat.
I drop down onto his chest and lay my head right against his heart. We stay like that for a long time, locked together as our breathing slows and the world outside the windows begins to realign. The silence of the penthouse returns, but it’s different now. It’s no longer empty.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JAXSON
The red light of the scoreboard blinks in my periphery, but my focus is narrower than it has ever been. Usually, my mind is a grid of angles and trajectories, a cold machine calculating the path of a six-ounce piece of vulcanized rubber. Tonight, the ice feels different. It’s been three weeks since our first date, three of the best goddamn weeks of my life.
Harper’s still insisting we keep our relationship a secret, but at least she’s embraced her rule-breaker side.
“Thorne! Wake up!” Mick screams, his voice muffled by his cage as he skates past my crease. He taps his stick against my leg pads, a sharp crack that should snap me back into the game. I give him a quick glove-save nod, but my eyes are already drifting toward the tunnel, toward the world that exists outside this arena.
The game ends in a blur of whistle-blows and the heavy scent of ozone. Another win, another game where I played like a man possessed, but as I peel off my sweat-soaked jersey in the locker room, the victory is a little hollow. And I’m feeling off. I thought I’d be content to keep things with Harper on the down-low, but I’m tired of hiding our relationship. I’m fucking in love with her, and I want the whole goddamn world to know.
“You’re doing it again,” Mick says, leaning against the wooden stalls as he unfastens his skates. He’s looking at me with that annoying, observant grin that suggests he knows exactly where my head is. “The brooding. It’s more intense than usual.”
“I’m fine, Mick,” I say, my voice raspy from shouting directions on the ice. I shove my phone into my pocket before he can see the name on the screen. “Just a long game.”
“Right,” Mick chuckles, shaking his head as he stands. “You’re not as impenetrable as you think, Jax. The guys are starting to notice. Someone caught your ornery ass smiling at the equipment manager. Then you actually grunted out a response to a nosy reporter. People are worried.”
“I’m just in a good mood,” I mutter, grabbing my bag and heading for the door before he can dig any deeper. The truth is, I’m in a terrifying mood. I’m in the kind of mood that makes a man forget he has an image to maintain. I’m in the kind of mood where the secrecy is starting to feel like a weight I can’t carry, a debt I can’t pay off without losing everything.
Ten minutes later, I’m idling my car in the darkened corner of the Seattle General parking lot. This is our ritual now—clandestine meetings in the shadows of the hospital, shared minutes stolen from the demands of our separate lives. It’s messy, it’s addictive, and it’s the only time I feel like I can breathe. When the side door opens and Harper steps out, the night air suddenly tastes like everything I’ve been missing.
She’s still in her scrubs, her hair pulled back in a messy bun that’s losing the fight against gravity. She looks tired, the kind of deep-set weariness that comes from twelve hours of holding people together, but when she spots my car, her face transforms. It’s a small shift, a softening of her jaw and a light in her eyes that I’ve started to crave more than the roar of a shutout crowd.