Center Ice (Boston Rebels Book 1)

I’m trying so hard to focus on the movie, rather than the way the outside of Drew’s thigh is pressing against my knee as we sit beside each other. My cramps are a little better, but I really want to curl into a ball, and I don’t feel like I can do that with him here. Either I’d have my back to him, which feels rude, or my head would be in his lap.

“I’m going to get this ice cream in the freezer,” I say as I reach past the two pints sitting on the coffee table and grab the remote, “before they’re soup. Unless you want more.”

Drew pats his stomach. “I always want more, but I’m trying to practice restraint…in all areas of my life.”

“Oh yeah?” My voice takes on the teasing quality that I almost can’t resist using when he’s around. “Where else do you need to practice restraint, besides ice cream?”

“I’ve been told I need to do less fighting on the ice,” he says. “And I’m trying really hard not to bite my sister’s head off every time she opens her mouth⁠—”

“You don’t get along with your sister?”

“I have two. Missy’s great. She’s married and has two boys, one a year older than Graham, and one a year younger.”

I gasp without meaning to, and he looks at me with concern. “I’m sorry, it didn’t even occur to me that Graham might have cousins. I don’t know why I never thought about that.”

“Yeah. Someday, it would be great if they could meet. I bet they’ll have a blast together.”

I don’t even know how I feel about this. Having Drew back in Graham’s life is one thing, but he has a whole family, too. And, of course, they’ll want to get to know Graham. It makes sense; it’s just another layer I hadn’t really thought much about yet.

“So yeah,” he continues, “Missy’s great. Caitlyn is another story. I think she’s deeply unhappy, and her defense mechanism is to make others unhappy in return.”

“That’s pretty insightful,” I say as I carry the pints of half-melted ice cream to the kitchen.

“Thanks,” he calls over the back of the couch. “Took me decades of frustration to finally come to the realization. Knowing that her behavior stems from her own unhappiness helps me remember that I don’t have to respond to every little insult she slings my way.”

He’s balancing a lot—a new team, relocating, helping with his mom, and now finding out he has a son. I wish his sister was more supportive. “So it’s always been like this with you two?”

“Kind of.” He shrugs. “Once my dad died, she always acted like she needed to be the second parent in our family. It was probably part of how she coped with his death, whereas I barely have any memories of him at all. But she’s never done anything but make me feel guilty about it. Every little sacrifice she’s made, she rubs in my face. And she treats hockey like it’s some game I’m off playing so I can avoid real life, instead of it being my career.”

“Sounds like she gives you lots of opportunities to practice restraint,” I say, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

He pauses, a thoughtful look on his face. In most ways, Drew is clearly older now, but the way his eyebrows raise when he’s thinking and his hair flops forward a bit, makes him look almost the same as in college. And for a moment, I feel like I’m transported right back to his apartment, where I spent stupid amounts of my time and the school’s money trying to get him to focus on calculus long enough to understand it.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” He gives me a lopsided smile while brushing the hair back off his face, and my heart warms toward him. His boyish charm was nearly irresistible back in college, but seeing glimpses of it now amid the more mature pro hockey player makes him…maybe even harder to resist?

I return to the couch, but I can’t get comfortable enough to restart Sweet Home Alabama.

“Hey,” he says, putting his hand on my thigh to stop me from squirming. “What’s wrong?”

“I just can’t find a way to sit that doesn’t hurt my lower back.”

“What’s normally most comfortable when you feel like this?”

“Curling up in a ball.”

“Let’s do that then,” he says. “Obviously, I need to know if Melanie ever signs those divorce papers, so we’ll finish the movie that way.”

Do I want to be lying down, curled up with Drew curled behind me while I re-watch a rom-com I’ve seen a hundred times? Hell yes, I do! But is it the responsible choice?

“Drew…” I leave his name hanging there like a warning. Neither of us is stupid enough to pretend it’s a good idea to be cuddling on the couch, because we both know where that might lead. After all, we’ve been there before.

“You know it turns me on when you say my name like that, right?” His voice is teasing, but it’s also dropped an octave and wraps around me like a caress. I don’t know how his tone gives my body such a physical response, but it keeps happening.

Hearing him say that I turn him on has me afraid to reply. My logic and emotions are all over the place right now, so instead, I roll my eyes at him in response.

“You know what I hear really helps with period cramps?” he says.

“If you say sex, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

His laugh is a quiet rumble, and I like the sound of it way more than I should. In fact, it’s got those abdominal cramps subsiding in favor of a tingling pressure building throughout my core instead. “I didn’t know sex helped with that,” he says, his voice quiet, “but I mean, if that’s a sacrifice you need me to make…”

I roll my eyes. “It’s not.” It’s unfortunate how often I have to say the exact opposite of what I want to say when I’m around him, but someone has to be the adult here.

“I was going to suggest a massage, actually. Parkinson’s causes muscle rigidity and massage can really relieve some of the stiffness, so I learned how to give them in order to help my mom. I could probably help your back muscles relax a bit, too.”

“I’d say it can’t hurt to try, but let’s not forget what happened last time you had your hands on me.”

“I won’t touch anything but your back.” He gives me that same lopsided smile, and it’s so hard to say no to him, especially when we want the same thing. “Unless you ask me to.”

“Fine,” I sigh, as if I’m giving in to something I don’t actually want—when, in fact, my body is literally aching for him to touch me. “And I’m not going to ask you to touch any part of me but my back.”

He lets out a small grunt of disapproval. “Your loss.”

Drew has me lay on my side, and then he snuggles in behind me. I turn the movie back on, enjoying the way his strong fingers dig into my muscles as we watch Reese Witherspoon and Josh Lucas banter about their failed marriage.

“Can you roll toward your stomach?” His breath warms the side of my face as he asks the question. I startle because he’s made sure no part of his body is touching mine except for his hand on my back, so I hadn’t realized quite how close he is.

“Sure,” I say, and try not to groan as I move. The right side of my back, which he’s been massaging, feels amazing, but the left side is still incredibly tight. Once I’m on my stomach with my head resting on my hands, I try to turn my attention back to the movie, but I can’t. Because the warmth radiating off Drew, along with the way my muscles are finally starting to relax, makes it damn near impossible to keep my eyes open.

I wake up gradually in the silent, mostly dark room. The movie is over, and the TV is frozen on the screen, suggesting the next movies I might want to choose from.

My neck is crooked from having it turned so sharply while lying on my stomach, so I go to flip onto my right side and come face to face with Drew. I don’t know why it surprises me that he’s still here, but it does.

“Hey,” he whispers, his eyes opening just enough to see me. A small smile plays across his lips, and his arm snakes around my back, pulling me flush against him. I want to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but with every part of my body touching his, I’m on fire. My nipples are pressed up against his chest and his fingers are gently massaging my lower back again.

Desire courses through my blood. My heart is pounding like it’s going to explode and the muscles in my lower abdomen contract involuntarily as yearning pulses through my core. That motion has my body pushing right into Drew’s dick, which is already getting hard, and he groans and pushes his knee forward, between mine.

“Don’t do that,” he says, a note of warning in his voice, “unless you want more than a back massage.”

My brain is screaming at me to stop, to show him the door and go upstairs to my bed—alone, like always. But the hard ridge of his thigh is settled right against my clit, and my hips move forward against it, giving in to the need. The friction as I rub myself against him like that has me stifling a moan of pleasure so that it almost sounds like I’m choking.

Drew looks down at me, the question written clearly across his face: Is this really what you want?

Yes. No. I don’t even know. I feel so needy and out of control, but also like I’m tired of always having to maintain an iron grip on everything. I’m certain this is a terrible idea, but in this moment, I don’t really care. I just want to feel good, and I know Drew can make me feel good.

I reach over, wrapping my hand behind his neck and intending to pull his face closer. He beats me to it, bringing his hand to the base of my skull and crashing his lips into mine. The kiss is needy and rough and passionate right at the first brush, and my lips part, inviting him in. He invades my mouth like he’s intent on conquering me, his tongue tangling with mine, his teeth grazing my lower lip as I continue to grind myself into his thigh.

He trails his fingers down my neck, across my shoulder, down the side of my ribcage, and to my waist. There, his thumb strokes the strip of skin that’s exposed between my t-shirt and my sweats. When he pulls back from the kiss, I want to push forward, chasing his mouth, but he looks at me and raises an eyebrow as he flattens his hand against my skin under my shirt and slides it up.

“May I?”

“Well, since you’ve asked so nicely…”

He pushes my shirt up at an achingly slow pace until my breasts are exposed, but I hate the feel of the shirt wadded up under my armpits, so I reach behind me and grab the shirt, lifting slightly as I pull it over my head and drop it on the arm of the couch.

Drew stares down at me with raw lust, and when he lifts his eyes to mine, his pupils are huge, making those brown eyes nearly black with need. I’ve never had anyone look at me with the longing I see reflected back at me right now.

His palm skims the underside of my breast, his thumb stroking across my nipple as I arch into his touch. He leans down to kiss me, gentler this time, his lips toying with mine like he’s taking his time while his thumb continues to circle my nipple. This achingly slow pace is driving me crazy. I want more of everything. I want to lose myself in these feelings until there’s nothing but pleasure racking my body.

Drew’s hips move forward, pressing his hard length into my lower abdomen. Raising my knee to his side, I wrap my leg around his lower back and line myself up with him, sliding my center along the hard bulge in his pants. The way his thumb is stroking across the hardened peak of my nipple has me groaning into his mouth, which in turn seems to light him on fire. His kisses are more insistent, and his pace is faster, until it feels like he could make me come just from the intense pleasure of his kiss and the friction of his dick pressing into my clit through my sweats.

He rolls to his back, holding me so that I end up completely on top of him with my knees on either side of his hips. My hair has fallen forward over my shoulders, mostly covering my breasts, so he sweeps his hand behind my neck and twists my hair into a rope that he releases down my back. “My God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he says as he gazes up at me in the darkness.

The way he’s looking at me makes me feel beautiful, because there’s more than just lust in his gaze. I don’t know how to quantify it, but he’s looking at me with some degree of affection and understanding and respect, which doesn’t even make sense. I barely know this man now, and I never knew him that well in the first place.

“Audrey, I want you so badly. But you have to know that I’m not in a place in my life where I can be in a relationship. Not because I don’t want that with you, but because hockey and my mom have to come first. And I need to prioritize getting to know Graham. I’ve thought about this a lot, actually.” He sighs. “And you deserve more than to be fourth in line for someone’s attention.”

It’s nothing I didn’t know—it’s what I’ve been telling myself about him all along—but him verbalizing it in this moment is enough to give me pause. I know that he means what he’s saying. This isn’t just sex. But it also can’t be more than that right now.

“Are you not available for a relationship right now, or ever?”

His shoulders relax, and one corner of his lips turns up. “You’re the only one I’d be interested in having a relationship with, when I am able.”

I rest my forehead against his, reminding myself that it’s okay to have this night with him, even if it can’t be more. It’s okay to let him make me feel good, and to make him feel good in return. We can do that for each other, without having to put a label on it.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” He sounds surprised, but then his hands skim up my sides to cup my breasts, and I lean into his touch, eager to be closer to him. And just as he slides his thumbs across my nipples again, we hear Graham’s voice, sleepy but laced with a little worry, from the top of the stairs. “Mom?”

My head snaps up, and Drew and I lock eyes, my panicked expression meeting his amused gaze. And the way he’s not taking this situation—the fact that our son might walk down those stairs and see this—seriously pisses me off.

I reach down and scoop my t-shirt off the arm of the couch, dragging it on as I call out, “I’ll be right there, Graham.” Then I’m climbing off Drew and rushing up the stairs to find out what’s wrong.

“I didn’t know where you were,” Graham says when I hit the top of the stairs.

“I haven’t gone to bed yet. Why are you up, anyway?” I ask as I run my hand across his head, smoothing the hair off his forehead, which is warmer than it should be.

“My head hurts,” he says. “So does my throat.”

I feel guilty that my first thought is Of course. Of course he gets sick when Jules leaves and I don’t have anyone here to help me, when I have my period and feel like crap myself, and when I have a hot guy downstairs who was about to do unspeakable things to make my body feel better. At least it wasn’t the middle of the night, I remind myself. I’m trash at dealing with things like this when I’m woken up from a deep sleep.

“Okay, let’s get you back into bed and I’ll go get you some medicine and something to drink.” I walk him from the hallway back into his room, and tuck him into his bed. “I’ll be right back,” I say, giving him a kiss on top of his head.

Then I rush down the stairs and find Drew sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the TV. I explain the situation and tell him he needs to go.

He stands, and suddenly we’re toe to toe. “Why?”

“Because I need to go focus on Graham and figure out what’s wrong, and I don’t want to have to explain why you’re here at 11 p.m.”

“But I can take care of you once you’re done taking care of him,” he says, reaching out and running his hand along the side of my abdomen. The offer is distinctly sexual, and it frustrates me that this is where his mind is while our son is upstairs and sick.

“Drew, this isn’t the time. Graham’s sick.”

“Yeah, but you feel like crap too. And once you’ve got him back to bed, I can still be here to take care of you.”

Five minutes ago, taking care of me changed from ibuprofen, a heating pack, and a massage, into full-fledged foreplay. And as much as my body still wants that, that’s not what I need to be thinking about or doing when Graham is sick.

“I have to go be a parent now. I have to put Graham’s needs before my own. I’m here doing this all the time, even when it’s not fun—even when I have a sick kid, or more laundry to fold than I know how I’ll ever get through, or endless amounts of paperwork to fill out for school, or whatever real-life tasks await.” I pause, about ready to burst into tears because I’m overwhelmed and frustrated. “Because this is what parenting is.”

“Audrey…” Even though I think he’s going to say more, and maybe his heart is even in the right place, I don’t have the time to hear him out, because Graham is waiting for me.

So instead, I push him toward the entryway, hand him his shoes, then open the door. And once he’s gone, I grab the children’s ibuprofen, thankful that I didn’t take it for my period cramps, and head back upstairs to Graham.