Center Ice (Boston Rebels Book 1)

It’s still dark out when my alarm goes off, which I know because apparently, I never shut the curtains. Outside my hotel room window, the lights of the surrounding office buildings glow faintly. It’s too early for people to be at work. I groan as I roll to my side, searching for my phone. My body still hurts, but my head feels better than it did before.

I snatch my phone off the nightstand, but when I go to touch the screen to turn off the alarm, my options are “Accept” or “Decline.” That’s when I realize it’s not my alarm, it’s a video call from Audrey. And according to my phone, it’s almost midnight.

I accept the call before I really consider whether it’s a good idea to talk to her when I’m in this feverish state. “Hey.”

“I’m sorry I’m calling so late.” Her room is dark, and her face is lit only by the phone screen. She’s lying on her side, her head on her pillow and her dark hair falling along the side of her face and across her bare shoulder.

“Don’t be. I’m glad you did.”

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I was dead asleep. Give me a minute and I’ll let you know. Wait…how did you know I was sick?”

“Heard it from Jameson when he barged into my house, demanding to know how you got strep. A little warning would have been nice.”

“Fuck, Audrey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about that possibility. I should have given you a heads up. I came back to the hotel room and fell asleep.”

“When was that?” Her brows scrunch together, leaving an adorable crease between them. I want to reach over and smooth my thumb over that space, tell her she can relax because I’ll be fine. But I can’t because she’s in Boston and I’m in Florida. And I’ve never hated road trips until right now.

“Around lunchtime. I woke up again when the team doctor stopped by to check on me. She said I can fly home tomorrow if I feel up to it and if I wear a mask on the plane.”

“Your team doctor is a female who makes hotel room visits?”

“Don’t be smartass,” I say, even though the thought of her being jealous brings a sick sense of satisfaction. “She brought me some electrolyte water and checked on me before heading back to the arena for the game. Shit. I don’t even know if we won or lost.”

“Lost, sorry. It was 3-2.”

“Fuck. I feel responsible.” I press my palm against my forehead, wishing this headache would recede.

“Don’t. Colt played like shit—you couldn’t have stopped those goals.”

“Maybe I could have stopped the puck from getting down to the crease.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But there were five other players on the ice who were meant to do just that.”

“Fair point.”

“So anyway, yeah, Jameson knows. I didn’t want to tell him until we’d talked and figured out how to go about it. But he thought something was going on between us and you got it from hooking up with me⁠—”

A low laugh rumbles out of me. “I wish.”

“—so I had to tell him the truth. I hope you don’t mind that we weren’t able to talk about it first.”

It makes me wonder how many other things there will be in Graham’s life that we’ll need to talk about first to make a decision. I hate the thought of us parenting Graham and it not being a true partnership. I always imagined I’d want a family eventually, but I never imagined I already had a child or that I’d be incapable of thinking about anything else but his mother twenty-four hours a day.

“I don’t mind,” I say. “He’s your brother, and I trust that you know the best way to handle him. Is that why you called, to warn me that he knew?”

Her cheeks turn pink, and she bites her lip. “Maybe that should have been why I called. I just really wanted to talk to you. I tried to talk myself out of it⁠—”

“Why?”

“Because you’re sick, and it’s late. You probably need your sleep.”

“Not as much as I need to see you right now.”

“Drew.” She says my name the same way she always does, with a hint of warning. It gives me the same butterflies in my stomach that it always does. “You can’t say things like that to me.”

“Why? Would you rather I lie to you?” This is a path I shouldn’t be going down and I damn well know it. But seeing her, even on a video call, has made me feel a hundred times better.

“No, I never want you to lie to me.”

“Well, same. So tell me, why couldn’t you stop yourself from calling?”

She huffs out a breath and gives me a little roll of her eyes.

“Audrey, you said you never wanted me to lie to you. Can you not even give me the truth right now?”

“You don’t want the truth,” she says. That has my attention.

“And why not?”

“Because I went to dinner with my sister, Lauren, Morgan, and Paige tonight. I was finally able to tell them what’s going on now that I don’t have to worry about Lauren having to lie to Jameson about it.” She stops talking and her cheeks get even more pink. She brings her free hand to her throat, like she’s trying to make herself stop talking, and the sight of her fingers pressing on her neck like that has my dick suddenly wanting in on this conversation.

“And?”

“And I told them about how we hooked up that night. It just got me…thinking.”

“About us?” I ask, hoping I’m right.

“Yeah. It’s probably just because it’s been a long time since I’ve had sex.”

“Oh yeah? How long?”

“Since before you were in the picture.” She clears her throat, and the sound is loud in the silence of her bedroom.

“What about your little friends-with-benefits situation?” I ask the question as casually as I can, as though the thought hasn’t been plaguing me since she told me about that asshole Karl. What kind of moron could fuck her and then walk away, not wanting a commitment? I mean, besides me when I was twenty-two.

“I haven’t talked to him in weeks.”

“Why not?” I know the answer, but I want to hear her say it.

“Why do you think, Drew?” The look on her face is one of exasperation.

“I think I want to hear your explanation.”

“You’re such a dick,” she says, but she’s smiling now.

“Go on.”

“My life is complicated enough,” she says. “Hooking up with Karl would just make things more of a mess.”

“Why, because I’d be so insanely jealous I’d probably break his face?”

Her eyes widen.

“I guarantee you that whatever this is between us, it would be so much fucking better than what you had with him.”

Now the blush is creeping up her neck and her face is full-on flushed. She looks away and doesn’t say anything.

“And you know it too, don’t you?” I ask, but she’s still looking off into the distance. I say her name forcefully, and her eyes snap back to mine. What I see there is blatant desire. “If you gave me that look in person, I’d already have my face between your legs.”

She lets out a strangled sound and her lips part. “Jesus Christ, Drew.”

“You can pretend like you don’t want me, if that’s the lie you need to tell yourself. But don’t think for a second that I don’t know…or that I don’t feel the same way.” I haven’t exactly tried to hide how much I want her, but it feels good to be so open about it—even if maybe it isn’t the smartest decision I’ve ever made. In the darkness, though, with her practically panting on the other side of my phone screen, it seems like a phenomenal idea.

“This is a terrible idea,” she says, but it seems like she’s speaking more to herself.

“What, exactly, do you think is a terrible idea?”

“Letting our hormones get the best of us.”

“What is it that you’re afraid of, Audrey?”

“Everything.” The word manages to break through the fog of desire that’s clouding my judgement. I don’t want her to have any fears about us at all. But until I know what she’s afraid of, I can’t help alleviate her concerns.

“Tell me more. What is everything?”

“In the most immediate sense,” she says, her voice dropping so low I have to turn the volume up to hear her, “I’m concerned about something happening between us over the phone. I’ve never done that before.”

“Me neither.” My lips spread into a small smile at the thought of us being each other’s “first” for something like this, and I can tell by the way she raises her eyebrows that she wasn’t expecting this bit of information. “What else are you afraid of?”

“Starting to care for you? Wanting more than what you can offer? You getting bored of me quickly? Graham getting hurt as a result?” She lists off her fears rapid-fire, as questions. But they’re not questions. She’s thought these things through, and she still can’t wrap her mind around the idea that this could actually work.

Until tonight, I wasn’t sure it could. But now, I don’t see how there’s any other possibility than her being mine. She’s going to fight me every step of the way—hell, that might be part of the appeal, if I’m being honest—but I’m going to convince her to give me another shot if it’s the last thing I do.

“I want this to happen not just because you’ve got my dick so hard I feel like I’m going to explode, but because I want to see where things can go between us. Your concern about Graham getting hurt if things don’t work out is valid, but everything else is nonsense. Yes, my time is limited during the season, especially with my mom needing my help. But what time I have left, I want to devote to you and to Graham. And there’s no chance that I’m going to get bored, Audrey. I haven’t so much as thought about, looked at, or talked to another woman since I saw you at Jameson’s. You’re always on my mind. Not just because I want to finish what we started that night on your couch, but also because you’re you. I liked you way too much when we were in college⁠—”

“You did?” she cuts me off, and I huff a laugh.

“God, yes. I made up excuses to see you all the time. Homework I understood just fine? I still asked if you could meet to tutor me on it. Happening to be near your dorm and asking if you wanted to fit in an extra tutoring session at the dining hall? Totally pre-meditated on every occasion. I thought about you all the time; I just didn’t think you had any interest in me.”

“I figured being interested in you was a lost cause,” she says, tilting her chin up in defiance. “You had girls all over you. And I knew exactly what hockey players were like, since I’d spent so much time around professional players.”

I let out a low rumble of laughter. “I still can’t believe I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well, if you’d actually gotten to know me, maybe you would have.”

“I want to know you now. I want to know everything about you and what your life is like. I want to celebrate your wins at work, support you when things go wrong, spend time with you and your family, meet your friends, see you as a mom, and give you everything you need. And, I also want to remember how you taste when you come on my tongue, and what you feel like when you’re wild and needy, stuffed full of my cock.”

“Fuck.” The word is practically an exhale as a full-body shudder shakes her frame.

“You’re needy for me right now, aren’t you?” I slip my hand into my sweats, thankful I’m not wearing my briefs under them, and grip myself hard.

“Yes.”

“Will you touch yourself for me?”