Meet Your Match (Kings of the Ice)

The rookie party was a highly anticipated event for the Tampa Bay Ospreys.

At a point in the season where things were relatively calm — meaning we had at least a few days between games and our record wasn’t too shitty — the veterans would essentially kidnap the rookies on the team for a night of debauchery in their honor.

Coach McCabe was noticeably absent for the affair, and thankfully so, because I was currently in my underwear on stage at a strip club with a bucket of water being poured over my head.

I threw my hands up when I was drenched by the strippers, shaking my hair like a wet dog to the roar of my teammates. We were the only ones in the club other than the women who worked there, and they were good sports, playing into our chaos and making it a memorable night for everyone.

I, personally, was amazed at how they were so steady, walking in their eight-inch heels across a soaking wet stage like slipping and falling wasn’t even a risk on their radar. And when they grabbed the poles behind us and swung themselves up and into a plethora of contortions, the team erupted again, nearly blowing the ceiling off the joint.

I used the distraction as an excuse to hop down from the stage, thanking the girl who handed me a towel and my clothes with a wink. It was poor Carter’s turn next, and he was throwing back another shot to prepare for his torture.

“If only my mom could see me now,” I said when I flopped into a table booth next to Jaxson.

“Ew, bro, you’re soaked.” He tried to shove me away, but I shook my hair again, flinging droplets of water at him before I tugged my jeans on over my wet briefs. I left the shirt off, graciously accepting the beer delivered by the cocktail waitress as Jaxson used my towel to wipe his arms.

“Was your party this wild?” I asked him, glancing around the bar at the absolute animals I called teammates. Everyone was blasted, and Carter was being dragged on stage, the DJ cueing up a new song with our teammates throwing dollar bills at him while he stripped. I laughed when his shirt got caught on his head and he nearly fell off the stage.

“We had a private beach house for mine,” he said, shaking his head on a smile as he tilted his beer to his lips. “I remember approximately two percent of that night, but one thing I’ll never forget is waking up with clown makeup and four girls in my bed.”

I chuckled, then turned to the stage just in time to catcall Carter as he attempted some half-ass spin on the pole that made him fall flat on his butt.

“Real nice what you assholes pulled with the dinner, by the way,” I said. All the veterans had taken us out to eat at the nicest steakhouse in town before heading to the club and told us it was on them, only to hand us the bill at the end.

“Hey, just be thankful they didn’t hold you down in the locker room and shave your hair and beard off,” Jaxson said. “You never realize what an ugly sonofabitch you are until you have a naked head and face.”

Carter threw his hands up in the air like he would at a game, telling us he needed us to get louder. And as the cheer grew in volume, he moonwalked across the stage, did a spin on one sneaker, and landed in a jazz split that made me spit out my beer.

We all roared our approval, and then Carter was thrown down into a folding chair on stage, and four of the club’s dancers descended on him.

I smirked, shaking my head.

And then, just like they had all night, my eyes scanned the crowd until I found Maven.

When she’d been dragged along for the shenanigans, I was sure she’d either bow out early or sit silent for the entire night with her brown cheeks flushed. Instead, she’d fit in like she was part of the team, even throwing dollar bills at me when I was on stage.

I had no idea how she was going to find any safe-for-Instagram content from tonight. The only time I’d seen her actually recording anything was at the dinner.

She was currently sitting with Will, the two of them laughing and watching Carter try not to pop a boner with three half-naked women in his lap. But as if she could sense me watching her, she smoothed her hair back over her shoulder and glanced over it.

Our eyes connected, my heart jolting, and she offered me a small smile that I responded to with a wink. She flushed a little when she looked down at where her fingertips daintily held the stem of a martini glass, and then Will was saying something to her, and she turned her attention back to him.

Jaxson pinned me with a shit-eating grin when I turned back toward him.

“What?”

“Don’t what me, you lovesick bastard.”

I took a swig from my beer.

Jaxson angled himself toward me, elbow on the table. “Is that silence admission or denial?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, so neither.”

He snorted. “Sure. Okay, so, you’re telling me there’s nothing going on between you and Maven?”

It took all the effort I had to keep my eyes on the stage. “What do you think?”

“I think she showed up at your door about ten days ago when you were throwing your pity party the night before the New York game, I told her you were at the gym, and that both of you seemed very tired the next day.”

“It was a long week.”

Jaxson poked me in the chest when I wouldn’t look at him. “Bullshit.”

I clenched my jaw, fighting back the urge to tell him anything. Maven had made it more than clear that she didn’t want anyone to know.

It had been killing me, the last week and a half of being around her after knowing what it was like to be inside her. I was exhausted at the end of every day, and not from practice, but from the effort it took to keep my hands off her, to respect her wishes, to be as close to normal as I could after knowing what her pussy tasted like.

Every time I pumped myself in the shower, I heard her moans, saw her body arched in the mirror, felt her cunt swallowing me whole. I was convinced I’d never have an orgasm again in my life where I didn’t think back to that night.

And every time our skin brushed by accident, I felt it — the electricity that charged that entire night. I knew she felt it, too.

But she was still fighting it.

And that hurt worse than the cut healing on my cheek.

I took an aggressive swig of my beer, blowing out a breath through my nose like a bull.

I still believed what I’d said to her that night — that there was no way in hell that was a one-time thing.

But Maven was one stubborn girl, and my patience was being tested.

“Alright,” Jaxson said when I didn’t indulge him. “So, if there’s nothing going on between you two, then I guess you won’t mind if I shoot my shot?”

Ice pricked my veins.

I turned toward him, slowly, my eyes menacing when I met his goading grin.

“What?” He feigned innocence, already sliding out of the booth. “I’m just being a good friend. Had to check and make sure you were cool with it, that there wasn’t anything there, and I guess there’s not, so…”

“Brittzy,” I warned, shooting daggers at him when he stood and smoothed a hand over the seam of his button down.

He ignored me, staring at where Maven was with Will. She tossed her head back on a laugh, and he blew out a low whistle.

“She’s such a fucking smoke show, man.” He sucked his teeth then, socking me in the arm. “Wish me luck.”

My hand involuntarily crushed the beer can I was holding, what was left of the IPA squeezing out onto the table. I thought I heard Jaxson laugh, but he didn’t stop. He strode right over to her table and sat down, making it so Maven had no choice but to scoot closer to Will.

And there she was, sandwiched between two of my teammates.

Jaxson threw his arm over the back of the booth, and consequently over her. He leaned in, too fucking close, his lips by her ear as he said something that made her smile and roll her eyes.

But she didn’t pull away.

She didn’t excuse herself, didn’t push him out of the booth, didn’t so much as glance in my direction. She leaned into him, into whatever he was saying to her, playing with her hair and laughing like those laughs weren’t supposed to be reserved for me.

I nearly broke a tooth watching it, and then Carter was flopping down next to me with a goofy grin. He slid me a shot, holding out a lime to go with it.

“You look like you need this.”

I didn’t answer him.

But I threw it back, letting it sting almost as much as watching Maven.

As the liquor burned my chest, I allowed myself one last glance at her.

Then, I cracked my neck and felt a new resolve settle into my bloodstream just like the alcohol had.

Maven was mine. She knew it as much as I did. But she was hell bent on pretending otherwise.

Fine.

Two could play that game.