Page 7 of Breakaway Goal

Jasmine tilts her head backward after the girl passes us. “Think we’ll end up friends by the end of the semester?”

I huff a laugh. “Somehow I doubt it.”

“No big loss,” my friend retorts.

When we’re in our third-floor dorm room, I breathe a swoony sigh, already feeling so at home here even though this is just our second day. We’ve already started decorating it with posters, pictures, knick-knacks, and comfy blankets and pillows that we’ll get plenty of use out of once the chilly New England autumn rears its head.

After placing what we bought at the pharmacy into a cute little bubble-gum pink three-drawer chest that Jasmine brought with her, I turn around to my new roommate suddenly yelling “Catch!”

My arms shoot up in an uncoordinated fumble as a rectangular object flies toward me. Unsurprisingly, I’m not able to get my hands around it. As a result, one of the boxes of condoms we just purchased smacks against my forehead.

Jasmine goes exactly one beat with a straight face before her expression cracks and she bursts into peals of laughter.

“Are you alright?” she manages to sputter.

“Chipper,” I deadpan, scooping down to pick it up. “At least they were the small ones.”

I hold my frame for another beat before I crack up laughing along with Jasmine, who wraps her arms around me.

I drop the box into the drawer, and a small chill skitters over me as I remember turning around in the pharmacy and seeing Rhys. Then a large chill follows it at the memory of last night. Heat laces through my bloodstream as I recall the look of hunger gleaming in Rhys’s eyes as he pinned me with his heavy, hooded gaze.

Tension coils low in my core as I remember how the rough rasp of his voice hit my ears. I know he was looking at me like that, talking to me like that, just to put on a show for the girls who’d talked down to us, but …

But what?

I sigh as I push the drawer shut.

Rhys actually wanting to be anything more than my friend, for real? Yeah, right.

4

RHYS

Wind whips through my hair, stings my eyes, and blasts my face as I zoom down the small, secluded roads that cut through the thick forest surrounding Cedar Shade.

Nothing feels more freeing than this. Being out here, alone on my motorcycle, empty road stretching ahead of and behind me, nothing to my sides but the dense and impenetrable Vermont woods.

I love being on the ice. Gliding across the smooth surface on my blades is its own kind of freedom, its own kind of high. But there, I have responsibilities. I have to think, strategize, analyze. On the ice, I have a game to win, an enemy to defeat, and teammates I need to not let down.

Out here, though, it’s just me, the machine purring between my legs, and nature. I can clear my head, forget my responsibilities, and silence the gnawing doubts and worries that never shut up anywhere else.

At least, usually I can.

Today, though, there’s one gnawing feeling that I can’t shake off. One voice whispering in my head that I can’t tune out.

The feeling is guilt, and the voice whispering in my head is telling me I’m an asshole—because ever since Maddie Larsen, my best friend’s little sister, sprawled herself out on my bed Saturday night, I’ve fisted my cock twice a day to the memory of it.

Just thinking about it this much has my jeans growing tight. The vibration of my seat creates enough friction that, in spite of myself, I’m imagining driving home and getting myself off for thethirdtime today to the mental image of Maddie’s smooth, slender legs and how perfectly hemispherical her tits look as she lay on my bed.

I try to wipe the thought from my mind, but the spell of the ride is broken. I drive back into Cedar Shade, slowing my speed as I wind through the narrow streets lined with local shops and restaurants.

I roll into the short driveway in front of our house and push open the kickstand with my foot. Four of my teammates and I live in a large Victorian house just two blocks off campus.

When I walk through the door, I see my best friend and fellow first-line defenseman of the Brumehill Black Bears, Lane Larsen, sitting on the big couch in our living room.

But he’s not alone. There are two people I don’t know, one guy and one girl, sitting on the couch adjacent to Lane, both of them holding notebooks.

My brows knit together with curiosity as I gently shut the door behind me and stand in the foyer, not wanting to disturb … whatever this is.

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