Page 56 of Penalty Box
For a long moment, we didn’t say anything. Just twitched and shuddered together, catching our breath. And even as the storm quieted, I didn’t move. He held me close, our slick mixing and coating my inner thighs, so that I slipped against him.
“Next time,” he said, still a little out of breath, “let’s try to do this without making fun of anyone’s car.”
I laughed softly against his skin, pressing kisses across his chest. “Seems like I hit a nerve.”
Mason took my face in his hands, gaze pouring into mine. “I want you hitting all kinds of nerves. Just not that.”
He kissed me, my heart hammering wildly in tandem to the pounding of his own. I settled next to him then, tangled limbs and bedsheets, fucked out and exhausted. Neither of us said much of anything after that, and especially not what we both knew.
That nothing would be the same after this.
*
The morning light filtered in through the gauzy curtain, totally indifferent to the scene coming into focus as I blinked sleep from my eyes.
Mason’s arm draped heavy over my waist, his breath coming in warm, steady whispers against the back of my neck. For a second, I let myself stay in the pocket of perfect stillness, of bare skin and tangled sheets. In the scent of something that still burned hot and low between us.
Mason and I had finally slept together—and it was everything I could have wanted. I was already thinking about doing it again, waking him up and riding him all over again as a nice little good-morning. I had a full-body high just thinking about what we had done last night, the way he’d felt inside me, staring so deeply into my eyes it felt like he could see my soul.
Then my phone buzzed on the nightstand. Again.
I rolled over carefully and grabbed it with a pit already forming in my stomach. Last night, our little bubble was everything. I wasn’t ready for the real world to come crashing in.
But the barrage of missed calls and texts filling my screen showed me how much reality didn’t give a shit about what I was feeling. The remnants of my night with Mason evaporated in an instant, replaced by a chill in my veins. Most of the missed calls were from my dad, who had no idea I’d gone and done the thing I swore I never would. I messed with his reputation, dragged his name into the shadows of my rash choices.
I stared at the screen until it dimmed, fighting the acrid taste of bile that burned in the back of my throat.
Behind me, Mason stirred.
“Morning, gorgeous.”
I didn’t turn around.
He pressed a kiss to my shoulder, slow and unhurried, let his fingertips float all the way down my spine.
“Last night was…” He gave a low chuckle. “It was amazing. But— and call me old fashioned, but when do I get to take you on a real date?”
That nearly broke me.
I sat up, pulled the sheet to my chest like a shield, and looked at him. “Mason, this was a mistake. We can’t ever do it again.”
17
Mason
If pretending nothing happened was part of today’s press schedule, someone should’ve given me a damn script.
Kids in oversized jerseys crowded the tunnel, all wide eyes and sticky fingers, as a local photographer called out my name for the fourth time. I forced a smile and tugged the cap lower over my brow, half-listening while Bob Trent rattled off a rundown behind me. Meet the players. Press skates. Team-building crap. All part of the deal.
Cass was here. Somewhere.
I felt her the second I stepped onto the ice for the community demo. Like static under my skin. She wasn’t on the roster, but the staff policy meeting meant she could stick around.
“Equipment checks done?”
I turned to see one of the rink assistants, and the woman in question. Cass was dressed in her usual hoodie and jeans, looking like a million bucks. But I couldn’t do anything about it, of course. Not after how we left things this morning.
Howsheleft things.
