Page 102 of Blades Out
The truth sat ugly in my chest: I would have fucked her against that wall if I hadn't stopped. Would have stripped her bare in that hallway, claimed her mouth and skin and every sound she made. Would have taken everything she offered and more, consequences be damned.
I'd wanted to claim her. Every part of her. Wanted to mark her so thoroughly no other man would dare look at her twice. Wanted her beneath me, around me, ruined for anyone else.
Sick. I was a sick man for wanting what I wanted.
She was too young. Too vulnerable. Too good for the darkness that lived in me.
I'd done the right thing by stopping. Had to believe that, had to cling to it like a lifeline. Walking away had been the only decent choice in a situation I never should've let happen.
Leaving her standing there—wrecked and wanting and so damn beautiful it hurt—had been the hardest thing I'd done in years.
But it was right. Had to be.
I pushed myself upright, joints cracking in the quiet. My reflection caught in the darkened TV screen across the room—haggard, hollow-eyed, beaten.
One rule. Simple. Clear.
Avoid her. Completely.
No more hallways. No more cafés. No more stolen moments that splintered my control.
I'd stay away if it killed me.
Even if every cell in my body screamed that staying away would destroy us both.
The ice welcomed me with a sharp, familiar cold. Blades bit the surface, a crisp sound that usually centered me. Today it felt hollow.
I dropped into a warm-up lap, letting muscle memory take over. One stride, then another. Controlled breathing. Measured pace. The kind of automatic precision I'd built over two decades of playing and coaching.
Around me, players stretched and joked, voices bouncing off arena walls. Maddox shoved Wyatt playfully. Sam boomed something about last night's game-winning goal. The usual pre-practice energy hummed through the team.
I felt none of it.
My body moved through drills—crossovers, backward skating, edge work—while my mind ran loops I couldn't stop. Olivia's hands on my chest. The tremor in her fingers. The way she'd looked at me when I pinned her wrists, like I was simultaneously salvation and damnation.
Don't.
I carved hard into a turn, ice spraying.
Greyson glided past, all easy confidence. "Coach looks intense today."
Andrew laughed somewhere behind me. "When doesn't he?"
I ignored them. Focused on the burn in my thighs, the slice of cold air in my lungs. Physical sensation over mental chaos. Control through repetition.
Dominic skated up beside me, matching my pace. "Running power play adjustments after warm-up?"
"Yeah."
"Need me to?—"
"I said yeah." The words came out sharper than intended.
Dominic's eyebrows rose. He fell back without another word.
Tension knotted between my shoulder blades. I shouldn't have snapped. Dominic hadn't done anything wrong. None of them had.
But I couldn't shake the restless fury crawling under my skin. The kind that came from wanting something I couldn't have, from touching something I had no right to claim, from walking away when every instinct screamed to stay.
