I wake to heat and water and a red hair slipping through my fingers.My cock is so hard it hurts, and I can feel my precum soaking my boxer briefs.I shove my hand into my briefs, fisting my cock, tugging on it roughly, trying to relieve some of the pressure.
In the dream, she’s straddling my lap at the end of the dock, knees bracketing my hips, the lake licking at the boards below us.Her mouth is salt-sweet and open, her laugh breathless against my jaw as I tug her closer, the curve of her ass fitting my palm like I’ve had it forever.She shifts her hips, grinding on me, and I bury both hands in her hair.“You going to be a good girl and take me?”I murmur into her throat, and she tips her chin, eyes bright, freckles lit like stars.“Please,” she says.
I grunt, "It's going to be hard and fast, Tessa, you've been a tease."
Her face lights up with a wicked smile, and she whispers on my lips, "I can take it, Captain, don't hold back."
I'm pumping my hips up in time with my hand when she moans into my mouth and I’m gone, gone, gone...
I come with a muffled, broken sound I don’t recognize as mine, fist tight around myself, muscles bowstrung, breath rough.For a few seconds, there’s nothing but the throb and the after-flicker, the sounds of the house around me and the taste of her skin on my tongue.
Then the cold pours in.
The fan ticks.The lake is a sheet of pewter under a pale July sky.My chest hurts like I sprinted in my sleep.I scrub a hand over my face and stare at the ceiling.Jesus.I’m a thirty-one-year-old captain jerking off to a woman I barely know while half my team is drooling on guest pillows downstairs.
Real smooth, Nate.
I roll out of bed and make my way to my bathroom.The tile shocks my feet awake.I step into the shower and turn it cold.The water needles my skin, beats against the knot at the base of my skull, skates off last night’s noise.Canada Day is a hangover that hasn’t decided if it wants to be a headache yet.Behind my eyes, the street glows.Tessa laughing with Kenzie, dancing with Jensen, that wild red hair still damp from the lake, no makeup, no angle.Something in me keeps reaching for that without permission.
I soap up, rinse off, and let the chill get almost painful.When I finally turn the water off, the house is awake: a cabinet shutting, a muffled curse, McKenna’s laugh bouncing down the stairs like a puppy let loose.I towel off fast, drag on broken-in jeans and a Kodiaks tee, pull a cap low, and shove my feet into old boots I haven't worn in years, but couldn't seem to get rid of.
I’m halfway down the hall when she corners me.
“Captain.”
I stop so short my boots squeak on the hardwood.The brunette who wouldn't stop trying to hang off me all day yesterday is leaning against the wall like the hallway is hers, dress from last night swapped for micro shorts and a crop top that is closer to a bra in size.Glossed lips, cat-eye liner, hair perfect.She smiles like a camera’s already watching.
“Nate,” she purrs, sliding into my space, fingers catching my forearm.The scent is club-sweet, familiar in a way that tightens my gut.“I was hoping we could get a minute… to finish what we started.It has been so crazy since the last time we were together, and I just wanted to reconnect with you.”
Her voice has a nasally whine to it that is grating on my coffee less brain this morning.There’s a beat where my brain glitches, looping back to what she just said...what we started?and then the truth slams into me, hard and ugly.Another hallway flashes sharper, louder.Her hands on the sticky club wall, flashbulbs, a tabloid headline that has been threatening my career: CAPTAIN CARSON CAUGHT IN THE ACT.The image I pretended wasn’t me because the person in it didn’t feel like me.The morning Coach called and told me to get my shit together or lose the C.
Fuck.
I pull back, gentle but firm.“I'm sorry if what happened has confused you.But we didn’t start anything,” I say, and my voice sounds like it belongs to the man I keep promising I’ll be.“We shouldn’t have been in that situation at all.”
Her mouth makes a pout she’s practiced in front of a mirror.“Why are you apologizing?It was amazing.I felt… so connected to you.”She slides her palm down my bicep.“You said...”
This girl is fucking killing me.She felt connected when we fucked in a public hallway in a dirty club, and I don't know her name.Ya real connected.
“I said a lot of things I don’t even remember,” I cut in, throat tight.Shame is a taste; it sits copper at the back of my tongue.For a second, I see my dad's eyes, when they still had pride in them, when he looked at me.I force myself not to flinch.“I’m not looking for anything.I have to focus on hockey.”
“Oh.Right.”Her smile goes brittle.“I was worried that what they were saying was true and that you’re not over Brielle.But honestly?I don't blame you!She’s goals.”
I almost laugh because if I don’t, it might be something else.“Yeah,” I say, dry and done.“That must be it.”
Her face flickers with something unsaid, but she steps aside, so I take the out.
The kitchen smells like coffee and toast and something warm in a pan.Jamie, the PR kid with a dusting of beard that refuses to connect, has his laptop open on the island, eyes bright with caffeine.
“Morning, Cap!”he chirps.“Uh, heads up, socials are… moving.The photos from yesterday are everywhere.The wholesome ones.Your mom slicing watermelon, your dad with Reeves, Kenzie teaching Olivia to cannonball.Tessa on the dock with the kid?Gold.I got permission from Kenzie to repost her shot of Tessa braiding Liv’s hair, with Reeves in the background.Comments are...”He turns the screen to me.The feed is a stream: hearts, Canadian flags, family emojis, “this is the team we love,” “more of this,” “family-first energy,” "Shipping Reeves and the redhead."
I don’t trust myself to speak.I just clap him on the shoulder.He lights up like I handed him a bonus.“Reeves texted; he and Liv are already at your parents’.Eli says be there by eight if you’re serious about helping.”
“Perfect,” I say, even though it’s barely seven and my body would prefer to be a rumour until noon.
Anders shuffles in shirtless, hair a wreck, eyes alive.“Are we doing this, Captain?”
“We’re doing it.”
