I sigh when he places me on my feet again and gives me another kiss, this one far too quick, and I silently wish we could pretend for just a few more stolen minutes.
“Go. Go do hot coach things. I might stop by practice for a few minutes so I can watch.”
Wilder laughs. I’m convinced he’s got the best laugh in the world, and every time he does… which is not often, it makes my stomach dip and my heart feel like it’s suddenly out of sync.
I’m still getting to know this new playful, almost light side of him, and I want to savor it. Bottle it up. Save it for the next time he’s his usual closed-off, emotionally stunted self.
“Next time someone drags you into a closet, gonna need you to put up a fight, or at least pretend to be scared.” His voice is further away now, and I already miss the heat of him.
“Maybe. But it was kind of fun sneaking around and making out with you in a closet. Bye,Coach.”
He’s still chuckling as he opens the door and steps out, leaving me with my heart doing that stupid pitter-patter that only seems to happen around him, and that’s starting to make me believe I might be in trouble.
Wilderis the trouble that I never saw coming.
CHAPTER 40
WILDER
“Uh, you good, Coach?”Bellard, our right winger, says as he skids to a stop a few feet from me, eying me cautiously.
My brow lifts. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugs. “Dunno, but you’re like…smiling. Well, like a grimace that resembles a smile, I guess, and it’s weird. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile, so just wanted to make sure you’re, like, not checking out or something. You know, mentally.”
Fuckers. This is the shit I have to put up with daily.
“Are you trying to skate laps today?” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “Go back to worrying about your stick work and not what I’m doing, Bellard.”
He lifts his glove-covered hand in a dramatic salute, but there’s a shit-eating smirk hanging on his lips, and I’ve got to give him a little fucking credit for being brave enough to come up to me and say the shit.
Unlike the majority of his teammates, who look like they might shit their pants the second my attention is directed at them. I’ve got no illusions that these kids stay in line out of respect rather than fear.
Today, I’m on the ice with the guys as they run drills, and with Taylor hovering nearby, I have to get my head screwed the fuck on straight and do what he brought me here to do.
So the fact that I’ve been walking around smiling like a dopey fucking idiot since I left that room is what’s concerning. Mostly because I have no idea what the fuck to make of it.
Any of it.
The way Maisie Delacroix is consuming my thoughts. How I’m checking my phone to see if she’s texted back. Waiting for the next time I can be around her and kiss her. Fuck, just touch her.
I’m beginning to feel like a goddamn teenager, and I have no idea how to stop it.
How to stop this strange feeling that’s forming beneath my ribs.
When it comes to her, that part in my brain that’s in control of critical thinking seems to short-circuit, and I momentarily forget that she’s a student, and I’m the man who’s thirteen years older than her.
Sighing, I glance down at my clipboard, checking to see who Taylor’s got on line today, and when I look back up, there she is, breezing through the door from the athletic building.
Her hair has been smoothed, plump lips refreshed with gloss, and she looks put together like she wasn’t just mewing on my cock, making the neediest little sounds as I sucked on her neck fifteen minutes ago.
A grin tilts my lips.
Until I realize I’m doing it, and I quickly steel my expression, forcing my gaze back down to my clipboard.
But she’s close. I can fucking smell her, her light, sweet scent making my nostrils flare.
I sneak a look and see her leaned against the boards, chin propped into her elbows, bright blue eyes gleaming.
