Juniper Ridge.
Vesper.
And him—fucking Callaway Winthrop.
Being traded isn’t just moving cities.It’s being shoved closer to the people I’ve been trying to keep at a safe distance.Closer to the rivalry the league loves to feed.Captain of the Colorado Cobras versus the goalie who won’t bow.It’s always framed like a game.
Like we didn’t have a life before the cameras.As if we didn’t have summers together playing the game, practicing.I know his tells just as he does mine.No matter how much time has passed, I can tell how he’s going to hit the net—and make sure he fails.Unless I’m off that day, and he can get to me.
The point is that I hate Callaway more than I love the game.
We were best friends until that night.Until?—
Fuck.
That night lives in me like it owns the place.
The bonfire smoke in my hair.The way Ves’s laugh turned thin when she realized what she’d started.The way Callaway looked at her like she was a prize and a problem and a miracle all at once.
And me.
I was close, pretending I wasn’t watching her lips part like an invitation.Pretending I wasn’t hard just from the way she leaned in like her spine had dissolved under our gaze.Ves between us, trembling like a live wire, her breath catching every time Callaway brushed her bare thigh with the backs of his fingers, like he was marking territory.
She was pretending—pretending she had control, like she wasn’t the one being worshipped, devoured in slow motion.But her body was louder than her mouth.She arched into every touch.Her knees fell open wider, thighs brushing against ours, the hem of her dress creeping higher with every breath.Her fingers curled into the blanket beneath her, clutching the fabric like it might ground her while her world tilted.Sparks popped in the fire beside us, but she was burning hotter—her body straining toward us like she couldn’t decide who to beg first.
Callaway kissed her first.His mouth caught hers in a messy, hungry slide of lips and teeth, like he was chasing a memory he hadn’t made yet.She whimpered into him.And I lost the plot.
Because watching him kiss her didn’t calm the fire under my skin.It made it worse.
It made me greedy.
I reached for her—hand on her wrist, thumb tracing the pulse there as my mouth found the side of her neck, open and flushed, like she’d been waiting for me.
“Fuck—” she whispered, and her voice broke apart right there, in the hollow of her throat, where I licked the sound off her skin like it was meant for me.
I felt her fingers knot in my hair, pulling me closer, not enough to hurt, just enough to make me know she needed more.That she was unraveling.
Callaway didn’t stop.
He watched.
Watched my tongue trace the shell of her ear.
Watched my hand slide down her side, fingers pressing just under the curve of her breast, testing how far I could go without tearing this whole thing apart.
“You want both of us, Ves?”he murmured against her mouth, lips still wet from their kiss.“Or are you just playing brave?”
“I—” Her breath hitched as my hand slipped into her dress, dragging the lace of her bra upward, baring soft skin and heat.
She didn’t finish her sentence.
She didn’t have to.
Callaway kissed me next.
It wasn’t planned.Wasn’t soft.
It was war.Lust and jealousy and some kind of dark devotion neither of us could name.His mouth was hot and punishing, tongue sliding against mine like he wanted to taste her on me.
