Cameron Davies
You asked me how I deal with my balls chafing the week after we agreed to this. I think I’m well-trained at this point.
Kennedy Caplan
FYI YOU NOT FREAKING OUT IS MAKING ME FREAK OUT MORE.
Cameron Davies
Stop yelling at me. I guarantee you won’t like the consequences.
Kennedy Caplan
If it involves spanking, I guarantee I will.
The three dots indicating Cameron’s typing disappear and reappear no less than five times.
Cameron Davies
You’re playing with fire, sweetheart.
Kennedy Caplan
I look better in warm lighting anyway.
The pit in my stomach, where my nerves have gathered and swirled all day, morphs, and heat develops there instead. Sex with Cameron is… it sounds dramatic to say life-changing, but it really is.
It’s like he’s learning my body the way he learns how to read his opponents on the ice—studying every reaction, memorizing what makes me gasp, what makes my legs shake, what makes me forget my own name. He pays attention in a way that feels almost overwhelming and watches me when I come apart, like he’s cataloging every detail. He makes me feel beautiful and sexy without having to say a word.
And it’s not just the physical part, though, God, the physical part is incredible. It’s how he pulls me into him after and traces patterns on my skin while we’re catching our breath and kisses my shoulder and asks if I’m okay, genuinely wanting to know the answer.
It’s the intimacy of it that’s terrifying. Because I’ve had good sex before, but I’ve never hadthis. Sex like this isn’t supposedto happen in fake relationships, because with it comes emotions that don’t just disappear when the arrangement ends.
My phone buzzes again.
Cameron Davies
Can’t wait to play a sixty-minute game hard as a fucking rock.
Kennedy Caplan
I like to keep you on your toes. Good luck!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
cameron
The energyduring a rivalry game is always heightened. The moment I step onto the ice for warm-ups, the familiar weight of my pads grounds me and keeps me that way as I skate toward the net. Our decades long history with the Titans is filled with several playoff series that went to seven games, trades that felt like disloyalty, and a geographic closeness that sometimes makes home games feel like away games and vice versa.
“Fucking zoo in here,” Jake mutters as he glides past.
He fires a puck at my glove, and I catch it, cleanly tossing it back.
Yeah, it is. The arena is packed to the rafters, every seat filled, the excitement so thick it would take a skate blade to cut it. There are tons of celebrities here. None of them could name three players on either team, but they show up because this isthegame to be seen at. I spot at least two actresses from Kennedy’s reality TV shows, a rapper whose album dropped last week, and some TikTok star the younger guys were freaking out about in the locker room.
“All right, listen up,” Henderson yells while we’re gathered in the locker room after warm-ups. His voice silences the room, but it doesn’t dull the adrenaline coursing through all of us. “You all know these bastards would love nothing more than to embarrass us on their home ice.”
A few guys growl in agreement.
