Page 24 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

“Did I interrupt a knife fight?” he drawled.

I unclogged my throat of the scream that was locked and loaded, inhaled, and steadily stood up. “I was just leaving.” The murmur was barely audible. Cameron didn’t react to it, pretending to be playing the game. The corners of his mouth twitched in frustration with which I was more than familiar.

I passed Beckett without looking at his dimples or his perfect haircut or his long eyelashes. If I met his gaze now, two things would happen in close succession. He would see through me and know what was up. And I would have to fucking kill him.

Holding a massive bubble of air in my lungs, I went upstairs, then marched outside, deaf to the chatter in the common room. The pounding of my heart drowned my ears. Heat radiated from my body until I wondered if I was literally glowing to all around me.

I shut the door on my way out and broke into a sprint as soon as I reached the paved path that connected our house to the rest of Northwood U’s campus. It was my longest run since I could remember and I didn’t stop even when sweat covered every inch of me and a burning in my muscles threatened to render me shit on the ice tomorrow.

As I ran, only two things floated through my mind on a loop.

First, we were cursed. It wasn’t meant to be. It was a blessing in disguise that we kept being interrupted.

The other thought terrified me. Without a shred of doubt, I knew how badly I wanted him. Just a touch. Just a kiss. Just one firm slap of his palm against my bare ass. I needed him to drag me back to Earth from the clouds in which my head was lost. I needed him to hold me down and show me what it meant to belong to someone. Even if it was only for a night.

Chapter Eight

CAMERON

Get your goddamn head straight, Martinez, I snapped at myself as I watched the puck go sideways because my mind had been miles away. I skated ten more feet before stopping and twirling back only to bump into Partridge who was trying to correct my blunder.

“What the hell is up with you, dude?” Beckett asked, not unkindly.

I growled in return and shook my head, helmet weighing heavy today.

The sulking creature on the other side of the rink played as badly as I did, today. He dropped his stick in agitation once and nearly fell off his skates for no reason whatsoever. The few times our eyes met, he was close to snarling and I wondered what he was playing at. Maybe he was begging for me to tower over him and spank that bratty attitude out of him. Or maybe he was so fucking over this entire ordeal.

Whatever his reasons, Riley embarrassed himself today when he stared at me from across the rink, leading the puck between enemy lines, and slamming himself into the boards because his gaze lingered on me for a moment too long.

I fared no better. Sweat was freezing on my face all day and I’d fallen over Sebastian, sprawling on ice and biting my lip so hard I drew blood. It was far from my first split lip, but it was the first for these specific reasons.

Yesterday, I had gotten the closest to feeling alive in years. The electric current between Riley and me in those moments of heavy expectations coursed through my bones. It was like the static buildup that soared through the charts until it ignited a lightning bolt. Destructive as fuck, yes. But also awe inspiring and breathtaking at the same time.

I wanted to assert my dominance over our captain just as much as I wanted to feel the companionship of my first guy. I wanted to teach him a lesson in manners just like I wanted to feel every inch of his body under my lips.

God, I was a lost cause. We both were.

If one thing was certain in all this goddamn mess, it was that Riley didn’t hate me enough not to give in. Whether his reason told him to run away or not, it hardly mattered. His body bowed to me. And his heart was in it.

But this knowledge made me clumsy like I’d never been on ice in my life. A waddling penguin had higher odds of scoring a point than either of us.

The blow of Coach Murray’s whistle was both a blessing and a curse. “Martinez. Brooks. My office.”

Riley tore his helmet off and glared at me like I’d caused his bumbling and stumbling today. I fucking hadn’t. If I had that kind of power, I’d have used it a month ago.

We skated to the edge of the rink and let other guys file out before we took our skates off and dragged our sorry asses to Coach Murray’s office. The man was turning red, one of his eyes twitching. We hadn’t even kicked this season off with a friendly match against the Blizzard Breakers and we were already a disaster.

“Never in my career has a player made me question my sanity the way you two seem to do every day,” Coach Murray rasped, his voice metallic with anger, like a whetstone sharpening a knife’s blade. He pointed his finger at Riley and I wanted to leap and stand between them. It took all my strength to stay still and not interfere. My turn was still coming. “I’ve given you the captaincy of this team because you were well liked and respected, Brooks. Those guys followed you all the way to the top and stood by you in the face of defeat.”

Riley fidgeted, his breathing stopping abruptly.

“Coach,” I said, my voice choking.

Coach Murray’s finger snapped from Riley to me. “We offered you a full scholarship just to have you here, Martinez, because your skill on ice was wasted at SBU. One leading man with a band of rascals never even licked the door of the NHL. And now I discover that you’ve only been great in comparison.”

His words felt like a very unskilled hand dragging a stitch from an unhealed wound. I stiffened in shock.

“The only thing I can think to explain it all is if I lost my touch. Have I misjudged the ones who I believed were this team’s best players in three generations? Or am I seeing something wrong? I can’t seem to make you two work together. And pitting you against each other to push the other off the team is failing, too. So, what do I do with you?”