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CHAPTER 72 - STRESS RELIEF
publish date:
2026-03-30 00:34:20
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PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 73 - STOP
We were arguing about dishes.That's what I need you to understand. Dishes. A pan in the sink I'd asked him to wash three times that he kept saying he'd get to and hadn't. Stupid. The kind of fight that means nothing on its face and everything underneath because nobody screams about a pan unless they're screaming about something else."I said I'd do it–""You said that yesterday. And the day before. And last week about the scholarship meeting you didn't tell me about, so forgive me if I said I would doesn't carry the weight it used to."That landed. I watched it hit. His jaw tightened. His eyes went flat. And I knew I'd crossed the line from the pan into everything else – Richard, the lies, the pattern, the version of him I'd compared to Caleb in his own kitchen – but I couldn't stop because I was tired and scared and anger was easier than admitting I didn't know how to fix us."Don't.""Don't what? Be honest?""Don't use that against me every time you're mad about something else.""T
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 72 - STRESS RELIEF
I found him outside the science building.He was leaning against the wall with his bag over one shoulder and his phone in his hand and that look on his face – the one he'd been wearing since Richard's visit, since I'd stood in his kitchen and compared him to Caleb. Tight jaw. Distant eyes. The look of a man carrying things he wouldn't put down.I grabbed his arm."Come with me."He looked at my hand on his sleeve. Then at my face. "Where?""Just come.""For what?"Honest answer? I didn't know. My body knew. My brain was still catching up. Everything had been so heavy for so long – Richard, the lies, the pattern, the conversation I'd replayed forty times in the car with my forehead on the steering wheel. I was tired of heavy. Tired of meaningful. Tired of every single moment between us carrying the weight of something we'd have to talk about later.I pulled him across the quad. Through the side entrance of my building. Up the stairs because the elevator took forever and I didn't want
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 71 - MORE PROTECTION
Sienna didn't mean to do it.That's the thing I kept reminding myself after. She wasn't stirring anything. She was lying on her bed painting her toenails with the phone on speaker, talking about Cole the way she'd been talking about Cole for weeks – half-annoyed, half-obsessed."He's been weird all day. Quiet. I think Rhys's meeting stressed him out and it's leaking onto everyone."I was at my desk. Highlighter in hand. Midterm notes spread across every surface."What meeting?"The silence on the phone lasted four seconds. I counted."The... scholarship meeting?" Sienna's voice climbed. "The one with the alternative funding people? Cole said–" She stopped. I could hear her toenail polish brush freeze mid-stroke. "He didn't tell you."Not a question."No.""Naomi–""I have to go."I hung up. Sat with my hands flat on the desk for a long time. Longer than I should've needed. Because the anger wasn't the kind that hits fast and burns out – it was the kind that arrives quiet, settles into
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 70 - LIKE HIM
NAOMI’S POVI was wearing his shirt.That's what I keep coming back to when I replay it. Not the words, not the silence after, not the way his hands shook for twenty minutes straight. The shirt. Grey, threadbare, smelled like his soap and his skin and the night before. I was standing in his kitchen with coffee in one hand and my phone in the other, scrolling through nothing, feeling the kind of quiet that only exists the morning after someone holds you like you're the last good thing.The door opened without a knock.Richard Maddox walked into his son's apartment the way he walked into everything – like he owned it. Like the space rearranged itself around him out of obligation. Expensive coat. Car keys still in hand. Eyes that swept the room and catalogued every detail in under three seconds.Me. The shirt. The coffee. My bare legs. The two mugs on the counter.His expression didn't change. That was the thing about Richard – he never gave you the satisfaction of a reaction. Everything
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 69 - MIDNIGHT THOUGHTS
RHYS’ POVThe water was too hot. I kept it that way.The burn was the only thing that worked. Not ice, not running, not the bag in the corner I'd punched until my knuckles split last week and taped up before she could see. Hot water on my shoulders, my back, my neck. Skin turning red. And for three, maybe four minutes the noise went quiet enough to breathe.The noise sounded like my father.You're a disappointment. You're dangerous. You're exactly like me and that's the part you can't stand.I braced my hands on the tile. Water down my face. Tried not to think about the freshman. Thought about him anyway.The check was too hard. I knew it the second my shoulder connected. He went into the boards and the sound echoed and I felt nothing. That's the part. Not guilt. Not remorse. Nothing. The cold satisfaction of a body doing what it was built to do.The guilt came later. Always later. I was sitting in the locker room after everyone left, staring at my hands. Seeing them the way the kid s
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 68 - HEAVY WEAPONS
It came back to her through Cole. Because everything came back through Cole eventually – the quiet goalie who noticed everything and said nothing until saying something became necessary.Rhys was already in the apartment when I arrived Tuesday evening. Standing in the kitchen. Not sitting – standing. The posture of a man who'd been pacing and had stopped when he heard my key in the lock. His face was the dangerous kind of calm. The kind that looked like stillness from across the room and felt like a loaded weapon up close."You had an honest talk with Caleb."Not a question. A statement. Delivered flat, each word placed carefully, the way you place stones on a scale when you're measuring something you're afraid to know the weight of."What?""Cole heard it from two different guys at practice today. That you and Caleb had a heart-to-heart. That you called him when things got hard. That you feel safe enough to go to him when you need to talk." His jaw tightened. "His words. Making the r
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 34 - NO WORDS
He followed me home.I didn't invite him. Didn't ask. Just walked across campus with my arms wrapped around myself and the words captain's leftovers still ringing in my skull and Rhys Maddox three steps behind me like a shadow that refused to detach."I'm going back.""You're not.""One conversatio
Last Updated : 2026-03-27PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 32 - PAYING ATTENTION
The campus literary magazine came out on a Thursday.I found it in the English building – stacked by the door in a neat pile, the cover a muted blue with black text. My piece was on page fourteen. Anonymous, like always. No name, no photo, just the words I'd bled onto a screen at midnight sitting i
Last Updated : 2026-03-26PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 31 - HOW WE WORK
I came to return a textbook. That was it. That was the entire plan – drop off the Gatsby anthology he'd left at my dorm, leave it on his counter, walk away before the conversation turned into something neither of us could control.The plan lasted until the parking garage.He followed me down the st
Last Updated : 2026-03-25PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE CHAPTER 27 - HIS SURRENDER
NAOMI’S POVHe stood in the doorway and took it.Every word. The Caleb comparison. The accusation. The truth he didn't want to hear from the one person whose opinion could actually cut him. He took it the way he took hits on the ice – absorbed it, let it land, didn't flinch.Then he stepped back. L
Last Updated : 2026-03-24
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