LOGINChapter 4
I felt Cassian's fingers on the handcuffs, heard the click as he released them. My wrists were raw, aching, but before I could even process the relief, his hand wrapped around my arm and flipped me onto my back. I gasped, my eyes flying open to meet his brown gaze—so different from his brothers' blue eyes. There was something burning in those depths that made my stomach clench with fear and something far more dangerous. "We don't need those," he said, his voice a low rumble as he tossed the handcuffs aside. "I'd love to see you do so much as try to get away from me." He leaned down, his face inches from mine, his breath hot against my lips. "The more you resist, kitten, the harder I go. So think carefully." My entire body trembled. I wanted to push him away, to beg him to stop, but some dark, twisted part of me wanted this. Wanted him. And that terrified me more than anything. Cassian didn't rush. He took his time, his calloused hands trailing over my sweat-slicked skin, exploring every curve like he was memorizing me. His fingers traced the marks his brothers had left—the bruises on my hips, the bite marks on my throat—and something flickered in his eyes. Possession. Fury. Hunger. "Look at you," he murmured, his hands sliding up to cup my breasts. "Marked. Used. Dripping with my brothers' cum." He squeezed roughly, making me whimper. But then his thumbs brushed over my nipples, gentler than I expected, sending jolts of pleasure straight to my core. My body arched involuntarily, betraying me once again. "So responsive," he said, almost to himself. His hands moved lower, tracing my ribs, my waist, my trembling thighs. "Even after everything they did to you, you still want more, don't you?" "No," I whispered, but it was a lie and we both knew it. His hand slid between my thighs, and I gasped. I was oversensitive, swollen, aching—but when his fingers brushed my clit, pleasure sparked through the discomfort. "Liar," he growled, his fingers sliding lower, spreading my folds. "You're dripping, kitten. And not just from them." He was right. Despite everything, despite the exhaustion and the overstimulation, I was wet. My body was preparing itself for him, craving him, and the shame of it made fresh tears prick my eyes. Cassian's gaze locked onto my face, watching every expression, every emotion that flickered across my features. Then he pushed one thick finger inside me. I cried out, my back arching off the bed. I was so sensitive that even that single finger felt overwhelming. "Shhh," he murmured, but there was no comfort in it. "I'm not even close to done with you yet." He added a second finger, stretching me, and I whimpered. My hands flew to his wrist, trying to push him away, but he caught both my wrists in his free hand and pinned them above my head. "What did I say about resisting?" His voice was dangerous, dark with promise. He added a third finger, then a fourth, and I sobbed. The stretch was intense, burning, but underneath it was pleasure building despite my protests. "Trust me," he said, his brown eyes boring into mine with an intensity that stole my breath. "I'm merely doing you a favor, preparing you to take me. My brothers stretched you out nicely, but you might need a bit more to be able to accommodate me." My gaze dropped involuntarily to his cock, and my heart stuttered. He was huge—thicker and longer than his brothers, the head already glistening with precum. There was no way I could take all of that. No way. "Eyes on me, kitten." My gaze snapped back to his face. His expression was hard, unreadable, but his eyes... there was something there. Something that looked almost like concern before it vanished behind a sneer. "Spread your legs," he commanded. I hesitated, fear freezing me in place. "Now." His voice cracked like a whip. Slowly, shakily, I let my thighs fall open. "Wider." I obeyed, spreading myself completely for him, exposing every intimate part of me. The vulnerability was crushing, humiliating, but the way he looked at me—like I was something precious he wanted to destroy—made heat pool low in my belly. "Wider," he growled. I didn't think I could, but I tried, my muscles trembling with the effort. He crawled between my spread thighs, his massive frame dwarfing mine. One hand slid under my waist, arching my hips up slightly. "Deep breath, kitten," he murmured. Then, with no further warning, he slammed his entire length inside me in one savage thrust. My mouth opened in a silent scream. The pain was blinding, the stretch impossibly full. He'd buried himself to the hilt, and I could feel him everywhere—in my belly, in my throat, consuming every part of me. "Fuckkkk!" he roared, his head falling back as his entire body went rigid. "So fucking tight. So perfect." The pain hadn't even begun to settle when he started moving. His thrusts were brutal, merciless, each one driving deeper than I thought possible. I tried to close my eyes, to escape into darkness, but his voice cut through. "I said," he warned, breathing heavily, his hand grabbing both my wrists and pinning them above my head with one hand, "eyes on me, kitten." But I could barely keep them open. The sensations were too much—pain and pleasure blurring together until I couldn't tell them apart. "Do not let me ask again." His free hand gripped my jaw roughly, forcing me to meet his gaze. "Keep your fucking eyes on me while I fuck you. Unless you'd love me to punish you. Trust me, I have all the time." "Please..." I cried, tears streaming down my face. "I... I can't... it's too much." I forced my eyes to stay open, to hold his stare. His brown eyes held an intensity I couldn't decipher—hunger, yes, and lust, but something else too. Something that looked almost like awe, like he couldn't believe I was real, before he masked it with another sneer. He leaned down and crashed his lips on mine, swallowing my cries. His tongue forced its way into my mouth, claiming, possessing, silencing me as he continued to pound into me with savage force. But the kiss... the kiss was different from his brothers'. Beneath the brutality was something almost tender, the way his lips moved against mine, the way his tongue stroked mine. Like he was tasting me, savoring me, like he couldn't get enough. When he pulled back, I was gasping, and I realized with shock that pleasure was building again. My seventh orgasm of the night, and this one felt different. Bigger. More consuming. "That's it," Cassian growled, his eyes never leaving mine. "I can feel you getting close. You're going to come on my cock, kitten. You're going to come harder than you ever have." "No... no, I can't... not again..." I sobbed. "You will," he snarled, and his hand released my jaw to slide between our bodies, his thumb finding my oversensitized clit. The touch sent me spiraling. The orgasm crashed over me like a tidal wave, so intense that I screamed his name. My entire body convulsed, my pussy clamping down on his cock so hard that he groaned. "Fuck, yes," he growled, but he didn't stop. He kept thrusting, kept circling my clit, prolonging my orgasm until I was sobbing, shaking, completely wrecked. And then he pulled out. I gasped at the sudden emptiness, confused, but before I could process it, Cassian grabbed me and hauled me up. In one fluid motion, he lifted me completely off the bed, my legs instinctively wrapping around his waist as he pressed me against the wall.# Not the way I'd kissed him before — those times had been urgent and desperate, the release valve of too much pressure building too long. This was different. Slow. Deliberate. My hands on his face, tilting him up, learning the specific weight of his jaw in my palms.Finn made a sound against my mouth that moved through me like a current.His hands found my waist. Pulled me closer. I went — no resistance, no calculation, just forward — and felt him breathe out against my lips like he'd been holding something and had finally let it go.I walked him backward.He went easy, trusting, his hands sliding up under my jacket, finding the hem of my shirt. I sat him down on the couch and stood over him and looked at him in the lamp light — flushed, breathing hard, his dark hair falling across his forehead — and felt something in my chest open so wide it almost hurt."Tell me what you want," I said.Finn looked up at me. His hands were still fisted in the front of my shirt, holding on. "I want
The words landed simply. No preamble, no hedging, nothing around them.I looked at him. "Finn—""Not for her." Something shifted in his expression. Became very direct, very still. "Not because of her or for her or because of anything except this." He took a single step toward me. "For us. Come over because you want to. Because we've been doing this dance for four years and I am done with the choreography."The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.I could hear my own heartbeat.I thought about four years of fights that were never really about hockey. Four years of getting close enough to feel the heat of him and then finding a reason to create distance. Four years of lying in the dark knowing exactly what I wasn't letting myself have.I picked up my bag."What time?" I said.Something moved across Finn's face. Relief, maybe. Or the specific look of someone who has been patient for a very long time and has just been told the waiting is over."Eight," he said.I walked out without looking
LUKEI knew something was wrong the moment I saw her.She was doing that thing with her clipboard — holding it slightly higher than she needed to, her pen moving in those precise, controlled strokes that meant she was using the task as a container for something she didn't want to spill. Three weeks of watching Nadia Torres and I already knew her tells the way I knew my own skating stride. The slight lift of her chin when she was managing something. The way her eyes tracked a little too carefully, landing on faces and then moving on before anyone could read anything into it.She was fine. She was performing fine.Something had happened.I ran drills for twenty minutes after practice trying to work out the fury.The ice helped. It always helped — the cold and the speed and the singular focus of blade against surface, the way the rest of the world went quiet when you were moving fast enough. I ran the same sequence over and over until my lungs were screaming and my thighs were burning an
He stood outside the glass with his hands in his jacket pockets, his breath a small cloud in the cold, looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. He'd changed out of his practice gear into dark jeans and a jacket, his hair still slightly damp.I unlocked the door.He got in without being invited. Closed the door. Settled into the passenger seat like he had somewhere to be and this was it.The parking garage was dark and echoey around us, the low hum of the ventilation system the only sound. A fluorescent light two rows over buzzed and flickered.We sat in the dark and said nothing.Cole didn't ask what was wrong. Didn't offer solutions. Didn't do the thing people did where they filled silence with themselves. He just sat there, his big frame taking up most of the passenger seat, his hands loose on his thighs.After a while I said: "How did you know I was here?""Saw your car when I was leaving. Lights were off." A pause. "You've been sitting here a while.""Forty minutes,
The meeting lasted eleven minutes.I knew because I counted. Watched the clock on the wall behind Assistant GM Patrick Reeves's head tick through every single one of them while he talked at me in that particular corporate register that's designed to sound reasonable while delivering something that isn't.Unprofessional conduct.He said it twice. Both times with the same careful neutrality, like the words were a scalpel he was trying not to press too hard."Someone filed a complaint," he said. "I want to be transparent with you about that, Nadia. We value transparency here.""What kind of complaint?""Conduct unbecoming of a medical professional. Inappropriate relationships with players." He paused. "Nothing specific. No names, no incidents. Just a — concern, raised through the appropriate channels."I kept my face completely still. I'd gotten good at that in my marriage — the particular skill of presenting a smooth surface while everything underneath was moving fast."I see," I said.
The thought arrived without permission. Why is it doing this, why is it doing this, why is— "Whitmore." Nadia's voice. Clear and firm from the boards. I didn't move. "Cole." Softer this time. She stepped onto the ice. Skated to us in three confident strokes — she'd been on skates enough to manage it, not gracefully but with the same sure practicality she brought to everything. She put one hand flat on my chest and one on Finn's shoulder. I looked down at her hand. Flat against my practice jersey. I could feel the pressure of it even through the padding. Five points of contact, firm and warm and completely professional. I let go of Finn's jersey. I didn't step back. But I let go. Nadia looked up at me and there was nothing in her face but steady, careful attention, the same look she had when she was assessing an injury, deciding how bad it was. I wondered what she was deciding about me. "Walk it off," she said quietly. "Both of you." Finn skated away without a word. I stoo







