Chapter 7

brADY

PRESENT DAY

Grace was here. Why was she always around, no matter where I went?

We’d won our game tonight. I should’ve been happy. I should’ve been celebrating with the team.

But I could only watch Grace laughing and flirting with my teammates.

It was all innocent. Grace wasn’t the type to lead anyone on. I could even tell when she was uncomfortable, when the guys were too flirtatious with her. She had an expression that was a cross between embarrassment and annoyance. She’d look up at the guys from under her lashes, her pretty lips scowling.

She didn’t know she made that face often. I’d pointed it out to her once, long ago, but she’d denied it. She claimed she had the best poker face when she’d probably lose at poker because she wore her heart on her sleeve.

We’d beaten our rivals the Blizzards with only seconds to spare. Coach hadn’t been happy about the almost loss, but now, after a few beers in him, he looked happy again.

We’d gone to a nearby club with a huge private room upstairs. The music was blaring, the alcohol flowing, and I didn’t know half the people in attendance.

There were probably more women here than actual hockey players or fans. I should be thrilled.

But here I was, standing in the corner, glaring over at where my teammate Riley was saying something in Grace’s ear that made her laugh.

Look at me, I thought. Look at me, Grace.

As if she could hear my thoughts, her gaze met mine. Her eyes widened.

And then she looked away. Damn her to hell.

How much had I had to drink? I’d forgotten. Somebody kept putting glasses in my hand, and I wasn’t disinclined to stay sober tonight.

Then I made eye contact with Coach Dallas. He’d been looking over at his daughter. Had he seen me staring at her?

His eyes narrowed at me, but then somebody caught his attention. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

I needed to get ahold of myself. I was being too fucking obvious. The last thing I needed was Coach getting on my ass for lusting after his virginal daughter.

I groaned inwardly. Christ, just the thought of her being a virgin, of giving in to temptation, of making her mine, finally—

“What crawled up your ass and died?” Mac asked me with a raised eyebrow. He punched me lightly in the arm.

I scowled. “Nothing,” I growled.

“Why are you standing in the corner by yourself? That’s not like you.”

I finished off my drink and looked around for a server to refill it. “Maybe I’m not in the mood to celebrate.”

“After scoring the winning goal? Okay, sure.” Mac frowned at me. “What’s up with you, anyway?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, did you have a chance to go to the club? Because if you haven’t, you definitely should. Blow off some steam.”

The memory of my night at the Scarlet Rope and my time with Shayla improved my mood a little.

“I did go,” I replied, forcing myself to stop scowling. “I had a good time, actually.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I mean, I’ve never been into whips and chains. I guess I’m just fucking vanilla at the end of the day.”

Mac chuckled. “Everybody says that until they try it once. Are you going back again?”

“Yeah.” I hadn’t known whether I would until that moment.

But Mac was right. I needed to blow off steam. And what better way than getting my mind off the one woman I could never have?

“Well, a word of advice,” said Mac. “Everybody signs NDAs, but that doesn’t mean shit doesn’t get leaked. Did you wear a mask? Because if not, I would, going forward. You never know who’ll recognize you and snitch.”

I shrugged. “I’m not worried about that.”

“I speak from experience: you don’t want this shit talked about in the tabloids. It gets twisted and complicated.”

When the media had found out Mac liked BDSM, it’d been a whole fucking thing. It hadn’t helped that Mac’s parents were ultrareligious.

“This is where I’m glad my parents don’t give a shit about me,” I said, clapping Mac on the shoulder. “Unless they can get money. That’s all they care about.”

I said the words jokingly, but it still hurt, knowing that my family was fucking useless. Mac had always complained about his parents not understanding him. But at least he had parents.

God, I’m turning into such a sap, I thought. It must be the alcohol.

Right then I saw Riley say something to Grace. She shook her head, that annoyed expression of hers on her face.

“Excuse me,” I said, handing Mac my glass.

I heard Mac mutter something under his breath. But I cared only about Grace because I could tell she wanted to get away from Riley.

Riley had his hand on her arm. She was laughing, but I could tell it was strained. Not because I could hear her: no, I could tell just by her face.

“Come on, baby,” Riley said, “don’t be a tease.”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” said Grace, her tone firm. She glanced at me, her jaw tight, and then she headed toward the back of the club.

“Bitch. She’s not even that hot. No tits and no ass, either.”

Riley didn’t even have time to laugh at what he’d said before I punched him in the mouth. He went down hard, roaring and swearing.

I saw only red. I punched Riley again, but this time, Riley punched back. Then we were fighting, throwing punches and grabbing at each other until I felt hands yanking me away.

“Brady!” someone was shouting in my ear. “Brady! Let him go!”

I wanted to kill him. I could just imagine choking him until his face turned blue—

But then Riley was being dragged away, and my gaze landed on Grace. She was staring at the entire scene, her face pale.

“You’re fucking drunk,” Coach Dallas yelled at me. “Get him out of here,” he said to Mac, who was the one who’d pulled me away.

“Jesus, Brady,” Mac kept saying as he escorted me out. “What the fuck is going on?”

I wiped the blood from my lip. I winced as I felt my right eye. I was going to have a nice shiner in the morning.

“He insulted Grace,” I said.

Mac let out a breath. “Be careful, dude. Go home. Sleep it off. And apologize to Coach in the morning because he looked like he was going to have a stroke.”

I was inside a cab and on my way home before I realized what was happening. I got upstairs to my apartment without falling on my face, although I wasn’t sure how I managed it.

I hadn’t realized how drunk I was. I laughed under my breath as I struggled to get my key in my lock. What would Grace think of me, seeing me like this?

I finally got inside and saw that my phone was blowing up. Multiple texts included links to the fight that had already been posted on social media.

I don’t have time for this, I thought. I was about to turn my phone off when Grace texted me.

Are you okay? Mac told me he called a cab for you before I could find you.

Yeah I’m home. Don’t worry about me.

It took a second for her to respond. Okay. Just be careful. There’s been a lot of chatter online about what you’ve been up to lately. I know you don’t care, but everything reflects on the team.

Since when had Grace turned into PR? Then again, interns tended to be whatever the boss told them to be. Maybe she was shifting gears more from marketing to PR. But I knew she was right, even in my drunken haze. I also hated the thought that I was letting her down.

Noted, I replied. I knew she’d probably be hurt at my shortness, but I didn’t have the energy to care.

But I also knew that Mac had been right. I needed to be careful. This Grace obsession was going to end badly.

So what if another guy insulted her? She wasn’t mine. She could never be mine.

“It’s all over the internet!” Julia, the Blades’ PR lead, yelled.

If I’d known this meeting was just to chew me out, I would’ve skipped it. I didn’t have time for Julia to rip me a new asshole.

But I also knew Coach was watching me closely. If I’d skipped this meeting, he would’ve taken me out back and broken my kneecaps.

“Yeah, I saw it,” I drawled, crossing my arms. “What do you want me to do about it?”

Julia, who was normally the most even-keeled of people, looked at me incredulously. “That’s all you have to say?”

“I was drunk. I shouldn’t have done that. The end. But people are always going to post shit that gets the most interaction.”

I glanced at Grace, who was avoiding my gaze. Why the hell was she here? What did Julia yelling at me have to do with her internship?

“Did you even have a good reason for punching Riley?” Julia asked, a hand on her hip. “Because at least if you do, we could spin this story into something better than ‘drunken hockey player decks teammate for no reason.’”

I glanced at Grace. I watched as a blush climbed up her cheeks.

Would I throw Grace under the bus? Have everyone know that Riley was calling her a bitch because she’d rejected his advances?

Fuck no. Social media—the worst parts of it, at least—would pounce on that and say she deserved it. Or that she’d been insane to say no to a hockey player like Riley.

“I was drunk. I don’t remember,” I replied.

Julia sighed. She pushed her glasses up her nose and sat down heavily. “Fine. We’ll come up with something. Or better yet, we’ll bury this story with something else. Have you done any charity work lately, Carmichael? Hugged infants, played with puppies? Anything?”

I snorted. “Should I go find a random baby and get a photo with it?”

“It’s not the worst idea,” Grace muttered.

I shot her a look. Now she just raised an eyebrow at me, as if daring me.

Daring me ... to do what? Was she pissed I hadn’t been honest? Because I was saving her from humiliation here. The least she could be was grateful.

After Julia lectured me a bit longer, I finally managed to get out of her office. We didn’t have practice today, so I had the rest of the day to stew.

I didn’t really give a shit what anybody said about me online. People were going to be assholes, no matter how many babies I held.

But the thought of Grace being disappointed in me, or Coach thinking the worst of me ... yeah, it fucking hurt.

I needed to blow off steam. So I waited until it was dark and went straight to the Scarlet Rope.

After an hour of searching, I couldn’t find Shayla anywhere. When I asked a few people if Shayla was coming tonight, nobody had an answer for me.

It didn’t help that, with so many blondes in the club, it seemed like every other woman could be Shayla. And, of course, when I saw blond hair, I didn’t first think of Shayla but of someone else entirely.

“You need a fucking therapist,” I muttered to myself, disgusted.

I considered finding another woman, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I just wandered, watching various scenes.

The first that caught my attention was a scene with two women. They both had black hair, the red of their outfits contrasting with their dark skin tones. The woman with shorter hair was caressing the other woman, whose hair hung down to her ass. The short-haired woman kissed the other woman’s neck and massaged her breasts.

It was a surprisingly tender scene, given the fact that they had an audience. The short-haired woman pulled her partner onto a lush couch and buried her face between her partner’s legs. Moans filled the room, the receiver’s thighs tightening as she started climaxing.

I moved on after that. The next scene was more classic BDSM with a Dominatrix. A man was bound, gagged, and hanging from the ceiling. The Domme circled him while whipping his torso. The man threw his head back when the Domme placed clamps on his nipples. The man already had a cock ring that seemed to be preventing him from coming too quickly.

The Domme played with her sub’s cock, kissing and licking it until she returned to whipping him mercilessly. Welts covered his torso, back, and ass.

I’d never been interested in being someone’s sub. Despite that, the entire scene was still strangely erotic. It also gave me some ideas on how I’d like to play with Shayla if I ever saw her again.

My imagination conjured the image of Shayla bent over a couch like before. But as I began whipping her, she turned her head—and it was Grace’s face.

I nearly groaned aloud. Grace was begging me—to stop? to keep going?—and I could see her pussy dripping with excitement. When I plunged my fingers inside her, she screamed in ecstasy.

I knew Grace would be tight. That untouched, virgin pussy would struggle to take even one of my fingers, let alone my cock. I’d have to go slowly with her. Ease her into things. Bring her to orgasm until she was open and ready.

Would she bite her lip and keep quiet? No, not Grace. She’d be vocal. I just knew it, deep down inside.

My cock was hard just imagining this scenario. It didn’t help that as I moved on to another scene, the woman inside had blond hair.

She was on the floor, her ass in the air, as a man pounded into her. The slaps of flesh against flesh were intoxicating. The man was digging his fingers into the thick flesh of the woman’s hips, so tightly that it’d probably leave marks.

He fucked her hard, her face buried in the rug, her squeals getting higher and higher. The man then grabbed her hair and pulled her head up.

“You love when I fuck you hard, don’t you?” he growled. “Ride you until you come all over my dick.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” the woman was chanting. Her face was red, her eyes glassy. “I’m going to come—”

She moaned and shook as her climax hit her.

I closed my eyes, imagining that was Grace coming on my own cock. At that moment, I didn’t know where reality and fantasy ended.

I somehow managed to find a private room that was unoccupied. Locking the door, I took out my cock and rubbed one out before I lost my ever-loving mind.

It took only a minute for me to come. I groaned, imagining that I was coming all over Grace’s pale back. My orgasm seemed to go on and on for eternity.

I leaned against the wall and took in deep gulps of air. My body was shaking. I’d never come that hard just from jerking off.

Christ, what the fuck is wrong with me?

I cleaned myself up and knew that I needed to get out of here. But as I was about to drive home, I got a text from Silas, the Blades general manager and one of its co-owners.

Adidas is threatening to cancel its sponsorship because of that video of you fighting Riley. We need to talk ASAP.

My high was killed instantly. I slumped in my seat, swearing under my breath.

Silas then texted, Riley is saying online that you hit him because his brother came out as gay. Is that true?

“What the fuck?” I stared at my phone, incredulous. I hadn’t even known Riley had a brother, let alone that his brother was gay. And why the fuck would I care?

Riley was a piece of shit trying to make me seem like some kind of bigot. He was just pissed that he’d lost the fight and that Grace had had the gall to reject him. Did his brother know about this? Because if I were Riley’s brother, I’d be pissed at being used like this.

I could come clean. I could tell the world why the fight had happened. But protecting Grace was more important than my reputation. All I could say was that Riley’s allegations were false, end stop.

I also knew I needed to get my emotions under control. Sure, I’d wanted to protect Grace, but I had this anger burning inside me that I couldn’t seem to tamp down.

And if people knew why ... if they knew what I’d done ...

Well, then they’d definitely hate me, wouldn’t they? And Grace would hate me the most of all.