18. Josh

Two hours later and the party at my house is in full swing, yet the anger from the post-game confrontation is still clinging to my skin like a straitjacket. Fucking Joey. I’m not sure why his presence pissed me off so much, but when I walked out of the changing room and down the hall in search of Hallie, and I found her with him, I just saw red. Every fucking detail of the shit he said about her came rushing back, and not even the memory of the bones in his arm breaking beneath my fingers could tame me.

I was on her before I could even take my next breath, pulling her body into mine before that prick could ever lay another finger on her. The only thing that stopped me from hurting him again was her. Her body against me, her hand atop mine, both grounding me in a way I can’t really explain or understand, I just knew I needed to protect her. Just seeing him made me act fucking stupid, and I haven’t been able to look Hallie in the eye since we left the rink.

Careful, Tink, because the next time you proposition me, I might just take you up on it

What the fuck was I thinking saying that to her?

She’s my little sister’s best friend, my best friend, my fake wife, yet flirting with her is not only becoming easier, but also like a second nature, like I should have been doing it all along. Not that I can take all the blame, when she was the one putting such devious ideas in my head regardless of how made up they might be. This ruse is pushing against the boundaries of my restraints, especially given how long it’s been since I’ve been with someone. I’m dripping with the need for release and itching for control, and it seems the band around my finger has sent me crazy, because it has me looking at her in a way I never have before.

Shaking those thoughts from my mind, I take another sip from my beer and pretend not to watch the way her hips sway as she dances with Maddie across the room. Long gone is the jersey with my name across her back, and now every prick is staring at the way that little white top of hers clings to her breasts like a second skin. They don’t seem to care about the ring on her finger, and I seem to care way too much because I have to forcibly stop myself from going over there to show every prick here who owns her.

“You okay there, killer?” Gray asks, interrupting my thoughts, as he comes to a stop next to me and pours himself another drink.

I don’t bother looking at him as I respond, keeping my eyes on my wife, while Maddie leans in and whispers something in her ear, before turning and leaving her alone. “I’m fine, Gray,” I snap, not in the mood to make idle chit chat with him, but of course the fucker doesn’t relent.

“For someone who just gained himself a smoking hot wife, you look like someone pissed on your parade,” he muses, just as Reign joins the fray.

“Don’t fucking talk about my wife,” I snap, making him smile even wider, my eyes still watching Hallie as a few girls approach her and start talking to her.

“He’s right, Peters, you look miserable as fuck, do you want a cup of tea?” Reign asks, coming to lean on the counter beside me.

“Not everything can be solved with a cup of fucking tea, Alexander,” Archer complains, as if this is an argument they have often.

“That’s because you don’t appreciate a good Earl Grey,” he tosses back, and I do my best to drown them out.

Which isn’t hard considering Hallie’s gaze flicks from the group of girls to me, and then back again. And that’s all it takes for me to know something is wrong, and I move my focus to the girls around her, noticing someone I didn’t before.

Brianna.

“What the fuck?” I mutter aloud, making Gray and Reign stop their incessant argument, and follow my line of sight.

“Oh fuck me, Brianna’s not starting her shit again is she?” Gray complains, tossing his drink back immediately before discarding it.

Again.

“What the fuck do you mean again?” I grit, turning towards Archer, and he holds his hand up in defense.

“Hey don’t kill the messenger,” he starts, and when I take a step towards him, he quickly adds, “She was giving Hallie shit in Econ a about you guys getting married.”

His sentence is barely even finished before a fury like no other is flooding my veins. I toss my own drink into the sink and start heading towards them, ignoring the curses from both my teammates. I push through the crowds of people lingering around the downstairs of my house so I can get to her.

Coming behind them, as Brianna purrs, “What was it again, girls? Face down, ass up, and no speaking, that’s how he likes it right? All of the control and none of the emotion.” And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what they are talking about, not when I’m sure I have drunkenly sunk my dick into all of them at one point or another.

Something I had never cared about before, but when Hallie’s eyes meet mine again, and I see sadness there, it makes me wish I could erase every single one of them just to see her smile.

Not bothering to even look at any of them, I keep my focus on her as I push past them and put my arms around Hallie pulling her in. “Everything okay, Mrs. Peters?” I ask, hating the stiffness I can feel in her body, but keeping her in my arms anyway.

“Oh Josh, there you are,” Brianna coos. “We were just talking about you,” she adds with a giggle that makes my skin crawl.

“Tink, everything okay?” I ask, ignoring Brianna completely, much to her dismay, yet still Hallie refuses to break her stare and look at me.

“Looks like the weirdo is broken again,” Brianna jokes, making her little pack of friends laugh, and the wrath inside of me intensifies ten-fold. Especially when she adds, “Call me when you need a mistress,” she winks, like it might make her offer more inviting. It doesn’t.

“What the fuck did you just say?” I seethe, now giving her my full attention, causing more people to look our way, just as Maddie emerges from the bathroom and starts making her way back over to Hallie.

“Relax, Josh, it was a joke.” Brianna rolls her eyes, her tone completely uncaring, as she examines her manicure.

“Yeah, at my wife’s expense,” I spit, my fingers now digging into Hallie’s waist harder than I care to acknowledge.

“I’m sure she’s heard worse, she’s not exactly normal,” she snaps back with a cackle, only this time she is the only one laughing.

“Get the fuck out of my house.” My voice is loud and clear as it booms across the room, being heard by everyone over the music, causing them all to look this way.

“What?” she stammers, her friends now looking wary as someone cuts off the music.

“You heard me,” I say, voice cold and flat, and the shock in her eyes is clear as day. “What? You think just because you’ve laid on your back for half the guys on the team that it gives you some sort of status? Or maybe it’s your daddy’s money that makes you feel invincible. Well guess what, I don’t give a fuck about either. You will not stand in my house and insult mywife.”

From the corner of my eye I see Daemon descending the stairs, no doubt having heard the disruption, and he doesn’t hesitate to start making his way towards us. Maddie also comes to a stop by my side, along with some other members of my team, all to have my back, to have Hallie’s back.

Brianna is quick to try and claw back some face as she takes us all in. “Wow, looks like some of that control is starting to slip, Josh, you better be careful,” she tosses back, thinking she still has any kind of sway here.

“And if you come near me or my wife again, or even think about disrespecting her in any way, then you better be careful, because I will ruin you so badly that even dear old dad won’t be able to save you. Now I’ll tell you again, get the fuck out of my house.”

Her drink hits us before I can stop it, covering Hallie more than me as Brianna screeches, “Fuck you, Josh.”

I pull Hallie back, furious at myself for keeping her in the firing line, but before I can even toss back a retort, Maddie is there, her hand cracking against Brianna’s cheek so hard that her head spins to the side, but Brianna is quick to raise her own in response.

Before her hand can even move in my sister’s direction, her wrist is snatched up by Nova. “Don’t even fucking think about it, B,” he warns in a lethal tone, and I see the flash of hurt in her eyes, as he comes to protect his girlfriend.

We all knew she favored him over the rest of us. He never gave her more than drunken trysts at parties, and now, here he is after claiming my sister to the world, and for once, I actually like the prick.

“Nova,” Brianna quivers, her cheek red, yet her eyes turning even redder, but it doesn’t work, not on him or me.

“You heard Peters, get the fuck out, and from now on you’re no longer welcome at any of the hockey houses,” he declares, dropping her wrist, and moving around her to get to Maddie, bringing them both to stand by our side.

“Nova, please,” she begs one last time, and not a single person comes to her defense.

“You’ve crossed the line for the last time, so just go,” Nova sighs, and I can tell he doesn’t feel good about doing this, and I wish I could say I felt the same, but I don’t.

Not when the girl in my arms is stiff and dripping in the bitch’s drink, the words she also threw no doubt still swimming in her mind, and as Brianna huffs and turns on her heel to leave, I’m glad to see the back of her.

The entire party is watching this go down, and as Brianna leaves, their attention turns to us, and I can’t stop myself from instantly guiding Hallie towards the stairs so we can get away from it all, thankful when I hear Daemon’s lethal tone. “Turn the music back on. Now,” he demands, and is obliged instantly.

The party comes back to life all around us, but my only focus is getting Hallie up to the safety of my room. She’s silent as I guide her there, her body shaking slightly, but it’s the tremble of my own that concerns me. An anger coursing through me that makes me feel like I am going to explode, and as we push into my room and I slam the door with a bang, she flinches.

I don’t stop though, instead heading straight into the bathroom to grab her a towel, before storming back towards her. “Top, off,” I demand, as she tries to dry it off with her hand, and her stare flicks to mine.

“Josh, really it’s fine,” she lies, moving around me to check her reflection in the mirror. I’m not sure what Brianna was drinking, but it has left a bright red stain down the front of her white top, and she now smells even sweeter than normal.

“Hallie, I’ve known you since you were nine years old, which means I know how much you physically despise the feeling of wet clothes against your body. In fact, I have been the audience to many lengthy debates on this topic from you more times than I can even count, so please respect your own damn rules, quit lying to me, and take off the damn top.” I don’t leave room for her to argue, moving towards my closet to grab her a shirt of mine to wear, and when I turn around I find her standing there in nothing but her bra and jeans, dabbing at her chest with the towel I got for her.

Fuck.

My wife looks good every day, she always has, but standing in the privacy of my room in jeans that showcase her thick thighs and gorgeous ass, while her tits are barely contained in the scrap of lace she is passing off as a bra, well it’s safe to say I’m in trouble.

Ignoring my rapidly hardening cock, I move back across the room towards her, coming to a stop at her back as she stares in the mirror. I hold the shirt up in front of her, clearing my throat. “Here, put this on.”

Her stare flicks to mine in the mirror, her skin tinted in a pink blush as she lets the towel drop and quickly grabs the shirt from my hand, muttering a quiet thank you. I don’t turn around as she puts it on, not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t, like I physically can’t make myself turn away from her. Not after what happened and why, I just need to make sure she is okay.

She slips her arms into my shirt, and of course it drowns her tiny frame, but she still rushes to button it up before she lets herself meet my stare in the mirror. I’m sure she can see the intensity there, hell, I can fucking feel it all around us, but she quickly focuses back on the shirt.

“Well this doesn’t look ridiculous at all,” she laughs, trying and failing to style it in any way, leaving her to just roll up the cuffs on the sleeves so her hands can pop out.

“I don’t know, you look pretty perfect to me,” I tell her honestly, and her stare snaps back to mine.

“Joshua,” she laughs, my name falling from her lips like a prayer. “There’s no one around, you don’t have to pretend right now.” Her words cut me a little, but it’s the look in her eyes that tells me she really doesn’t believe me, that hurts me more.

Before I can stop myself, my hands are on her hips and I am pulling her back against me until our bodies are tight against one another. “Does this feel like I’m pretending, Tink?” I ask, letting my very obvious erection for her dig into the bottom of her back.

All thoughts of her being my best friend have dissipated, and at this moment I can’t understand how I have been looking at her for over ten years but not really seeing her.

Her eyes widen slightly, before she pulls away, and I start to panic that I have ruined everything, but then instead of moving from me, she turns in my hold, bringing her stare up to meet mine. “Why did you come over when you saw Brianna talking to me?”

Her question catches me off guard, mostly because the only thing I can think of right now is how good she looks in my shirt, the feel of her body against me, my hands on her hips, and her eyes on mine. “Because I knew she would be talking shit to you,” I admit quietly, wishing I didn’t know Brianna so well to know that.

I wish I could erase anyone that isn’t Hallie right now, wanting nothing more than to feel her lips on mine, not caring that she’s my best friend, or how long we have known each other. In fact, it only makes me want her more. Fake or not, the rings on our fingers mean she belongs to me and I belong to her.

“So? It’s not your job to protect me, Joshua,” she huffs, her hands moving up to my chest as if she’s going to push me away, but I capture them in mine and keep her in place.

“First of all, it is my job to protect you,” I tell her, knowing full well I have been doing it since the day I met her, and only just starting to ask myself why. “And second of all, I won’t stand for anyone saying shit to you, especially because of me.” Just because I have fucked around with half the girls on campus doesn’t mean I want her tainted by it.

She deserves more than that, and she definitely deserves more than me, but I don’t think I have the restraint to stay away from her, not when we were kids, and definitely not now.

“Why?” she whispers, her voice so quiet that I almost miss it, and the answer is simple.

“Because you’re mine, Hals,” I respond without thinking, her eyes instantly taking on a frown as I quickly add, “I mean, you’re my wife, my best friend.” Neither of them are far from the truth, yet somehow it still doesn’t explain what I mean.

Her hand reaches up absentmindedly and her thumb skims the cut on my lip that I got from the fight in the game. “But none of this is real,” she says in wonder, and my heart beats wildly in my chest.

I drop my forehead to hers, relishing in the feel of her touching me as I plead, “So? Let’s break the rules anyway.” Then I am leaning down, bringing my lips towards the girl who I warned everyone else away from, but just as they are about to touch.

Knock. Knock.

“Hals?” Maddie shouts through the door. “Hals, it’s me, let me in.” And that’s all it takes for Hallie to push away from me like she’s on fire.

I blow out a breath, reaching down to rearrange myself before I move over to the door and open it to find my sister. Of course she doesn’t take a second to read the room, or my mood, and just barges past me to get to her best friend.

“Hey, I just wanted to check if you were okay,” Maddie starts, cutting across the room until she reaches Hallie, who is still standing by the mirror. “Do you need me to go get you some fresh clothes from home or anything?” she asks, her gaze dropping to the shirt of mine she is now wearing.

“I’m fine,” Hallie lies with a bright smile, not even looking in my direction, as Maddie tries to come to her rescue.

And all I”m left with is the realization that I almost kissed my wife.

Fuck.