Chapter Eight

 

As hard as I tried to ignore her, and damn did I try, it was hard for me to not find her in the crowd. I’d been getting set to leave, annoyed with myself, when I watched a plastered Ryleigh walk out of the ballroom with Jason.

And I.

Saw.

Red.

I had no reason to be pissed; none at all. I’d seen the girl a handful-plus times since her note. If I’d wanted to do something about it, if I’d wanted to make a move, I’d had opportunities.

I just chose not to.

Told myself I was figuring out a way to broach the subject.

In reality? Maybe I’d been chicken-shit.

So really, it was my own damn fault that I was fucking jealous of the rook. He saw her one-on-one away from the arena. He had a bona fide conversation with her.

He could have her.

But fuck, if I wasn’t feeling a little bit possessive over her.

“That game last week! It was amazing,” a fan was telling Caden and I. Once I heard Ryleigh giggling, I’d been having a hard time focusing on the conversation at hand. Thank fuck, Caden was on top of it.

“It was a good change,” Caden offered, and I nodded.

“We needed it,” I managed to add, trying to be an active participant. “Just add some testosterone and fists, and the game changes.” I forced my signature cocky grin into the mix, which flashed a dimple. A dimple I’d been told made the cockiness slightly charming. My eyes flickered toward the exit, hoping for…I don’t know. Maybe for Ryleigh to come back through, but it wasn’t happening.

I didn’t hear the last of the conversation, but after the fan walked away, Caden busted out a huge grin. “Man, you’re growling.”

Frowning, I shook my head. “I don’t growl.”

Caden laughed, nodding his head. “You really were. I think you scared off the man.” He nodded his head in the direction the two fans walked off in. “You didn’t notice the look they gave you?”

“Nope. Look, I’m going to head out,” I said, before he could cut in. “You coming with, or you gonna find a way back?”

My roommate was still grinning. “I’ll get a way back, don’t worry about it.”

We slapped hands and backs, but before I could head out, my name was called.

By the fucking rook.

This time, I noticed my growl but still, I turned in his direction. “What?” I snapped.

Jason Thompson walked over to me, fucking cock-eating grin all over his face, as he handed me a card. “This is for you.”

I snatched it from him, glaring. “Why?”

“Your girl is safe and sound—”

“Not my girl.”

“And sleeping off a bit of a tipsy episode. She’ll need a ride home. Lucky you, she lives in your apartment community.”

I had a thousand things to ask him; instead, I settled on, “What are you up to, rook?”

“Not a damn thing. Call me your fairy godmother, if you’ve gotta put a title on it. Girl likes you. You make eyes at her.” He shrugged. “Like I said, fairy godmother.”

I still wasn’t following, but I couldn’t get the ‘girl likes you’ out of my head.

She came with him. She came here with him.

“Unlike some people, I don’t take advantage of unwilling women,” I said instead, holding the key card back to him.

“I did no such thing.” He pushed my hand back at me and, cocky grin on his face, said, “Puck’s in your zone, man.”

***

I wasn’t sure why the hell Jason put her in a hotel room if I was supposed to be taking her home. Did she know that? Did she know she was stuck driving home with me?

And how the hell didn’t I know she lived so close to me?

I should have fought Jason harder. I couldn’t be the guy to drive her home.

Still though, I found myself in her room.

Where she was sleeping.

I should shake her awake. Tell her I was taking her home.

But I didn’t. Like a psychopath, I watched her sleep, from an arm chair across from the bed, for what had to be two hours.

Adrenaline had kept me awake, but slowly, my eyes started to grow heavy. Just as my lids fell closed, a soft sigh from the bed pulled me back to attention. My eyes landed quickly on the body completely covered, head to toe, in a mass of sheets and blankets.

Leave. Leave this room, pretend it never happened. Put the keycard down. Jason was fucking crazy to give it to you. Tell him to give her a ride home.

I slouched in the seat.

She’s going to wake up. You’re going to scare her. Leave the room.

She came to this party with Jason. She came up here, with Jason.

Jason was back in the ballroom before anything could have happened. There was no fucking way they did anything other than him putting her to bed.

Ryleigh shifted, her legs kicking down the blankets so her upper body was exposed. She lay on her stomach, and was still in her dress, the top of which twisted in a way that the gentle swell of her breast was fighting to be freed from the side. My cock twitched under my slacks.

Fuck.

You need to have a talk with Jason. See what his endgame is. Yeah. Do that. Right now. Stand up. Leave the room. Before…

Ryleigh sighed again, but this time, it almost sounded to be in pain.

Yeah. I’m sure her head is killing her.

She rolled to her back then and—I was a bastard—I kept my eyes on the top of her dress where it tugged and pulled, her breast nearly spilling out for sure now.

I couldn’t stay here and not say anything. I cleared my throat, before leaning forward, bracing my forearms on my knees, waiting for her to say something, do something.

She didn’t.

“Ryleigh,” I said, her name on my tongue, directed toward her, doing funny things to me. I tried to focus on that and not the fact that, after calling her name, her body stiffened—and not in the same way mine had.

I was at war with myself. This was wrong. I shouldn’t be here. She hadn’t given me permission to be here. If she had wanted me here, she’d have come to me during the party, before she’d gotten plastered. She didn’t know me. I didn’t know her.

I’m fucking certifiable.

Ryleigh sat up then, pulling the covers up to her chin as she stared at me across the room, in the semi-dark. She looked…

I couldn’t say terrified was the right word, but she certainly looked more at unease than I’d ever noticed on her before.

“So,” I said, trying hard to keep my mad.

Hold on to the jealousy.

I needed to be a prick. I had to, so I didn’t focus on the fact that I was absolutely the one in the wrong at the moment. “You and Jason, huh?” Yeah. Focusing on her and Jason was the right course of action in this moment.

“What?” her voice squeaked out.

“I’m a bit confused, is all,” I admitted gruffly, still trying damn hard to hold on to the jealousy. She just looked so…

Good.

She looked really fucking good.

And I wanted her more in that moment than I’d realized before.

She came up with Jason.

“You seem like this shy person. I decided, yeah, I’ll see what she’s about. I was working on it,” I added. “I was going to figure out a way to talk to you. But then you show up to this thing with Jace?” I chuckled humorlessly. “Joke’s on me, right?”

“Excuse me?” she managed to cut in. My eyes dropped to her mouth as her lips moved. I’d hoped that it would be a better place to look than her hair, rumbled wild from sleep, or her eyes, wary from both my being here, and from the restless sleep she seemed to have been in.

I was a fucking sicko. My cock was enjoying this show, while at the same time, my head was warring with the fact I was in the wrong place. You should have just left the keycard, asshole.

But, like my grinding playing style, once I made the asshole move, I had to follow through. You make one comment, you follow through, whether that was by playing hard and in the corners, having words with players and following up with fists, or by being the asshole I’d managed to make myself right now.

So, I kept with the asshole role. “So, after a few drinks, loosening up on the dance floor, you and Jason made your way up here. Had your own party, did you?” I asked, even though I knew it wasn’t true.

Fuck me and my mouth.

But, of course, I kept it running. “Contrary to what you want to believe, that would make you a ‘puck bunny, jersey chaser, what have you’,” I added, using her words from the note.

God, how I wanted her to correct me, prove me wrong...anything.

She didn’t, though, and that was when I convinced myself that whatever I thought would happen after that fucking note? It was a pipe dream.

The energy I spent trying to figure out how to get to this girl? Nothing. Wasn’t worth it.

I was just a guy on her radar, the one she made her non-move on.

I stood then, dropping the keycard at the end of her bed, not realizing I’d been flicking it between my fingers while I stared her down. “I’m your ride home, princess. And because I don’t plan on staying at this place, you should get your pretty ass out of bed and ready to go.” I moved toward the door, but her voice stopped me.

“You read the note?” There was a hint of confusion and embarrassment in the tone.

“Sure did.” The words were hard and stated matter-of-factly.

“B-but,” she stammered, “guys don’t read notes!”

I crossed my arms, leaning back against the door, trying to look far more casual than I was feeling. All the conflicting emotions in my head… “I had nothing better to do,” I answered, cursing my asshole mouth. Fuck, once I started it, there really was no stopping it. “Needed a good laugh.”

“You don’t look like you’re laughing.”

Her answer was sarcastic, so I gave her my own dose of sarcasm. “Ha.” I licked my lips. “Ha, ha.”

She stared at me from across the room before squeezing those blue eyes shut. Opening them again, she pushed herself from the bed and pulled her dress back in place. I tried really fucking hard not to gulp, to try and keep the cool, calm persona I was portraying.

Trying to portray.

I watched, entranced, as she walked toward me.

Her eyes weren’t on me, but at the ground near my feet. As she neared, she bent down to where I now saw her purse sat, and pulled out a bottle of little burnt-orange pills. Ibuprofen. She shook three out, stood, and moved closer, closer, closer...and turned toward the open bathroom to my left. With her hand cupped, she tossed back the pills and a handful of water before turning toward me.

Those blue eyes of hers were completely fixed on me now.

This close, I could see they were a gorgeous blue, too. Bright, like the summer sky up north. Flecks of ruddy blue that reminded me of the frozen lake I grew up on.

I cleared my throat, fighting again to keep that hardness in my face—and not down below my belt.

“One,” she started, moving until we were nearly toe to toe. She stood a good foot below me and with her chin angled up, I could see a fierceness in her face that did things to me.

This wasn’t a girl who would back down.

She may have had a hard time making a move, but once a move was made…

Shit. I knew, I could fucking feel, that everything was going to change in this very moment.

“I am not, nor will I ever be, a puck bunny.” The blues of her eyes were misty and fuck, but there was a slight sheen to them. She was going to cry.

But then, instead of breaking down to do just that, she raised her voice up a notch. How she could with a headache, was beyond me—and if her pupils were an indication, she did indeed have a headache. “Who I decide to sleep with is none of your business. If I decided that because Jason was a gentleman and a good guy, I wanted to be with him, I could be. But, because you’ve decided to make this your business, let me tell you. I have no desire to sleep with any of you bullheaded hockey players.

“You are in the wrong, Noah Prescott. How the hell do you get off coming into my room, and then accusing me of something I’m not guilty of? I didn’t give you permission to be here. But because you’re here and accusing me of something, how about this? I didn’t want to be here. I wasn’t going to come. But Jason invited me and, quite frankly, I’m a people pleaser and couldn’t say no. Do you not think I’m not embarrassed that I wrote you a fucking note, like some middle schooler? It was a mistake, Noah! I shouldn’t have written it, it shouldn’t have gotten to you. And now you’re here? Oh, let’s just make a joke out of Ryleigh. What was it you said? Oh, yeah.” She forced a chuckle, but I was lost. So fucking lost to her. “Ha,” she said, mimicking my earlier dry tone. “Ha, ha.”

Those muddy specks in her eyes darkened in her rant, making the blues a stormy grey. As she went off on me, as her voice rose with anger, her lips would pucker during words they shouldn’t pucker for; words like, going, pleaser, no.

I had to pull my lips in, as I felt them reaching out. It was fucking crazy.

I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss those lips senseless.

Certifiable, I tell you.

And fucking guilty as hell for being in here. I should have left. I shouldn’t have let Jason bait me.

Fuck Jason.

“Besides, you have a girlfriend!” she said, pulling me from my thoughts.

I frowned. “Huh?”

“I had no right to give you the note. And I was nosy. I’m sorry. I asked Jason if you had a girlfriend. It didn’t warrant an answer, but I got one. I’m just a nobody, and you? You, Noah Prescott, are going to be a somebody. So, just forget about me and that damned note.”

She rubbed a hand over her forehead and turned away.

“Shit,” I heard her mumble, but I couldn’t let this go.

“Newsflash,” I managed to bite out, “but there is no girlfriend. I don’t know what the hell game Jason is playing, but there is no girl. As for the note? I’ll forget it as soon as you change your seats at the game.”

Ryleigh turned around, the frown back on her face. “How do you know where I sit?”

“Ryleigh.” Her name came out with a hint of dryness. “You sit in the same seat, every game. There’ve been countless games since the note, including a few where you’ve brought your friend who gave it to me. This bullheaded hockey player is where he’s at because he can take note of a situation.” And that was the truth, though I’d never been as fixated on a single person in a situation before, prior to Ryleigh.

But I needed to leave. If I stayed any longer, she was either going to call security on my ass, or I’d do something neither of us was in the proper mindset for, because fuck, I wanted this woman. “Meet me in the lobby.”

Before she could say anything, I turned and left her standing in the middle of her room, confusion marking over her beautiful features.

You and me both, Ryles.