Alex

“So tense,” Cassie murmurs as she stands behind me and it kills me that her voice and touch are helping to calm me. I don’t want to depend on her—or anyone for that matter—to help me battle my demons. But especially not her. I will never see her as anything but a hot f**k and the more she tries to be otherwise, the more it pisses me off. We had an understanding about the way things were between us, but now she’s pushing past the boundaries I set and I’m not liking it one little bit.

Taking another deep breath, I step forward and her hands fall away from my back. Turning to look at her, I try to make myself appreciate something—anything—about her that will let me see her as something more than just a diversion.

I come up empty. It doesn’t matter how beautiful she is or how talented her mouth is, I see nothing within this woman that would do a damn thing for me other than to relieve sexual pressure.

Cocking her head at me, she assesses my mood. “What’s wrong, Alexander? Not in the mood for me?”

“I’m never in the mood for you,” I snarl, hoping to push her solidly away.

She just laughs at me, smoky and deep, running a fingertip down my chest. “Now that’s a lie, Alex. You needed me on my knees just a few days ago.”

“Yeah, well…wasn’t going to say no to those services freely offered. But I would have paid you if that’s what it took.”

She flinches from my barb and rather than make me feel better, it makes me feel worse. It hits me suddenly that the reason I tolerate so much of Cassie is because her feelings have seemed indestructible to me in the past. The mere fact that she always takes the shit I dish out to her and keeps a smile on her face alleviates my conscience…makes it okay for us to f**k with no other strings attached and for me to be an ass about it.

But now there is a flash of hurt on her face and it causes my gut to churn.

“Look…I’ll catch up with you later,” I tell her, making my voice as gentle as humanly possible. It’s a tone she’s probably never heard from me so far in this f**ked-up existence we live in, and I immediately see I’ve made a huge mistake, because now hope fills her eyes and she gives me a radiant smile.

Shit, I need to cut ties with this girl for good. It’s a pathetic mess of a relationship and neither one of us is getting what we truly want. She wants a hockey husband and I want…I want…

I don’t know what in the hell I want but it’s clearly not a casual sex-only relationship with Cassie.

Just then, an image comes slamming into my brain and I almost reel backward from the glorious nature of it.

Sutton Price, with her copper hair flowing all around and her hazel eyes shining bright. She’s smiling at me and it causes warmth to swirl in my veins.

Blinking hard, I banish her from my mind. That girl most definitely has no reason to be taking up any of my gray matter. Doesn’t matter that for the first time in like…ever, I had a natural conversation with a woman that felt relaxed and safe. Doesn’t matter that for the first time in definitely forever, I shared an intimate detail of my life with that woman, and she didn’t throw it in my face or try to exploit it. No, she looked at me with sympathy.

No, pity.

There’s a difference, and that is unacceptable to me.

“Let’s leave this party,” Cassie says as she takes a step toward me. See—big mistake to have shown her even a hint of kindness.

I take a step back, on the verge of reminding her just how nasty I can be, when someone thrusts a beer under my nose and says, “Here, man—looks like you could use one.”

My hand comes up and grabs the frosty bottle, turning to see my new linemate and right-winger, Garrett Samuelson. He just got traded to the Cold Fury and played in his first game with us last night. I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to him, other than to say “Good job” when he scored a goal off a pass from me.

“Thanks,” I tell him and take a sip.

“Mind if we talk?” he asks, just as he shoots an apologetic look to Cassie.

“Sure,” I say hesitantly, because I have no clue why he wants to talk to me. My other teammates pretty much know to stay out of my way, because I’m a cranky bastard, but Garrett hasn’t had time to acclimate yet.

So I’ll cut him some slack and lend him my ear for a bit, particularly because it gets me away from Cassie. I’m sure after five minutes, however, he’ll be scampering to get away from me. Turning to Cassie, I hand the birthday present to her. I have no clue what it is, nor do I care. She takes it from me without a word, and I’m confident she’ll get it to Leo’s kid. Turning my back on her, I follow Garrett across the backyard.

He leads me over to a couple of empty chairs under a huge shade tree, away from the screaming kids and blaring music.

“So,” he says as he sits down. “How lame is this party?”

“Pretty f**king lame,” I concur and take a healthy pull on my beer as I eyeball my teammate.

He surprises me by his words. Most team members are very supportive of one another, and even if they did think it was lame coming to a kid’s birthday party, they would never voice those thoughts out loud. It seems Mr. Samuelson may be a bit of a rebel.

“Looked like you needed rescuing back there,” he says, nodding over to where Cassie now stands next to Allie, talking about God knows what. “But if not, my apologies, man, for messing up your game.”

I can’t help the laugh that bursts out of my mouth, shaking my head. “Nah…you did me a solid. She can be a little clingy.”