Page 90 of Cracked Ice (The F*cked Up Players #1)

forty-one

M y heart burns as I run my hands through what is now Lucien’s very shaggy black hair—and it’s not the pizza that he had to convince me to eat that’s causing the ache. With no more product in it, his hair’s fluffy and soft, dried into loose waves and spontaneous curls.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell him it’s not about what I want. I don’t get what I want this time.

My father told me there would be a cost. He warned me.

I thought I could pay it. I was prepared to pay it, I was.

Giving up figure skating would gut me, it would leave me a hollow and shriveled version of myself, but I was going to do it.

I am doing it, but if the true cost is Lucien .

. . it’s too great. I don’t think I can do it.

My hand accidentally pulls at his scalp as I try to reign in the sob that’s sitting lumped in my throat.

“Don’t worry, Princess. I’m ready to go again whenever you are,” he murmurs, his head resting on my lap as we lie at the foot of my bed on the floor.

I try to laugh to cover up the fact I can’t catch my breath.

My fingers comb through his hair some more as I try to cope with the barrage of conflicting emotions. Luckily, he’s loving the sensation too much, groaning beneath my touch, and too distracted to notice my melt down.

He practically purrs when he speaks, his cheeks squished against my bare thighs.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you . . .”

I pause my petting and look down to find Lucien’s face turned up at me, one of his golden eyes peeking from beneath the flop of his hair. “What happened?”

I narrow my eyes.

“Excuse me?” I ask.

He points to his own head but looks ahead at nothing in particular. “The scar . . . on your head.”

“Oh.” I clear my throat, figuring he’d eventually ask, and resume playing in his hair.

“Um, well it’s not a particularly grand story, but the short of it is that I tried partners skating for like a year, a couple years back, but, uh, we weren’t a good match.

We were clumsy, out of sync, and both too eager for the spotlight.

” A small smile stretches over my lips at the memory.

“Needless to say, one day we were trying to do this one move, and we severely miscalculated somewhere. I ended up with a skate to the head and more than twenty stitches.” I shrug.

“I’m surprised my dad didn’t make me quit back then, actually.

” I chuckle a little because what else can you do?

Dad didn’t even come visit me in the hospital.

He was too busy wrapping up some deal he’d made in Shanghai or something.

Lucien sits up abruptly, startling me when he whips around to face me.

“Are you telling me,”—he enunciates carefully, his Hyde side making his appearance known—“there’s somebody out there,”—he points in the direction of my window—“ alive and breathing who hurt you so badly you were left with a permanent scar in your head?”

He narrows his eyes, waiting for me to confirm.

I blink.

“Uh . . .”

Shit.

“Who is he?” he snaps, jostling me when he brackets his tattooed arms on each side of me, caging me to my spot on the fluffy blue rug we’ve been relaxing on.

He seems to love trapping me. We’re wrapped in my silk sheets, but where I’m cocooned from the chest down.

The fabric falls from Lucien’s waist, sweeping across his bare ass and defined abs, allowing his fully naked body to crouch over me in a display of animalistic prowess.

He looks as if he’s about to eat me alive, threatening me as much as he is my old skate partner.

“Why?” I whisper, barely able to focus with his dick already hard and pointing in my direction.

“He broke something of mine,” he says, calmer this time, nuzzling my nose and whispering his own version of sweet nothings. “It’s only fair I break something of his.”

Pragmatic as ever.

“Like what? His legs?” I snort.

He remains stoic.

“No, Lucien, you cannot break his legs. He doesn’t even compete anymore.” I sigh with a roll of my eyes, but he’s so pouty about it, he doesn’t bother to adjust my attitude.

Shame. I quite like when he adjusts my attitude.

“He doesn’t deserve to walk either,” he grumbles.

My lips quirk into a smile.

“Aww, there, there,” I coo. “Next time I take a skate to the head, you have my full permission to break the person’s legs,” I laugh, but then I’m reminded with morbid realization that he could and would do it. And I just gave him permission. “On second thought—”

“No take backs,” he quips, shutting me up with a searing kiss. He tastes of oregano and pepperoni, but he might as well be fresh air. I pull back, staring at him for a few more moments, wishing time would stop.

I cup his face, using my thumbs to swipe his cheeks.

“Tell me a secret,” I whisper.

His brows furrow, but he doesn’t pull away.

“What kind of secret?” he asks.

Any kind , I think. I want to know something about him that nobody else knows since he now owns a piece of me that nobody else will ever have. I’d say it’s a fair trade.

I shrug.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” I ask, unable to meet his eyes even as I ask it.

He ponders his answer.

“By whose definition?”

I drop my hands from his face, but he maintains our proximity as he hovers his face over mine.

“Let’s go with overall societal standards,” I offer.

He stares at me for a second, looking from one eye to the other.

“I killed someone,” he admits.

My breath catches. It’s not the context of the confession that surprises me per se, it’s his complete willingness to tell me. Lucien watches me intently, waiting to see what kind of reaction he’ll solicit from me this time.

I blink.

“What’d they do?” I whisper, because regardless of what people might think, Lucien wouldn’t do something so heinous for no reason.

“Something terrible. Unforgivable,” he says.

My battered heart drops and my sore throat catches. It feels impossible to swallow and I’m not sure if I’m breathing enough air.

Something terrible. Unforgivable.

“Your turn,” he urges. When I don’t say anything, he says, “Tell me your secrets .”

I let out a long-strangled breath. I’m not sure I want to drop this so easily, not after what he just said, but if I’m going to press about his secrets, I need to pay with one of my own.

“I’m not a good person,” I mutter.

Lucien sits back on his haunches, sighing.

“I said a secret, not a lie, Sydney,” he retorts.

“That is my secret.” I stare down at my hands, scratching at a hangnail on my demolished thumb that’s nagging me. “You asked me why I didn’t fight back against Regina and Tiffany. It’s because I deserved it.” My nose burns and my eyes sting as I feel tears welling up.

I risk looking at him.

“I don’t—” My finger presses to his lips, shutting him up so I can get this out.

“I did exactly what they accused me of.” My voice cracks.

“I did something terrible. Something unforgivable. And when it came time for me to receive my punishment, I called my dad and made it all go away, something I swore I would never do, but—but I fucked up, Lucien.” A tear slips down my cheek. “I fucked up so bad.”

“What did you do?” Lucien looks at me, concerned.

My wet eyes meet his and I take a breath before letting it all go.

“I pushed her,” I whisper.

“Who?” Lucien’s forehead wrinkles in confusion, but again he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he drags me closer, cupping my face softly. “ Who , Sydney?”

I shudder. “H-Hannah.”

And then I’m sobbing.

Lucien rubs my head, pulling me into a hug as he lets me release the tension I’ve been carrying over the past twenty-four hours.

“That your teammate?” he asks, petting my hair gently, his touch soothing and grounding.

I nod against his chest, the slickness of it not even a deterrent.

He breathes in the scent of my hair with my head tucked beneath his chin.

“That’s why you stopped messaging me, isn’t it?”

I swallow, the bile threatening to come up as I try to keep control. “It was part of it, yeah. There were other reasons, but after that . . .” I trail off because after that there was no going back.

He continues stroking my hair.

“Why’d you do it?” he asks.

I sniffle, pulling away from his embrace. He allows it, but he doesn’t let me get far.

“I thought it was Tiffany around the corner, but by the time I’d realized the person falling down the steps wasn’t her, it was too late.

What’s worse, Regina saw the whole thing, but then sat on the information until today, until right before I was set to perform at Nationals, so she could have my spot.

” I sniff, my anger starting to grow. “That sneaky bitch was more clever than I gave her credit for. The program we did back at the rink was supposed to get me to qualifiers. I was finally going to get my second chance at the Olympics, but the universe doesn’t give out third chances and calling my dad was my one Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card.

So, you see, I’m not a good person. I’m a Sinclair and that’s all I’ll ever be.

” I let out a deep breath, releasing tension I’ve held back with my secret.

Lucien considers all of this, working out which part of the story to address first. I can see the wheels turning in his pensive gaze.

“What happened to Hannah?” he asks after a while.

I tell him. This wasn’t supposed to be confession time, but here I am, admitting all my transgressions. Maybe he is God?

More like the devil.

“She, um, broke her leg in three different places and suffered a hairline fracture,” I answer.

His eyes crinkle a little and I can’t tell if he’s disappointed, disgusted, or what.

“She gonna be okay?” he asks.

I grimace, the reminder of how badly she was hurt, a punch to the gut, “It’s . . . complicated,” I admit.

“How so?”

I look away, unable to bear the judgment that even someone like him would give.

“She’s . . . pregnant. Or at least she was last time I checked.

” I flinch when I feel his grip tighten on my shoulder, but I don’t meet his eyes.

I keep mine trained on the loose thread sticking out of the corner of the sheets still wrapped around my body.

“I-I didn’t know she was pregnant at the time.

I found that part out later.” I pluck at the string, trying to pull it out so it stops being an outlier in my otherwise perfect thread count.

“I like Hannah,” I choke out. “I didn’t want to hurt her, but I let petty rivalries and jealous girls push me to do something heinous.

I don’t know if I can forgive myself for what happened to Hannah or if something happened to her baby because of me. ”

“Why don’t you get your dad to help her?” His voice is quiet, but that alone tells me he’s not unaffected by what I’ve done.

“He is,” I defend. “He’s making sure she gets the best care possible, paying for all her medical expenses and the best doctors in the nation. I begged him, I swear. I made sure he wouldn’t hang her out to dry.”

An uncomfortable silence stretches between us. I try to breathe through it, picking at one of the cuts Lucien’s given me. None of them are deep enough to scar, they’ll fade with time and disappear beneath dressings to be replaced with healed flesh. If only this were like that.

Lucien nudges my knee with his, but I don’t look up. I don’t think I could bear his disappointment right now, or worse, his retaliation.

Lucien sighs.

“Stop,” he breathes. “Stop beating yourself up. You made a mistake, and you feel bad about it. And better yet, you were honest.” He tilts my face up to regard him again, “I’ve seen true evil, and Princess you’re not it, so stop saying you’re not a good person.

” He leans in closer, his body pressing mine into the mattress’s edge.

“You’re a better person than most, better than me at least.”

I search his eyes. “What makes you say that after everything I’ve done?” I bring my hand up to his holding to my cheek. I let his warmth run through me.

“Because unlike you, I don’t feel bad for what I’ve done,” he says.

I want to ask him who he killed, but I don’t deserve his secrets any more than I deserve his sympathy. He can keep them both.

“You’re gonna be okay. I promise, it’ll get better,” he assures me.

My eyes close and I inhale as big a breath as my lungs will allow. Who knew this boy would have this kind of effect on me? He didn’t just distract me, he captured me, mind, body and soul.

“I never want this night to end,” I breathe. “I want to stay like this forever.”

“Then I’ll stay with you, and we can be just like this. Always.” He bumps my nose with his.

A pathetic snort slips past my lips. “If only we could, right?”

“I only deal in absolutes Sydney. Words like forever and always , I mean them absolutely.”

His lips press to my cheek, then the corner of my mouth.

Pausing, he looks at me, seeking permission to keep going—and I give it.

I want to believe him when he says it’ll be okay.

I want to believe in ‘forever’ and ‘always’.

For a few more hours, I want this . Us .

His hands sweep through my hair, holding my head while he kisses down my neck, to my chest and back up.

He kisses me everywhere that’s not my mouth and I moan, “Please, Lucien.”

Within seconds, the fire is stoked within me again, burning long after our night of adventure.

By some miracle, I’m not tired and I’m not done.

I still crave him. My arms wrap around his as he peels the sheets from my torso, peeling back layer after layer until I’m stripped bare and naked before him again.