Page 17 of Cross Check Daddies (Miami Icemen #3)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Brooke

By the time I get into my apartment, the high from earlier is gone. I’m not even sure if it was a high. Maybe just adrenaline. Confusion. Lust. A cocktail of things I shouldn’t be feeling, especially not with him . Not with Tanner.

Sasha smiles, that gentle, knowing expression she always wears, but it falters when she gets a good look at my face.

“He’s already in bed,” she says softly. “Went down easy tonight.”

“Thanks,” I manage, pushing past the tightening in my throat.

She steps into the hallway to grab her bag. I walk over to the kitchen counter and pull some bills from the small envelope I keep in the drawer. More than she usually gets. I hand them over wordlessly.

“Brooke…” she starts.

“I’m good,” I lie. “You can go.”

She hesitates, like she wants to say more. Then she thinks better of it and just nods. “Text me if you need anything.”

The door shuts behind her with a click. I bolt it. Then slide the chain across.

I walk past the living room without turning on the lights. Past the hallway with Jackson’s nightlight glowing faint blue under the door. My bedroom is at the end. I don’t turn the lights on in here either. I just close the door behind me, press my back to it, and finally let it hit me.

What did I just do?

I kissed Tanner. More than kissed. I let his hands roam. I climbed into his lap. I didn't stop, like I didn't stop when I ran into Cam that night.

I swallow hard. I rip the tie out of my ponytail and let my hair fall loose. My legs give out, and I sit down hard on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the floor.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Cam saw us. Cam saw me climbing out of Tanner’s car.

And now they hate each other. Of course they do.

I stand up and start pacing, rubbing my arms like it’ll scrub off the memory of the way Tanner looked at me. The way Cam looked through me .

I grab my phone and shut it off without checking it. No texts. No missed calls. I can’t handle either.

Then I crawl into bed, curling up so small it hurts my ribs, and cry into the silence. Slow, choking sobs that twist their way out of me like smoke. I try to muffle them with the pillow, but they come anyway. A sound too raw to control.

Maybe I am the one who destroyed it all.

Cam and I were broken long before tonight. But we had a past, and I crushed it under the weight of a maybe. A maybe with his younger brother. A maybe I let happen.

Hell, I wanted it. I invited it. Fuck! I screwed everything up. I should have stuck to my guns. I should never have entertained any of it.

The thought of him pressed against me sends a shiver down my spine.

I want to scream.

I wanted him. I wanted Cam’s little brother almost as much as I wanted Cam that night. What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t my brain cooperate with my body?

And now… I don’t know how to be the version of me that doesn’t ruin the people I care about.

Sleep takes me eventually. Not peacefully. Not quietly. But in that exhausted, tear-damp way that feels like surrender.

I wake up to the soft weight of something warm against my side.

My eyes blink open in the low light. It’s still early—dawn spilling pale gold across the edges of the curtains. And next to me, curled up under the blanket, is Jackson.

His little hand is resting against my arm. His cheek is smushed into my pillow. His hair’s a mess of soft brown curls, and he’s breathing slow and even, the way only little kids can.

My throat tightens.

When did he crawl in? Did he hear me crying?

I shift carefully, brushing my hand through his hair, and he stirs just a little, but doesn’t wake.

He looks like his father when he sleeps. That same mouth, the same stubborn jaw. But there’s more light in Jackson. More softness.

I press my lips to his forehead and close my eyes again, anchoring myself in his steady breath.

What the hell do I do now?

Cam hates me.

Tanner kissed me like he meant it.

I kissed him back.

And this little boy beside me? He didn’t ask for any of it. He didn’t ask for a mom who keeps making the same mistakes. Who doesn’t know how to keep things simple. Who doesn’t know how to stay away from the wrong kind of fire.

I want to protect him from all of it. From the fallout. From me .

But right now, I don’t even know how to protect myself.

I hold him tighter and whisper, “I’m sorry.”

I don’t know if I’m saying it to him or to myself.

Maybe both.

By the time I drop Jackson off and slide into my parking spot at the office, my head’s already aching with backlogged emails and a pitch deck I should’ve finished last night, not to mention the whole thing with the Kings.

My heels click across the tile as I enter the building, iced coffee sweating in one hand, the other adjusting the strap on my tote. The moment I walk through the doors, Lisa pops up from behind her desk.

“You have someone waiting,” she says, eyes flicking toward the glass-walled corridor that leads to my office. “Didn’t have an appointment, said it was urgent.”

The words barely land before my pulse skips. A name forms before she says it, but she doesn’t need to. I already know.

I step into my office and stop short.

Cam stands near the window, looking like he’s been dragged through hell.

His cheek is bruised, fresh and ugly against his sharp jaw.

There’s a split on his bottom lip, and one eye is a little swollen.

Still, he stands like he owns the room. Shoulders set, hands in the pockets of his dark jeans, gaze locked on mine like he’s daring me to look away first.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, locking the door behind me without thinking.

He doesn’t move. Just watches me. “I need to ask you something.”

“You show up looking like you lost a fight with a steel door and think this is a good idea?”

His voice drops, low and thick. “Do you have feelings for my brother?”

My spine tightens. “This isn’t the place for this.”

He doesn’t blink. “Answer me, sugar.”

I hate that word. Hate that it still coils inside me.

My heels suddenly feel too high, the room too quiet, the glass walls too transparent even with the blinds down.

I walk past him, around my desk, like I might gain back some control if I have a barrier between us.

My voice is calm, but inside it’s anything but.

“It’s complicated.”

He huffs and drags a hand through his hair, pacing once in a short arc. “Every damn conversation I’ve had lately starts with that word. Complicated. I’m fucking tired of it.”

I press my palm flat to the desk, knuckles whitening. “Cam?—”

He cuts me off by moving. His hand slams onto the desk, next to mine, body caging me in without touching. His eyes are wild but clear. “Let me make it simpler. Choose me.”

Before I can process what he said, he kisses me.

Not tentative, not asking, but decisive and deep and hot enough to fry my thoughts.

My mouth opens under his, and the rest of me follows, clutching his shirt, dragging him closer, pulling him into a kiss that tastes like guilt and longing and something I thought I buried years ago.

His hand finds my neck, thumb sweeping the curve of my jaw as his tongue slides against mine. He’s rough with it. Unapologetic. My brain starts melting somewhere around the second time he bites my bottom lip.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I breathe, even as I hook a leg around his thigh. My back hits the edge of the desk. Papers scatter to the floor.

“And yet,” he mutters, mouth on my throat, “I am.”

His hands yank open the buttons of my blouse with zero finesse. Fabric parts, my bra dragged down. His mouth latches onto my nipple like he’s been thinking about it for days. Maybe he has. I moan, gripping his shoulders, nails digging into muscle.

He drops to his knees without warning, hands dragging my skirt up, tugging my underwear down in a move so fast I barely register the air on my thighs before his mouth is already there.

Tongue sliding over me, slow and firm. One hand gripping my ass, the other parting me with practiced precision. I jerk forward, catching the desk with both hands, my forehead nearly smacking the surface. His mouth works in circles that make my knees go soft. Then he sucks, and my body jerks.

“Fuck, Cam—” I gasp, trying not to scream. His hand pins me in place.

“You’re dripping,” he mutters, licking another tight circle. “Knew you would be.”

His fingers slide inside me while his tongue keeps working. The pace is devastating. I bite down on my wrist to keep quiet. I grind against his face, chasing something wicked that’s already flooding my thighs and blurring the room.

It crashes through me. I bend over the desk and ride it out, legs shaking, teeth clenched to keep from crying out his name. He stands behind me, grabbing my hips as he fumbles with his zipper.

The sound of the foil packet tearing fills the room. Then he’s inside me—deep and hard and furious. My hands claw at the desk for leverage as he fucks me from behind, every thrust pushing me further over the edge of coherence.

“You think he could do this?” Cam growls, gripping my hips, snapping into me with enough force to rock the furniture. “Think my brother could pull sounds like that out of you?”

I can’t answer. I’m gone. Moaning into the desk, legs barely working. He slams into me again, deeper now, pace building to something punishing. His fingers dig into my waist. The drag and pull of him inside me is brutal, addictive, right on the edge of pain and pleasure.

“You were always mine,” he mutters in my ear, one hand tangling in my hair. “Even when I was gone.”

I lose it again, everything inside me clenching around him. I cry out, throat raw, legs giving out. He groans, driving deeper, chasing it with wild, ragged breath.

“Damn, sugar... You take me so fucking good.”

He thrusts once more, hips jerking, and stills. Heat spills inside the condom, his body heavy against my back, both of us sweating and breathing like we ran a marathon in five minutes.

For a moment, all I hear is the tick of the wall clock. Somewhere in the distance, Lisa is probably pretending she didn’t hear a damn thing.

Cam presses a kiss between my shoulder blades, then zips up, eyes still dark as he pulls back, and watches me.

My knees threaten to buckle again as I straighten, blouse wrinkled, panties ruined on the floor, the desk an absolute wreck. I glance at him, breath still ragged. “This solves nothing.”

“No,” he says, reaching for my face again, brushing hair from my cheek. “But at least now I know you’re not pretending.”

He walks to the door, unlocks it, and pauses. “Think about what I said. Then come find me.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

I’m left standing half-naked in my office with the taste of him still in my mouth, my thighs sticky, and absolutely no idea how the hell I’m going to survive working with either of them.