Page 40 of Love Me (Charlotte Monarchs Hockey #1)

“Of course not.” She shakes her head. “But I’ve come to the realization that I can’t save everyone.

No matter how hard I try or how many solutions I research.

I know how it feels to be hopeless and desperate.

That’s why I came here.” She leans back against the passenger seat.

“I don’t know how it feels to lose my career.

But I do know how it feels to tell someone that he can’t play hockey again.

I was the person to crush my brother’s dreams. It’s not the same, I know.

It kills me to see him so depressed and angry. ”

I squeeze her hand. Being the bearer of bad news sucks. Hell, I’ve still got a chip on my shoulder with Dr Patel—even though I love him for relieving the pain.

“You didn’t crush his dreams. Concussions did.”

“I know.” Bree takes a deep breath. “And he heard the news from multiple doctors first, but he relied on me to get him back on the ice as if I had magical powers they didn’t have.

I tried to be that hero for him. I researched.

I met with countless doctors. I looked into Eastern medicine and even voodoo,” she says.

Though it sounds like a joke, Bree doesn’t smile, so I have a feeling it isn’t.

“It kills me to see him wasting his life.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has zero motivation for anything. When he got hurt, he was in Juniors. He didn’t get offered a job with the team.”

I wince at her words, and her face crumples.

“I wasn’t insulting you, Luke. The Monarchs did exactly what a professional team should do for its franchise players.

Mason was seventeen. He should have slid right into college.

Or trade school. Or got a job. He didn’t do any of that.

He graduated high school, and now he sits on my parents’ couch playing video games and watching YouTube videos.

The fire in his eyes is gone.” She pauses as if she wants to say something else but doesn’t.

Every word is a dagger slicing into my heart.

“I understand how he feels, Bree. I went through a rough period before I had surgery on my neck—and after. The prognosis didn’t look good.

I was pissed. Depressed. Fucked up. I felt like a failure.

I couldn’t believe everything I worked so hard for was gone. ”

“How did you move past it and appreciate your current role with the team? Because Mason hasn’t done that.”

I know she means well, but Bree doesn’t know shit about how devastating it is for an athlete who had enough talent to make it to Juniors—or pros—to be told he can never play again.

It feels like someone broke into my home, stole everything I own, then buried me alive in the backyard. Too deep to get out but not deep enough to avoid hearing everything going on around me.

My hockey career is dead with no chance of resurrection. I’m stuck walking around like a fucking zombie.

“I know playing isn’t safe. Does that matter? Nope. I still want to be out there on the ice.” I bang my hand against the steering wheel. “So here I am, almost a year later, still stuck in limbo in the first three stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining.”

“I get it,” Bree says. “It’ll be like that for a while. The start of next season, the playoffs, talking to your friends—the cycle will start over each time. It will get better. I promise. It always does.”

I scoot closer to her and take her hands in mine. “Are your parents still pressuring you to figure out a way to get Mason on the ice?”

She shakes her head. “No, but now they think I can motivate him to get off his ass.”

“Another thing we have in common.” My voice is barely above a whisper. I turn to face forward and drop my head back against the seat.

“What’s wrong, Luke?”

“It’s like you said when we met up that morning at Zorba’s.” I pause, still staring out the windshield at the ice rink instead of looking at her. “It was something to the effect of ‘You do what you have to for family. Even when you know you can’t help, you still try.’”

“It’s true, right?” she asks. “I spent years trying to help Mason even though I knew he’d never be able to play again.

It killed me, but I wanted to do it for him.

And for my parents. I love them with every inch of my being, but I know how they are.

A lot of our life is about status and keeping up appearances.

Mom wanted to tell people her son plays professional hockey.

Dad wanted to tell people that Mason is a chip off the old block. ”

Bree punches my shoulder softly as if I’m one of her dad’s cronies. Which makes me turn to face her.

“Sorry,” she says quickly.

“It didn’t hurt, Bree,” I assure her.

“I love my parents. They don’t love each other, but I know they love Mason and me.

We aren’t just trophies for them to show off.

” She twists her hands in her lap, lacing and unlacing her long, slender fingers.

“But that’s the way it feels when your parents are the founders of the Healthy Chix products.

Gotta keep up with the Joneses. We had to have the biggest houses and the most expensive cars even if we didn’t need them.

I appreciate the life my parents created for us, but I had to get away from all the pressure and the superficial bullshit. ”

Her words stun and deflate me simultaneously. Bree’s the only woman I’ve wanted to get close to in a long time. Which makes me hate that my immediate reaction is to pull away.

“Your parents are the founders of the Healthy Chix products?” I lift my eyes to hers.

She sighs. “Yeah.”

Fuck me. All this time, I thought Bree was this amazing, down-to-earth, beautiful, kindhearted nurse. I didn’t think our lives were that much more than a college degree apart.

But no. She’s a fucking socialite. The daughter of multimillionaires. She probably gets invited to Paris Hilton’s birthday parties. Or brunch with the fucking Kardashians.

Fuck my life.

“Your parents are the founders of the Healthy Chix products,” I repeat with a soft laugh, turning my head to the front again. “Your parents are self-made millionaires, and my mom’s a fucking junkie.”

“Luke, stop.” She sits upright in her seat and leans toward me.

I’m a masochist; I admit it. I like to feel pain. If there’s no pain, I don’t feel anything.

“I know all about pressure, Bree,” I say, turning toward her again.

Then I take her hands and squeeze them. Maybe she’ll understand.

Maybe she won’t judge me by my mother—or by my upbringing.

“I know how hard it is to do everything you possibly can for your family and still not be able to help. And like you, I keep trying.”

“I know you do. I love your strength and compassion. I love that you won’t give up on yourself or your family.” She shakes one hand out of my grasp and brings it to my face.

She feels sorry for me. Which makes me want to slit my fucking wrists. I close my eyes, unable to look at her because I know she’ll see weakness.

She wants to fix me. But she can’t. She can’t change the past. Mine or hers.

Bree doesn’t say anything. Instead, she leans close and presses her soft lips to mine. Then she lifts her mouth away just enough to whisper, “I need you, Luke.”

The taste of her cherry lip balm stirs up a carnal need, but I bite it back. I rub her back gently as my mind swirls. “I need you, too, Bree.”

She shakes her head, and I feel like I’m missing something, but I’m so distracted by my own fucked-up thoughts I could miss a bomb blasting the rink to pieces right now.

She reaches between us and tugs down the front of my athletic pants, saying, “I need you right now .”

That’s when I realize what she means by needing me. Sex. I’m down for taking her at any given moment, and I understand replacing the agony of grief with the ecstasy of an orgasm, but I want to know why Bree wants to take away pain with sex.

Instead of asking, I’ll make her give me everything she has. I’ll make her take me deep and fuck me hard. I’ll make her transfer all her pain and frustration to me so she can be at peace again. Because that’s what she wants.

And I’ll always give her what she wants.

Automatically, I slide my arms around her waist and pull her closer. She responds by climbing over the console and straddling my lap. Her hands are in my hair, and she’s pressing hard against my lips.

There’s is no better feeling in the world than Bree’s body molded to mine—except maybe the feeling of being inside her. I trail my hand from the soft curve of her hip to her upper thigh. I’ve got no access since she has yoga pants on. I need to rectify that.

I lift her hips, pat her ass, and say, “Jump in the backseat.”

As I climb after her, I look up and catch her expression. She’s lying back, waiting for me, holding her bottom lip between her teeth. She doesn’t tear her gaze from me as she shimmies her pants to mid-thigh. Then she spreads her legs open for me, and my heart slams against my chest.

“Grab the condom,” I growl, removing my wallet from my front pocket and handing it to her.

While Bree works on that, I lower myself to her stomach and place a soft kiss there before maneuvering to my knees in the tiny backseat of my Jeep.

Once I’m settled in as much as I’m ever going to be in such a cramped space, I lift my gaze to hers.

I’m met with wide, blue eyes swirling with lust and anticipation.

Her sex appeal is effortless and constantly engaging.

I can’t wait another second to bury my face between her legs.

“I didn’t sweat that much from skating,” I say, rubbing a hand over my forehead.

Our bodies are a tacky tangle of limbs in the backseat of my Jeep. Poor Bree is sticky and sweaty. I feel bad I don’t have a wet wipe or anything similar in my glove compartment. Then again, I wasn’t expecting to fuck her in the parking lot of the ice rink today.

If I’ve learned anything from Bree, it’s that I should be prepared to go at any given moment.

“We should probably go home and clean up, don’t you think?” she answers.

“Your place or mine?”

She wiggles into a seated position. “Yours. Mine is a—” She casts her eyes downward. “It’s a mess.”

“Do you need my services? I think I have a French maid’s outfit somewhere in my closet,” I tease her. Her embarrassment over her apartment is ridiculous. I hope she doesn’t think I expect it to be anything like mine. I don’t know many people as OCD as I am about keeping my place tidy.

She laughs out loud. “I don’t even want to know why.”

“Rookie prank. One of the nicer ones.”

“I bet. I’ve heard about some of the mean ones.” Her gaze darts to my dick, and I laugh. She must’ve heard about “the shave,” where some of the boys hold a guy down and shave his pubes.

I wave a hand at her dismissively. “That’s barely even a thing anymore. Most guys these days manscape.”

“I guess you’re right. I honestly never thought about it.”

“Well, I hope not. I’d be worried if you put a lot of thought into the shave.”

“It’s just funny when Dad tells stories about things like that. I always forget that it was different in his time.”

“He played in the, what, the eighties?”

“Yeah.”

“Ugh, dudes were nasty in the eighties. But not as bad as the seventies.”

“Right? I would have been a lesbian in the seventies.”

“You don’t choose to be a lesbian,” I say cautiously, unsure of how she may take it.

We’ve never really talked about where we fall on politics or social issues. I just assumed we were in a similar place because we’re similar in other aspects of how we think. From what I’ve seen, Bree’s an open-minded person.

“Oh, I know,” she says quickly. “I just meant I would make the conscious choice to be with a girl if my options were those gross, hairy dudes from the seventies.”

“You say that now,” I say, grabbing her by the back of her knees and pulling her down so she’s sprawled across the seat again. “But if I came at you with all that glorious chest hair and back hair, you’d be all over me.”

She laughs as I lower myself onto her. She trails a finger from my chin, down my neck, to my upper chest, then starts tickling me. “Oh my god, yes. Especially if your beard and chest hair crept over your shoulders and mingled together.”

My stomach contracts when her fingers dance over my skin, and I laugh out loud. “That’s fucked.”

“I’d like to be fucked. By you.”

“Then we need to get to my place, stat,” I say. “The first time fucking in a parking lot in the middle of the day is exciting. The second is just asking to be caught.”