Page 14 of Off-Ice Misconduct (Daddies of the League #8)

McKinnon watches on, curiosity forcing him to lean his head toward me with interest. I toss the kit down, gripping his face in my hand again.

There’s swelling I didn’t notice upon first glance.

The blood caught me off guard—not because blood bothers me, but because it was his, which is apparently a distinction my brain makes now.

Bruising’s setting in, and I spy a few small cuts.

I pull some antiseptic spray from my kit.

“I could get used to you manhandling me like this, sir,” McKinnon says in the brattiest tone imaginable.

My breathing hitches. For a second, the tables have turned, and I’m the one flustered. I didn’t plan for this. But if he wants to get cheeky like that with me, I’m happy to call him on it.

“I’d be happy to, princess. But you wouldn’t be calling me sir, you’d be calling me Daddy.”

That shuts him up and turns his ears a brilliant shade of fire-engine red. But before I can celebrate my victory, a crystal-clear image slams into my brain— Daddy, falling from those pouty lips of his, wrecked and desperate, a cry I wrenched out of him with my oversized dick.

Well, that’s going to become a goddamn obsession.

Meticulously, I work on cleaning the blood away, all without gloves. It stains my fingers. I know better than that, but I don’t care. It’s his blood, which seems to make it okay, even though I have no idea what’s living in it.

If it’s living in him, maybe it should live in me, too.

God fucking dammit. This is bad. I shouldn’t have touched him. I should stop touching him now. But like hell will I.

“Start fucking talking, McKinnon,” I say, slowly losing my patience.

“Language, Professor—ow!”

My fingers push into the edges of the bruise, not enough to damage, just enough to remind him who’s in charge.

“Alright. Jeez.” He huffs, glowering, but this time it’s got a toddler’s sulk to it without any real heat. He doesn’t want to tell me. “I think you’re gonna be mad, though—if this whole scene is anything to go by,” he mutters.

“Probably.” I work gently, rewarding him for good behavior. Encouraging him.

“Remember the whole drama with Delta Gamma?” I nod.

“It’s escalated. Turns out that Freshman Andy’s a reporter for The Shadow Gazette.

Things got twisted, and he’s under the impression that Celeste was my girlfriend, wrote all about it in a scathing article titled, Ace McKinnon, Hockey God or Filthy Lying Cheater?

I didn’t even know they were allowed to publish shit like that.

Anyway, it came out today, which resulted in a major retaliation.

Beta Sigma frat saw it as their opportunity to move in on Delta Gamma—they’ve always been jealous of our alliance with them.

They were waiting with paintball guns, and they attacked us when we got home, trying to look like knights in shining armor. The house is a fucking disaster.”

“Why don’t I see a splash of paint on you?”

“I’m not the hockey captain for nothing, Da —uh, sir. I’m fast.”

He almost called me Daddy, didn’t he? He’s thinking about it. Unfortunately, so am I.

“Anyway, it pissed them off. Someone had rubber bullets. They targeted me.”

“They shot you in the face?” I say between gritted teeth.

“Tried to. I dodged that. This was from being grazed. It did take me out, though. I fell and rolled over the pavement. Wasn’t wearing my jacket at the time because we’d just come from the gym.

My arms are scratched to shit. Didn’t have time to clean up before coming here and figured showing like a disaster on time was better than being late. ”

I’m gonna have every one of those little shits strung up by their fingers.

“Don’t,” he says.

“Don’t what?” I finish with the blood around his nose. Better, but now the swelling’s more apparent. I fish an instant ice pack from my bag. They’re not as good as real ice, but it’s better to have something on this immediately.

“Do whatever it is your face is saying you wanna do.”

“Am I that obvious?”

The corner of his lip quirks into a half smile. “To me, you are.”

I wish I didn’t like that, but I do.

“I can’t let this go. It’s my duty to report this kind of thing to the dean,” I say as if I had any intention of doing that instead of handling it myself, hiding behind a thinly veiled shield of professionalism he already knows I don’t possess.

“That will make everything worse. Besides, the dean’s used to frat wars. He doesn’t act unless someone is severely injured but shit like that will get back to the other house. They’ll only retaliate harder.”

“You were shot in the face.” He may consider this a graze, but I don’t.

What if that rubber bullet had hit him in the eye?

His hockey career would be over, or worse.

“This is more than a little fraternity dispute. He should be preventing tragedies, not waiting for them to happen before he does anything.”

“Never part of a fraternity, were you, sir?”

“I was too busy.” School served as a break from the fights for entertainment that my uncle called work, but it never got me out of it completely.

Besides being forbidden from joining one, I wouldn’t have had the time.

But if this is the kind of shit that’s considered normal, I’m glad I missed it altogether.

“Anyway, admittedly, Uncle Patrick might be more partial because it was me that got hurt, but I don’t want special treatment.”

Right. His dad’s besties with the dean. “You don’t make any sense. You’re fine with special treatment when it’s arriving late to class, but not for this?”

“Arriving late to class doesn’t hurt anyone.

No one complained until you,” he says. “And we give back for that. We bust our fucking asses in practice, dragging our sorry sacks of bones to bed early during the season, missing most of the events on campus, so we can bring the sort of entertainment and money—don’t forget the money—to the school all year.

Having the dean come to my rescue when he wouldn’t for anyone else?

That’s the kind of nepotism I’m not on board with. ”

I don’t agree with his logic, but it gives me new McKinnon insight.

Once the instant ice pack is wrapped in a cloth, I make him hold it to his face. “Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off for the rest of the night.”

He rolls his eyes. “I know, sir. Not my first injury—hockey player, remember?”

As if I could forget. “You mentioned it a time or two.”

McKinnon smiles again, almost wistfully. “What are you gonna do during the season, sir? You think this is bad, wait until I play a real game. But what I haven’t figured out is whether it’s all students you fuss over like this, or just me?”

I stare, tracing the lines of his bruised face with my eyes, the blooming splotches fuel my rage and possession. The ever-present need to make him mine.

“I used to be a paramedic. I feel obligated to help.”

“Really? Is the way you grabbed my face part of some new first-aid protocol, then? Because I’ve never been?—”

“Shut up, McKinnon.” Fucking little brat, but I can’t deny that my impulsivity’s to blame this time. “You’ve got to resolve this feud. How do you plan on doing that?”

He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. “No idea. Now that I actually have to do schoolwork, that’s eating up a lot of the time I would have used to get other shit done.”

I shake my head. “Sorry that your education’s getting in the way of your social life, McKinnon.”

Ace mumbles something under his breath.

“What was that?”

“I said, I’m only really here for hockey, sir. The rest is bullshit.”

That’s not what he said. I definitely made out something to do with “Mom”, but I let it go. His issues with his parents don’t concern me.

I rap his head with my knuckles. “Use this, McKinnon. Instead of solving the issue with more violence, harness the power of the two brain cells rolling around in here.”

He scowls. “Only if you admit that you don’t actually care about us retaliating with violence as much as you do me getting hurt.”

An arctic wind blows across him from my deadly glare. He flinches. “I’m in charge, not you. You’ll do it because I said so.”

But I should have known better than to challenge him right now, when it’s him who has the upper hand and he’s fucking figured that out.

I want to own him, tame him, break him, but seeing him beat to shit short-circuits my brain in a way I can’t hide. I’m in danger of giving him something he wants.

Resist.

Recovering, he blinks his pretty eyes. “Please, Daddy.”

Fuck me.

My hand traps his throat, forcing a gasp from him as it slowly dawns on him that he’s evoked more than he bargained for.

That’s right, Daddy’s not a caring lamb, princess. He’s the wolf, and he’ll eat you alive.

With my free hand, I use my thumb to toy with his plump bottom lip. I’m also struggling with the fact that he’s got all these marks on him, none of them from me. I’d love to bite his lip so hard it puffed up enough to let everyone know who he belongs to.

“Is that what you think, princess? That I care?” I shake my head. “You seem to have forgotten, I own you—you’re my property. That means you stay intact, ready for my use, not anybody else’s.”

Way too far. Way more than I wanted to say. But it’s all true. My heart pounds in time with his pulse point that’s currently under my index finger.

“If you want me to stay out of it, then you fix it without one more mark on you—not a single goddamn one. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to put my marks on you, and I’ll do that with my perfect leather strap. They’ll burn for days, reminding you of where you fucking belong. Now, what do you say?”

He licks his lips, afraid to move, vibrating with dark excitement. “Yes, sir.”

“I don’t think so, princess. Try that one again.”

A gorgeous flush creeps up his neck, slow, deep, devastating. “Yes, Daddy.”

He says it like it costs him something, but there’s also need.

A need so deep, even he might not fully realize the raw vulnerability in what he just did.

Now that’s the kind of shit that deserves my praise.

Not the pouting brat, or the showboat hockey player who has something to prove.

Authentic McKinnon, letting himself be who he really wants to be.

“Good boy.”