Page 22 of Off-Ice Misconduct (Daddies of the League #8)

Luke

I ’m in trouble. So much fucking trouble. It shouldn’t have taken every ounce of my willpower to shove him off my lap, but it did. I spent the hour afraid to move, afraid to breathe too hard in case I let my coiled muscles loose, pouncing him, ripping down his pants, and fucking him over the desk.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, I reanimate. A pained exhale drags from my lungs, and I’m fucking tempted to do something about the situation I have going on in my pants. Instead, I rub a hand over my face, leaning over my desk, arms braced against the wood, hoping it’ll ground me.

It doesn’t.

My body’s still on fire with the phantom pressure of him on my lap.

The weight of him. His unique McKinnon scent.

The way his thighs bracketed mine, rocking his hips, not in a calculated seduction, but like he couldn’t help himself.

He was aching, and now I am too. All the while that mark, the one I sucked onto his neck, stared at me.

It wasn’t just a claim, it was a warning.

But today, he captured me, and that’s a problem. This was supposed to be clean and controlled, but Ace’s chaos enveloped me and dragged me in, blew my rules to smithereens. Our cocks touched and he knew it. He tried to tease me, break me.

I want him more than I want to be a good man.

I’m already halfway to hell as it is. I’m wrecked on the inside, working my fingers to the bone on the heavy bag to obliterate all traces of him, but it’s not working.

Tracing the knuckles, I stare at the places the blood’s seeped through my hasty tape job.

He saw them, touched them. He was curious but left me to my demons as if some sixth sense was whispering to him that my battered hands were his fault.

That I’ve chosen him, but wish there was a way I could choose anything else.

My fist slams into the desk. The stale mug of coffee jumps, and I glare at the papers he left until I spy something. Another drawing—me in a cape.

Well, me as a penis in a cape.

I smirk and snatch it up, adding it to the growing collection in my bag.

“Mind if I join you?” Tate asks.

Since my afternoon boxing session didn’t do shit, I’m having an evening boxing session. There’s barely any skin left on my fucking knuckles, but what else am I supposed to do? I have to get rid of these feelings I have for McKinnon. With my reason standing in front of me—Tate—it should be easier.

“Please.”

He tosses his bag down and loops an old set of wraps onto his hands. The left side of my mouth quirks into a half smile. “Those are the ones I got for you.”

“Of course, big brother. You know I fucking idolize you—that’s not a secret.”

I roll my eyes. “You don’t need to idolize me.”

He does a bob and weave, combined with a little shadowboxing. “Well, I do. You taught me everything I know.”

Tate’s green eyes sparkle, and he smiles wide enough that his dimple shows. It’s exactly what I wanted— that smile. It’s a smile I’ll never have, but I don’t need, so long as Tate’s happy.

“What’s got you so pissed, huh?”

I frown. Should I tell him the truth? He already knows I’m into Ace—he saw the security footage—but he doesn’t know I’m torn up about him.

What am I supposed to do? Ask him if it’s all alright for me to jeopardize his career?

I’ve already crossed so many lines. I have to end things with Ace before we get caught.

“It’s nothing. Come show me your footwork, and I’ll pick it apart until you have it right.”

“Hardass,” he mutters.

Working on Tate’s form gives my knuckles a break, and it brings back memories.

Teach me to be a badass like you, Luke.

I didn’t want him to have to be a badass, though, except for on the ice. Sometimes off-ice badassness was necessary, though. Tate couldn’t afford to be soft either.

We train until I’ve soaked through a second shirt. It’s taken the edge off, but it’s once again failed to wipe away McKinnon.

“So, uh, are you still sweet on McKinnon?” he asks, sucking down water, catching his breath.

My jaw tenses, teeth clenched. “I’m not sweet on him.”

He waves a hand. “Whatever the fuck you wanna call it, I can’t stop thinking about it. That’s gonna land badly on the team. If my job doesn’t matter to you, think of the kids.”

Hot anger sizzles through my veins, but on the surface, I broadcast calm, forcing my muscles to relax. “Don’t worry your pretty head. It’s over between McKinnon and me.”

It never really got started.

“I mean, you can’t always follow your dick, right? Not unless your dick points to something useful.”

I tilt my head. “What do you mean by that?”

He sighs. “Money’s not coming in as fast as I’d like it to.”

“You haven’t even had the first game of the season yet, Tate.”

“I know, but I can’t take any chances. As per tradition, our first exhibition game is against North Point this weekend. But there are only so many games between us and them, so I have to make my move now.”

A terrible feeling walks over my skin. “What are you planning, Tatum?”

“You can stow the full name, that shit hasn’t worked on me since I was eight.”

Not true. It always works, which is why I do it. He just likes to think he’s grown out of being affected by the parental quality my voice takes on when I speak to him. “Spill.”

“I’m getting a new McKinnon.”

“What?”

“I mean, honestly, I doubt there will ever be another McKinnon in my lifetime,” he says with a bit of awe. “But with the right PR, I can make people believe he is. North Point’s hockey captain. I’m gonna lure him away from North Point even if I have to seduce that beautiful sack of muscles.”

“Lure him with your dick?”

“Yep. Got the idea from you, actually, because of your McKinnon crush. You really got him to fall in line by giving him your cock.”

I’d argue, but it’s a waste of breath. The truth is, I haven’t given him my cock, I’m just fucking gone for him. But, fuck, now I’m thinking about how much I want to give Ace my cock, my body vibrates with desperate need.

Because, yeah, Ace has become a need as much as a want.

He’s the bright spot of chaotic sunshine I didn’t know I could have, but now that I do, I have to keep his sunshine all for myself.

Let him bleed into all my darkness, breathe life into places that are nearly dead.

I don’t just want to fuck him, own him, claim him, I want our souls to mesh together.

“Ryan Savage’s dad’s fucking loaded,” he continues. “He can be the team’s new cash cow.”

“You’re going to sleep with a student, the thing you don’t want me doing.”

“Not my student, Luke. Not yet.”

“If your idiotic plan works, he will be.”

“I won’t be sleeping with him when he gets here.

It’s perfect. Once I’ve lured him here, I drop him.

It’ll be easy enough to find a way to keep him once he’s here.

For the record, I honestly could care less about you sleeping with McKinnon, that’s not my issue.

But the odds are bad—eventually, you’ll be caught.

There’s no chance of that with Savage. He’s not here enough. ”

He’s completely lost his mind. Ryan, being a student at another school, is still going to be a scandal if it’s discovered.

“You’re going to use him, then?”

He shrugs because he can’t answer that without admitting it to himself. At least he feels guilty about it. Tate isn’t a villain. Something like this is wildly outside of his character.

But at the end of the day, I don’t care what my brother does to funnel money to his team.

Hell, he’ll be getting half of Uncle’s fortune once I have it, and he can use it for the hockey team if he’ll just pick a damn life partner.

It’s something I haven’t mentioned because I don’t want the reason he marries to be for the money.

The anger burning in the background of my soul flares as it dawns on me.

Unless he plans on marrying this alleged “new” hockey god, it means he’s not serious about his promise to me and has no current plans to set the series of events that would lead to a marriage into motion.

I don’t expect it to happen overnight, not if it’s going to be someone he’ll love and adore; it’ll take time.

Which means he needed to start yesterday.

“Hell, maybe this is the way to do it. Lure the richest hockey boys to my team. I fucking hate doing these fundraisers as much as the team does.”

No partner who shares Tatum’s relationship values will want him flirting with hockey captains for sport.

I open and close my mouth, searching for words, but they don’t come.

Is this what I’ve done everything for? The sacrifices I’ve made for Tate, the sleep debt I’ll never repay, the broken bones, bruised pride, stripping of my autonomy …

for what? So, he can play sugar baby games with hockey captains?

I was … so cold. I …

I was nineteen. Uncle Jasper made me strip down to nothing and stand barefoot at the edge of the pool he’d filled with ice.

“Why must we do this?” he said.

“Because—once again—I’ve put my brother’s desires before good sense.” Those were his words, not mine.

Uncle Jasper moved beside me, letting a heavy hand grip my shoulder, squeezing, as if he were something akin to a father teaching his son a much-needed life lesson. It was hard to say if he actually believed that—sometimes I think he did—or if it was just mockery.

“You can’t make decisions with your heart, Lucas. It will ruin you.”

Uncle Jasper took pride in the monster within me. He didn’t want me to have a heart.

He gestured to the water. “Get in.”

Was this gonna be it? The end of me? It was another mindfuck trial.

Another way to prove he held my life in his hands.

Playing a game of chess and having each wrong move earn a lash was one thing—I had some control, so long as I was smart about how I moved the pieces.

But getting in this pool, with him in charge of how long I stay in? I’d have better luck fighting a wolf.