Page 121 of Offside Attraction

The kiss is brutal. Messy. All impulse and heat, like neither of us thought this through and didn’t care. My mind blanks for half a second—shock freezes me in place—then something inside me snaps.

I kiss him back.

My hands fist in his jersey, yanking him closer as my stick slips from my grip and clatters uselessly to the ice. It’s angry and desperate, years of tension detonating all at once. Teeth scrape, breath stutters, neither of us giving an inch.

I growl into his mouth, the sound vibrating between us. Hayes groans in response, deep and rough, and it sends a sharp pulse of heat straight through me. My fingers tangle in his hair, tugging hard enough to hurt—and he doesn’t pull away.

I hate how good it feels. Hate how my body reacts, how my head spins, how the kiss turns feral and unbalanced. I push back into him, stealing space, matching him beat for beat.

It isn’t a kiss.

It’s a fight.

A collision of mouths and breath and buried fury, neither of us willing to yield, both of us trying to take something we don’t know how to ask for.

My skates shift against the ice as I start to move forward, pulling him with me. The cold air brushes against my overheatedskin, but it does nothing to cool the fire burning between us. His hands are everywhere—my waist, my back, gripping me like he’s afraid I’ll pull away. I hate the way it makes me feel—wanted, needed—but I hate even more how much I crave it.

I press closer, our chests colliding, and I tug at his hair again, harder this time. He groans into my mouth, his fingers digging into my hips with enough force to bruise. The sound sends a shiver down my spine, and I respond by biting his bottom lip, hard enough to make him hiss. His lips part, and I take the opportunity to deepen the kiss, sliding my tongue against his in a way that makes my head spin.

It’s raw, messy, and filled with years of pent-up frustration spilling out in every movement. His hands move up to my shoulders, pulling me tighter against him, and I can feel every inch of him, solid and warm and infuriatingly perfect. My body reacts on its own, leaning into him, my hands tangling in his hair as the kiss becomes something even more desperate.

His lips leave mine for a fraction of a second, moving to my jawline, then my neck. The scrape of his teeth against my skin makes me shudder, and I hate how easily he’s undoing me. My grip on his jersey tightens, pulling him back up to capture his lips again, unable to stop myself from diving back into the chaos.

But then his hands tighten on my waist, pulling me flush against him, and I moan, hating myself for liking every bit of this.

How did we end up here? How the fuck did we get to this point—kissing, crashing into each other, saying everything we can’t say with our mouths instead of our voices? And why can’t I pull away, even when every instinct in me is screaming that I should?

I need to get out of here. Now. Before I do something even worse than this.

Reality slams into me all at once. My heart is pounding so hard it drowns out everything else—the scrape of our skates, thesound of our ragged breathing, the way the moment keeps trying to drag me under.

I shove him back hard, breaking the kiss.

My lips throb, swollen and tingling, as I stumble a step away, fighting to catch my breath. Hayes staggers slightly, his hands still half-reaching for me like he doesn’t even realize I’m gone. His face is flushed, his eyes dark with something I don’t want to name. Something I don’t want to understand.

“What the hell was that?” I rasp, my voice raw and wrecked.

He just stares at me for a second, chest rising and falling, like he’s as shaken as I am. The smugness is gone. The armor, stripped clean. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and hoarse.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But don’t pretend you didn’t feel it.”

The words slice straight through me.

Anger surges up fast, sharp enough to burn away the confusion. I clench my fists, my breathing still uneven. “Screw you, Hayes,” I mutter, my voice shaking with rage—and something else I refuse to name.

I turn away from him, skates scraping against the ice as I put distance between us. My head is spinning. My chest feels tight, like it might crack open. All I can think about is the way his mouth felt on mine—and the fact that I let it happen.

“Dakota,” he calls, softer now. Careful.

I don’t stop. I don’t turn around. I can’t.

I don’t know what the hell just happened between us, but I know one thing for sure—

Nothing between us will ever be the same again.

CHAPTER 32

HAYES