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ERIK

Y ou had a hard-on, my inner voice whispered to me as I laced up my skates, ready to take the ice. Kayden had a hard-on too. You felt it pressed against your leg .

I could always count on my inner voice to point out the obvious, especially when I didn’t want to hear it.

Could I deny it? I’d spent a lot of time with a hard-on lately, and I could thank Kayden for that.

And it didn’t happen during convenient moments either.

Thoughts of our kiss (kisses plural, my inner voice reminded me) flooded my mind randomly, exciting me.

I sometimes had to hold my books or hockey bag in front of me so no one would notice.

Before you ask, the answer is no, I don’t like having to admit that. It scares me. I just think denying it would do more harm than good. Like, I couldn’t pretend I’d stayed soft as a noodle after what’d happened.

Plus, it would’ve been a lie.

It did mean that Kayden couldn’t escape this either.

He was into the kiss as I was. If he wanted to argue, I would remind him that I’d felt his hard dick against my leg, so he shouldn’t pull any of that banana-in-his-pocket crap.

Then our only debate would be about which of us had been harder. That seemed like a trick question.

I can tell you all about this because that wasn’t the part that scared me the most. Want to know what did? I wanted it in me.

There. I said it. Not only had I gotten my own erection and felt Kayden’s throbbing member press against my leg without flipping out, but I wanted his cock inside me.

I might’ve crossed the line there. I’m sorry. I just want to confront the things that scare me. That’s a lot more than I could say for Kayden. And speaking of his Royal Highness, I saw him on the ice the moment I hit the rink.

The guy insisted on being first on the ice for morning skate even if he wasn’t the captain. That tells you something. And I know why he’d shown up extra early too. He had to beat me to it. He wanted to make sure others found him there first and me second. No other reason.

Seeing him there made me feel sick in the pit of my stomach. If it’d been just a kiss, I could’ve handled that. We’d done that before and the sky hadn’t fallen. But getting hard and feeling his member—and wanting it inside me, of course—changed everything.

He wouldn’t go for that, though. Not Kayden Preston, the king of cocky. The thought seemed wild even for me.

When I hit the ice, I headed straight for Kayden, and he skated away from me immediately.

Of course.

Cardinal rule number one in dealing with Kayden is to never let him pull any of his macho tough guy bullshit. I followed him because he really thought ignoring things, including me, could make them go away.

I skated after him, refusing to be dismissed.

Instead of glancing over his shoulder, Kayden focused his eyes straight ahead.

I persisted.

“Can’t you take a hint?” he asked.

“You were hard, too, you know.”

“Thanks for the tip, professor.”

“Sorry if I’m trying to lighten the mood a little.”

“Lighten the mood a little? Bro, you shouldn’t even be bringing that up again. You’re supposed to pretend like it never happened.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. It was the scariest fucking moment of my life.”

“Oh, and it had no effect on me at all, Kayden.”

That’s right, my inner voice said. He had a big fat boner, and so did you, but you actually wanted him to put it in you. That’s the difference. Why don’t you tell him about that part?

My eyes fell shut, and I drew a deep breath. The idea scared me but not enough to chase it away. Nothing would stop me from confronting this. I’d told Kayden how we deal with problems on the farm, and I meant to keep with tradition.

“Look, I don’t see any point in talking about this,” he said. “We both already know what happened.”

“I already told you how common this?—”

He raised his hand to stop me. “And the more we talk about it, the harder it’ll be to forget it.”

“Six or seven people out of ten, Kayden. Six or seven.”

“Bullshit.”

“Isn’t that your answer to everything?”

“If I think something’s bullshit, you can bet your ass I’m calling it out.”

He wore a different smile now, one that said don’t-fuck-with-me. He gripped his stick again, advanced down the ice, and started shooting the array of pucks one by one into the empty net.

By now, you would know that I followed him. Well, Kayden also knew my little habits, and he turned around, flashing his fiercest look yet. His lips lifted past his gums, showing his teeth, like a dog ready to bite. I didn’t flinch, but that look alarmed me just the same.

“You really know how to push your luck, you know that, De Ruiter?”

“You look like you want to hit me.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Then why don’t you go for it?”

“Why don’t you get the fuck out of here before you get plowed? My fist has a mind of its own.”

“You won’t do it.”

He sucked in a deep breath. Maybe he wanted to scream. If I was driving him nuts, maybe I should consider it a mission accomplished. Kayden might not have expected the rational Canadian to have balls of steel. That was his problem.

“How do you know I won’t?”

“Because we kissed. Twice. And I gave you a hard-on.”

“Fuck off, bro. You were the one with the hard-on.”

“We were both hard. Can we at least agree on that?”

I so wanted to make a crack about how we both could’ve put an eye out with our erections, but Kayden was nowhere close to a joking mood. I wouldn’t upset the apple cart to win this argument. Besides, his non-answer was all the answer I needed.

“We were both stiff as a board,” I said. “You know why? Because there’s something between us.”

Kayden’s stick made a cracking noise when it struck the ice, smacking a puck into the net. An echo resonated throughout the rink. He moved onto the next puck and the next, and I followed.

“Neither of us planned it,” I said. “It is what it is.”

No answer from Kayden.

“Instead of running away from what happened, we should actually confront it. No fear.”

I heard Kayden mutter something along the line of, “You don’t know when to quit, bro,” under his breath.

“I know what you’re going to say, but I think the best way to deal with this is to not just talk about it but…see if there’s something more.”

Now Kayden looked up, his eyes opened wide. I still didn’t flinch, but for the first time, I sensed that things could turn from ugly to grotesque.

He aimed a finger at me. “That’s the type of shit that’s gonna land us in even more trouble.”

“No, it isn’t. It’ll solve our problems. You’ll see.”

“I don’t even want to hear about it. I just want to pretend like none of this ever happened.”

“You know that’ll never work, right?”

“Why not?”

“Because running from the truth never works.”

“Look, bro. I don’t know about you, but I’m straight as an arrow.”

I tried not to roll my eyes, but judging by Kayden’s response, I must’ve done a crappy job.

“Don’t believe me?”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that?—”

“I’ll make it simple for you. I know why I’m here. I want to win a championship for Larkin and then get drafted to the NHL. Those are my only goals. I don’t need any complications.”

“In case you missed it, I don’t need complications either. That’s why I’m trying to figure this shit out.”

He kept shooting pucks at the net. That action said the conversation had closed as far as he was concerned, but I knew better. It was the latest example of Kayden’s stubbornness.

“This is going to be awkward,” I said.

He fired another puck at the net but missed. He whispered “fuck” and then took another shot.

“How do we get around this then? We’re on the same team.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Then you should care about fixing this as much as I do. How do we?—”

“Just don’t talk to me.” He stood straight and tall, puffing his chest out. “It’s that simple. If we don’t talk to each other, if we avoid all contact, if we pretend like each other doesn’t exist, then we won’t have to worry about giving in to anything.”

He slapped another puck hard, like my every word enraged him more and more.

“It’s not as easy as?—”

“Don’t take that as a suggestion, De Ruiter. Take it as an order.”

He pointed to the exit as if he expected me to leave now. Well, he could forget that.

“You can’t be for real.”

“Damn right, I am. And remember this is your team captain speaking.”

“Team captain, my ass. If you were such a great captain, you wouldn’t run away from the things that scare you like a total chicken shit.”

Maybe Kayden really would’ve slugged me this time. I guess we’ll never know. The rest of our teammates poured onto the ice before he could do anything stupid—by his standards, anyway. Kayden took his chance to escape, mixing with the other guys, knowing he would get no mercy from me.

My eyes stayed on him the whole time. Sometimes, when you know something deep in your soul, you’ve got to stick with it. That includes when the other person is being incredibly stubborn.

Especially when the other person is being incredibly stubborn.

So, maybe I would have to be the one to chase Kayden. I was up to the challenge.