Page 16

I closed the distance, stepping into his space, my heart hammering against my ribs, anger pulsing through me like an open wound.

Chris took a step back.

Not much. But enough.

“You and Evans getting close?” I kept my voice low, controlled—but lethal.

Chris blinked, caught off guard. Good. His easygoing mask slipped for half a second before he squared his shoulders, recovering fast. “Just looking out for her.”

The words hit like a punch to the gut. Looking out for her. Like I wasn’t already doing that. Like he had some kind of claim.

Something dark and primal surged inside me.

I stepped in, closing the space, letting him feel me there. My presence loomed over him, a silent warning.

“She’s here to work,” I said, my voice even but edged with steel. “Not to get distracted.”

Chris straightened up, rolling his shoulders, trying to act unfazed. “She’s not your problem, Callahan.”

I exhaled sharply, the laugh barely there, more like a slow exhale of frustration. “Everything on this ice is my problem.”

He crossed his arms, squaring up. I caught the faintest tremor in his hands, the way his fingers curled just a little tighter than before.

“Maybe back off a little," he said. “Let her breathe.”

My jaw locked. Muscles wound tight with every word that fell from his mouth.

I leaned in, my voice dropping to something rough and deliberate. “I’ll do what I think is best for my players.”

The air between us crackled, charged and volatile, stretched thin like a tripwire ready to snap.

Chris held my gaze, his back straight, refusing to flinch.

And fuck, I wanted to hit him.

Just once.

Just enough to remind him whose ice he was standing on.

Whose girl he was fucking touching.

But one wrong move would shatter everything.

The team. My career. Maybe even Iris’s future.

I had to keep my fists at my sides, had to wrestle down the urge to grab him by the collar and shake some fucking sense into him. But I wasn’t walking away without making one thing crystal fucking clear.

I dropped my voice lower, each word sharp as a blade. “Stay away from her.”

Chris’s eyes darkened, his stance stubborn. He wasn’t backing down.

And that only made me want to end this even more.

Damn it all—this wasn’t over.

Not now. Not ever.

Chris took a step back, but not before dropping a parting shot that hit harder than a fist to the jaw. “You ever think that maybe she doesn’t need you?”

The words sliced clean through me, sharp and merciless. The tightness in my chest expanded, wrapping around my ribs like a vise. The weight of them pressed into something deeper, something I didn’t want to fucking acknowledge.

I forced myself to hold his gaze, but inside?

The world tilted.

Chris saw it. I knew he did. And that smug little smirk twisting at the edge of his mouth made me want to wipe it clean off his face.

“Better be careful, coach.” His voice was light, but the words dripped with something darker. “You seem a little territorial over your players.”

Then he turned, walking off like he hadn’t just set something off inside me that I couldn’t turn back down.

I stood there, fists still balled so tight my knuckles ached, my pulse pounding in my ears, my body thrumming with something volatile. Like a live wire sparking, seconds away from burning everything down.

I waited until he disappeared around the corner before I forced myself toward my car, every step heavy, slow, like I was walking on cracked ice.

By the time I slid into the driver’s seat, the leather was too cold, too stiff, too fucking suffocating. But I didn’t turn the ignition. I just sat there. Hands gripping the steering wheel so hard my fingers went numb.

Breathe.

But I couldn’t.

Because Chris’s words wouldn’t stop replaying in my head.

Did she need me?

What if she didn’t?

What if she saw me for what I was—a disaster waiting to happen? A mistake she hadn’t fully made yet?

I shook my head violently, trying to dislodge the thoughts digging their claws into me.

No fucking way.

Iris was mine to push. To challenge. To protect.

Nobody else had that right.

But even as I told myself that, something ugly twisted inside me. A creeping, insidious doubt that I couldn’t shove down fast enough.

A chill ran up my spine. My pulse hammered—not just from adrenaline, not just from rage, but something deeper.

Something I didn’t want to name.

I stared out into the empty parking lot, shadows shifting under the harsh fluorescent lights.

Why the hell had Chris been there?

Why did it bother me this much?

Why did it feel like something was slipping through my fingers before I even had the chance to fucking hold it?

My hands clenched around the wheel again, knuckles stark white against the black leather, anger surging back up to choke out the doubt.

But no amount of rage could silence the one thing still lingering beneath it all.

Fear.

Not of losing control.

Not of what I might do if I let myself have her.

But of what might happen if I didn’t.

I leaned back in the driver’s seat, the weight of everything pressing down on me like a goddamn avalanche. My pulse thudded hard, steady, insistent. A brutal rhythm hammering into my skull, reminding me of what I’d done.

What I was becoming.

She’s mine.

The thought slid through my mind like poison—thick, inescapable, clinging to every nerve ending.

I hated it. Hated how easy it felt to claim her, to twist that truth around me like a vice—tightening, suffocating—until it was the only thing left.

But it didn’t stop.

It couldn’t stop.

No one touches her but me.

The words dug in deep, latching onto something primal, something animalistic.

The way Langley had leaned into her space—too fucking close, the way she had laughed at something only they shared?

It set my fucking blood on fire.

I squeezed the wheel, my knuckles pale under the pressure, muscles wound so goddamn tight I thought I might snap.

This wasn’t going away.

I knew it now. Knew it in my bones.

She was inside me. Crawled into my head uninvited, settled in like she belonged there. And I let her.

I was in it.

Too fucking deep.

I couldn’t walk away. Not from this. Not from her.

I wanted her more than I wanted redemption.

More than I wanted my career back.

More than I wanted anything.

And that scared the hell out of me.

It wasn’t just want. It was a need. A hunger that chewed through my restraint, my control, my fucking sanity.

Every time she glanced over her shoulder at me, it felt like a goddamn tether—pulling me back, anchoring me to something I couldn’t name, but craved like an addict chasing his next high.

I clenched my jaw as the memory of her body pressed against mine during practice flashed through my mind. The tension, the fire in her eyes, the fucking collision of us.

She made me feel alive.

Made me want.

Made me ache.

This was nothing like before—the fights, the anger, the desperate need to prove myself. This wasn’t about pride or control or proving a goddamn thing.

This was real. Raw.

And that scared me more than anything else ever had.

I let out a slow, unsteady breath, still gripping the wheel like it was the only thing keeping me grounded.

But maybe I didn’t want to be grounded.

Maybe I wanted to let go.

Maybe I wanted to fucking drown in this chaos.

Because deep down, beneath all the anger, the obsession, the fucking madness of it all?—

I knew the truth.

I wasn’t strong enough to walk away.

Not from her.

Not now.

Not ever.