Page 4 of Stand Your Ground

“Done.”

The word was out of me even before her little speech finished. I thought I saw something vulnerable beneath her statement, something she was hiding, but I knew better than to press. I wasn’t tellingherthe whole truth right now — why should I expect different?

It seemed we both had things we were running from, things we were fighting, things we were working through. If I could help her in some way, it would make the whole deal feel even.

And the truth was she didn’t need to convince me, even if there wasn’t another reason underneath the one she’d provided. I already agreed with her. Shediddeserve to be spoiled.

If she’d let me, I’d happily give her the passwords to all my accounts and watch her drain every single one.

Besides, I just signed a new contract with the team over the summer, one that guaranteed me more money in the coming seasons. I was no longer on a two-way contract, which was a vote of confidence that the team didn’t expect to send me down to their AHL affiliate — like they’d done for the first three years. No, now I was firmly in a one-way contract. I was a Tampa Bay Osprey — for good.

I was also who they’d bet on to take the place of our veteran center who’d retired. I was the player they felt was up to the task.

No pressure, the weak little teenage boy inside me murmured.

That fucker always lived with me, though I’d learned through therapy how to snuff him out most of the time. Even with my fuck ups — and there were plenty — I was still playing at my best this season, proving to Coach and our general manager and everyone else on the team that they hadn’t made a mistake by signing me.

But I still wondered sometimes.

I still worried I’d hit a wall and would bounce back to reality, to the place where I couldn’t quite hang.

For now, though, I had the contract — and the money to go with it. I also still had a signing bonus from when I was younger that had done nothing but sit in a high-yield money market accruing interest.

What the hell was I going to spend that money on that would be better than bedroom lessons from Livia fucking Young?

Liv tilted her head like she didn’t believe me, or like she didn’t think I realized she was dead serious.

“You’ll give me a million dollars,” she said, deadpan.

“I’ll give you two.”

Her eyes shot wide at that. “Two-million dollars, and all I have to do is help you unleash your freak?”

“See?” I waved my hand toward the space between us. “Tell me this isn’t a deal you can’t refuse.”

She should have laughed in my face.Ishould have been embarrassed by what I was asking, by how quickly I doubled her offer. But the yearning in my chest for what and who I could become if she actually agreed completely outweighed the shame I carried for asking in the first place.

I wanted to be the man who knew what he was doing. I wanted to be the man who didn’t flinch when the pressure was on. I wanted to settle down, to find someone to share my life with, someone to go home to.

Maybe if I could pull this off — if she said yes — I could stop feeling like I was one mistake away from blowing it all.

She tapped her chin with one long, dark red nail, and I wondered what it would feel like to have those nails digging into the flesh on my back. I longed to know first-hand what it felt like to be under her spell. This wasn’t the kind of woman who flirtedand made you court her before she let you take her home after three dates and lay her down missionary-style in a dark room.

This was the kind of woman who had you on your knees before the first date, hands bound, a ball gag in your throat as she assessed if you were even worth the time she’d have to give you to let you take her to dinner.

I didn’t know why, but that thought had me salivating.

I was sure my therapist would have something to say on the subject.

“No one else knows,” Livia said.

That hope that had ballooned inside of me surged so quickly I thought my chest would pop, and I was practically panting as I leaned forward in my seat, nodding. “I won’t tell a soul.”

Is she actually agreeing to this?

“I’ll teach you, but I also get to use you,” she said. “Whenever and wherever I want. If I send a text, you come running.”

“Faster than I ever have in my life.”