Page 15 of Twisted Play (Cruel Games #1)

COLE

I took a shot and missed. Fuck!

“You okay?” Tristan skidded to a halt on the ice beside me.

Eva Jackson wasn’t at morning practice, and her absence was a distraction I didn’t need.

She never smiled. She never joked around with the team.

She never deigned to notice when any of the assholes on the team were clowning around for her attention.

And in the two weeks since classes started, she hadn’t missed a practice. It was throwing me off.

Not that Eva ever noticed me anymore. We’d hooked up, she’d left, and now she didn’t see me at all.

Why would she? Gorgeous, with long red hair, pink lips that begged me to sink my teeth into them, and curves for fucking days—she was a good girl, the best of girls, and fuck ups like me didn’t rate.

She’d made that clear when she rolled out of bed after we hooked up, and she hadn’t given me a second glance since.

Money couldn’t buy attention from women like her, and I hated it. The one time I wanted to use my parents’ wealth and status to my advantage, and she never looked twice at me.

“She never misses practice,” I muttered to myself.

Tristan raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

Liar. I’d done my best to keep my obsession to my damn self because Tristan hadn’t bothered to hide his crush on her, but he knew exactly who I was talking about.

“Get your fucking head in the game, Carter,” Coach yelled, his heavy Russian accent carrying over the ice. “Or you’ll be skating drills until you puke.”

Tristan looked at me thoughtfully then raced off, eager to please, eager to impress like a fucking puppy. “Not gonna win any championships by mooning over a girl,” he shouted, much to my embarrassment.

I wasn’t fucking mooning. I skated after him, determined to shove thoughts of her from my head. But I couldn’t. She was like a goddamned drug, and I was jonesing for a fix. I hated that.

What fucking right did I have to worry about my little sparrow? She fucked me and then left, sneering at my apartment, reminding me I wasn’t good for anything other than my money. And if money didn’t make the man, what kind of man was I?

“Ask her out,” I said as I passed Tristan the puck. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

He eyed me. “I could turn into an obsessed stalker when she rejects me?”

Ouch. “You’re already an obsessed stalker. Didn’t you follow her to class last week? ”

Tristan’s deep brown skin didn’t immediately show his blush, but he ducked his head to avoid my gaze. I chased him down the ice and let him avoid answering as we passed the puck back and forth.

By the time practice finished, we were sweaty and exhausted. Tristan elbowed me in the side as I dropped onto the bench in the locker room to strip before our shower.

“You okay?”

Before I could lie, a shadow fell over the two of us. “Cole,” Massi said through gritted teeth. “What the fuck was that today?”

“Cap—”

“Don’t ‘captain’ me,” he snapped. “You’re only still on this team because you’re a fucking superstar on the ice. Otherwise, we both know you’d be long gone, even with Coach’s soft spot for you.”

I surged to my feet, ready to fight this asshole. “I can out skate you any day of the week,” I scoffed.

He didn’t back down, his contempt searing into me. “You didn’t today.”

I didn’t.

Because I was distracted.

Worried.

About a soft fucking sparrow who wouldn’t give me or anyone else on the team the time of day if she didn’t have to interact with us for her job—even if I did want to wrap that red hair around my hand and tug her to me so I could bruise her succulent pink lips.

I couldn’t afford the distraction, not after I was suspended for several weeks last season for fighting, and definitely not during my senior year, when one more wrong move would end any chance at an NHL contract when I graduated .

Fuck.

Tristan’s heavy hand on my shoulder reminded me how close I was to getting kicked off the team. “We all have off days,” he said.

“Cole doesn’t have the right to off days anymore,” Massi sneered. “You better come ready to play tomorrow.”

I shoved past him, checking him with my shoulder, well aware he wouldn’t fight back, ignoring the stares of my teammates as I stormed off to shower.

“Fuck!” I yelled as I waited for the water to warm up. The sound echoed off the white tiles. I needed to focus, but how could I when I didn’t know where she was, that she was safe? The urge to find something to take the edge off clawed at my throat. I wouldn’t give in, but fuck! Eva!

“Easy,” Tristan murmured, standing beside me as the water poured over us, washing off the sweat and misery from the morning. “I meant what I said.”

“That we all have bad days?”

He tilted his head back to wet his curls then reached for his shampoo.

“Wash day?” I asked curiously.

“Hair appointment this afternoon.”

Water trailed down his umber skin, sliding into the divots of his rock-hard abs, not a single tattoo or scar to mar the perfection of his physique, and I had to look away before I embarrassed myself.

My best friend didn’t need me perving on him, not after everything we’d been through together, not after everything he was still going through.

“We all have bad days,” he repeated, not allowing me to deflect the conversation. “Even Cole Carter.”

“I’m fine,” I said as I soaped my body down.

Tristan allowed me the lie, and we finished our shower in silence, lingering to avoid the rest of the team. By the time I stepped back into the locker room, I’d regained my equilibrium.

I felt his eyes rake over me as I dressed, but when I looked over, his expression was bland.

“You skipping weights today?” I asked.

“He better not be,” Coach said, startling the shit out of both of us. He loomed at the end of the row of lockers, his arms crossed over his chest, intimidating as shit.

“I’m not,” Tristan said. “Getting braids after.”

“Good. And you,” he said, turning to me, “get your head on straight. I don’t want to see another performance like today’s.”

Even more than not letting the team down, I couldn’t bear to let Coach down. He’d taken me under his wing as a freshman and never blinked an eye at my escapades, even bailing me out of jail once when my parents didn’t pick up the phone.

They’d been vacationing in the Maldives.

Well, Mom had been vacationing. I was sure Dad spent the entire trip hunched over his laptop with his phone glued to his ear as the two of them played into every fucked-up stereotype of the world’s richest couples.

“I will, Coach, promise.”

Coach nodded once, the movement as sharp and polished as everything else he did. I exhaled and slumped back against the lockers the moment he was out of the room.

“Fuck.”

“You’ll be fine,” Tristan said. “C’mon, let’s go grab breakfast.”

“Oh yeah, can’t wait for one of your disgusting smoothies,” I snarked. “No thanks.”

He laughed, well aware I’d drink it anyway, just to make him happy, and then follow it up with junk food for lunch. What was the point of being young and hot with a thousand-mile-an-hour metabolism if I couldn’t enjoy it, at least until the true preseason started?

Tristan rubbed my head affectionately and took off, expecting me to follow. But when I did, a flash of red hair from the corner of my eye distracted me completely, only for Eva to slam into me a second later, her body pressing against mine for a moment before she stumbled.

I reached out to steady her, and my fingers burned where they gripped her bare arm.

“Oh! Cole!” Her green eyes gleamed bright with an emotion I couldn’t identify. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, as if to calm her nerves, and then pasted the fakest damn smile I’d ever seen onto her face. “How was practice?”

“Where were you?” I asked, using my grip on her arm to press her against the wall, trapping her against it.

Eva took a sharp intake of breath. “I missed the bus.” She twisted her lips in frustration. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

It wasn’t. It shouldn’t have been. But I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head since we’d hooked up, and she acted like we’d never touched.

Like I’d never buried my face in her gorgeous pussy, like she’d never clenched around my cock and made the sweetest goddamned noises as she came.

Like one hit of her had turned me into a fucking addict.

“I missed you today, sparrow,” I said, enjoying the tremble of her body a breath away, pressing back against the wall as if she were afraid to brush against mine.

Her eyes shot to mine. “I don’t think you have the right to miss me, asshole.”

“Missed you all the same,” I murmured.

“No, you didn’t,” she snapped, shifting on her feet. She stopped when she realized it brought her body into contact with mine. “My job is to sit there and take notes, bandage you idiots when you bust yourselves up on the ice, and let Dr. Parker know if I see any problems.”

I pushed a strand of red hair behind her ear, my palm scraping along her skin. Gratification streaked through me when she shivered.

“I missed you, sparrow,” I repeated, making my decision.

I wanted her, and she wanted me, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

I hated the awareness of her that tickled the edge of my brain whenever she was near, like I followed a glass of alcohol at a party, never able to truly ignore it.

I’d encouraged Tristan to make his move, and it was time for me to do the same. May the best man win.

Eva inhaled sharply, ignoring when the soft curves of her breasts pushed against my chest. “That’s sweet, but I need to check in with Dr. Parker and go to class.”

“I’ll walk you there.”

Her silence drew on long enough to poke at my insecurities, and I braced for a rejection, even if I intended to ignore it.

My need to own her, possess her, clawed up through my throat, held back only by the knowledge that good girls like Eva weren’t for me, and that the only way I’d ever have her would be like this—scaring her and forcing her to accept my company.

I couldn’t let her walk out on me again.

Fuck it. I wanted her, and I intended to have her, again and again and again. Even if she didn’t want a damn thing to do with me. Even if I had to corrupt her to have her. Whatever it took.

“Okay,” she said finally, her tone indecipherable.

When I didn’t move, she lifted one hand to press against my chest, and my eyes flicked to the ragged fingernails, freshly bitten, a jarring contrast to how put together she normally was.

“ Cole, please,” she whispered, pushing harder, her palm hot against my shirt. “Let’s go.”

I inhaled her vanilla scent—so sweet, so fucking innocent—then stepped away, gesturing for her to take the lead.

Silently, she led me to Dr. Parker’s office and knocked. Eva looked over her shoulder at me when she was called in, trepidation tightening the corners of her eyes. I wouldn’t shove my way in and embarrass her, not yet, but my determination to claim her grew every moment.

“Go on,” I murmured, pushing her with a firm touch on the small of her back. “I’ll wait.”

“I’ll just be a moment,” she said, as if I were inconvenienced by her meeting and not the other way around.

I couldn’t hear the quiet conversation after Eva shut the door with a soft snick, but true to her word, she emerged a few moments later. When she shifted her tote, heavy and laden with books, I held out my hand imperiously.

She cocked her head, confusion painting her features.

“Give me your bag.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “I don’t know what you want or why you’re messing with me?—”

Instead of letting her continue to harangue me, I simply lifted the straps off her shoulder and yanked hard when her fingers curled around the worn pleather.

I’d get her another bag, a nicer one, with wide straps that didn’t dig into her shoulder.

Whoa.

Whoa.

Fuck.

Where had that impulse come from? This woman had walked out of my bedroom without a backward look. I should have been pissed. I was pissed. And yet, the protective instinct was stronger. I tucked the thought away so I could examine it later.

“What do you want with me, Cole?” she whispered.

“To walk you to class.”

“And if I don’t want you to walk me to class?”

“This isn’t about what you want, sparrow.”