Page 43 of Twisted Play (Cruel Games #1)

ALEKSANDR

With less than a week until the first game of the preseason, I intended to ratchet up the pressure on the boys until they were a rock-solid squad of Marauders flying over the ice.

My informal office in the locker room offered me a view of the team as they flowed in, all rubbing sleep out of their eyes—all except Cole Carter and Tristan Baptiste, who swaggered in like they were on top of the fucking world.

At eight o’clock on a Sunday morning? Something was off.

When the team captain checked Cole, Cole didn’t react, just grinned and held up his fist for a bump.

Wonders never fucking cease.

Tristan poked his head into my office, ever polite, ever a rule follower—a gratifying contrast to the rest of the cowboys on the team, despite his moniker.

“Morning, Coach,” he said.

My eyes narrowed. Tristan looked refreshed. “Good morning, Baptiste,” I practically snarled, not ready to untangle this puzzle so early on a weekend morning. My knee ached with the rapidly cooling weather, and Sunday drills were as miserable for me as they were for the team.

By eight thirty, all the players were on the ice, stretching, playing, and messing around. I limped out, skating onto the ice then entering the bench area where I’d sit and watch.

Eva fucking Jackson waited for me, disheveled, her eyes bright, dressed far more casually than I usually saw her for practice.

Her curly red hair was tangled and messy, her cheeks were flushed, and her lips were swollen and bruised.

She clutched her tablet to her chest while she watched the players intently, and I wanted to rip her attention away from them, force her to look at me.

“Good morning, Coach,” she said, refusing to meet my eyes.

Jealousy wound through me, hot and poisonous. Jealousy of two of my players. Students. For fucking another student. The thought of Carter and Baptiste’s hands on what was mine made bile rise in my throat—and wasn’t that fucking ironic? I’d brought her here to destroy her, not possess her.

My phone sat heavy in my pocket. One photo would be enough to destroy her father—to show him exactly what his debt had reduced his daughter to—but something held me back. The same something that made me want to drag her into my office and mark up her skin and claim her.

Blyat, I was exactly as disgusting as Eva accused me of being.

Had she dropped to her knees for them like she had for me? I hadn’t even fucked her yet, hadn’t made her do anything but make me coffee since her interview.

My hands itched, wanting to wrench her away from the boys, to stake my claim. Mine. Mine to ruin , I reminded myself, ignoring the feral voice snarling that mine didn’t need a qualifier.

“Good morning, Ms. Jackson,” I growled, not bothering to contain my ire. “Report?”

Eva rattled off the players’ stats from the week before, including injuries, as if she wasn’t a disheveled mess. It wasn’t anything I didn’t already have solidified in my head, but I enjoyed watching her under pressure, the fire that lit in her eyes when I pushed her even more.

I blew my whistle sharply, twice, and the players clambered to their feet and skated over to the box.

“First game of the season is this weekend. Twenty minutes of finders keepers to loosen up your muscles, and then we’re going to run drills until you fall over,” I snapped. Elijah, our student equipment manager, tossed pucks onto the ice.

Eva’s eyes shot to Carter and Baptiste, her lips parting and her breath speeding up as they played with each other.

I looked her up and down again then looked out at the two of them flying over the ice, their puck handling the best I’d ever seen it as they traded one off between them.

“You fucked them,” I accused her, entirely inappropriately, my possessive rage overcoming my good sense as a faculty member.

She dropped the tablet then bent over to fish it off the floor, making her sweater ride up her back, revealing a strip of pale, freckled skin, showing off her plump ass that begged for a spanking.

Her fingers scrabbled against the ground, and I loved how nervous I made her, like a rabbit scurrying from a wolf.

Eva finally sat up, shoving her curls out of her face, skin flushed, her eyes worried, and her expression delightfully soft. I looked more closely at her—she wasn’t wearing makeup, and she had faint bruises along her jawline.

Had they hurt her? Eva was mine to punish, and fuck these assholes if they thought they were going to hurt what was mine.

The team captain body checked Cole and stole his puck, laughing as Cole chased him across the ice. “Asshole,” Cole yelled.

“That’s the point of the game, dickhead,” Massi said.

Tristan, also puckless, swept in and stole it away. Massi swore and skated after him, only for Cole to swipe a puck from someone else and shoot it at Massi with a laugh. His joy was infectious—soon the whole team was laughing as they played cooperatively and competitively.

Cole skated in and tangled his stick with Massi’s. A moment later, he regained his puck. Any other day, his triumphant whoop would have made me smile. They were finally coalescing into a unit.

Thank god.

I never knew which Cole I’d get at practice—brilliant and charming, or sullen and selfish.

Yeah, Cole and Tristan got laid. “I’m not?—”

“Paying me to fuck the players. I know,” Eva snapped then lowered her voice as she stepped closer to lean against the boards separating the bench from the ice, speaking so only I could hear.

“So it’s a good thing I’m not asking you to.

Our deal doesn’t extend to what I do in my off time.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to do what I am paid to do during these practices, which is take notes for you and Dr. Parker. ”

My fingers tightened over the edge of the barrier, turning white under my tattoos. I didn’t want her taking notes. I didn’t want her acting normal. I wanted her on her knees for me, sweetly submitting. I didn’t bother examining why I wanted that more than her ruin, or why I was so fucking jealous.

Fucking hell, she was a distraction. I turned her situation over in my head, examining it from all angles, reminding myself of why I tormented her in the first place—her father’s suffering. She was my revenge.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Eva take careful notes on her tablet as the players skated, their sticks knocking together, falling, slamming into the boards—nothing too rough, just a rowdy practice on a Sunday morning, two of my star players in the best mood they’d been in?—

Ever.

Fuck. Cole’s happiness meant so goddamned much to me, and I was fucking with it because I couldn’t get my mind off a beautiful student and how she looked on her knees.

But now wasn’t the time. I packed away my thoughts so I could focus on the immediate question—getting the team ready for the first game of the preseason.

“Tristan’s puck work is excellent this morning,” I said. “He’s always been a strong offensive player, but I’m glad to see him paying more attention to his defense. I’d like him to focus on puck work during morning workouts this week.”

Eva took a note in silence, allowing my previous indiscretion to drop.

“Cole is also doing well. He’d benefit from more teamwork—less showboating and more supporting,” I continued. I hated how distracted I was by her hips and those faint shadows on her face and neck. Where else had they marked her? “Are you writing this down?” I snapped, taking my ire out on her.

“Yes, Sir,” she said softly, and my cock hardened. Sir.

“Brat,” I murmured, the affection slipping out before I could stop it. Every time she called me Sir, the reasons why I hired her in the first place seemed less important. Her father took everything from me, but watching her sink to her knees made me feel powerful in a way even the NHL never had.

Eva blushed so fucking prettily but didn’t say anything.

If she knew what I was planning on doing to her during the rest of the process to train her to be my perfect sub, she’d flee, screaming in terror.

Bondage. Discipline. Punishment for moving when I told her to hold still.

Begging me sweetly for release. The whisper of a flogger slicing through the air before landing on her back.

Her scream of surprise, followed by a moan of need.

Fuck.

The team filed out of the rink.

“Ms. Jackson, a word,” I murmured.

“Coach, I have?—”

“Plans?” I asked, my eyebrow up. “Are your lovers going to take you out to breakfast?”

She gulped, and the movement drew my attention back to the scrapes and bruises on her neck.

“Did they hurt you, malyshka?”

Eva’s eyes flew to mine, surprised, perhaps by the concern in my tone. If those fuckers had done anything to her?—

“No,” she said, her eyes downcast and her voice grim. “Nothing I didn’t ask for.”

“Come with me.” I exited the hockey arena before she could refuse.

Her phone buzzed as she scurried to keep up with me. Eva wasn’t tall, and I didn’t shorten my strides .

“Put it away when you’re with me,” I growled, jealous the boys were getting her attention.

Her fingers flew over the keys, and then she shoved it in her pocket. “I had breakfast plans,” she snapped.

When I didn’t say anything, she faltered, stumbling, before looking up at me as she rushed to catch up. “Sir,” she finished breathlessly.

I didn’t give her the good girl she wanted, but I didn’t punish her either. She followed me through the maze of hallways until we arrived at the elevator to my formal office on the fourth floor, far from the hustle and bustle of the arena—and prying eyes.

The doors slid shut. We stood side by side in silence—me furious at myself for my jealousy and at her for being the type of woman men fought over, and her surreptitiously taking deep, calming breaths, inhaling for five and exhaling for five.

What I really wanted was to see her lose that control again.

Today, I’d do it.