Page 102 of Twisted Play

Eva’s quick intake of breath, followed by the press of her thighs together, was my reward for reminding her of her place.

“You’re a scholarship student,” I said quietly. “Work study instead of a regular campus job.”

“Yes, Sir,” she answered, flushing. “I could never afford the tuition at Yorkfield otherwise.”

“Your parents can’t help out?” I already knew the answer, that her mother disappeared then passed away, and that her father was a useless piece of shit, but I wanted to hear it from her.

“My dad tries,” she said softly. She took a shuddering breath and then looked out the window, as if I couldn’t see the reflection of her face in the glass. “But it’s not enough.”

A tendril of doubt wound its way up my spine—an uncomfortable desire to take her in my arms and promise everything would be okay.

“Your father used to be quite the hockey player,” I said, poking at my wound.

Eva looked at me with surprise. “You knew my dad?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “Of course you did,” she continued softly. “And you probably know he stopped playing sixteen years ago, after an injury. That’s when Mom left.”

No, he quit when my cousin made sure the opposing team destroyed him for what he did.

“Does that have anything to do with why you want to be a sports doctor?” I asked, curious about this young woman who alternated between breathy sexuality and sparkling innocence, who had the entire fucking team eating out of her hand.

“Mom was a nurse,” she said softly. “To hear Dad tell it, she patched him up a lot. He, uh, he was—” She broke off. “He did a lot of bad shit, I think? He doesn’t talk about it.”

“And you think you could have saved him, sixteen years ago?”

Eva scoffed. “The only person who could have saved him was Mom, and she took off the moment things got hard. But…” She trailed off. “I like to think I can make a difference.”

“Where is your mother now?” I asked, even though I knew.

“Dead. She was in a car accident a few years ago.”

Sympathy for Eva’s difficulties momentarily outweighed my hatred of her father.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She shrugged again. “She’d been gone for a long time. Do you have family here in Yorkfield?”

“No,” I lied. Dmitri was family, even if I hadn’t seen him in ten years. Tension pressed on my chest as the invisible weight of our history warred with my mounting desire.

Revenge, I reminded myself. Seducing Eva, fucking ruining her, would satisfy my itch to fuck her at the same time it would satisfy my need to punish her father.

My fingers clenched tighter and tighter around the steering wheel as the neighborhoods we passed grew rougher and rougher. Young men hung out on street cornersas we passed through the territories of the organized crime groups of Yorkfield.

Eva lived in a poor enclave that was supposedly part of the Irish mob’s territory, but Declan Flanagan sure as fuck wasn’t protecting anyone here.

“Here,” she breathed, and I stopped in front of a house that had needed a fresh coat of paint for several years, with a cracked stair and a porch that had seen better days.

“I’ll walk you in,” I growled, loath to let her out of my reach between the car and her front door.

“No, Sir, please don’t,” she pleaded softly. “I’ve already put you so far out of your way. I’ll call my dad.”

She pulled out her phone and dialed. “Hi, Dad! Would you meet me on the porch? My ride’s being overprotective and wants to make sure I’m safe walking up to the door.”

When Conrad Jackson walked outside, his bloodshot eyes staring at the tinted windows of my car, barely healed cuts on his bruised face and stitches on his jaw, my stomach clenched and my lip curled up in a snarl.

“Coach?” Eva asked, uncertain.

“Get out,” I snapped.

Eva scrambled out of the car then swore softly as she remembered the mess of her books I’d left in the backseat.