Page 18 of What If I Hate You (Anaheim Stars Hockey #6)

CHAPTER TWELVE

BLAKELY

I should have walked away. I should have let him stew, let the tension rot in the cracks of the cinderblock and the scuffed linoleum, let it crawl into the foundation of the goddamn arena and stay there soaking until the end of time.

But I didn’t walk.

I didn’t even run.

I let Cunningham pin me to the wall like a fly strip and all I did was reel him in closer.

His hands find my jaw with a bruising insistence, and it’s not delicate.

It’s not even close. It’s hungry, almost ugly, the kind of needy that gets you arrested if you do it anywhere but a hallway designed for mopping up blood and Gatorade.

My back slams the painted brick with a boom I feel in my jaw.

I want to slap him again. I want to fuck him blind.

I want both, in equal measure, and I can’t decide which will ruin me faster.

He tastes like salt and sweat and the ghost of something expensive, maybe that whiskey I saw him drink last night.

I sink my teeth into his bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood, and he fucking groans, this guttural, involuntary sound like he’s lifting a car off a child.

My pulse is a jackhammer and I’m a mess of want and war.

His hands are at my waist, then lower, and lower.

I gasp into his mouth as his palm cups my ass and yanks my hips flush to his.

There’s nothing subtle about the way he grinds into me, like he’s trying to anchor us both to the planet by sheer force of friction.

It’s hate or it’s hunger, or maybe it’s just the only language either of us ever learned, but I don’t say no. If anything, I dare him to keep going.

I slide my hand up the inside of his shirt, shameless, greedy for the heat of his skin.

He lifts me off my toes, until I’m nearly eye to eye with him.

I can smell the scent of the rink on his neck, sharp and cold, and I want to drown in it.

He’s so goddamned big I feel like I’ve been shrink-wrapped to his chest, and for a heartbeat I hate how good that feels, how much I want to disappear into the pressure of his hands and the certainty of his grip.

I hook a leg around his hip and he hisses, mutters something filthy against my lips, voice shredded to gravel.

“You’re a goddamn sin, Rivers.” His grip tightens, pinning my hip to the wall as his other hand fists in my hair and jerks my head back, baring my throat to his mouth.

He drags his lips to my jaw, then down the long line of my neck, biting at my pulse with enough pressure to mark me.

I want to say something snide, to take back the upper hand, but all that comes out is a breathless, high-pitched laugh that shivers against his lips. “You’re so fucking full of yourself,” I manage, but my voice is a wreck, needy and raw.

He slips his hand between my legs, cupping me over the thin, useless fabric of my leggings. “Maybe,” he growls, scraping his teeth along the shell of my ear, “but you’re the one soaking through your panties for the guy you claim to hate.”

I gasp, and he grins, all teeth, his fingers pressing in a punishing circle that makes my eyelids flutter. He’s got me pinned and writhing by the way he grinds the heel of his palm against me, slow, ruthless, like he wants to ruin every pair of pants I’ll ever wear.

“So goddamned soaked for me.” His voice is a hot, low razor on my skin. “Didn’t figure you for the type to get off in a hallway, but here you are, Rivers, dripping all over my hand with the rest of the team only ten feet away.”

He flexes said hand, knuckles digging in just right, and my hips buck helplessly against the hard brick at my back.

I can’t…god, I can’t even think. Every nerve ending sparks at the friction of his palm, the way he knows exactly where to push, exactly how to make me forget my fucking name.

I claw at the back of his neck, yanking him in for another bruised, angry kiss, tasting the blood I drew from him, wondering if I’ll ever have enough.

He’s not letting up. I’m spread wide, his hand grinding so hard against me I swear I’m going to leave a dent in the wall behind me.

He drags his fingers up and finds the edge of my waistband shoving it down just enough to slip his hand under, skin to skin, and I gasp so loud it echoes in the corridor.

“Christ, that’s what I wanted,” he mutters, voice scraping the inside of my skull.

“You, wet and desperate and losing your shit for me.” He slides a finger inside, and I choke on the sound that rips out of my chest. He follows with another, thick and relentless, curling up and stroking like he owns the place.

Like he owns me.

He presses his face to my cheek, his laugh low and dark against my temple.

“You’re going to have to keep your mouth shut if you want me to continue or else we’re going to get caught,” he murmurs.

“Now, do you want to come on my hand, Rivers? Or do you want to stand here and pretend you’re in charge? ”

I want to tell him to fuck off, want to claw back a sliver of dignity, but I can’t.

I can’t even breathe. I slam my eyes shut, fighting the gasp that tears out of me and then—oh, fuck.

He crooks his fingers just right, and I swear to God my knees actually give out.

If he wasn’t holding me up, I’d probably hit the floor, a shaking, half-broken shell of a woman.

“Look at you,” he breathes, his lips skating over my cheekbone, the corner of my mouth. “You want to say something smart now, or just moan for me like a good fucking girl?”

The humiliation is a drug, hot and sticky in my veins.

I hate him, but I want to come so hard I forget to hate him for a minute.

Instead of an answer, I clutch his wrist, riding the movement of his hand, chasing every wet, desperate grind of his fingers.

The pressure builds so fast it terrifies me.

I should stop. I should make it hurt. Instead, I think I might cry if he takes his hand away.

“You act like you’re so tough,” he says, voice gone soft but no less cruel, “but you’re squeezing my fingers like you’ve never wanted anything more.”

He’s right. I have never wanted anything more.

His thumb finds my clit and I lose the last threads of dignity and composure I was clinging to.

I’m clutching his biceps so hard my nails bite deep, and he likes it, the sick fuck, because he leans in and bites my shoulder through the cotton, muffling a filthy groan that vibrates down my spine.

I can feel everything; every scrape of his knuckles, every flex of his wrist, every filthy, shuddering breath he takes against my ear.

"So, fucking greedy for me, aren’t you Rivers," he whispers, his breath a haze of heat fanned across my cheek. "Bet you’d take my whole hand if I let you. Bet you’d let me fuck you raw, right here, where anyone could walk by and see what a cock-hungry mess you are for me."

Oh, sweet Jesus, yes.

He crooks his fingers and something inside me snaps, a white-hot detonation that blasts every rational thought I have out of my skull. I clamp down on his fingers and sob, loud and reckless, the sound ricocheting off the walls.

He doesn't let up. He just fucks me through it, his mouth pressed to my ear, his breath ragged now, too.

"That's it, baby, come for me," he rasps, both encouragement and command.

"You gonna squirt for me? You gonna make a mess all over my fucking hand and let the whole team know who you really belong to? "

I don’t want to belong to anyone.

But I want to belong to him.

The words splinter something inside me, so dirty and so fucking true that I shatter all over again, my pussy pulsing around his fingers as I ride out every aftershock.

In that moment, I feel him jerk against me, his hips stuttering forward as he groans.

It’s an unmistakable strangled growl that sounds like he's being murdered.

His whole body tenses, muscles locked tight against mine as he buries his face in my neck.

"Fuck. Blakely—" he gasps, and I realize what's happening.

Barrett Cunningham, the great wall of the Anaheim Stars, just lost all control.

His fingers are still buried inside me when I feel the tremor run through him, his cock pulsing against my thigh through his shorts.

He's coming, right here in this hallway, untouched except for the friction of my body against his.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters against my skin, his voice ragged and wrecked. "That wasn't—I didn't?—"

I should be horrified. Or maybe I should be laughing, but instead I'm limp, boneless, completely undone, and he keeps me upright with his hand wedged between my thighs, stroking me through the last, sweet torture of ripples.

When he finally lets up, he drags his fingers out slow, and I watch him, eyes half-lidded, bring them to his mouth and lick me off slow, like he’s sampling the flavor of his own victory. The smugness on his face should make me want to kill him. Instead, it just makes the aftershocks sharper.

That and the fact he came in his pants just by touching my body.

Who’s in charge now, asshole?

He leans in, his forehead resting on my shoulder, his breath hot and heavy. “Not so tough now, are you?” he murmurs, and I let out a breathy laugh.

“I could say the same to you…” My eyes meet his. “Or is that someone else’s cum soaking through your pants?

He cups my jaw, thumb tracing my bottom lip, and for half a second the violence is gone, replaced by something dangerous I don’t know how to name.

Something that feels almost gentle, except I know better than to call it that.

It’s the calm after the hurricane, the eye of a storm that’s just learned how to want.

“Next time,” he says, voice low, “I’m going to fuck you so hard you’ll forget you ever hated me.

” His lips drag down my throat, slow and hot, and his hand tilts my face up until there isn’t a goddamn inch of me not tethered to him.

“And you’ll beg for more, Rivers. You’ll come crawling for it, because you won’t be able to stand not having me inside you. ”

I want to spit, to laugh off the promise, but my whole body is running on empty, every nerve ending fried and sparking.

I hold his gaze and he grins, mouth bloody from where I bit him, and I know he’s right.

I’m already aching for the next time, already plotting the thousand ways I could pay him back and none of them involve letting go.

His hands linger on my waist, then skim lower, smoothing my leggings back into place with a proprietary kind of care.

It's fucked up, the way it makes my heart skitter in my chest. A man who just fingered me so hard I lost consciousness now tucking me back together like he's fixing a toy he broke on purpose. I can barely keep my legs under me, so I lean into him, hiding my face in his shirt until the world stops doing slow, lazy circles. His heart is pounding hard and wild under my cheek and I realize, with a jolt, that for all his control, he’s just as wrecked as I am.

When I finally look up, his eyes are dead serious, the kind of heat usually reserved for game seven overtimes.

“This doesn't end here, Rivers. You and me, we're just getting started.

" His voice is a rasp, a grindstone against the softest parts of me.

"Tomorrow, next week, hell, next time you walk past me in the hall, you're gonna remember exactly how it felt to have me inside you.

You're gonna feel it every time you sit down. Every time you cross your goddamn beautiful legs." He grins, slow and evil, but there’s a softness to the way he thumbs my chin, a secret only for us. "Every time I see you I’ll be thinking about what you taste like. And I’ll be waiting, every single moment of every single day, for you to shatter all over me again. "

He tips my chin, nose to nose, and for the first time in my life, I want to say something small and stupid, like thank you, or please, or just Barrett, softer than I’ve ever said it.

But I’m not allowed that luxury. The thump of footsteps echoes from the arena proper, and I jerk upright, pulse instantly in my throat.

He plants me back against the wall, but this time it’s protective, shielding, like he’s willing to take the bullet of public humiliation if anyone walks in.

I listen, breathless, as the sounds fade away, and then slump in relief, pressing my forehead to his chest. We’re both shaking, but for totally different reasons.

Finally, I compose myself and stand up straight, his eyes watching me predatorily but with a sense of gentleness that makes me wary. Barrett Cunningham doesn’t do gentle. At least not since I’ve known him.

I run my fingers through my hair and fix my shirt before picking up my bag and slinging it over my shoulder, then square my jaw in front of the man who just shattered me in an empty cinderblock hallway.

“This won’t happen again,” I say firmly but with absolutely no resolve because of course it’s going to happen again.

He turned me into an addict in mere minutes.

But I tell him otherwise if for no other reason than to pretend I have an ounce of dignity left in me.

“It can’t happen again. And just so you know, I won’t go easy on you in the press room just because you made good use of your hands.”