Page 221 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter
He catches me.
When he makes me come, it hurts. It’s like my brain rattles, everything vibrates. I cry out, and he comes a second later, spilling inside me. He keeps me full while I catch my breath and try to relate the pain into pleasure.
Not a hard task.
Eventually, he lowers my feet to the floor. His expression is still soft, and he tucks a lock of my wet hair behind my ear. “Get dressed. I need to show you something.”
My stomach flips when we turn onto the driveway that leads to the warehouse. Each bump across the gravel hurts, but it’s more of an emotional hurt. Like a stab in the chest, until I’m struggling to breathe.
Carter’s hand lands on my thigh. “No one will hurt you.”
I nod, although I’m not sure if I actually believe it. My lungs are tight.
We park next to Oliver’s bike. What I think is his anyway. I narrow my eyes at it, then Carter. Oliver left Penn and I alone… Did he come straight here?
Is he fighting?
“Is he okay?” My voice is thick.
Carter inclines his chin, then gets out. He circles around and opens my door, offering his hand. I take it and let him help me out of the car. He keeps ahold of me as we approach the door. The wind whips at us, snatching pieces of my hair and the flap of my jacket. I wrap my free arm around my stomach.
I don’t want to be here, but something tells me this is important.
We cross the warehouse. I pause at the bloodstain on the floor, my gut churning.
“Bear’s brother,” he says. “I shot him.”
My brows pull together. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember any guns going off… I barely remember Carter getting me down from where I hung, and wrapping the belt from my neck around my thigh instead. It’s all hazy, minus the sharp pinches of pain that kept me awake.
I lose track of events after that, though. Being carried… then nothing until the bright lights of the hospital emergency department.
My gaze jumps to the storage room. The door is closed, blocking my sight into the room where they held and… tortured me. I don’t want to think about torture. The sharp pain of the jumper cables, the water… the inability to breathe.
We go into the offices, and I stop short.
Oliver is here. He sits in one of the desk chairs, tipped back with his booted feet propped up on a table. He drops them to the floor at our entrance and rises.
“Sydney.”
I look between them. “What’s going on?”
“She shouldn’t be here,” Oliver says to Carter.
Carter’s expression darkens. “Shouldn’t she?”
“We talked about this,” Oliver hisses. “How she should be at home recovering, not?—”
“Not what?” I interrupt.
They go quiet. I face Carter and glare at him until he relents, slowly nodding toward the computer on the desk. It’s facing Oliver, so I release Carter’s hand and move around to see it. It puts me in close proximity to Oliver.
Something I shouldn’t mind.
I don’t mind.
But my heart lurches, and our arms almost brush…
Damn it.