Page 56 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter

“I want to?—”

“No,” he interrupts. A nip to my thigh.

Something in me shudders to even consider it a question. A demand, a statement—those are in my control. But since he came in here, he’s held all of it and I’ve had none.

“Can I come?” I ask in a broken whisper.

He smiles. “Yes, princess.”

Then he fulfills my wish.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Until I’m crying, and he’s kissing the tears away from my cheeks, stroking my hair, and securing something around my neck. I’m delirious, I can’t move.

“Wear the sweatshirt tomorrow,” he says in my ear. “I want to see the look on Ollie’s face when he realizes.”

I think he leaves after that. A door closes in the distance, coming from a long way away. My muscles are jelly, my bones have disintegrated. I couldn’t move if I wanted to. So I close my eyes and allow myself to drop into a deep sleep. Because that beats trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

sixteen

sydney

I wake up confused. Again. I’m diagonal across my bed, smelling of sex, and it takes me a long moment to put together what just happened.

Fear flashes through me at the thought of Penn snooping around my apartment. I hop up and search the place, but there’s no trace of him. There is a shit ton of cash scattered across my bedroom floor, though.

I’m going to be sick. I bolt for the bathroom and fall to my knees in front of the toilet, my stomach contracting and purging its contents. I cough and spit, and after a long moment clamber back to my feet.

It isn’t until I catch my reflection in the mirror that I notice the necklace.

I lean in and pull it away from my throat to see it better. There’s a little pendant at the end of the slender gold chain. A snake woven around a goalie mask.

What the fuck?

From cruel to possessive?

This is borderline insanity. It’s also mid-afternoon. Which means I slept away most of my Saturday.

My phone goes off, and I lunge for it. I hope for L., my mystery texter, but instead get Carter. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, if he wasn’t asking to be let up.

The sound of the buzzer from the intercom punctuates it.

I accept it and text him that my door is unlocked.

He enters shortly after, stopping dead at the sight of me in the middle of my living room. He looks particularly delicious today, his hair combed back, black long-sleeve t-shirt that’s tight around his biceps and chest. Jeans. The black eye and cut on his cheek from his fight with Oliver stand out.

“You have a habit of wearing minimal clothes when you let people up?” His voice is husky. “Or is this just for me?”

I bite my lip.

“Sydney.”

He advances, and I put my hand out to stop him. He leans into my palm, planted on his chest, and eye-fucks me. And then his gaze trips over the necklace.