BLAZE: Enemies to Lovers College Hockey Romance by Eddie Cleveland (ebook reader macos .txt) 📕

the right time to pour the milk all over my cereal and dig into a slurpy, crunchy bowl of Cheerios. “Sorry I walked in on your roommate.” I talk around the food in my mouth and Prissy’s shoulders tense.

“We are roommates. I pay rent.” Prissy starts brushing invisible crumbs off her hands. Even when she’s pretending not to be flustered, she’s sexy as fuck.

“Uh huh.”

“Anyway, who I live with doesn’t matter. Um, so last night, that was…”

“The best sex of your life?” I fill in the blank.

“A mistake.”

I liked my answer better.

“We just got carried away. It never should have happened.” Prissy bites her lip and avoids my eyes.

“Twice,” I remind her.

“Yeah, it shouldn’t have happened twice.”

“I can make time for a third.”

“No, this can’t be a thing. It’s a bad idea for a million reasons.” She finally stops avoiding me, and her eyes land on mine. Worry whirls in them like tumbleweeds across a desert. “I’ll lose my job.” Her eyebrows crinkle with concern.

“Why would you lose your job? No one needs to know what we do. We’re not hurting anyone.” I try to capture the last few O’s floating in a lake of milk with my spoon.

Prissy lifts her hand and shuts me up. I hate seeing her upset. This isn’t the fun upset where I make her blush and push her buttons. This is regret, and it’s a kick in the gut.

“No, listen. Blaze, I’m serious. This never happened. This wasn’t the beginning of anything. We’re never going to do this again, okay? You need to archive this in your sex history file cabinet. Let me get lost among the thousands of other files. Like last time.” She mumbles the last part.

So, nothing is changing between us. Mystery fucking solved.

“Consider it forgotten,” I answer. She doesn’t follow me to the door. She doesn’t say goodbye. She’s already filed this experience away… under regret.

13

Playing Games Priscilla

The entire Westbury men’s hockey team is crammed in the space outside my office door. Being in a small space with that many guys can be a bit much. When the meeting formally starts, I’ll pop my head out. Until then, I’m good. Coach Wilson doesn’t include me in a lot of team meetings. He usually saves his pep talks for the locker room. It’s only the second time he’s called everyone together like this since I’ve been here.

The first time was when Blaze got busted for sneaking around on campus property making a sex tape with the mascot head on. Hopefully this time isn’t as dramatic. I have no idea what the other guys have been doing, but I know Blaze has stayed out of trouble for the past twenty-four hours. He’s been too busy bringing all that trouble to my life instead.

Only hours ago, I was lying naked in his arms. Only hours before that, he had my entire body quivering with the strongest orgasm I’ve ever felt. Blaze isn’t the only reason I’m hiding behind my desk, but he’s the main one. I feel like the less we see of each other, the better. At least until we can put last night out of our minds. It might take a while. I don’t think last night is something I’m going to forget anytime soon.

Hiding in my office with the door wide open is about as sophisticated as eavesdropping on a library conversation by standing on the other side of the book stack. I might feel like my computer screen is blocking me from view, but everyone knows I’m here, including Blaze. Judging from the snippets of conversations, others might be aware I’m in here, but they do not care.

“Chode chafe” and “dick fungus” are not word combinations I commonly hear in casual conversations. And I’m okay with that.

I peek around my monitor to spy on Blaze. He’s got his back to me, but my view of Player is clear. His eyes are locked on Blaze. He snarls at him like an attack dog.

There’s a clear divide in the team. Player has more guys standing near him, but Blaze isn’t exactly being shunned. Everyone seems to be pretending that the rift between them isn’t hanging over the team, threatening to rip them apart.

“If you’ve got something to say to me, why don’t you spit it out. Stop throwing dirty looks like a sulky girlfriend.” Blaze stops pretending. He does nothing to defuse the ticking time bomb. As usual, he snips the fuse even shorter and then sparks it back up. It’s like he can’t stop himself from blowing up his life.

“We better not be here because of your stupid ass,” Player answers through gritted teeth.

“This isn’t the time or place, guys. Chill,” a mountain of a man they call Griz interrupts.

“Don’t tell me to chill.” Player shakes his head. “Last time Wilson called a meeting like this, we all got bullshit restrictions because of this fuck-up.” He juts his thumb at Blaze.

Player doesn’t seem to see the impact his words have. Before he balled his fists and the anger took over, Blaze winced.

“And the worst part is, he doesn’t give a single, solitary fuck.” Player keeps going. “Where did you go after your little baby tantrum last night?”

“None of your fucking business,” Blaze growls.

“Bullshit. You were out all night and came home smelling like booze and a whorehouse,” Player answers.

Shots fired. My perfume doesn’t smell like a whorehouse! Does it? It’s not like I’d know.

“I don’t know what this meeting is about, but I know it’s not about that,” Blaze answers.

“It fucking better not be. I’m done covering for your ass.” The glance exchanged between them is intense but brief.

“You gotta cool it.” Griz keeps trying to reason with Player. It doesn’t look like it’s working though. “You’re not Blaze’s babysitter, man.”

“Yeah, he’s already got one of those and still can’t get his head out of his ass.”

“That must piss you off. If my head’s in my ass, it means I’m not licking your nuts