If You Dare: A Hockey Bully Romance

Wes

Violet Harris has destroyed me. I can’t focus on anything anymore. Not on classes, which my professors keep reminding me I can’t slack off in just because I’m a senior. Not on practice, which sends Coach into a fucking meltdown every time I fumble a play or miss an easy goal. Not on the game, even when I’m in the fucking middle of it.

“Novak!” Coach shouts over the buzz from the crowd and the yells from the guys on the ice. “Eyes on the puck!”

I spot it in the Hawks’ control and long to beat the player with my stick.

Violet’s face keeps popping in my head. Her small body writhing and aching for me while I had her pinned down in the woods, my belt wrapped around her throat. The way her legs shook and her eyes fluttered shut when I stroked a finger up her pussy and felt how fucking soaked she was for me.

One of the Hawks shoulder-checks me and I go after him, forgetting all about the puck. I slam into him from behind, sending him face-first to the ice. He lands with a thud and a groan.

“Novak!” Luke shouts from the net. “Where’s your head at?”

Back in those woods with Violet. Listening to her tell me she wished it had been her instead of Chloe.

But something snapped in me even before those words left her mouth. When I saw her held down and surrounded by my team, all of them groping and ogling her, I about lost it. Which didn’t make any goddamn sense. I let Trey and Brody force her to her knees before me. I ordered them to put on their masks for a night of manhunt. Told them to chase down our prey.

Yet the second they ensnared her in their trap, I nearly ripped each of their fucking heads off.

They can’t have her.

That’s the thought that rang through my head.

Mine.

The puck sails past my head, over Luke’s arm, and into the net. Half the crowd groans, the other cheers. Coach is spitting, face crimson as he screams at me. I’m captain. I’m supposed to keep this shit running right. I’m failing him, my team, myself.

All because of her.

Because I can’t get her out of my fucking head.

I’ve been following her again. Without my mask, without any intent to confront her or torment her. Without her knowing I’m behind her, watching. The same way I did when she first got to campus her freshman year. Consumed by a foreign need to know everything about her. To know where she is and what she’s doing at all times. A pulsing urge to reach out and touch her.

Take what’s mine.

Violet

I arrive at my philosophy class early, hoping the professor will provide a distraction from my thoughts of Wes with the works of Aristotle.

Two minutes before the start of class and most of the seats in the lecture hall are filled. I can’t wait until next year when I’m taking classes that are actually relevant to my major and the class size drops from fifty students to twenty.

Someone takes one of the two empty seats beside me. When a large hand lands on my knee, I freeze.

In the chair next to me, Wes is leaning back casually.

My mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Dwarfing the tiny chair, button-up shirt straining over his muscles, and dark slacks that disappear into combat boots. Combined with the piercing blue eyes and the cool, stoic expression, he’s the most devastating man in the room.

But he’s not supposed to be here.

“What are you doing here? You’re not in this class.”

He shrugs. “I’m in whatever class I choose to be.”

At the front of the room, the professor still hasn’t noticed his non-student in the back row. Once he does, he’ll instruct Wes to leave the class, and my racing heart can slow.

But then the professor starts writing on the whiteboard and begins his lecture, keeping his back to us.

Heat crawls up from my toes to the tip of my scalp.

Unless I want to make a break for it and cause a scene, I’m stuck here with Wes. With his hand on my leg.

His thumb begins to rub circles on the side of my knee, and I try to remain motionless. If I don’t give him a reaction, he’ll get bored and leave. All I have to do is pretend his touch isn’t setting me on fire.

Wes Novak is my tormentor. A bully. He’s seeking revenge and I am his target. I shouldn’t enjoy his touch. Shouldn’t crave more of it. Not when his touch, his attention, has already caused me so much pain. I can’t trust him. Can’t let my guard down.

But every cell in my body is fighting against my mind. Warring against the memories of how his lips felt on mine, how much I wanted him last night in the woods.

His hand drifts further up my thigh, so slowly and imperceptibly I almost wonder if I’m imagining it. His fingertips dig into my flesh, but not to hurt me. To massage away the tension in every fiber. Under his expert touch, my muscles loosen, my thighs falling apart, just a little.

When his hand drifts higher, dangerously close to the hem of my skirt, I tuck my hands in my lap, pinning my skirt down.

He releases me, and I almost think I’ve won.

Until his hand finds the nape of my neck.

He massages careful circles there, nearly eliciting a moan from my lips. Just before his fingers twist in my hair and give a sharp tug.

I hiss through my teeth and clamp my mouth shut before anyone around us hears.

At the front of the classroom, the professor drones on, the students around us taking notes or texting under the table. They’re totally oblivious to what’s going on at the back of the room.

“I’m going to take what’s mine, little flower.” Wes grabs my hand and pulls it toward him. My spine goes ramrod straight. He’s not going to do what I think he is. Not right here, in the middle of class.

He plants my hand on his leg. A silent command: Don’t hide from me. Let me touch you. Then his fingers find their way further up my thigh and under my skirt.

I can’t move. Can hardly breathe.

His fingers delicately glide up my skin. I didn’t think he could be this tender, the pressure no more than the faint kiss of a butterfly’s wings. Goosebumps race down my limbs.

“You shouldn’t,” I whisper, not taking my eyes off the words scrawled across the whiteboard, my mind unable to decipher any of them.

“But you want me to.” His murmur reverberates down to my toes.

He’s right. I hate that he’s right. Hate that I’m so weak, I fall apart under my bully’s touch.

His pinky glides down my panty line. My breath catches in my chest. I clamp my thighs together.

Wes lets out a low growl. “Don’t pretend you don’t want this.”

We are in a stalemate. Me with my thighs clenched together, him with his fingers digging into my leg. But he’s not prying me apart. He could so easily take whatever he wants from me. Yet he doesn’t.

That wouldn’t give him the satisfaction he wants. He wants my acquiescence. To know that, despite everything he’s done to me, I gave in to him.

He grips my hand still planted firmly on his thigh and moves it to the bulge in his pants.

I whimper, his erection hard and long beneath my palm. A promise or a threat? I can’t tell with him anymore.

He strokes my hand up his shaft to the tip. “Mmm,” he groans.

Liquid heat pools between my legs.

Wes and I are in public, touching each other where anyone could see us, yet it feels like we’re the only two in the room. Like he could pull me into his lap and slide me on his cock right here, and I would let him.

My legs fall apart.

“That’s my good girl,” he murmurs.

His fingertips slide further up, trailing along my panties to just below my belly button, the soft caress making my heart stutter.

I swallow a hard lump in my throat, expecting his hand to dive beneath the fabric of my panties. But he trails his fingers over the single layer separating us. Until he stops at the spot between my thighs.

Blood thrums in my ears, my chest heaving with ragged breaths. Wes stifles a groan with his palm when he feels the dampness through my panties. Every sound he makes turns me on more.

My thighs shake, wanting to clench together at the shame of my arousal. But doing so wouldn’t keep Wes away this time. It would only pin him to me.

“Fuck, Violet,” he whispers. With a finger, he pulls my panties to the side. A cool breath of air brushes against the wetness waiting for him. “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this. How many fucking times I’ve imagined you like this. Exposed and ready for me.”

Then his finger lands on my clit.

I shudder into my palm, gaze darting around to make sure no one is aware of what we’re doing.

“You like that you might get caught, don’t you?” Wes murmurs. “That everyone knows you want to be my own personal plaything. You love when I make you get on your knees for me. You get off on that edge of fear.”

I shake my head quickly, eyes stinging even as the pleasure sings through my body.

His expert finger swirls around my clit and I bite down hard on my lip to prevent the cry from escaping.

He grinds against my hand, and I inadvertently wrap my fingers around him as he increases the pressure on my clit.

“Wes,” I whisper.

My pulse hammers wildly in my neck. I’m going to explode any second, bits of me flying all around the room. Then everyone will know exactly what Wes Novak was doing to me in the middle of class.

A clap at the front of the room makes me jump.

“All right, everyone. That’s all for today. You can head out early. Have a good weekend.”

Abruptly, Wes pulls his hand from under my clothes and stands like someone tossed a bucket of ice water over us. Every cell in my body is screaming to reach that crest of pleasure. My heart thuds hard, skin on my chest and neck flushed, swollen clit begging for release.

Dread washes over me when Wes heads for the door without looking back.

He has no intention of giving me what I want. He took his time, knowing he’d bring me right to the edge before snatching the pleasure away from me without a second’s warning.

A new form of torture.