The Play (Briar U Book 3)

This party blows.

I probably should have stayed at home, but these days “home” is like living on the set of a Kardashian reality show. Thanks to my three female roommates, it’s estrogen overload over there.

Granted, there’s a helluva lot of estrogen here at the Theta Beta Nu house, but it’s the kind I’m allowed to be attracted to. My roommates are all in relationships, so I’m not allowed to touch them.

You’re not allowed to touch any of these women either…

True. Because of my self-imposed abstinence, I’m not allowed to touch anyone, period.

Which raises the question—if a tree falls in the forest and you can’t fuck anyone at the sorority-house party, is it still considered a party?

I curl my fingers around the red Solo cup that my friend and teammate Matt Anderson just planted in my hand. “Thanks,” I mutter.

I take a sip and make a face. The beer tastes like water, although maybe that’s a good thing. A nice incentive to not consume more than one. Morning skate isn’t until ten a.m. tomorrow, but I was planning on showing up at the arena a couple hours early to work on my slapshot.

After last season’s disastrous end, I vowed to make hockey my top priority. The new semester starts Monday, our first game is next week, and I’m feeling motivated. Briar didn’t make it to the national championship last year and that’s on me. This season will be different.

“What do you think about her?” Matt discreetly nods toward a cute girl in tiny boxer shorts and a pale pink camisole. She’s not wearing a bra, and the outlines of her beaded nipples are visible beneath the silky material.

My mouth actually waters.

Did I mention this is a PJ party? Yup yup, I haven’t had sex in nearly five months and I’m kicking off junior year at a party where every single woman in attendance is wearing next to nothing. I never claimed to be smart.

“She’s smokin’,” I tell Matt. “Go make a move.”

“I would, but…” He lets out a grumbling sound. “She’s checking you out.”

“Well, I’m closed for business,” I answer with a shrug. “Feel free to go over there and tell her that.” I poke him good-naturedly on the arm. “I’m sure she’ll view you as an adequate consolation prize.”

“Ha! Fuck off. I’m nobody’s second choice. If she’s not dying to hook up with me, I’d way rather find someone who is. I don’t need to compete for a woman’s attention.”

This is why I like Matt—he’s competitive on the ice, but off of it he’s really decent. I’ve been playing hockey my entire life, and I’ve had teammates who wouldn’t even blink at stealing another guy’s girl, or even worse, hooking up with her behind his back. I’ve played with guys who treat our hockey groupies as disposable, who’ve shared girls like Tic Tacs. Guys with zero respect and terrible judgment.

But at Briar, I’m fortunate to play with some stand-up dudes. Sure, no roster is without a douchebag or two, but for the most part my teammates are good guys.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’ll be too hard,” I agree. “The brunette at two o’clock is already boning down with you in her head.”

His brown eyes widen in appreciation as they land on the curvy girl in the short white nightie. Her cheeks flush when their gazes meet and then she smiles shyly and raises her cup in a silent toast.

Matt abandons me without a backward glance. I don’t blame him.

The living room is packed with girls in lingerie and guys in Hugh Hefner pajamas. I hadn’t known this was a theme event, so I’m in cargo shorts and a white wife-beater, and I’m good with that. Most of the dudes around me look ridiculous in their get-ups.

“Having a good time?” The music is blaring, but it’s not loud enough that I don’t hear the girl. The one Matt had originally been checking out.

“Yeah. Nice turnout.” I shrug. “DJ is pretty good.”

She sidles up closer. “I’m Gina.”

“Hunter.”

“I know who you are.” Sympathy creeps into her voice. “I was there for the conference championship against Harvard, when that jerk broke your wrist. I can’t believe he did that.”

I can. I fucked his girlfriend.

But I keep that to myself. It’s not like I did it intentionally, anyway. I had no clue who that girl was when I slept with her. Apparently she knew who I was, though. She wanted to get back at her boyfriend, but I didn’t know that until he launched himself at me in the middle of the second-most important game of the season, the one that determines who goes to the Frozen Four, the first-most important game of a college season. The broken wrist was the result of a tackle to the ice. The Harvard asshole didn’t intend to break it, but it happened, and just like that I was out of the game. And so was our team captain, Nate Rhodes, who was ejected for fighting while trying to defend me.

I snap myself out of the past. “It was a shitty way to end the season,” I say.

Her hand finds its way onto my right biceps. My arms are looking huge these days, if I do say so myself. When you’re not having sex, working out is imperative for your sanity.

“I’m sorry,” Gina purrs. Her fingers gently glide over my bare skin, sending pinpricks of heat through my arm.

I almost groan out loud. Sweet fuck, I’m so horny that a woman caressing my arm is giving me a semi.

I know I should brush her hand off me, but it’s been so long since I’ve been touched in a non-platonic way. At home my roommates are constantly pawing at me, but there’s nothing sexual about it. Brenna likes to mockingly smack or pinch my ass whenever we pass each other in the hall, but that’s not because she wants me. She’s just an asshole.

“Want to go somewhere quiet and talk or something?” Gina suggests.

I’ve lived on this planet long enough to be able to decode what “talk or something” means in girl speak.

1) There won’t be much talking.

2) There’ll be a lot of “or something.”

Gina couldn’t have made this clearer if she were holding up a sign saying DO ME! She even licks her lips as she voices the question.

I know I should say no, but the idea of going home right now and jacking off in my bedroom while my roommates marathon old seasons of The Hills isn’t too appealing. So I say, “Sure,” and follow Gina out of the room.

We end up in a small den that contains a couch, a couple of bookshelves, and a desk against the far wall under a window. It’s surprisingly empty. The party gods have taken pity on my celibate ass and provided us with the kind of dangerous privacy I should actively be avoiding. Instead, I’m on the couch and letting Gina kiss my neck.

Her satin camisole rubs my arm and it’s almost pornographic how good the barely there friction feels. Everything is turning me on these days. I got a stiffy watching a YouTube ad for Tupperware the other day because the MILF in the ad was peeling a banana. Then she chopped it up into bits and placed the banana pieces in a plastic container and not even that horrific symbolism could dissuade me from jerking off to Banana Woman. Give me a few more months and I’ll be fucking the apple pies my roommate Rupi bakes every Sunday.

“You smell so good.” Gina inhales deeply, then exhales, her warm breath tickling my neck. Her lips latch on once more, a hot, wet brand against my neck.

She feels good in my lap. Her shapely thighs straddle mine, her satin-clad body warm and curvy. And I have to stop this.

I made a promise to myself, and to my team, although none of them asked me to do it and they all think I’m insane for even attempting abstinence. Matt flat-out stated he doesn’t believe that me setting aside my sexual urges is going to impact our hockey games in the slightest. But I think it will, and for me it’s a matter of principle. The guys voted me captain. I take that responsibility seriously, and I know from personal experience that I have the tendency to let women mess with my head. Screwing around got me a broken wrist last year. I’m not looking to repeat that.

“Gina, I—”

She cuts me off by pressing her lips to mine, and then we’re kissing and my mind begins to spin. She tastes like beer and bubble gum. And her hair, which falls over one shoulder in a thick curtain of red curls, smells like apples. Mmmm, I want to eat her up.

Our tongues dance and the kiss grows deeper, hotter. My head keeps spinning as lust and unhappiness war inside me. I’ve lost all capability to think clearly. I’m so hard it hurts and Gina makes it worse by rubbing herself all over my crotch.

Thirty more seconds, I tell myself. Thirty more seconds and then I’ll stop this from going any further.

“I want you so bad.” Her lips are fused to my neck again, and then, fuck, her hand slides between us. She cups my cock over my shorts and I almost weep with pleasure. It’s been so long since a hand that didn’t belong to myself touched my dick. It feels criminally good.

“Gina, no,” I groan, and it takes all my willpower to remove her hand. My cock protests by leaking precome all over the inside of my boxers.

Her cheeks are flushed red. Eyes glazed. “Why not?”

“I’m…taking a break from all that.”

“From what?”

“Sex.”

“What about it?”

“I’m going without.”

“Without what?” She looks as confused as I am miserable.

“Without sex,” I clarify glumly. “As in, I’m not having it for a while.”

Her brows crash together. “But…why not?”

“It’s a long story.” I pause. “Actually, it’s not a long story at all. I want to concentrate on hockey this year, and sex is too big of a distraction. That’s pretty much it.”

She pauses for a long beat. Then she touches my cheek and sweeps her thumb over the stubble on my jaw. She licks her lips, and I almost come in my pants.

“If you’re worried that I’m going to want anything more, don’t. I’m only looking for a one-night thing. My course load is insane this semester and I don’t have time for relationships either.”

“It’s not a relationship issue,” I try to explain. “It’s sex in general. Once I have it, I want to keep having it. I get distracted and—”

She cuts me off again. “Fine, no sex. I’ll just suck you off.”

I nearly choke on my tongue. “Gina—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get myself off while I’m doing it. Blowjobs turn me on so much.”

This is torture.

Pure torture.

I swear, if the military needs any ideas on how to break someone? Give them a hard-up college guy, throw a hot chick on his lap, have her tell him how she wants nothing but no-strings sex and offer him blowjobs because it turns her on so much.

“I’m sorry,” I manage to croak. Then I accomplish the even more difficult feat of easing her off my lap and getting to my feet. “I’m not in a good headspace for…any of this.”

She stays seated, her head tipped back to stare at me. Her eyes are wide with incredulity and a touch of…I think it might be sympathy. For chrissake. Now I’m being pitied for my celibacy.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. “And just so you know, you’re the hottest girl at this party and my decision has nothing to do with you. I made myself a promise back in April and I want to keep it.”

Gina chews on her bottom lip. Then, to my surprise, her expression takes on a glimmer of admiration. “I’m not going to lie,” she says, “I’m kind of impressed. Not many guys could stand by that conviction in the face of my hotness.”

“Not many guys are as stupid as I am.”

Grinning, she hops to her feet. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around, Hunter. I’d like to say I’ll wait for you, but a girl has needs. And obviously they don’t align with yours.”

With a laugh, she saunters out of the den, and I watch her sexy ass sway with each step.

I rake both hands through my hair and then release a silent groan into my palms. I don’t know if I should be proud of myself or kick my own ass for this ridiculous path I’ve chosen.

For the most part, it has helped keep me focused on hockey. I take out all my sexual frustration on the ice. I’m faster and stronger than I was last season, and there’s almost a desperation in each shot that I snap at the net. The bullets hit their mark, almost as if in tribute to my suffering dick. An acknowledgment that his sacrifice must be honored.

It’s only until the end of the season, I reassure myself. Seven more months, which will put me at one full year of celibacy once I cross the finish line. And then I’ll reward myself with an entire summer of sex. A sex summer.

A dirty, decadent, endless sex summer…

Oh Christ. I’m so tired of fucking my own hand. Granted, I’m not helping my cause when I do idiotic things like opening myself up to temptation with gorgeous sorority girls.

For the first time in a long time, I’m dying for classes to start. Hopefully I’ll have so much work this semester I’ll be drowning in it. Homework, extra ice time, practice, and games—that’s all I’m allowed to focus on. And definitely no more sorority parties.

Avoiding temptation is the only way to keep my head in the game and my dick in my pants.