Prologue
Emery
The air in the room was suffocating—not because of the size of the space, but because of the sheer gravity of the three of us standing there. Outside, the house was a chaotic blur of bass-heavy music, the floorboards vibrating with the rhythmic thud of a hundred different lives colliding. Down there, Jamie Rhodes was the Captain, the guy everyone looked toward for a cue. Up here, he was just a man stripped of his armor, his focus narrowing until the entire world outside this bedroom door ceased to exist.
Jamie’s hand hit the wood paneling right beside my head, effectively pinning me against the frame. He didn't touch me—not yet—but the proximity was a physical weight. I could feel the static electricity rolling off him, that calm, calculated intensity that usually had him commanding the ice. His eyes were dark, searching mine with a terrifying amount of clarity, stripping away every defense I’d spent months building.
And then there was Ashton.
Ashton didn't need to pin me. He was simply *there*, a heat source behind me that I could feel radiating through the thin fabric of my dress. He was the friction to Jamie’s current, the recklessness to his restraint. His thumb hooked around my wrist, his grip firm and possessive, dragging lazily over my pulse point. I could feel my blood drumming against his skin, a frantic, uneven rhythm that betrayed how badly I was spiraling.
“Tell us to stop,” Jamie said, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly register that turned my knees to water.
The command hung in the air, thick and suffocating. It wasn't a question. It was a dare.
“Us?” I breathed, the word feeling foreign on my tongue.
Ashton let out a low, rough laugh behind me. It wasn't the easy, playful sound he used when he was skating circles around the competition; it was dark, jagged, and hungry. “You heard him, Em.”
My name, when it fell from his lips, was a catalyst. I risked a glance over my shoulder, catching his gaze. His eyes were blown wide, pupils swallowing the iris, radiating a desperate, simmering frustration.
“You’re both drunk,” I countered, though it sounded more like a plea than an accusation.
Jamie’s jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “I had one beer three hours ago. I’m perfectly lucid.”
“And I’m painfully sober, sweetheart,” Ashton murmured, his thumb dragging slowly, agonizingly, over the inside of my wrist.
The nickname shouldn’t have worked. It should have been annoying, a cliché. But with Ashton, it felt like a brand. I hated it. I hated the way my body betrayed me, leaning instinctively into his heat, while my heart—my stupid, traitorous heart—remained tethered to the steady, golden light that was Jamie. I was caught in the middle of a tug-of-war, torn between Jamie’s promise of protection and Ashton’s promise of ruin.
Jamie read the internal battle on my face with ruthless efficiency. He saw the desire, the fear, and the absolute, gut-wrenching indecision. He stepped closer, his cologne—cedar, ice, and something uniquely *him*—filling my lungs.
“Emery,” he whispered, his voice a soft, agonizing weight.
He said it like he wanted to stake a claim. Ashton, meanwhile, stood behind me like he was waiting for the permission to tear the whole world down just to get to me.
“This is a bad idea,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the dull roar of the party below.
Jamie’s mouth curved into a ghost of a smile—sharp, humorless, and entirely dangerous. “No. It’s the worst idea.”
“Probably our best one yet,” Ashton added, his breath ghosting against my ear, sending a shiver racing down my spine that had nothing to do with the temperature.
I squeezed my eyes shut, just for a second. That was all it took for my reality to tilt on its axis. When I opened them, Jamie was looking at me like he was done pretending—like he was done being the good guy, the leader, the captain. He was just a man who wanted, and the look in his eyes was lethal.
Downstairs, a roar went up—someone chanting Jamie’s name, then Ashton’s. They were legends down there. The golden boy and the menace. The two halves of a whole. Their entire future was waiting for them behind that door, a life of accolades and adoration.
But neither of them moved.
Jamie’s hand moved from the door to my face. His knuckles grazed my cheek, a touch so tender it made my throat ache.
“You have to say it,” he murmured.
“Say what?” I whispered, my voice trembling.
“That you want this,” he insisted, his eyes holding mine hostage.
Ashton’s fingers tightened around my wrist, his voice dropping to a jagged vibration against my neck. “That you want *us*.”
The line we’d been dancing around for months—the one we’d ignored in every quiet kitchen, every crowded car, every lingering look that lasted just a second too long—finally snapped. There was no more space for ambiguity. No more room for hiding behind "best friends" or "teammates."
I looked at Jamie, the man who made me feel safe, and then at Ashton, the man who made me feel alive. I was going to break them. I was going to break myself. But for once, the consequences felt secondary to the sheer, magnetic pull of them.
“I want you,” I breathed, the admission tasting like wine and gasoline.
Jamie went impossibly still.
Ashton let out a sharp, ragged exhale, a curse buried in his throat.
I didn't stop. I couldn't.
“I want both of you.”
The silence that followed was absolute. For a heartbeat, the world stopped turning. Then, the tension shattered. Jamie closed his eyes, his expression shifting from control to raw, exposed need, and Ashton gripped my wrist hard enough to leave a mark.
It wasn't a kiss that changed it. It was the truth. It was the moment we stopped pretending that the space between us was empty. I was in love with Jamie. I was in love with Ashton. And the most dangerous, intoxicating part of it all?
They were both in love with me.
In hockey, a two-man advantage meant you had the upper hand, the ability to control the game. But as the weight of their combined desire pressed into me, I realized this wasn't a game. This was total, beautiful destruction. And I was ready for it.
