Chapter 1
The Harbor City Wolves' practice facility smelled like fresh ice, rubber, and money.
I hated it on sight.
Three days ago I'd been wearing a different jersey. Now I was walking down a polished hallway with my duffel on my shoulder and a new name stitched above an empty stall, and every wall had a wolf painted on it like the building was daring me to flinch. My agent had called it a fresh start. I called it getting dumped by text.
The real kick in the teeth was the captain.
Lachlan Brandt. Six seasons of him skating past me after every hit with those pale gray eyes, like I was weather he'd already forecast. He'd never swung back. Never raised his voice. Broke my streak in the playoffs and didn't even smirk about it. I'd spent six years trying to crack that man open, and now I'd be sharing a locker room with him.
"He's in the training wing," the assistant coach told me, not looking up from his tablet. "Second door past the film room. Go introduce yourself. And try not to start anything."
I gave him two fingers off my forehead.
Starting things was my entire personality.
The training wing was dim and quiet. Second door past the film room sat cracked open, a strip of warm light across the tile. I heard breathing before I reached it. Heavy. Uneven.
I should have knocked.
I pushed the door with two fingers instead.
Lachlan sat on the bench against the far wall, head tipped back against the cinderblock, shirt shoved up to his ribs and shorts shoved down to his thighs. One huge hand was wrapped around his cock, stroking slow and tight. The other gripped the edge of the bench so hard his knuckles had gone white.
My brain stopped working.
His eyes were closed. His jaw was locked. A flush crawled up his throat that I had never once seen on that cold, perfect face. His abs flexed with every pull. His thighs shook. Precome gleamed on the head every time his fist twisted over it, and the wet sound of it filled the little room.
I should have left. I knew I should have left.
I leaned on the doorframe and watched.
His hips jerked up into his own grip. A low sound caught in his throat, rough and half swallowed, like he was fighting not to let it out. His lips parted.
"...E..."
It cut off before it was a word.
My cock went hard so fast it hurt.
Then his eyes opened and locked on mine.
For one long second neither of us moved. His hand stilled around himself. I waited for the scramble, the curse, the get out. Instead the ice slid down over his face like a shutter, and he looked at me the way he looked at everyone in a faceoff. Flat. Unbothered. Still hard and still glistening in his fist.
He didn't cover himself.
"Navarro." His voice was low, gravel and smoke. "You're early."
I grinned, because the alternative was making a sound I couldn't take back. "Nobody told me the welcome committee came with a show."
He stood.
He took his time about it. Rose to his full height, a head taller than me, shirt falling halfway down his stomach but nowhere near covering anything. Then he crossed the room in three strides, slammed the door shut with one hand, and fisted the other in the front of my jacket.
The wall hit my back so hard the air left my lungs. My duffel hit the floor.
"Lachlan..."
"Quiet."
The word was a growl against my jaw. He caged me in, huge and hot, one forearm planted by my head, his thigh shoved between my legs. His cock pressed against my hip, thick and heavy and burning through my jeans. Mine throbbed in answer, trapped and aching.
"You walked in," he said. "You watched."
"Door was open." My voice came out wrecked. "You didn't stop."
"No." His breath ghosted over my skin. "I didn't."
His mouth dropped to my ear.
Then his tongue dragged slowly along the shell of it, hot and wet and filthy, from the lobe all the way up. Teeth scraped the soft skin just below. A shameless sound tore out of me before I could stop it, and my knees almost went.
He felt it. His whole body went tight against mine. He made a dark, satisfied noise in his throat and did it again, slower.
"Six seasons," he murmured against my ear. "You running your mouth. Putting your hands on me every chance you got. You have no idea what that's been like."
I tipped my head back against the wall. My hands had come up on their own to grip his bare waist, and his skin was scorching. I rolled my hips forward, grinding up against that thick, hard line, and his breath broke.
His fist tightened in my jacket. His thigh pressed higher between my legs, grinding slow against the trapped length of me. The friction was perfect and nowhere near enough.
"You think this is going to be easy," he said, voice shredded and almost quiet. His free hand left my jacket, slid around to my hip, and cracked hard across my ass through my jeans.
The sound echoed off the walls. Heat bloomed under the denim, sharp and bright, and my hips jerked forward on pure reflex. A low sound punched out of me before I could stop it.
"That what you wanted?" His palm stayed there afterward, squeezing, dragging me harder against his thigh. "Walk in on me with my dick out and hope I'd put my hands on you?"
"You're the one who hasn't tucked it away yet," I panted.
Another slap, harder. My whole body lit up.
Then that hand slid around to the front and palmed me through my jeans with open, arrogant pressure. His thumb dragged over the head of my cock, precise. "You think you can walk in here, run your mouth, and I'll fall in line."
"Then stop talking," I gasped, "and take it."
His hand squeezed. Hard. Right on the edge of pain.
My hips jerked into it. "Fuck."
"Careful." His lips brushed my ear. "I'm not as controlled as you think."
"Good."
I felt him shudder. For one stretched heartbeat we hovered there, his hand on my cock, his tongue still wet on my ear, his own length hot and leaking against my hip. I thought he was going to unzip me. I thought he was going to drop to his knees or shove me down on the bench or take me right here against the wall.
Then he let go.
It was brutal how fast he did it. He stepped back, dragged his shorts up, and tugged his shirt down like nothing had happened. When he turned around the cold had slid back across his face, and the only proof left was the flush on his throat and the way his chest was heaving.
"Eleven o'clock," he said, in a voice like a blade drawn slowly from a sheath. "Don't be late."
Then he walked out and left me against the wall, ear still wet, ass stinging, cock aching, heart slamming against my ribs.
I stayed there for three full breaths.
That E had not been a syllable.
I bent, grabbed my duffel, and straightened my jacket with hands that weren't quite steady. Harbor City was going to be so much more interesting than I'd thought.
I grinned, sharp and hungry, and went to find the locker room.
