Page 125 of Ruthless Game
I was seeing red. And beneath the red, two girls I thought I’d never see again. Because I’d warned them to stay the hell away from our campus.
Instead, here they were, outside the Kings’ goddamn locker room. They’d just won their game, and Max had been on the ice the whole time, and I was waiting for him so we could go celebrate. And by “celebrate,” I hoped he had meant “edge Emma until she dies.”
I couldn’t wait.
But first I was going to take out the trash. Again.
“Ah shit, it’s her,” Melanie hissed.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Stephanie said, putting her palms up toward me, trying to appease me. “Look, we feel awful, so Melanie here wanted to apologize to Lawson—”
“You stay the fuck away from him,” I growled. “I swear to god, I will beat both your asses this time. Was I not clear last time? Do you need me to explain again with my hands? Because I—”
The door opened, hockey players in suits pouring out into the hallway.
“Looks like a catfight,” Judah said, eyeing us, then called, “Lawson, you better see to your girl before she winds up in jail. She looks pissed.”
“I am pissed,” I spat, ignoring my boyfriend as he came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist.
“What are you so pissed about?” he murmured in my ear, kissing my neck. Then he stilled, and I knew he’d seen them.
“Lawson, um, we, um …” Melanie started, chewing her lip. That redness in my vision came back.
“We’re so sorry,” Stephanie interrupted, words pouring out of her. “What we did was so far beyond cool. You didn’t deserve that. Not from us, not from anyone. I don’t know how to make it up to you—”
“Have you ever done it to anyone else?” he asked, stopping her.
Both girls shook their heads vigorously.
“Will you ever do it to anyone else?”
They shook their heads again. Like they were bobbleheads. I wondered what it would take to knock their heads off their necks.
Obviously, my boyfriend wasn’t having nearly as violent of thoughts, because he kissed my neck again.
“You aren’t forgiven,” he told them. “I’ll probably never forgive either of you. But my life turned out great, so that’s all I can ask for. That, and you never, ever, touch anyone without permission ever again. If you don’t, my girlfriend will kill you.”
“Will kill you?” I sputtered. “Like it’s not a sure thing? I’m going to kill them right now. For subjecting you to having to see their bitchy sexual predator faces—”
“Stop calling us sexual predators!” Melanie sounded indignant, but I was going to shove that indignance right up her ass.
I fought to get at them, fingers bared in claws. Forget slapping her, I was going to rip her hair out and then feed it to her. I was going to claw her eyes out and shove those up her ass, too. I was going to—
—do nothing, apparently, because I was being lifted up, and then thrown over Max’s shoulder and carted away like a sack of potatoes.
“What the hell, Max! I was going to beat them up. Why did you stop me?”
He smacked my ass. “As much as I appreciate you defending my honor—and I do appreciate you defending my honor, believe me—we have more important things to do.” His voice softened. “It’s not that I’m over it. I’m not sure you ever are over something like that. But having you in my corner, knowing you’d kill someone for touching me … it goes a long ass way. I don’t want to think about them. I want to think about making the woman I love cry and beg because I don’t let her come for hours, and then, when she finally can’t take it anymore …” he trailed off, sounding evil and at the very least, up to something, when he said, “… well, that last part is a surprise.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He chuckled, hiking me up higher on his shoulder, ignoring his teammates’ cat calls. “It is. Better be on your best behavior tonight, Starburst. Or I won’t worry about making it fun for you, and just use your perfect body to get off. How does that sound?”
“Terrible,” I told him.
“Liar. You love being used by me.”
I did. I really did.
