Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

While it isn’t a lie, it might as well be. Getting into my routine won’t help; nothing will. Except for a pair of gray eyes and a flirty smile. The thought is like a shot to the gut, and I have to clench my hands in the bedspread to control the quick reaction. God, Bennett is going to have to tie me to my damn bed to keep me from seeking out that particular vice. I can feel the thrum of my blood at just the thought of her, the immediate warmth that her voice and scent and face provide.

He smiles and it makes me pause. Two matching dimple imprints form in his otherwise chiseled cheeks, a little bit of light bleeding into his usually saddened brown eyes. I want to stand in that smile like a flower preening in the sun.

I shouldn’t—Sadie’s my friend, if even that. But I’m in her orbit now, and she’s becoming my goddamn center of gravity.

She turns every hesitancy into excitement, every anxiety back into near bliss in the way it used to be for me on this ice.

Sadie’s like a goddamn drug, the effect just as immediate, my mind relaxing and something good chasing the dark out of my veins until I feel like Old Rhys again;

Why would I be able to hold her together when she’s becoming the one keeping me intact?

I think I like what the aftermath of Sadie Gray looks like on me.

The girl can read chapter-long filthy sex scenes without a flinch, but tell her a boy thinks she’s pretty and she turns into a tomato.

I picture her here in my shower beneath the hot spray, because I want her in my space. To feel like she’s wholly mine, even for a minute. She’s so fucking small, but larger than life to me.

“I know you like to have control,” I whisper, crushing my lips against her cheek. “But I’m not some boy you’re using to try to feel nothing. You’re going to feel everything with me.”

I am gone for this girl.

with me soaking every part of Sadie up like water to grass after a drought.

And I want to be hers, almost more than I want her to be mine.

Falling into Rhys feels like what I imagine falling into addiction might be like.

She makes me feel warm and solid, whole again.

I’ll take all the anger she needs to release; I’ll be her punching bag if I need to. If it helps. I don’t care, as long as it wipes that despairing, empty look from her eyes.

“Your bed is so comfortable,” she moans as I settle my weight between her thighs. “Sleep here forever, then,”

“The entire hockey team is in my kitchen,” I whisper. My hand trails along her side to tuck against the soft fabric of her thong and tug it down over her hips. “So maybe I should let you scream as loud as you want, Gray. Then there’ll be no mistaking who exactly you belong to.”

“Being with you—hell, just being around you, was the only time I felt anything for a long time.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier, Gray,” he whispers. Another kiss to the corner of my mouth. “My girl.”

“I’m not here just for happy Sadie in my bed. I’m here for my frustrated, angry Gray. For my scared kotyonok.”

My anger has never worked on Rhys; neither have my efforts to shove him away.

“And nothing—no dark part of you, or your life—will ever change that. So, like I told Oliver, if you don’t want me anymore, that’s something I’ll have to deal with. But there will never be a day that I do not want you.”

“You don’t need to say anything right now, okay? I can love you enough for the both of us.”

He’s burned into me, I think, like a brand. I’ll never recover from him.

Rhys’s. His. I’ve never belonged to anyone, or anywhere. It’s a warm feeling when I thought it would be suffocating.

“You’re so goddamn perfect, Gray.” He smiles. “And I’m so fucking lucky.”

He might be a solid ice captain when in a pair of skates, the Waterfell Wolves’ fearless leader. But for me, he’ll always be soft.

Loving me, loving my brothers—it’s easy for him.

“Say it again,” he demands. “I love you.” “Good girl,”

“The first time I saw you like this, I thought you were too fucking small for me.” I whine, high and loud, as he inches forward again, still holding back. “But you fit me like a fucking glove, baby,”

“I will spend every day forever reminding you how amazing and special you are. How lucky I am to have someone so brave and smart and talented and beautiful love me. I see the way you love your brothers. I know how special your kind of love is.”

He is beautiful. In his easy love for my brothers, his support of everything I do. His gentleness with my heart, but stubbornness against my anger. He cut through the vines of my fury and self-hatred like it was the only thing he was meant for. It’s taken me this long, but I know who he is now. Rhys Koteskiy is pure gold.

Sadie Brown will always be the only thing I want to look at, shining and blazing like fire on ice. She’s always been beautiful, but I think my attraction to her grows with every day.