PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE

CHAPTER 19 - WEARING HIS NAME

I wore his name on my back.

Not planned. Not discussed. I showed up at the arena and Sienna handed me a jersey – black, oversized, MADDOX printed across the shoulders in white block letters, number seventeen beneath it. "Before you argue," she said, "it's too late. I already bought it."

I put it on. It smelled like new fabric and bad decisions and it fell to the middle of my thighs and the second I caught my reflection in the arena glass, I knew there was no coming back from this.

Everyone noticed.

Zara grinned. Sienna took a photo. Three girls in the row behind me whispered loud enough for me to hear – she's wearing his jersey, it's official, Caleb must be losing his mind. I didn't look for Caleb. Didn't need to. I could feel his attention from across the arena like heat from an open flame.

The game was a rivalry match – Thornfield versus Redmond, Rhys's old school, which meant the energy in the building was unhinged before the puck even dropped. Redmond's fans had signs. Some were about hockey. Some were about Rhys. One said EXPELLED in red letters. He skated past it during warmups without looking.

But I saw his jaw tighten.

First period: controlled chaos. Rhys was everywhere – intercepting passes, driving the play, moving with that predatory fluidity that made the ice look like it had been built for him specifically. Caleb played well too, technically, but it was the difference between watching someone follow a recipe and watching someone cook by instinct. Rhys didn't play hockey. He spoke it.

Second period: things got dirty. Redmond targeted him – hooks, slashes, cross-checks that the refs were conveniently slow to call. He took every hit and kept going, jaw set, eyes cold, channeling the pain into speed the way only someone who'd been turning pain into fuel his entire life knew how.

Third period. Four minutes left. Tied game.

Rhys carried the puck across the blue line and Redmond's defenseman – six-four, two-twenty, built like a wall with skates – hit him so hard the sound echoed through the arena. Board-rattling. Bone-deep. The kind of hit that made the crowd gasp collectively, a thousand people inhaling at the same time.

He went down.

My hands flew to my mouth. Sienna grabbed my arm. The arena went quiet – that terrible, held-breath quiet that meant someone might not get up.

Get up. Get up. Get up.

He got up.

Because of course he did. Rhys Maddox didn't stay down. He peeled himself off the ice, shook his head once, grabbed his stick, and skated back to center like the hit was a minor inconvenience and not the thing that had just stopped my heart for three full seconds.

Overtime. Sudden death. The arena was vibrating – every person on their feet, the noise so loud it was physical.

Rhys took the puck at center ice. Deked past one defender. Then another. Moved with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for someone who'd been slammed into the boards four minutes ago – but pain didn't slow Rhys down. Pain made him meaner. Pain made him better.

He fired from the slot. Top corner. The goalie didn't move.

The arena exploded.

I screamed. Actually screamed – hands in the air, voice cracking, Sienna jumping on my back, Zara spilling her drink, the entire student section losing their minds while number seventeen stood at center ice with his arms raised and the spotlight turning him into something almost mythological.

He looked at the stands. Found me in three seconds or less.

Same way I always found Caleb. Except this felt different. This felt like being chosen.

I couldn't stay away.

I tried. Told myself to go home, take a shower, be a rational human being who didn't chase a hockey player through a parking lot because he'd scored a goal and looked at her from the ice. But my legs carried me toward the rink exit and my heart was hammering and rational had left the building somewhere around the second period.

He found me in the shadows behind the arena. Still in his under-armor, hair soaked with sweat, gear bag dropped on the concrete like he'd been walking and saw me and forgotten he was carrying anything. The adrenaline was rolling off him in waves – feral, electric, the high of a game-winner in overtime mixed with whatever he'd felt seeing me in his jersey.

"You're wearing my name," he said.

"Sienna bought it."

"Don't care who bought it." Two steps. Three. He was in front of me. His hands landed on my hips and pushed me backward until my back hit the wall – brick, cold through the jersey, but his body was radiating heat and I stopped feeling the cold the second he pressed against me. "I need to feel you. Right now."

"We're outside–"

"Right now, Naomi."

His mouth found mine before I could argue. Not gentle. Not slow. Adrenaline-fueled and desperate and tasting like Gatorade and victory and the raw, animal need of a man who'd just proven something on the ice and needed to prove something else against this wall.

His hands shoved the jersey up. Found skin. I gasped into his mouth and my fingers grabbed his shoulders and he lifted me – same way he had in the bar bathroom, like I weighed nothing, like holding me up was the easiest thing he'd ever done.

My legs wrapped around his waist. His hips pinned me to the wall. I could feel him – hard, straining, grinding against me through layers of fabric that suddenly felt like too much.

"Someone could–"

"Don't care." His hand fumbled between us. Shorts pushed aside. My underwear pulled to the edge. His fingers found me first – slick, swollen, already ready because I'd been ready since the third period, since the hit, since he'd gotten back up and scored a goal like his body wasn't a war zone.

"f**k, you're soaked." Ragged. Wrecked. His forehead against mine, his breath hot on my lips. "You get this wet watching me play?"

"Shut up and–"

He pushed inside me and the rest of the sentence died.

One stroke. Full. Deep. My back arched against the brick and his hand clamped over my mouth because the sound I made would've echoed across the parking lot. He held me there – pinned, full, his hand over my lips and his c**k buried in me and those grey eyes locked on mine, wild and dark and completely unhinged.

"Quiet," he breathed. "Unless you want the whole team to know what their star player does after games."

He moved. Hard. Fast. Nothing like the slow devastation of his bedroom – this was pure adrenaline, post-game energy converted into thrusts that rattled my spine against the wall. I bit into his palm to keep from screaming. His other arm held me up like I was made of air.

My fingers clawed at his back through his under-armor. His mouth found my neck – biting, sucking, marking me again because apparently the fading ones weren't enough. Every thrust pushed me higher up the wall and I was going to c*m embarrassingly fast because the combination of his c**k and his hand over my mouth and the fact that anyone could walk around that corner was short-circuiting every nerve in my body.

"c*m for me," he said against my throat. "Right here. Against this wall. In my jersey."

I shattered. Biting his hand so hard I tasted salt, my whole body clenching around him, legs shaking, vision whiting out while he f****d me through it without slowing down. He followed seconds later – burying deep, hips slamming me against the brick, cumming with a groan he muffled against my shoulder that vibrated through my entire body.

Stillness. Both breathing like we'd run miles. My back against cold brick. His forehead against mine. His hand still loosely over my mouth, my lips pressed against his palm.

He pulled his hand away. Traced my jaw with his thumb instead. Those grey eyes inches from mine – no walls, no smirk, no armour. Just him.

"I don't want this to be fake anymore."

My heart stopped. My brain went blank. Every rational argument I'd built – the deal, the rules, September, stepbrother – lined up and waited for me to deploy them.

I didn't.

I didn't say anything.

But I didn't let go either. My legs stayed wrapped around him. My hands stayed on his shoulders. My forehead stayed pressed against his. And in the silence between his words and my non-answer, something settled between us – fragile, unnamed, too real to deny and too terrifying to speak.