FORCE: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (17 page)

She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. Go.”

“Yeah? You sure?”

“Listen, Candace, I already told you, I have a very packed schedule today.” Her eyes twinkled, and this time it wasn’t from tears. “You’re cutting into valuable Channing Tatum time.”

I leaned over and gave her a quick, tight hug. “Call me if you need to.”

She rolled her eyes. “You won’t answer, though.”

I decided to make my exit right then and there before my little sister made me blush any harder.

Chapter Thirty

Ian

I was too lost in my own thoughts to really pay attention to Brad. He said he wanted to grab a bite to eat, and asked if I wanted to come. I’m always fucking hungry, that was a dumb question, and of course I answered yes.

I stood in the doorway of the burrito place and instantly regretted it. Brad had been smiling extra wide and acting extra sketchy. I should have known. He had all the telltale signs of having something up his sleeve.

Or rather,
someone.
“I hate you,” I said, slowing to a halt and refusing to enter the building.

Brad turned around. “Suck it up, Buttercup,” he commanded, gesturing for me to get in the door.

“I seriously hate your fucking guts.” I peered around the corner. “You tell me you want to grab a quick bite, and then this? Judas, that’s who you are.”

Brad could barely contain his devious glee. “Hey, she wants to help.”

“I don’t need her help,” I grumbled.

But it was too late. Olivia had already spotted me.

“Hey, Carter!” she called from across the restaurant. Several heads whipped around, first to stare at the crazy lady shouting at me, and then back to stare at me.

“Hi there, Olivia. Nice to see you again,” I mumbled.

She took one brief moment to stand on her tiptoes and lavish an openmouthed kiss on a dazed-looking Brad.

Then she whirled on me. “So, why the hell did Candy skip work today?” she demanded, pressing a sharp fingernail right into my sternum. I winced involuntarily, though it was more from her verbal assault than from the physical one. “She says she has pinkeye,” Olivia fairly bellowed, “but that’s a load of crap, and I know it. She sounded like she had been crying,” she stabbed me with her nail again. “Why the fuck was my friend crying, huh?”

I stepped backwards to ward off her verbal assault. “Um.” I looked at Brad, who shoved his hands in his pockets and feigned nonchalance.

“I thought better of you, you know. I thought, ‘if Candace, the nicest most genuinely
good-hearted
person I know likes him, then
I’m
gonna like him, too.’” She stabbed me in the chest again, and I looked down to see that her sharp fingernail was electric blue. For a half second, I imagined a lightning bolt shooting from the tip. I was certain she would zap me if she could. “I don’t like being
wrong
, Carter.”

“You’re
not
wrong,” I said, trying to regain a little dignity. “Candace and I are just having a little spat, that’s all.”

“Did you hurt her?”

“No!”

“Did you make her cry?”

I wracked my brain. “She wasn’t crying when she left, but she might have afterward—I have no idea.”

“Why do you have no idea? Haven’t you talked with her?”

“I’m going to kill you, traitor,” I said to Brad.

“Hey, focus, over here, big guy." Olivia snapped her fingers under my nose. “I asked you a question.”

“I haven’t talked to her, no!” I exploded. “But that’s not my fault! I sent her a text, asking her to talk, and she hasn’t answered yet!”

“She hasn’t?” Olivia stepped back for a sec. “That doesn’t sound like Candy. She’s glued to her phone, especially since you two started bumping uglies. Check again.”

I dutifully patted my pocket.

Then patted it again.

“Oh, fuck. Oh no, fuck!” I said, patting down my pockets. “My phone.”

“Did you leave at practice?” Brad asked.

“Must have. I set it down on the bench, remember?” I clenched and unclenched my fist, mentally going over the timeline. “I showered, then came back and grabbed my stuff, and then you invited me to this interrogation, disguised as a lunch.” I wrinkled my brow. “But that doesn’t make sense. I don’t remember seeing it. I left it right there, on the bench.”

Brad shook his head. “I didn’t see it either, want me to call it?”

“Yeah,” I nodded my head and he started dialing.

He waited a sec, while I kept patting down my pockets like it would suddenly appear.

“What about your bag? Your car?” Olivia started rapid-fire ticking off places on her fingers. “Did you drop it? Were you carrying it when you came in?”

I shook my head. “No. I set it on the bench after practice. After I texted Candace. I haven’t seen it since.”

Brad hung up his phone. “Just goes right to voicemail,” he said. Then he looked at Olivia and me. “Well?” he said. “Let’s go get it, then.”

I shook my head. “You guys don’t have to come, I’ll deal with this.” I hoped Brad wouldn’t guess that I was trying to escape Olivia’s third degree.

Brad nodded, but Olivia was too quick for me. “Absolutely not,” she announced, charging over to the booth and grabbing her ridiculously oversized purse and hefting it to her shoulder. “I’m following your nicely-defined ass back to the rink, and standing over your shoulder until I hear you on the phone, apologizing for making her cry.”

“I didn’t make her cry!” I protested.

But Olivia raised a murderous eyebrow. I looked at Brad, who just shrugged. “Fine,” I sighed. “But I’m driving.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Candace

The locker room was silent. No swirling steam, no sound of water hitting tile.

If Ian was trying to recreate our ‘first date,’ he was failing miserably.

“Ian?” I called. “I’m here.” I waited. “If you’re just going to jump out and try to give me a heart attack, then I’m going to leave now.”

I heard the tile squeak, and the heavy metal door slam shut.

“Or not,” I smiled, waiting. My skin was already tingling in anticipation. This time, we would make love in the showers, the endless hot water raining down on our bodies, Ian’s groans against my slippery skin. My hand went to my waistband, ready to start peeling my jeans down off my hips.

“Candace.”

I whirled around, yanking my jeans back up again. “Holy shit, I’m so sorry!” I laughed. “I didn’t know anyone else was here!”

Jake stepped out behind a bank of lockers. “Are you looking for Ian?” he asked. There was an odd sort of off-kilter glint in his eyes.

“Um, yes.” I listened hard.
Where the hell was Ian?
He had told me to come. “Have you seen him?”

“Not since he left, no.”

“Left?” My heart thudded, a spurt of adrenaline kicking my breathing in high gear before my brain could catch up with what was wrong. “He left already?”

“Oh, he left a while ago,” Jake said, casually pulling something out of his pocket.

I braced myself, sliding my hand into my purse. Trying to locate something I could use as a weapon, if necessary. Lipstick?
No
. Cell phone?
No
.

My fingers closed around my car keys, and I slid them between my knuckles.

But the thing Jake pulled out of his pocket was nothing that could be used as a weapon. Just a cell phone.

Ian’s cell phone.

“What did you guys do here?” he asked, flicking his thumb across the screen.

“What do you mean?” I swallowed.
If I could just edge towards the door…

“You asked if it would be ‘like the first time.’” His eyes glinted and roamed up and down my body. “The first time for what? Did you
fuck
him here? Right here in the locker room, after practice?” His voice rose slightly higher, and a vein stood out on his neck. “Everything gets handed to him here. Did he get
that
, too?”

“Fuck off,” I snarled, clutching my keys. “That’s none of your Goddamned business.”

“You know what?” Jake’s voice was high, almost wheedling. “I tried to be his friend. I tried really hard, but he just made fun of me. I found out what he really thought of me the night of the auction.” He looked back up from Ian’s phone, his thumb still moving. I could just make out what was on the screen. He was swiping though Ian’s pictures. I swallowed hard, thinking about the private ones we had shared.

He looked back down, swiped his thumb across the screen, and then stopped short. His tongue flicked quickly over his lips. Like a snake. He must have found one of the private photos.

He raised his eyebrows like a thought just occurred to him. “The auction
you
put together, Candace! That’s when I found out what Ian really was. I was so nice to him—to you, too! I signed up for the auction to help
you
out. And you two just laughed and laughed at me.”

A war was going on in my brain. The new part, the one that Ian had honed so carefully, teaching me to take what I wanted, stood with her hackles raised and her feet firmly planted, ready to fight or flee as soon as she could.

But the old me, the one who wanted to be nice and good, she was nearly crumpled in sympathetic sadness for the man in front of her. He seemed so genuinely hurt by how Ian had treated him…how
I
had treated him.
How could I have been so cruel?

It was the war in my brain that distracted me. So I didn’t see his expression change from one of sadness, to unabashed anger.

“I don’t like being laughed at,” he snarled.

And then he lunged.

Quick as I could, I slashed outward with my fist, the keys in between my knuckles. “Don’t you come near me!” I shouted.

But Jake ducked with athletic ease. His hand slammed into my throat, pinning me back against the locker. I coughed and tried to peel his hand away, but his grip was like iron. 

“I want you to know, I’m not trying to
hurt
you,” he crooned, eyes darting everywhere. “It really has
nothing
to do with you, even though you were mean to me at the auction. I’m willing to forgive that. You seem like a nice girl, Candace.” He pressed himself flush against me, and I could feel his erection digging into my thigh. I would have vomited if I could get a full breath to do so. “And I’m sorry that a nice girl like you got mixed up with an asshole like Ian in the first place.” Jake finally met my eyes, and smiled a smile that was all teeth. Like a wolf. “But he has this coming.”

“Please stop!” I choked. “You’re hurting me!”

“I know,” Jake sighed, like it couldn’t be helped. “And really, I’m totally sorry. I’m a nice guy, I promise you. I don’t hurt women, not ever. It’s just—Ian needs to be humbled.” I heard the jingle of his belt buckle and struggled, kicking out, but Jake just batted me away like he would a mosquito and continued his lunatic monologue. “Needs to be knocked off that Goddamned pedestal everyone puts him on. I mean, what the hell? This guy knocks up his fiancée, then dumps her when she has the miscarriage, and he is still loved and adored? He still gets to be the favored stepson of the coach? He gets in a fight with his beautiful,
new
girlfriend, but she still comes to see him and have makeup sex? Where’s the justice? Where’s the humility? When is he going to get what’s coming to him?” He looked me in the eye again. “I’ll tell you when.
Right now
.”

He smashed his lips into mine, just as he yanked my jeans down.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Ian

Olivia stopped at the front entryway and breathed deeply. “Damn,” she sighed happily.

“I shudder to ask,” I grumbled.

She snuggled up to Brad. “Nothing. It’s just,” she inhaled again. “It smells like
man
in here.” Her hand disappeared around Brad’s front and he stiffened, something else probably stiffening, too. “It smells like you!” she whisper-screamed in his ear.

I rolled my eyes right into infinity. “I’m glad I never got to eat lunch, because I would have lost it just then,” I announced, striding forward so the two of them were no longer in my line of sight.

“Jealous?” Brad called from behind me.

“Not even close,” I muttered, charging forward. I had bigger things on my mind. All sorts of scenarios had been running through my brain on the way here, most of them involving Candace answering my text lovingly, and then getting pissed when I never replied. Somehow I was just making this shit worse, no matter how hard I tried to get better.

No,
I told myself.
The phone wasn’t my fault
. I had wracked my brain seven ways to Sunday, and every time I retraced my steps, I came to the same conclusion.

My phone had
not
been there.

It was
not
on the bench.

Which meant one of two things.

Either Jake was right, and I really was a senile old man, losing his shit.

Or someone had taken it.

But who?
It would have to be a teammate, and that narrowed it down pretty thoroughly. And also pretty nonsensically.
Who the hell on the team would have any use for my phone?
I mean, it would be pretty obvious if Oswald, or Brad, or even Jake for that matter, suddenly started using it. I briefly wondered if maybe someone had sold it to the paparazzi that seemed to be multiplying like rabbits outside of my front door. But even then, it would be a pretty short deductive leap to figure out who had done it.
Why would anyone on my team take that risk?

It made no damn sense.

The hallways running from the rink were dark and quiet, the steady hum of fluorescent lights the only noise I could hear. From far off, I heard Olivia giggle and the low murmur of Brad’s voice, most likely whispering something obscene. All normal, everyday, explainable noises.

But the hair on the back of my neck stood up anyway.

Without knowing why, or even stopping to think why my heart was suddenly racing in my chest, I broke out into a run.

Brad shouted something behind me, and I heard the squeak of his sneakers on the floor. Olivia swore, and then the sharp clack of her heels rang out. But I was focused on a different noise.

A strangled, gasping cry suddenly floated upward, like a bird on an injured wing.

It was a small sound, but it filled me with such terror that it may as well have been an as loud as thunder.

And everything started happening at once.

I slammed the door open, a raw ache exploding in my shoulder as it ricocheted off the wall and collided with me. But I barely even winced. I was moving, headlong, gliding effortlessly like I was wearing my skates. Moving at the speed of a bullet to my goal.

When I crashed into Jake it was at full speed, catching him around the waist and slamming us both to the ground.

“Ian!” Candace choked, her voice that same, strangled birdlike cry as she gasped for breath.

For only a second I had seen
his
hands at
her
throat,
his
lips on
hers.

But that was all I needed to see to know that I was going to
kill him right now. 

The old me, the caged animal, the ball of rage that I kept hidden, the
opposite
of the nice guy—he exploded up and outward, a specter of pure instinct, and guided my fist as I raised it to collide with Jake’s jaw.

But Jake was quick, twisting underneath me so that it glanced off his shoulder instead. He roared with pain anyway, and his eyes were oddly bright with tears. “Stop!” he whined. “I wasn’t going to hurt her.”

I looked over my shoulder at Candace, who was doubled over, still gasping, bright red welts blooming across her delicate throat like the most perverse necklace in the world. “You
did
hurt her,” I grimaced, nearly doubled-over at the pain of seeing her like that.

She looked up at me. Her eyes were bright, but she had shed no tears, and all I wanted to do at that moment was hold her.

Then her expression changed from relief to one of horror. Too late, I twisted back around, but in my moment of weakness, Jake had wormed out from under me. He scrambled to get his feet underneath him. I stretched out to grab his shirt, but he sidestepped me and went running towards the showers.

The door burst open then, and Brad stormed in. “Take care of her!” I shouted at my friend. “I’m going after him!”

A teammate’s implicit trust meant that I took off running without hearing his reply. I knew Brad and Olivia would keep Candace safe.

There was an emergency exit leading from the showers to the back alleyway. If Jake made it out there, I’d lose him.

I careened through the bank of showers, which suddenly seemed to expand to the size of a small nation. Slipping a little on the still slick floor, I jammed my elbow into the tile wall to keep upright. Then I saw a flash of color, and I was running again.

Ten feet ahead of me, he was running pell-mell, his arms outstretched like Frankenstein’s monster. It would only be a matter of seconds before he was out of the door.

I crouched. Then I leaped.

At the last second of my leap, my foot slid in a patch of water. My right leg spun out awkwardly

I hit his back with a football tackle, knocking him forward. He let out a startled yelp as I slammed him flat down on his stomach.

But something was wrong. My body was at the wrong angle.

The full force of my two hundred and twenty-pound frame came down squarely over my right knee. It hit the ground with a sickening
thud
, and I swear I heard it. I heard the splintering noise as my kneecap shattered.

I bit back an agonized scream.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Candace

Olivia was rubbing her hand up and down my shoulder. Up and down, up and down, like she was trying to start a fire. It was both comforting and distracting at the same time.