Dean (Face-Off 6)

“I want you,” I confess.

A single tear falls from her eye and slides down her cheek. “I don’t know what to do, Dean. I asked you to take my virginity, and you got mad. How was I supposed to take that?”

“I’m sorry. I acted like an asshole. It’s just…”

I want more than you can give.

“Maybe if we stop now and put some time and space between us we can go back to being us.”

“I need you in my life.” My voice sounds so desperate I almost don’t recognize it.

She hugs me, and her tears wet my shirt. “This is so hard.”

“We’ll figure this out,” I promise.”

The NHL Draft has to swing in our favor. Otherwise, how will we ever make this work?

Chapter Ten

Kat

The night before graduation Dean and his teammates decide to throw a party at the their house. Music thumps through the old Victorian, the bass vibrating beneath my feet. The air stinks of sex and sweat, a nauseating mixture that causes my stomach to turn as if this house doesn’t smell bad enough on a normal day.

Dean and the twins have amassed a crowd around them, a mixture of their teammates and girls who want the chance to hook up with them. I guess that makes me the gatekeeper once again. I’m always the shrew who has to beat the skanks away from my men. Most of the time, I do it knowing they want my help. But Travis looks interested in the brunette dangling on his arm, though I’m not sure whether she has decided if she wants Travis or Theo.

They play dirty twin games, as I call them, when it comes to girls and even school. It’s hard to tell the twins apart if you don’t know the differences in their personalities, and they take full advantage of the situation. I yell at them all the time for duping people. My brothers are idiots.

Surrounded by a flock of eyelash batting hockey hookers, I spot Dean pounding another beer. He’s been going full tilt since this afternoon to make up for all of the parties he missed during hockey season.

Dean looks up from the crowd around him, and our eyes meet. He smiles and waves me over, moving the people around him to the side. The girls he pushed away glance over their shoulders at me and give me the usual evil eye I get anytime I’m with Dean. Having four brothers has given me a thicker skin when it comes to dealing with catty girls, so I pay no mind to them as I elbow my way through the throng.

“Kitten.” Dean slurs his words as he takes a strand of my hair and tucks it behind my ear.

“Oh, my God. You’re so hammered.”

“It’s a party.” He taps the cup in my hand and then lifts it to my mouth. “Drink up.”

I tilt my head back and finish the rest of the beer in the plastic cup, and then grab Dean by the hand. “I need a refill. You’re coming with me.”

As I steer Dean toward the kitchen, I laugh to myself as the girls mutter rude comments under their breath to me. “You were done with them, right?”

Dean narrows his eyes at me. “Who?”

“Those girls.”

“I wasn’t even paying attention to them. The only girl I see is you.”

I flash a closed mouth smile at him. “Real smooth.”

He slides his arm across the back of my neck, weighing me down. “I don’t have to be smooth. I have a big dick and can shoot a puck.”

His stupid comment makes me laugh. “I don’t want to think about your dick. Stop talking like Dirty Dean. I hate when you get like this.”

“It’s not like you haven’t seen it.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “I can show it to you again if you need a refresher.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Keep it in your pants.”

He strokes my jaw with his thumb, his blue eyes glassy and burning a hole through me. “If I were to kiss you right now, would you let me?”