Page 112 of Ice Rebel

Every dark look on his face created a wild longing and as he grabbed my hand, a tiny part of my brain wondered about the future.

CHAPTER 23

Chelsea

Somewhere exciting turned out to be his bedroom.

Now ordinarily that would be extremely sexy in and of itself, but we were in his parents’ house. And the walls were still decorated as if a teenager lived there.

Complete with hero posters.

There were a dozen trophies and pictures of him in a hockey uniform from different ages.

With a groan, Cole snapped a frame down on the dresser. “My mother doesn’t throw anything away and when I’ve crashed here, I didn’t care about the aesthetics.”

“No, you don’t. I need to see all of you.”

When I reached for the picture in his hand, the closeness was electrifying. “All of me, huh?”

“Stop,” I purred, smacking him in the stomach and snatching the picture away. “This is so cute. You look like you’re about ready to take on the world.”

“I was thirteen and thought I was ready for the NHL.”

“Yeah, I bet you were. Now, you’re ready. I mean if you want it.”

He shrugged. “I do.”

After returning the frame, I noticed a magazine on the desk, folded over so an article with a color picture was presented. “What’s this?”

He came up behind me as I was looking. “That was the first summer camp I taught when I was twenty.”

“What happened to your arm?”

“An almost career-ending injury. The doctors were shocked I gained full use of it back.”

Shifting, I lifted my head to look him in the eyes. “What happened?”

“We’ll just say a fight and leave it at that.”

“How did you heal?”

Now he seemed uncomfortable, studying the picture instead of answering.

“Because you’re a shifter.”

His deep breath was telling. “Yep. The existence of shifters had just been revealed. I’d had an offer from another AHL team and my chances were crushed by the injury, but if I’d healed, questions would have been asked and being one hundred percent wouldn’t have mattered to them. They would have figured out the reason I healed and trust me, no one wanted a shifter on their team at that point. Most still don’t. So I laid low, continued in college, and coached in summer camps. I learned a lot from those kids. I really did. Including humility. I also had a chance to work more closely with my dad at the sawmill.”

“You don’t want him to sell.”

He shook his head. “No. At least not to some big tech company with no heart. You don’t know how hard my parents worked to get the mill up and running. Plus, they plant trees. For every tree that’s cut down, they plant three. That’s why the area is so lush.”

“It’s your home, somewhere you can run free as your wolf. All of you. That’s the last time you shifted. Right? So you could heal from the injury.”

“You would be correct. See, you do know me.”

“Not nearly enough.”

“Then I guess we need to fix that.”