Page 76 of Meant for Mayhem

I sat down on the other end, an entire body length between us, but everything in me was attuned to her. I heard every breath, felt every move of her feet over the woven upholstery, saw the way she tugged at her sleeve.

Usually reading helped me settle after a game, calming my nervous system with a fictional reality that had nothing to do with hockey or my real life. But tonight, I could hardly focus on the page, not when her hand snaked out of her sleeve and I saw she was still wearing her wedding ring.

She’d had it on all day, so more than likely, she hadn’t taken it off yet. But my brain clocked the fact that she rarely wore it around the house.

Tonight, she did, though.

It didn’t mean anything.

I knew it didn’t.

But I couldn’t stop fixating on the fact that my wife was funny, and smart, and kind, and so fucking gorgeous I couldn’t look away.

“Are you even reading?” she said when she looked over the top of her tablet at me.

I dropped my gaze back down to my book, but the words blurred on the page, all the blood rushing out of my head and to my groin instead while I conjured up ideas of everything else I’d rather be doing.

“Can’t focus tonight.”

“Does that happen a lot after games?”

The question was innocent, but I squirmed in my seat, trying to hide the growing erection I was battling over literally nothing. There wasn’t an inch of her skin showing, aside from the tips of her fingers and her face. Maybe that was making it worse, my imagination filling in every detail I couldn’t see.

“Mmhmm,” I answered, regretting wearing sweatpants. The outline of my dick was getting more visible by the second no matter what I did. “Sometimes.”

“What helps get it out of your system?”

A stuttered laugh came out of me, and I dropped my book to my lap before she saw how much harder I got at her words. Not when I imagined trying to work her out of my system.

Sweaty.

Passionate.

As fiery as she always was.

“Sleep.” I jumped to my feet, still holding my book in front of my crotch. “I need to go to bed.”

She frowned, confused by my about-face from only a few minutes ago when I’d asked her to read out here with me. When I turned to leave, she put her tablet to the side, then sat upright.

“Did I do something wrong? Maybe I shouldn’t have told Leena I love her—I know she’s not mine.”

“No.” I shook my head, still not capable of turning around to look at her. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Okay,” Shannon said, and dammit, I still heard the confusion in her voice.

How many times had I left a conversation unsure if whatever I’d said had been what caused someone to change on me? I hated she felt that way, hated that I was making her second-guess this dynamic we’d found tonight.

Before I could think better of it, I turned back toward her, my book at my side. “No lying, right?”

Shannon was still studying my face, but her eyes slowly dropped until she saw why I needed to go.

Her lips parted. For a second, neither of us moved. The air between us felt thick enough to choke while her attention lingered on the outline of my dick, hard and straining against the fabric. Then her gaze snapped back up to mine, dark and wide and unreadable.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. I turned on my heel before I could see whatever expression followed, fleeing down the hall.

My bedroom door shut harder than I meant it to. I leaned back against it, chest heaving like I’d finished a full-ice sprint.I should’ve gone straight to the shower.

Cold water.