Breakaway (Beyond the Play, #2)(101)

“Hear hear!” Brandon says. He raises his beer, giving me and Cooper a nod. I nod back. He doesn’t know the details of why I bolted the night of Cooper’s birthday party, but he apologized properly to the both of us for what happened in Vermont, and I really think he’s proud to support Cooper. “Royals!”

“Royals!” the guys shout.

Cooper kisses me, his hands tangling in my hair. I can hear his teammates ragging on him, and I smile against his lips. I thought I’d never let myself get close to a hockey player again, much less a whole team, and look at me now. Kissing my Hockey East champion boyfriend in a bar, already aching for a chance to get him alone. Experiencing the last item on The List opened the floodgates; I’ve been on him every chance I can get. Everything we did before then was incredible, sure, but now that I know what it’s like, nothing beats coming with Cooper’s cock pressed deep inside me. I literally made an appointment with my gynecologist to get an IUD so that he can come inside me bare. I want him to claim me from the inside out every fucking time.

“My Lucky Penny,” he murmurs, clutching fistfuls of my sweater in his hands. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I helped your focus that much?” I tease.

He pulls back, looking me in the eye, and I can tell he’s not joking.

“Remember how this started?” he says. “Our arrangement? It still works for me, baby. I get a taste of you and it’s off to the races.”

I think Evan overhears us, because he pivots on his heel and starts talking loudly to someone about what seed in the bracket of 16 McKee will end up having, but I can’t even bring myself to be too embarrassed.

“What about now?” I say coyly. I reach up so I can whisper the next part in his ear. “I’ve been soaked for you since the moment the game started.”

He groans. “Fucking hell.”

Before I can coax him into taking me to his truck or the bathrooms or even the back of the bar, his uncle claps a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve got some people I want you to meet,” he says. “Business associates. Sorry, Penny.”

“It’s okay,” I say. Sebastian has been difficult about Uncle Blake, but someone needs to support Cooper, and I know this relationship is important to him. Even if it’s a little weird that he’s giving his uncle a lot of money—like, thousands of dollars out of his trust fund—that’s his decision to make, and I’m going to support him. “I’ll go dance with Mia.”

Mia pulls me into a hug the moment she sees me. She’s wearing a hockey sweater too—Mickey’s, but she refuses to go into detail—and her black skinny jeans make her ass look fantastic. I tell her so, needing to shout the words over the noise of the bar, and she grins, grabbing both my hands and spinning me in a circle. Someone presses play on a new song on the jukebox, so Johnny Cash gets switched out for The Heavy. I down the rest of my beer, set it on a table, and dance along. I know I’m terrible at it, but I don’t care right now, not while Mia and I are in sync with each other and can’t stop laughing. I don’t really know the words, but I try to keep up anyway. Mia smacks a kiss on my cheek as she grinds her hips against mine.

The back of my neck prickles. Someone’s watching me. I shimmy a little as I turn around, expecting it to be Cooper, but instead, I lock eyes with a guy sitting at a nearby table. He’s in his thirties, probably, wearing a suit, an empty beer glass by his elbow. His phone is out, propped against the napkin dispenser, and maybe I’d think he’s just texting, but there’s something about the way he’s looking at us that makes my hands feel clammy.

He’s watching, and he’s recording for later.

“Mia,” I say urgently. “Mia, stop.”

I gesture to the guy, who raises his hand and waves. Mia’s face goes from joyful to incandescent with rage in half a second. I don’t even have time to register anything but the turn of my stomach before she stomps over to him, grabs his phone, and throws it against the jukebox. It doesn’t stop the music, but almost everyone in the bar freezes. Cooper shoves through the crowd, Sebastian on his heels.

“Fucking bitch!” the guy snaps, staggering to his feet. He’s over a foot taller than Mia, but she just crosses her arms over her chest. “You’re going to fucking pay for that.”

“Shut your face, pencil dick,” says Mia. “We saw you.”

Cooper tugs on my elbow, one eye on me, the other on Mia. “What happened?”

I swallow down the wave of revulsion I’m feeling long enough to start, “He had his phone out, I think he was—”

Cooper’s already striding in his direction. “What, your pickup game is that fucking pathetic? Can’t get women to look your way twice, so you need to record them, you slimy fuck?”

He gets right up in the guy’s face, shoving Mia behind him. She tries to lunge at the guy, but Cooper hauls her around the waist and into Sebastian’s arms. Cooper is the same height as this guy, but he must have at least thirty pounds on him. There’s a dangerous glint in his eyes as he backs the guy up against the wall.

Yet this idiot grabs his beer glass and smashes it against the side of Cooper’s head before Cooper can take a swing.

I scream as the glass practically explodes. Cooper’s temple is a bloody gash, dark red running down his face like paint. He cocks his fist and punches the guy in the face, then kneads him in the stomach.