The Cruelest Kind of Hate (Riverside Reapers Book 3)

CALISTA

“This is him?” my best friend—and fellow dance instructor—Hadley asks, turning her phone around to show me a picture of Gage. And not just a professional headshot of him in his hockey jersey. No, she somehow managed to find the sexiest, most erotic picture of him posing without a shirt on as he seductively sucks frosting off his finger.

I don’t know why that exists. I don’t know how she found it. But it’s currently singeing my optic nerves.

“Yes,” I mumble as I lean over my outstretched leg, feeling the satisfactory burn in my right hamstring.

She’s in a butterfly stretch to warm up for her pole dancing class, and she’s staring a bit too intently at the pixelated screen. “Cal, he’s hot as fuck. And that’s coming from someone who isn’t straight.”

No! Argh. Why couldn’t she say that he was a hideously deformed monster? Hadley’s not one for sugarcoating, either. She’s had plenty of opinions about my exes in the past, which is why they’re exes.

I avert my gaze from the haunting picture, pasting on a rictus grin. “He’s fine.”

“He’s better than fine. This guy could run me over and I’d thank him.”

I’ll run him over instead, free of charge.

“Uh-huh.”

“And you said he was a hockey goalie?” she exclaims, bending all the way at the hip so that her folded legs are flush against the ground.

I switch to my other leg for a side stretch, warring with a muscle ache, and now, thanks to Gage’s too-straight teeth and sexy grin, a stomachache. “So?”

She bumps me with her shoulder. “Sooo, goalies are really flexible.”

I snort. “Not this one.”

“They also have a lot of stamina,” she adds, giving me one of her terribly coordinated winks.

Once I’ve stretched the life out of my thighs, I bring one leg behind me and fall into the splits, needing some real pain to distract me from this volatile pool of emotion welling in my chest. Another pro-Gage comment and it’ll erode my bones like acid. “Why are you trying to pimp him out to me?”

Hadley gives me one of her famous oh, sweetie looks. “Maybe because you deserve to have fun for once? Let loose? Think about something other than work and your home life?”

“I can do that without getting in bed with someone,” I insist, bouncing slightly against the wooden floorboards to test the give of my splits.

“True. But it’s sooo much more fun if you do,” she sing-songs.

I’d give anything to have Hadley’s carefree disposition. She’s adventurous, spontaneous, open-minded. She always says yes, no matter how absurd the question is. She lives her life to the fullest with no regrets, and she has the best stories to tell me because of it. If she wasn’t committed to three classes every week, she’d hop on the next flight to Barbados and live in a bungalow with whatever she could fit in one of those hobo sacks. She’s also a big advocate for polyamory, which has helped with her mood in more ways than one.

“I just don’t have time,” I defend, although I don’t miss the tiny seed of longing planting itself in the pit of my belly, trying to spread its roots in a restricted square of nutrient-deprived soil. That’s what I am. A dying plant in a too-small pot. Never given the room to grow. Always destined to wither.

I’d love to have free time when worries didn’t torment my mind. I’d love to feel confident in where I’m at, to feel stable in my career choice, to feel happy with the decisions I’ve made so far in my life. But that’s a long way from ever happening. And although I may complain once in a while about my familial obligations, the structure of that routine and the relationships I’ve nurtured is what keeps me moored.

Hadley’s optimism is like a shot of espresso at five in the morning. “Wouldn’t you rather do the splits on someone rather than the floor of your studio?”

That’s…that’s preposterous. Hilarious, but preposterous.

“Please. If I wanted to bounce on a shrimp dick, I’d call my ex.”

Hadley glances one last time at her phone before chuckling. “Oh, honey. Gage Arlington does not have a shrimp dick.”

I give her a deadpan look. I desperately need something—anything—else to occupy the topic of this morning’s discussion. It’s one thing to think about dicks while I’m bumping my goods against the floor in the splits. It’s another thing to think about Gage Arlington’s probably massive, veiny, girthy dick while my vagina is very much splayed out in a come-hither pose.

“How would you know? You secretly seeing him?” I jest, quickly tucking my legs back underneath me.

She fans herself. “No, but look at him, Cal. That man is a god. He has a six pack. His biceps are the size of my head. His quads are probably enormous. I bet he has a Jacob’s ladder too.”

Great. Now I’m imagining Gage splitting me open on his nine-inch-long, pierced dong. He seems dominant in the bedroom. The kind of dominant that would watch me come before he even touches himself. He’d make me work for his cock, make sure I’m stretched to accommodate his hulking size. I’d ride his abs until I made a mess of both of us—until I turned a strong-willed god into a whimpering mortal. I’d undulate my hips and rub my leaking pussy over each muscled ridge while my fingernails engraved bloody marks into his chest. His stomach would contract as I started to gush onto him, coating each curve and dip in a sheen of arousal. He’d throw his head back against the mattress and rough out praise, all while trying to keep his grip tightly secured on my hips. And then, after he massaged the flesh there, his touch would travel to my breast, torquing my nipple to a fully erect state with a twist of his long, nimble fingers. He’d buck his hips to seek any last promise of friction, his neglected cock prodding the slit of my ass, demanding relief after bearing too much pressure. And he’d beg me to help him, to take his dick in my cunt or my ass, to…

Hadley’s voice continues to resonate in my head, and it dawns on me that I was just fantasizing about Gage. Me. I was the one fantasizing. About him. Do you know how fucked up that is? Oh my God. I’m a disgrace.

“You were totally just thinking about him.” She does a little shimmy with her shoulders, and as much as I want to fake gag and brush her off, the ear-to-ear beam on her face is fucking contagious.

I suck in a deep, lung-expanding breath, already exhausted with all the mental gymnastics I’ve done before noon. I was thinking about him. And when I was, nothing else in the world mattered. Nothing else existed. I didn’t feel this foreboding sense of distress; I didn’t feel like I was biding time until the next chore had to be done. I was living in the moment, unfettered, and someone was taking care of me for a change. It was my own slice of golden-gated heaven. I don’t remember the last time I ever felt so…at peace.

“Only because you haven’t stopped talking about him,” I counter.

Hadley mimics a zip over her peachy lips. “Just consider it. You guys will be working together for three months. You’d be amazed at what close proximity and sexual frustration can do to a person.”

When I enter the Reapers’ rink, I make a mental note to myself to start packing a puffer jacket, because walking onto the ice in skimpy stripper attire is probably grounds for banishment or something. Or at most, total humiliation for younger brothers.

My class ended early today, so I’m surprisingly on time for once. And Teague will be surprised too, seeing how he hasn’t looked anywhere in my direction in anticipation of my arrival.

I start to carefully shuffle my way toward the ice, waddling like a penguin while simultaneously being self-conscious about how much of my butt is showing, and that’s when I feel a body displace the air beside me.

“You’re going to freeze,” Gage says, lumbering up to me with a lull in his gait and a hip brace over his pants. He’s dressed in his warm-looking jersey and grey sweats, and I glance over at the practice happening a few feet away.

I am freezing, but I’ll never let him know that.

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you.” I turn my nose up defiantly.

“You have goose bumps.”

“I do not—” I look down at my arms, which, in fact, flaunt a wealth of small bumps. “I just have naturally bumpy arms.”

Gage shakes his crop of chestnut hair, cutting me off with a dart of his body and halting me in my tracks. His half-lidded eyes rake down the length of my figure before a mischievous simper splits his lips. “If you’re not cold, then why are your nipples poking out like torpedoes?”

I gasp and cross my arms over my breasts, not bothering with confirming Gage’s observation because it definitely feels like my nipples are going to chip off in this temperature.

“Fuck off. I’m just here to pick up my brother,” I grit through my teeth, trying to make my way past him.

I can’t. Dude has mile-wide shoulders and inhuman reflexes.

“You’re not getting on the ice, Cali.”

Excuse me?

I drop my arms to my sides, more than ready to shove my way past his mountain of a body. “I am.”

“If you find some way to bypass me—which I doubt—then you need to cover up,” he growls.

“Are you policing my body based on the fact that you, as a man, feel threatened by my lack of clothing?”

“What? No! I don’t want you getting sick.” The lines of his naturally hardened face soften upon his admission, highlighting the faintest crinkles bordering his eyes, and the concern in his tone starts to slowly whittle away at my reinforced walls.

His voice has a richness to it that’s foreign to my ears, sometimes thick around certain syllables, sometimes grated into a gravelly drawl that continuously sparks my synapses. And right now, it’s warm in all the right places. The kind of warm like the soft glow of the sun at midday as it casts buttery rays through a car window, lulling me into a soundless slumber.

“I’m not going to get sick,” I argue, and if it wasn’t for the shiver that just rolled through me, I probably would’ve gotten away with it too.

Gage grumbles out a string of curses before shucking his jersey off and unveiling the tight-fitted long-sleeve clinging to ropes of grabbable muscle. Hand extended, his jersey a peace offering, he shakes it in front of me. “Take it.”

I push his arm away. “Yeah, no. I’m not putting on your smelly ass jersey.”

He throws his head back—dramatically, mind you—and expels a long groan that has his breath misting into the frost-blanketed atmosphere. “This is me asking nicely,” he threatens, something dark passing through his eyes.

Asking nicely? What is he, a mobster? We’re in public. And Gage doesn’t have the balls to do anything.

“O-kay. Sure, buddy.”

Before I get the chance to move, Gage throws his jersey over my head like some kind of amateur kidnapping attempt, yanking it past my chin until it billows into place on my body. It dwarfs my arms and ends halfway at my thigh, covering every needed aspect, and surprisingly, it doesn’t smell like the earring backs I was expecting it to. I’m not saying that it smells like Boy Scout wishes or anything. It smells like…him. A clean sort of musk with a masculine undertone that I want to inject into my veins or huff like whiteboard markers.

Finally, Teague glances over in my direction, lighting up as he waves at me.

Satisfied with my obedience, Gage turns around to wave back at Teague. “Cute kid.”

Aside from the ever-present desire to choke Gage, contentment seems to settle over me at the thought of the two of them bonding over hockey. “Yeah, he is,” I agree quietly.

Maybe Gage is the role model Teague needs. God knows I’m not. I may look like I have my shit together, but I don’t. I can’t believe I’m complimenting him, but Gage actually seems…levelheaded for a twenty-something. He’s already dominating in his career, which is more than I can say for myself. It shows that he’s committed, and that’s something I wish I was better at being. I have one foot in and one foot out of Teague’s life, when all Teague needs is for me to be a hundred percent in.

Teague skates over to us, that fire helmet of his sticking out like a sore thumb, a megawatt smile plumping up his cheeks. “Holy shit. You’re Gage Arlington!” he squeals, hockey stick gripped in his little fist as he bobbles on his feet.

“T, don’t say ‘shit,’” I chastise.

Gage chuckles, squatting down as best as he can to be eye level with my brother. “Hey, Little Man. That’s me. And you are?”

“I’m Teague!”

Look, I know the parameters of my Grinch heart don’t allow for a lot of love room, but seeing Gage’s big, burly body next to Teague’s small one makes weird, tingling warmth blossom in my stomach. And the worst part is, no matter how hard I try to extinguish it, that fire remains lit like a trick candle.

“It’s nice to meet you, Teague. Your sister has told me a lot about you,” Gage says, the incandescent twinkle in his eye accompanied by a knee-weakening grin.

Teague’s jaw practically hits the ground. “You know my sister?”

“I do. We met in this rink, actually.”

I don’t bother to cover my pig-snort of laughter. Actually, Teague, this is the colossal dickwad who blocked us in. And the colossal dickwad whose car I destroyed on a justified rampage.

“Really?! Cali, you didn’t tell me you knew Gage!” My brother, bless his heart, is too young to be very observant of underlying tension.

Gage wobbles to a stance and slings his arm over my shoulder, pulling me into the side of his body before I have the chance to bat him away. “Your sister’s just being humble. Knowing someone as famous as me must be exhausting.”

My whole face puckers in revulsion despite my traitorous vagina yawning awake after a yearlong hibernation. He’s so warm that I can feel the heat sizzling off his body like a desert-warped mirage, even with the layers of polyester swaddling his physique. And he’s…hard. Not, like, his penis. His body. I could probably use him as a makeshift raft if I were ever stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean. That’s if I didn’t eat him beforehand to stay alive.

Teague’s comically large eyes zigzag between the two of us, head angled innocently. “Are you my sister’s boyfriend?” he asks, hope shining through his tone.

I choke on my own saliva, and it nearly results in me doubling over in a hacking fit. The audacity my brother has! Is he my boyfriend? What—what kind of question is that? I’m a ten, and Gage is at best a five point five. Maybe a six on good days. I clearly need to take my brother back to the eye doctor.

Thanks to Gage’s stupid, fat mouth, he manages to answer at the same time I do.

“No!” I shriek a little too loudly.

“Not yet,” Gage replies with a smirk, that pesky arm of his slowly skimming down my shoulder and nesting in the curve of my side. I don’t miss the grip of his fingers on my skin, the urgency there, the promise of more when his roaming touch unlocks full access to every vulnerable crevice of my body.

Not yet? Is he serious?

I turn my head to face him, biting out through clenched teeth and a gum-showing smile, “Never happening.”

He fully ignores me, pinching the fat of my hip in a nonverbal yeah, right.

I disengage myself from his grasp, choosing to change the subject before I projectile vomit all over the floor. “Teague, Gage is gonna help you work on your hockey skills. He’s been so…generous…as to offer you free hockey lessons. Because he’s such a good guy.”

Please note the sarcasm.

My brother’s vibrating with so much excitement that I expect him to rocket around the room like a deflating helium balloon. “Really???”

“That’s right, kiddo. Coach Gage is at your service.”

This is the happiest I’ve seen Teague in a long time. There’s a lively spark glistening in his eyes—one that has been dimmed as a result of my unintentional neglect, and one that I was afraid I’d never see again. And Gage was the last person I ever expected to unearth it.

Teague bulldozes into Gage, wrapping his short arms around Gage’s tree-trunk torso. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” he chants, squeezing the air out of his new instructor as he simultaneously jumps up and down.

Wary of his hip, Gage returns my brother’s embrace with equal enthusiasm, nearly swallowing his small frame.

I’m surprised at how…natural…Gage looks with my brother. Seeing as he isn’t good with adults, I didn’t think he’d be good with kids. But I was wrong.

A—dear God—compliment sits on my tongue, waiting to stroke Gage’s already inflated ego, but I’m thankfully cut off when one of his teammates glides over to us, helmet gone and black hair curling down to his nape. He has a scruffy lumberjack look to him, with an impressively full beard for someone who I’m guessing is still in his early twenties.

“Gage, Coach says to get your ass back on the bench,” he relays, leaning his chin on the butt of his hockey stick. He’s got thickset shoulders just like Gage, and I’m beginning to think that Hulk-like muscle mass is a requirement for all hockey players.

“Yeah, yeah. Tell him I’m coming,” Gage gripes.

And then, Mountain Man’s dark eyes coast over me. “Shit. I’m sorry. How rude of me. I’m D,” he drawls, slipping his glove off to extend his giant bear paw of a hand.

Oh my God. He’s tall, dark, and handsome. He’s like a tortured, chiseled model pulled from the cover of some dark romance. And his name? I’ve never been one for mystery, but fuck, I think this guy’s about to change my mind. He’s one of the most attractive men I’ve ever seen, and my arm moves of its own accord when I go to shake his hand.

He brings my knuckles to his pillow-soft lips—the whiskers of his facial hair tickling my skin—and plants a kiss on the back of my hand. Lust prickles low in my belly at the way his mouth brands me, and I go brain-dead for a few seconds, trying to digest the fact that a man as perfect as him would be flirting with someone who’s wearing two mismatched shoes and currently sweating through her deodorant.

“Calista,” I reply, starry-eyed.

“Un nom magnifique pour une fille aussi magnifique que le paradis lui-même,” he says in the most delicious French accent, calloused fingers still in acquaintance with my trembling hand.

HE’S FRENCH? Pinch me. I mean, I have no idea what he just said, but he could’ve called me a disgusting pig and I still would’ve swooned.

His dreamy eyes, the color of coffee grounds under the fluorescents, flick down to the jersey I forgot I was wearing. “Are you and Gage…?”

I look down in an effort to understand what he’s insinuating, and I feel my cheeks boil with embarrassment. “No! No. God, no. We’re—he’s…just friends,” I hurl out, instantly yanking my arm back so I can free myself from Gage’s jersey. My arms flap about as they wiggle out of the sleeves, and my ears get caught on the neckline for a humiliating second, but I eventually pop my head out and throw it in Gage’s general direction.

Remember when I said I had priorities? Consider those priorities tabled for the time being. Hadley was right. I deserve to let loose and have fun, and if that means getting this handsome Sam Hartman lookalike’s number, then so be it.

I’m pretty sure Gage mumbles something from behind the wad in his face, but my focus abandoned him a long time ago. In fact, I forgot he was even here.

“In that case, I hope I’m not overstepping if I ask you out to dinner tonight,” D proposes, flashing me a smile with teeth so straight and white that they belong on a poster in a dentist’s office.

Every inch of me suddenly grows unbearably hot, and my heart’s roaring so loudly that I’m afraid he can hear it. “Overstepping? No, of course not. That sounds amazing. I’d love to,” I ramble.

“Hey, hey, now,” Gage interjects, inserting his stupid body into the one conversation that doesn’t concern him. “Unfortunately, Dilbert, Calista here already has plans with me tonight.”

I snap my head at him, growling under my breath, “No, I don’t.”

“Of course we do, Spitfire. First date, remember?”

I’m going to kill Gage. I’m going to buy four horses, have him drawn and quartered like back in the medieval days, then bury his dismembered limbs where nobody will ever find them.

Dilbert blinks owlishly, same with Teague, confusion marring both of their faces.

“Nope, definitely never agreed to that.”

“Sure, you did. You must’ve forgotten.” Gage does the wise thing and puts his jersey back on, but then he does the unwise thing and hangs his arm over my shoulder again like we’re…we’re…dating. “Sorry, Dil, but my girl is off the market. We just haven’t gone public with it yet. You understand, don’t you? Don’t want the news taking away from the season.”

“Uh, right…” Dilbert trails, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck. “Sorry, man. Didn’t know she was your girl.”

I’m about to protest, but Gage uses all his strength to pull me into the side of his body, making me squeak in surprise. My cheek squishes into his shoulder, and even though I’m resisting, his ironclad grip has me immobilized. Stupid Gage and the six inches he has over me. Stupid Gage and his buff arms. Stupid Gage and the annoying way his lips twist into a self-satisfied grin.

“No worries, dude.”

Hackles rising, I harden my voice with a steel edge. “Gage…”

He pats me on my head, making my already mussed hair frizz up to new lengths. “Gonna take her out to her favorite Italian restaurant. You know…the one that has a live octopus tank. Heard the hosts check your bank account numbers before you can make a reservation since the food is so expensive. Authentic Italian and such.”

He’s talking to Dilbert like I’m not even here! And yes, I was doing the same thing, but this is—ugh!

Not only has Dilbert turned a flattering shade of scarlet, but he looks as uncomfortable as I feel.

Sweat stains his brow, and he shifts his weight between his skates. “Oh, that’s…”

Gage cuts him off, doing that hand privacy thing where he’s supposed to be secretly addressing him even though I can still hear every word he’s saying. “She loves her lasagna. But we have to ask for the vegan ricotta. Cheese makes her gassy.”

“Gage!” I smack his chest hard, making him wince.

“Anyways, tell Coach I’ll be there in a second.” Gage dismisses him with a flap of his hand, baring his teeth in a fake, patronizing smile.

Dilbert—poor, beautiful, stupid Dilbert—nods before skating away sullenly.

I finally manage to wrench myself from Gage’s arm, shouting helplessly after Dilbert, mentally weeping when said shouts get masked by the idle chatter of the other rink inhabitants. “I’m not lactose intolerant! And we’re not together!”

Gage fist-bumps my little brother in victory, and I’m pretty much a hair width away from throat chopping him in front of an entire horde of kids. He’s so unbothered that his cocky grin stays intact, every muscle in his body so unbelievably relaxed that I can feel that one vein in my forehead bulge out.

“What the hell?” I snarl. “Why would you do that?”

He shrugs indifferently. “Need an emergency dance lesson. Tonight.”

I bet you a million dollars that he doesn’t. I can’t believe this. He sabotaged me! Embarrassed me! Oh, he’s going to pay. I’m going to make him pay. When will he get the hint that nothing will ever happen between us?

“Eight o’clock. Don’t be late,” he purrs as he starts walking backwards, aiming that hubris at me and finishing it off with an infuriating, blood-boiling wink.