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I knew all of that, but Ash was standing in front of me with his hand sliding slowly down my bare chest, his eyes darkening as he looked at me, and for one selfish moment, I let myself feel nothing except the impossible relief of having shown him my dragon and watching him step closer instead of running away.

His fingers reached my stomach.

“Ash.”

“What?”

There were a thousand things I should've said, but my attention had dropped to his mouth and Ash noticed.

His smile disappeared, replaced by something considerably more dangerous as he moved closer until the front of his body was almost touching mine.

“You've just spent weeks telling me I get to choose, Max.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. “I have.”

“Good.”

His hand moved lower as he held my gaze.

“Because I'm choosing.”

Chapter twenty-two

Boards - The solid barrier surrounding the rink that keeps the puck in play.

Ash

I had his wrist before he could finish whatever objection was forming behind his eyes.

“Barn,” I said.

“Ash, the clearing is right—”

“I’m not fucking you in wet grass with a bruise the size of Alberta on my side. Barn.”

He came without another word, which told me more about the state of him than anything he could have said. Max Renaud, captain, three seasons of never being moved by anyone, was letting himself be towed along a dirt path by a man four inches shorter with a compromised rib cage. His shirt was still balled in his fist, and he hadn’t even bothered with his shoes.

I didn’t look back at him because if I did, I’d stop, and if I stopped, I’d start thinking about the fact that twenty minutes ago the hand I was holding had been a claw the length of my forearm.

Étienne watched us pass with the deep indifference of a horse who had seen stranger things.

The barn door was heavy and stuck halfway, and Max reached past me to shoulder it the rest of the way open, which was the last helpful thing I intended to let him do. Inside, it was dim and warm, smelling of hay and leather and something older, the kind of scent that had soaked into the wood decades before either of us was born. Dust hung in the light coming through the gaps in the boards as I pushed him against the nearest post and kissed him.

He made a sound into my mouth that I felt in my teeth, and his hands came up to my face, careful, always so goddamn careful, as if I were the one who might break.

I bit his lip for it.

His hips jerked.

“You keep doing that,” he said.

“You keep purring.”

“I have never once—”

I kissed him again to shut him up, and this time he let me, opening under me with a kind of surrender I’d never felt from him before. His shirt hit the floor as my hands found the waist of his jeans, and he was already hard beneath the denim, already pushing into my palm like he’d been waiting for permission.

I pulled back just far enough to dig into the front pocket of my sweats and came up with two condoms and a travel packet of lube.