Pucking Around: A Why Choose Hockey Romance (Jacksonville Rays Book 1)
Pucking Around: Chapter 99

How did everything get so messed up? Five months ago, I was sitting at a bar in Seattle, wallowing in my professional failure, day drinking by myself…well, almost by myself. I wished I was by myself.

Then in walked my Mystery Boy.

Now here I am, five months later, feeling like nothing has changed. I’m still alone. Still wallowing over a professional failure.

Only everything has changed. I’ve changed. They’ve changed me. Jake, Caleb, Ilmari. They each took a piece of me and unraveled the threads, weaving their own threads back in with mine. The result is something entirely new. Something stronger. Something more beautiful than I could have ever made on my own.

I’ve been sitting in this room for the last hour, spiraling out of control. Like a skydiver without a parachute who takes their jump in the dark, I’ve been spinning, looking for anything to orient myself. Which way is up? Which way is down? How do I stop this feeling of free fall?

And then my Caleb gave me the anchor I needed.

Choice.

We all have a choice in this world. Stay or go. Love or hate. Fight or flee. I get to choose what happens next. I may not be able to control whether the Rays let me keep my job, but I can control how I respond to it.

Stay or go, Rachel?

Do I want to stay here? Do I want to stay with my guys? Yes, comes the deep voice of longing, echoing out from the very center of being. I want to stay. I want to belong here with them. My guys. My family.

Love or hate?

Do I love Jake Compton?

I smile, closing my eyes as my mind floods with the memories of our first night together. That man claimed me on that perfect night. Our souls entwined. It was fate. It was nature in poetic motion. He’s mine and I’m his. Loving him is easier than breathing. My joy and my happiness, he brings sweetness to my life. He centers me and makes me feel whole. Yes, I love Jake Compton.

But do I love Caleb Sanford?

Moody, temperamental, aloof. He wears a hard shell. Some of it hides his very real pain. He’s been hurt in this life. He knows loss and tragedy. But he also knows the resilient hope that comes from healing. He knows how to weather a storm, even one that strips you to nothing. He knows how to rebuild. He’s a survivor. He’s the strong center that holds. He is the place where we all replace strength.

And that’s the secret to Caleb. His shell hides his pain. But it also hides his hopeful heart. He’s an optimist, though he’ll never admit it. He’s a dreamer. I want to see the world through his eyes. I want to see his dreams and make them real. My strength, my heart. I love him so madly.

And what of Ilmari? Do I love Mars Kinnunen?

I close my eyes again, breathing deep, searching for that feeling of utter peace and quiet I can only chase in his arms. Ilmari is like the trees in the forest, rooted deep and stretching high. He is soft, yet unyielding. Stalwart. He contains multitudes. He makes me believe that home isn’t a place. It’s a feeling. Home is being in his arms. It’s feeling his eyes on me. It’s having him buried deep, moving together like one being, sharing flesh and breath and soul. Yes, I am in love with Ilmari Kinnunen.

My breath comes out in a shaky pant as I feel like my heart is overflowing with love for these men that have so completely captured me. I love them all. I want to stay. I want to be theirs. Only one question remains.

Fight or Flight?

Do I have the strength to stay? Do I have the strength to love them as they deserve to be loved? Unashamed, unafraid, and wholly out loud. God, I fucking hope so.

I scramble to my feet, heart pounding, as I rush to my open door. I move into the hallway, running on bare feet towards the stairs. I hurry down, my hand ghosting along the cool metal of the banister.

I spin around the bottom stair, marching down the short entry hall until the walls give way to the great room. All three of my guys are right where they said they’d be, sitting on the couch in a row, waiting for me.

Tears of gratitude pour down my cheeks as I practically stumble into the room, sweeping around the back of the sectional. All eyes are on me as I drop myself on Caleb’s lap. I bury my face against his bare chest, my hands brushing through his hair to circle his nape as I sob.

“I’m sorry. Cay, please—I’m so sorry. I want to stay. Please let me stay. Love me, and fight with me, and let me stay.”

Slowly, his arms lift and come around me. His hands smooth up and down my back before one goes to my hair. Gently, he weaves his fingers in and pulls my head back until he can look me in the eye. “You’re staying?”

I nod.

“You’re fighting?”

I nod again.

“Words, Rachel,” he growls.

“Yes,” I say on a breath. “I want to stay and fight and love you. All of you. I can’t promise perfection. Frankly, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing—what I will do. But I know from the bottom of my heart that we are stronger together than I could ever dream of being apart.”

I glance from Jake to Ilmari, back to Caleb. “I know I’ve made mistakes. I’ve doubted and manipulated. I’ve sought to control everything. In my fear, I thought I had to. I’ve been so alone for so long. So used to surviving on my own—”

“Well, that stops now,” Caleb says. “You’re dealing with three hockey players, Rachel. We don’t work alone. Team first. Team always.”

I nod, trying to center my breath. “Team first,” I repeat.

“I know your family carries a lot of weight for you,” he goes on. “Price Family against the world and all that. But this will only work if you make this your family. The Price-Compton-Sanford-Kinnunen Family.”

“I swear to fuck, we are not hyphenating our names like that,” Jake mutters.

I bite my lip to keep from smiling. Closing my eyes, I take another breath and nod.

“You done threatening to leave us?” Caleb says, his gaze imperious as he keeps his heart locked deep inside his shell.

I nod. “Yes.”

“Good,” he mutters. “Because you scared him half to fucking death,” he says, pointing at Jake. “If you’ve got something to say to him, now might be a good time.”

The last vestiges of my walls come crumbling down at I look to my Jake and see the tears in his eyes. I practically throw myself at him, crawling off Caleb’s lap and onto Jake’s. “I’m sorry,” I cry. “Angel, I’m so sorry. I was so messed up.”

Jake has none of Caleb’s cool aloofness. He wraps himself around me, peppering me with kisses on my shoulder, my neck, my cheek. Each one feels like a gift, like a spark of his life soaks into my skin and lights me up from the inside, warming me and giving me strength.

“I love you, Jake,” I murmur, kissing him back. “Angel, I love you. I love you so much.”

“Never let me go,” he pants, his hands in my hair. “Rach, please. Never let me go. Marry me.” He pulls away, hands cupping my face. “Marry us.”

My eyes go wide. “What?”

“We can’t make it official,” he says, shaking his head. “I googled it. There are laws that say we can’t be official, but I want you to marry us anyway. No Elvis, no churches, no paperwork. Just your promise linked with mine.”

I glance from him to the others, eyes wide. “How would that—you don’t want that,” I whisper, looking to Ilmari. “You would want that?”

He scowls at me. “What do you think ‘mennään naimisiin’ means?”

I blink back at him. “I don’t know. I don’t speak Finnish!”

“It means ‘marry me,’” he huffs. “I say it all the goddamn time.”

“Well how am I supposed to—”

“Enough,” Caleb says. “Hurricane, do you want to be illegally married to Mars based on nothing more than a verbal agreement spoken here in this living room?”

I fight a laugh as I nod. Sitting on another man’s lap, feeling his hard cock against my thigh, I hear myself saying, “Hell, yes. I marry you, Ilmari.”

He nods, lips pursed like he can’t decide if he’s pleased or still annoyed.

“And Cay, baby?” Jake teases, brushing a hand through my messy hair. “You wanna be illegally married to Cay and live in dirty fucking sin with him? You want to be his good girl and ride his weird, ribbed cock for the rest of your life?”

I snort. It’s quite a set of vows. The kind you most definitely immortalize in song form so that your children and their children can never escape it. I’ll put daddy to work on it as a birthday present for Cay. “Yes,” I say, my gaze locked on Cay’s gorgeous, dark eyes. “I marry you, Caleb. You’re mine.”

He smirks, ever the cool customer.

“And me, baby?” says Jake, both hands cupping my face. “I loved you from the moment I saw you. You stole my breath away, and I’ve been living on borrowed time ever since. Be my life support. Keep my heart beating. Marry the fuck outta me.”

I grin, my own hands cupping his cheeks. “I love you so much, Jake. You walked into that bar, and I never stood a chance. I am so irrevocably yours. Be mine forever.”

“Forever,” he murmurs, his lips brushing mine. “Forever and forever and forever.”

We kiss, pouring our need into each other. I fight him for dominance until I’m squirming, breaking our kiss, his hands on my breasts, kneading me through the silk of my cami.

“Fuck,” I pant, slapping his hands down so I can jerk my cami off up over my head. I throw it behind me, not caring where it lands. “I need you all. Need to have you.”

Three pairs of eyes watch me, but it’s Caleb who speaks. “Say what you want, Hurricane.”

Pushing off Jake’s lap, I stand and take a step back, dropping my silky shorts to the floor, leaving me naked. “I want all three of you. All at once. I want to be dripping with your cum. Make a mess of me. Claim me so there’s no more doubt where I belong.”