Foreplayer

by Kate Meader

  “Fine. I ate with the boys but I could make you something.”

  “Not hungry.” She rubbed his face. “I’ve been making myself at home, taking over your bed.”

  He could tell her his bed was made for her, but that would be sappy. “You’re welcome here any time. For as long as you want. In my bed or out of it.”

  “Even when I’m making sexual demands of you?”

  “Especially then. But I like the other stuff, too. The quieter stuff.”

  Gordie Howe chose that moment to let out a bark.

  “He’s feeling neglected.”

  “He’s not the only one.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She gave a sleepy smile and moved a sleepy hand down to a place where sleepy didn’t apply.

  After that moment of self-discovery while talking to Vadim, Cal had debated pulling back from Mia, if only for self-preservation. But the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if he was folding his hand too soon. As far as he knew, she hadn’t made any progress with this guy she wanted and with the charity fundraiser a week off, there was still time to … what? Tell her he wanted more? Woo her properly? Win?

  Right now he was in pole position. He was the player on the ice, the man in Mia’s life and bed. The one she turned to for pleasure, advice, and comfort.

  He might have a shot here.

  And as she rubbed her hand against his cock, turning him to steel and flipping his organs inside out, he realized that the shift of his life started this very minute.

  Take it slow, man. Take it slow. Only slow wasn’t in his vocabulary. He needed to be inside her. He needed to stake his claim. He needed her badly enough to fumble with her panties and act like he’d never stripped a woman before.

  Just like his first time. In this moment, he was the inexperienced virgin, unsure of his next steps. She was the veteran. Her fingers unmanned him as she took him in her hands and stroked hard exactly the way he liked it.

  “Mia, Mia, Mia.”

  He needed to take charge or very soon, he would be a mess—literally and figuratively.

  “Naked. We need to—”

  “Yes.”

  It didn’t take long, yet it took for fucking ever, but then they were lying skin to skin, with nothing to hide. He cupped her breast, rubbed a thumb across one puckered nipple. Her hands roved his chest in return, fingertips mapping and marking her territory. Every inch was hers, including the inches growing larger with each passing second.

  “Don’t be gentle,” she murmured.

  Those words broke him. He could ask her what she wanted, check in at the mile markers, but the time for talking was over. His body could no longer wait for what his heart already knew was the truth.

  This woman was his, and he was hers.

  Pushing her thighs apart, he ran his fingers over her pussy, praying she was ready, grateful that she was. The look on her face told him she’d been ready for some time. Quickly he rolled the condom on, then sank into that heavenly clasp. So easy, so smooth.

  She gripped his ass, dug her nails in, determined not to be gentle herself, or remind him of her earlier demand. So he gave it to her hard, his hands holding her still for each thrust and pound. She was strong enough to take him, but then he’d always known that. The strongest, most fearless woman he knew, with a heart so big it scared him.

  Because how could he live up to her expectations for a perfect man? That was what she wanted. Someone to shelter and love her, to hold and protect her. He wanted to be that man.

  His cock expanded with every clench of her inner walls, pushing deep into her. With each long, thick stroke, any doubts he had about being good enough for her fell away. No one made him feel like this. Inside her, he was the champion she needed.

  Her face flushed with exertion, her lips parted in pleasure. He kissed her, devoured her, made her his. The thrusts turned urgent, his need more desperate.

  “Yes, yes,” she moaned. Her eyes had changed color, now a midnight blue that held him in a tractor beam of sensation.

  His balls filled, the base of his spine sizzled, and he used that single dumb brain cell he shared with his jock brethren to recall that her pleasure came first. Reaching between their bodies, he pressed fingertips to her clit and stroked.

  It was the last thing he remembered before the grid that used to be his brain shorted as he came, urged on by her tight, hot channel squeezing him into oblivion.

  He lied. He remembered one more thing. The answer to every question, a slogan engraved on his heart.

  “Mia.”

  Only Mia.

  Cal held Mia in his arms and thought about how close he’d come to telling Vadim about her today. So it didn’t change the facts or trajectory but he knew this much: he was crazy about this woman and he wanted more. More cuddling, more talking, more connection.

  Mostly, he wanted more honesty.

  “So you’re not gonna want to hear this, but Vadim was talking about you earlier. He’s worried.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve been staying out overnight. He thinks you have a man.”

  “Oh.”

  Cal might not be ready to verbalize exactly what he needed from Mia, but there were definitely some walls to scale in the truth-telling department. He would start here.

  “He just wants what’s best. He has a right to be suspicious.”

  “Of what?”

  Time they had this out. “Your reason for not going pro right out of college.”

  “I’ve told you. I’ve told everyone.”

  “Mia.”

  “Don’t do that,” she whispered. “It’s manipulative. Makes me think you care.”

  “I do. You know I do. How did it all go wrong, Mia?”

  “Damn, Foreman, I thought you came home for a nap.”

  He kissed her, letting her know he was here for her. She could tell him anything.

  “Tell. Me.” She didn’t owe him this, yet he felt a personal responsibility for her welfare. For making it all better. He’d heard some of it, now he needed the rest.

  “You can’t tell Vadim.”

  “I won’t. Goes in our vault.”

  She shut her eyes and spoke. “After those photos got out, I reported it to the school, and they got his parents involved. As you’d expect, there was the sob story from everyone about how this could ruin a young man’s future, a future he was building in hockey. It was an accident after all. And look over here”—she waved a hand—“someone leaked pictures of him, ones he’d sent me. I wasn’t behind that, but he made sure those pictures got out. Or she did.” Mia’s voice went up an octave and her now-open eyes burned with contempt. “And the school had no choice but to treat it as misadventure or a case of a bad breakup. They made it look like his leak was accidental but mine was a woman scorned. Except I hadn’t done that at all. None of it. I’d just trusted the wrong guy.”

  Anger dueled with compassion. What she needed right now was his care, so he struggled to give it priority. “Mia, it wasn’t your fault. And who’s the she in all this?”

  “His mom. She came to see me in my dorm, asked me to reconsider, say it was a mistake. It so easily could have been, I suppose. But I knew deep down it wasn’t. Only this woman—his mom—asked why make a fuss and blow up two fledgling careers, mine and her son’s? Because even if I had right on my side, I’d be tainted. People would remember me for that, not for hockey. It was just a few nude pics after all.”

  “She said that?”

  Her cheeks flushed. “No. I said that. After.” She swiped away a tear. “It’s how I get by.”

  His heart sank at how she had justified this to herself over the years. All with the goal of smoothing away the edges of what must be righteous anger.

  “What happened next?”

  “I withdrew the complaint. Said I made a mistake, that I recognized his sharing was an accident.”

  “But you didn’t believe that?”

  “No. It didn’t matter. He—they had more power th
an me. It seemed best to move on and pretend it hadn’t happened.”

  She sounded so forlorn. Far be it for him to play Monday night quarterback, but that can’t have been the best option. He was missing some important piece of the puzzle here. “Why did it seem best?”

  “His mom said this would be better for him. For me. He’d get to go onto the NHL, though really he wasn’t good enough. Still in the AHL.”

  Good. But if Cal had his way this guy would be booted quicker than he could say “major misconduct.”

  “Mia, what they did was wrong. You know that, but let’s say that it was the best play at the time.” Hell, he understood making certain choices for self-preservation. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re not in the pros. You kept quiet and went along, so why aren’t you playing in the league?”

  Her misery was killing him. He hated having to pull this from her like a tooth extraction without anesthetic. “I thought I could move on. I went for tryouts, knew I was good enough to get on my first-choice team, Buffalo. I didn’t make the cut. When I tried for Columbus, the coach asked me if I was a troublemaker. Said she’d heard some rumors going around that I wasn’t a team player. I said I had no idea what she meant. I still didn’t make the team.”

  “Jesus, Mia.”

  “In every tryout, I played better than 90% of the others but someone was spreading rumors about how I was the kind to make waves. Or I was trading on my brother’s reputation. I’d walk into a locker room and people would go quiet. Some guys sent me dick pics, but maybe they were girls. There was a whisper campaign against me. I didn’t hear anything specific, but I felt it. Then I started thinking I was paranoid.”

  “You knew what was happening. Your gut knew.”

  She nodded. “For my next tryout, I played like crap. I was in my head, unable to connect with anything. Got the yips, missed every pass, a self-fulfilling prophecy. I lost my confidence. Lost everything. The message was clear: I didn’t deserve to be there. I was persona non grata in women’s hockey. I stepped away to regroup. To recover. To forget.”

  This made no sense. Why would anyone go to the trouble, especially if they wanted to keep this kid’s bad behavior under wraps? Something gnawed at him, some innate knowledge. The pieces of the puzzle swirled and from the fog, the missing fragment gradually came into focus. They had more power than me. “Who was the boyfriend, Mia?”

  She averted her gaze, but he cupped her chin and made her face him. “Who?”

  “He was—is—Drew Fabien.”

  He shot up. “Selena Fabien’s son? She threatened you?”

  “Not in so many words. She said if I withdrew the complaint, acknowledge it was likely an unfortunate technical snafu, that we could all move on. And by move on, I thought I was getting my life back. But once I got to tryouts, Selena had laid the PR groundwork. I was poison, already painted as a troublemaker.”

  Anger rose swift and sharp. That saber-toothed witch.

  “Why not tell Vadim?” He was rich, powerful, and married into an influential pro franchise.

  She shook her head. “He would go crazy. Sue everyone who ever wronged me. You know what he’s like. He’s always seen me as fragile, in need of protection since my cancer diagnosis. And he would have been so disappointed in me.”

  “Baby, he thinks you lost your way—he doesn’t know you were driven off the road.” There was unfair, and there was wrongful fucking conviction. No one deserved to be messed around like this.

  “I don’t want what happened to get out. It’s embarrassing and shows me for being a total dummy, but mostly I don’t want some war between Vadim, the Rebels organization, and the NWHL. They’re in the middle of the negotiation for the franchise. If it got out, Vadim would pull the investment. Or Selena will award it to another city. If this gets out, it’s going to fuck up everything.” She sounded so resigned.

  “Mia, you already earned your spot and it was taken away from you.” Wasn’t she angry? So she’d had time to adjust, but maybe that’s what she needed: refreshed, righteous fury with a new champion in her corner.

  “I’ll get my spot on Team USA and then people will ask why isn’t she in the pros and it’ll snowball from there. It’ll reach a tipping point because I’ll be too good to ignore. I get back that way. Don’t you see? This is the perfect plan for an imperfect set of circumstances.”

  “Meanwhile, the villains get away with it.”

  “That’s a very Russian way of looking at things.”

  “It’s not wrong.”

  She made a low growl in her throat. “I just need you to listen. I don’t need you slaying my dragons like my brother. I have a plan, Foreman. Play on the Olympic team, show everyone I’m worthy. I don’t want to use my family to get ahead. I want to earn my way back in.”

  “You shouldn’t have to! You already deserved it and they took it away from you. Why the hell are you playing their game, Mia? You saw what happened with Harper last year. She hid that story about a player hitting her and when it finally came out, she was able to use it to call attention to a poison in the league. What you’ve done is let a couple of assholes control your life.”

  She jerked away, her cheeks red with emotion. “Let them? You think I’m that much of a doormat that I’m going to just lie down and accept what they’ve done?”

  “No, that’s not—”

  “Because I’ve been living this for over two years, Cal. You don’t think I’ve questioned every single decision and weighed whether I should have gone a different route? Taken the puck and shot to the wing versus driving it all the way? These are the choices I made. This is the plan I crafted. I’m not asking for your approval.”

  She pushed back the covers and jumped out of bed.

  “I know you’re not. Can’t I be angry on your behalf?”

  She stabbed her long legs into jeans. “Sure you can. But I don’t need your criticism right now. I have a plan that is actually working. I’m on Team USA and I didn’t need to ruin anyone’s life or career to get there.”

  “Just your own.”

  She stopped, hands on hips. “You’re such a dick.” She stormed out of the bedroom.

  Following her, he watched as she put on her parka and started on her boots.

  “Could we talk about this like adults?”

  “I thought that’s what we were doing before you got all judgy about it. And if you tell Vadim, I will never forgive you.”

  He was this close to blowing a fuse. He couldn’t recall ever being so angry about anything. Not his parents. Not Bethany. Not even losing a game. Each of his next words were dragged from his throat by a pack of imaginary wild dogs.

  “I won’t tell him. That’s your story. I don’t agree with you keeping it quiet, but hey, it’s all part of the big plan, so don’t let me get in the way of your schemes.”

  “My schemes?” Her mouth dropped open, as if that word—schemes—was so offensive. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You’re the woman with all the plans, right? Get back into hockey by this backdoor route. Score with this guy who doesn’t even know you exist. Don’t rock the boat with your brother. The thing about these plans, Mia, is that none of them are good for your mental health. None of them will actually make you feel better.”

  “Says the guy who takes the path of least resistance so he doesn’t offend any of his ex-girlfriends.”

  Harsh, but not inaccurate. Before he could agree or disagree, she’d already grabbed her damn dog and left. And she was still wearing his Red Sox tee!

  24

  Mia twirled in front of the mirror in her suite at the Peninsula on Michigan Avenue. “What do you think?”

  “You, Cinders, shall go to the ball.” Tara blessed her with an imaginary wand. “I can’t believe you got Sadie Yates to make you a dress.”

  Mia smiled. “Helps to have connections. She has a waiting list a mile long but when she heard it was a matter of lust or death, she was all over it. True romantic.” She smoothed down t
he coral satin flared skirt, with its clever darts over her hips to give her an hourglass shape. Hitting just above the knee and paired with kitten heels—another Harper rec—she felt like herself but a little bit fine.

  At least, on the outside.

  Callum. Patrick. Foreman. How dare he criticize her grand plan? The things she could say to him about how he’d handled adversity … well. He could talk, meaning he couldn’t. Or shouldn’t. That was the point she was trying to make to her foggy brain.

  Cal thought she’d messed up. Easy for him to say, but she was this close to getting what she wanted, and no one else had to suffer. Vadim wouldn’t be upset, Isobel and Harper would win the new franchise, and Mia would be back in the pros without Selena Fabien as her sworn enemy.

  Tonight she was going to take all her newfound experience as a sex siren and use it on Tommy Gordon. Why wasn’t she happier about it?

  She plonked on the bed.

  “Why the frown?” Somehow Tara managed to spot Mia’s expression while applying liquid eyeliner expertly. Mia wasn’t going to go that route because she’d look like a sexy panda. “You’re worried he’s brought a date?”

  “Cal?”

  Tara frowned, then stopped because she was very conscious about how her expressions affected her skin tone. “No, Tommy. You know that any date he brings won’t be serious. Not a guy like that who plays the field.”

  Mia worried her lip. “Plays the field? Why the hell would he go for me if he could continue playing the field?” But neither did she want to witness him being serious with anyone. She wanted him to be unserious about every other woman up until this point and then be bowled over by Mia so he saw only her. Saw her properly. Was that too much to ask?

  Only now she wasn’t sure about this plan. This falling out with Cal was a snarl to her thinking. Everything had become far too complicated.

  “Look, you need to give him a chance to see you as a woman,” Tara said, still on the topic of the original mission. Thank God one of them was. “Then you practice some of your flirting moves, talk about his work, flatter him to the heavens, and captivate his interest. Piece of cake?”