HOT ICE: Complete Sporting Romance Series

by Lily Harlem

  “Yes, sure, of course,” I said.

  “Brooke,” Giselle said, rounding the corner. She nodded briefly to the two giant players walking past her, then her brow furrowed. “Brooke, you look like you’ve seen a ghost, what’s the matter?”

  “I missed Logan,” I said, hearing the whine in my voice.

  “Don’t panic, he’ll be around.”

  “But I tried to talk to Fergal, you know about not wanting payment for my week with him.” I rubbed my fingertips over my lips—the words were hard to say. “But he wouldn’t listen to me, he was too preoccupied with other stuff.”

  Giselle rested her hand on my shoulder. “Hey, stop panicking. I’ll talk to him.” She glanced at Fergal who was slotting his phone away. “I’ll soon have his undivided attention and I’ll smooth it all over, don’t worry, I know how important this is to you.” Her lips stretched into a wide smile as Fergal joined us.

  “Ready?” he asked, slipping a hand around her slim waist.

  “Sure,” she said. “Oh, hang on.” She delved into her handbag. “Here you go.” She handed me her car keys. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Sure.” I nodded.

  They turned and walked away. Giselle giggled at something Fergal whispered into her ear. Then they rounded the corner and the sound of her clicking heels receded into the distance, eventually fading completely.

  I began to feel cold again. I yanked up my zipper and reknotted my scarf, plucking my gloves from my pocket and shoving my hands in. There really was no point hanging around the locker room.

  I wandered up to the players’ lounge, but by the time I got there, there were just a couple of coaches sipping beer and a barman wiping the shiny oak tables.

  How could I not find him?

  Hadn’t he looked for me?

  I found myself heading back through the lobby past a group of cleaners sweeping up great waves of litter. I didn’t even have his cell number or address so I couldn’t contact him. I felt like a groupie or a rink bunny who’d hung around to see the famous Phoenix but missed the chance.

  I walked into the hot evening and the air blasted me with its sticky heat. I stripped off my top layers, beeped Giselle’s car to life in the parking lot and got in, heart heavy, stomach nauseous. Tears of disappointment pricked my eyes. I’d been so looking forward to seeing him. To spending the night with him. To feeling complete again.

  The car purred awake and I swung out of the lot onto the highway. There was only one thing I could do. Go home. I obviously didn’t mean as much to him as he meant to me. Holiday romance. I’d always known that was the file in my heart we were destined for. I had only myself to blame. I should never have let him convince me we could be more.

  Chapter Eleven

  I poured a glass of white wine, pulled on my favorite baggy Tom and Jerry t-shirt over my underwear and settled on the sofa. I tried not to look at the enormous bunch of red roses on the dining table, but their thick, powdery aroma hung heavily around me and made them impossible to ignore.

  I flicked on the highlights of the hockey game on Sport Tonight. Immediately Logan’s face filled the screen as the presenter gushed over his performance. It was an old picture, taken before he’d cut his brow, and his hair was shorter. But his eyes were the same, the same penetrating glacial blue that I’d witnessed fill with determination and desire, lust and love. The same eyes I’d fallen into, like diving into the clearest ocean, as I’d made love to him.

  I took a deep slug of wine and refused to succumb to a good old cry. Instead I watched as the TV show ran through his goal in slow motion. I studied him moving with power and grace, speed and agility. I looked at the way he held his stick as if it were an extension of his body, always exactly where it should be. I re-heard the commentator’s remark about Phoenix’s mojo and his week away and how Mr. Gunner would be glad, “If you know what I mean folks.”

  I jumped as the doorbell chimed through the apartment. Unfolding from the sofa, I placed my wine on the coffee table and stepped up to the door to peer through the peephole, and there, standing in the corridor, was Logan “Phoenix” Taylor himself.

  My heart flipped at the sight of him looming behind the door with his arms crossed and his jaw set.

  I fumbled at the lock as adrenaline shot into my system. I looked down at my scruffy t-shirt. Who cared, I wouldn’t have it on long anyway.

  I pulled open the door, but before I even had time to say hello he slammed his mouth onto mine. The door banged shut. He must have kicked it. I heard him growl, a feral, carnal sound. I had no idea what he’d said within that growl, it was as if impatience had made him incapable of coherent speech.

  I locked my arms around his neck and hung on as he stepped me backward into the apartment. I stumbled and the next thing I knew he’d run his hands to my butt cheeks and lifted me into the air.

  Wrapping my legs around his waist, I was consumed with want, need and lust. He was here. He felt the same way I did. I could feel it in his hot, searing, kisses, hear it in his ragged, desperate breaths.

  “Logan, I looked for you, I couldn’t—” His tongue plundered into my mouth again, sweeping and circling, devouring me, filling me with his hot, male flavor. He paced forward and I felt his erection shove against the thin silk gusset of my panties. I was greedy for him. I wanted him inside me. I raked my hands through his hair and groaned at the intensity of my urges. They were so primitive, so elemental and natural. Nothing could stop us reaching conclusion.

  The back of my legs hit a cool, shiny surface. The dining table. Logan moved his hands to my hips and shoved me back so I was sitting with my legs dangling over the edge. He grabbed fistfuls of my t-shirt and dragged it over my head. As I worked at to the belt of his jeans he looked me straight in the eye, the muscle in his cheek danced and his nostrils flared.

  I felt tugging, heard ripping and looked down. My panties had been shredded from my body and hung against my right thigh. He clamped his hands to the balls of my shoulders and forced me flat.

  As the chill of the polished table spread over my hot back he ducked his head, un-clipped the front fastening of my bra and latched his mouth onto my right nipple. I moaned and arched farther into him, seeking more stimulation, more sensation. He increased the pressure and nipped me to the point of pain with small bites while bunching and feeding my flesh into his mouth with his hand.

  He’d never taken me so roughly, so urgently, so desperately. I hardly recognized the animalistic way he was ravaging me as being the attentions of the same man I’d fallen so desperately in love with. My body was buzzing with excitement and with the need to feel him inside me. “Logan, please,” I whimpered, wrapping my legs around his hips and thrusting my pelvis into his.

  He straightened and stood between my legs, pulled at the buttons on his Levis. I lay there naked, ridiculously, dizzily aroused, looking up at him. I wanted flesh on flesh but that would have to wait until later. This was all about immediate satisfaction, taking what we needed on the most primitive level. It didn’t matter how we did it so long as we did.

  He pulled his cock from his fly and rolled on a condom. His breaths puffed up his wide chest and beads of sweat shone on his top lip. He hooked his elbows under my knees and spread me wide open, stretching the joints of my hips to the extreme. I eyed his formidable erection and forced my trembling pussy to relax.

  He spread me with the tip of his cock, finding my entrance and dipping in just a fraction. Then he shut his eyes, tipped his head to the ceiling and forged forward. My body was forced to stretch for him and I cried out as he buried to the hilt. A stitch of pain mixed with pleasure as his balls slammed up against my butt cheeks and his hipbones pressed on my inner thighs. I was so full, so possessed by him, he was so damn deep.

  “Logan, oh, Logan,” I cried as I clamped my hands around his wrists. I was pinned to the table. Out of control, under his control.

  He pulled back, slipped from me almost completely then pounded back in with a grunt. I t
hrashed my head from side to side, mindless with sensation as he rocked up against my clit. Moisture wept from me, lubricating his way. He set up a fast, furious pace, thrusting like a jackhammer and putting all his considerable strength and energy into fucking me.

  My hands squeezed his wrists like manacles as the first waves of orgasm grew. “Yes, oh God, yes,” I shouted. “Don’t stop.”

  He upped the pace. The solid teak table creaked in protest. My heart beat so wildly I didn’t know if it could cope. Heat pooled deliciously in my pelvis and my inner muscles clenched, my climax was imminent. I tilted my hips and his full weight rocked against my clit, and then, like a bolt of lightning, completion claimed me.

  A deep moan erupted from my core. My sense of reality shattered as my body convulsed in bliss. I ground against him, seeking deeper penetration and gripping at his cock as my clit flew me through spirals of pleasure.

  “Logan, ah, Logan,” I cried. “That’s it, right there.”

  He slipped his cock from me, wrapped his hands around my waist and flipped me over on the table. Twisting midair, my flailing hands hit the vase of my huge bunch of roses. They toppled to the floor with the smash of glass and a wilting crunch. I barely noticed.

  My breasts and stomach flattened against the cool wood and I felt him shove between my thighs. I craned my neck to look at his face. His eyes were dark and possessed as he positioned himself at my swollen, sopping entrance. I knew he was only moments away from coming, his steely erection hammering into me seconds ago had told me that. But I couldn’t keep my neck twisted that way to watch him climax and my cheek fell against my hands as he penetrated me again.

  The smooth flare of his cock sped over my G-spot and I gasped at the intensity of the ultra-deep caress. He rode higher and higher. Every muscle in my body went taut and my spine arched. He was filling me to capacity and still he wanted to gain more entry, demanded more of me. I’d always been against rough handling but I couldn’t deny that Logan’s treatment of me tonight was flying me high.

  He dug his fingers into my waist and held me firm. He took what he wanted. I was sure he was jabbing into my diaphragm with his cock.

  “Fuck, ah yes, that’s it,” he said as his hips pounded against my butt and his wiry pubic hair tickled my ass. My body was slick with sweat, dripping with renewed desire. He thrust purposefully in and out, over and over, his breaths hard hisses and his cock a rod of pent-up pressure. A dark bloom began to build and I knew another deeply satisfying G-spot orgasm was about to arrest my body, if only he could last a few more strokes.

  I bucked against him, instinctively seeking more, even though I had no more to give. “Oh, God, ah, ah…” I panted as stars exploded in my vision. Wave after wave of ecstasy washed over me. I felt him coming too. Pulsing high up inside me. He grunted, a deep Neanderthal sound, and kept on ramming in as I spasmed around his cock.

  He threaded his free arm beneath my stomach. My toes lifted off the floor as he dragged me upward onto his thick, corded forearm. Holding me tight and spread before him he ground through his long, hard release. It was as if he wouldn’t be happy until he had gone deeper, higher inside me than ever before.

  Eventually his muscles relaxed and my toes touched the tiles again. I managed to brush a strand of hair from my mouth as I landed back in the real world.

  His cock slipped from me. My pussy empty and swollen as I drew my legs together.

  “Logan,” I said, pushing up from the table on shaky arms and stepping up to him. “That was…” Words escaped me as I cupped his scratchy jaw in my palms. I stretched up to the balls of my feet and pressed my lips to his. Poked out the tip of my tongue and traced the seam of his beautiful mouth. I’d missed kissing him while he’d taken me from behind and I intended to make up for it, more than make up for it. I wanted to kiss him all night long.

  I prodded and probed deeper, searching for a mating with his tongue. But his lips were rigid and when I found his tongue it lay flat and thick on the base of his mouth.

  I pulled back. “What?” I asked, slipping my hands to the side of his neck and dropping down to the soles of my feet. “What’s the matter, didn’t that work for you?” I smiled, I knew full well it had.

  A shard of lightning shot across his eyes and his lips tightened into a dead straight line. He sucked in a breath and his nose wrinkled. When he spoke I barely recognized his low, mean voice. “I didn’t think whores kissed on the lips.”

  The world stood still.

  Everything stopped moving. From the cosmic orbits in the outer solar system to the rhythmic beating of my heart.

  “W-what?” I stammered.

  “I didn’t think whores kissed on the lips,” he said again through gritted teeth. He tipped his chin and moved from my touch.

  His words screamed like a knife in my ears and I shook my head to rid it of the painful ringing. I hadn’t heard right. I couldn’t have heard right. I dropped my hands to his chest. Heat from his body radiated through his thin t-shirt. I tried to swallow but my tongue had stuck to the roof of my mouth. I felt as though cotton wool had been shoved down my throat and a cobra had wrapped around my ribs.

  He reached up and curled his fingers around my hands, peeled them from his chest and took a step back. His features turned blank and his eyes glazed over.

  “I’m not a whore,” I whispered as my arms fell limply to my sides.

  He snapped off the condom, tucked his cock away and twisted his jean buttons closed. “I heard everything,” he said, stepping into the kitchen area. “Light might not travel around corners, but sound damn well does.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My chest was crushing my heart, my lungs were about to burst. My head pounded as if a balloon had inflated right in the very center of my brain.

  “I heard you and Fergal talking.” He kicked open the kitchen bin and dropped the full condom inside. He walked to the sink and washed his hands. “When you were sorting out the payment details of your ‘successful’ trip to the island.” His face twisted. “I heard the whole fucking conversation, Brooke.”

  “But—”

  “At least I know where I stand.” His eyes narrowed as he scanned me from my bare toes to my tousled hair. “Fergal paid you to spend the week with me. And a fucking good wage it was too. Struggling nurse, my ass. You got it all figured out don’t you? Make a few bucks with your body and then laugh all the way to the bank.”

  I wasn’t laughing. I was dying inside. This wasn’t my destiny, our destiny. Once two souls became entwined that was it. How could this be happening? How could it be going so wrong?

  I crossed my arms over my naked breasts. He dried his hands and walked toward me.

  “You don’t understand,” I pleaded, my vision blurring as I looked at him.

  “Oh, I understand perfectly. Everything became crystal clear when I came out of the changing room to find you.” His lips twisted into an ugly snarl. “You let me fuck you, under Fergal’s instructions, you let me fuck you to get me back in the swing of my game, it was all just a business deal. Last week I was simply your job.”

  “But you know that’s not what happened, Logan, you were there too.” I stepped forward but he retreated as if I had some deadly airborne disease. “Please, it was real, it was so much more than sex. You know it was.”

  “Bullshit,” he spat. “That’s all it was for you.” He turned and strode toward the door. “All your crap about auras and fate, yin and yang, I don’t believe a word of it. You’re a hooker, a liar, and I wish I’d never met you. I’d have done better with a fucking rink bunny, at least I’d know what I was damn well getting.”

  “Logan, wait, you don’t mean that. Please, say you don’t mean those words.”

  With his fingers wrapped around the door handle he turned to me, his face stern and stiff. Where was the gentle, caring guy I’d fallen in love with? This was an imposter and I wanted my man back.

  “I mean every word,” he said. “I’m sick of being
treated like a dumb jock, it’s happened once too fucking often.”

  “Logan.” This had gone too far. Desperate measures were required. “Logan, I don’t think you’re a dumb jock and…I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  An awkward silence filled the air.

  “You really expect me to believe that?” He huffed.

  “It’s not something I say lightly.”

  His eyes settled on my breasts, squashed behind my hands, then dropped lower to the damp juncture of my thighs. “And I fell in lust with you,” he said in a quiet but hard voice.

  “No, there was more, I know there was. The way you touched me, kissed me and held me while you slept. You felt it, too, you even said you did.”

  “Get fucking real, Brooke. You were fucking me because you were getting paid to. I was fucking you because you were there, available and really damn hot for it.”

  “No.” I stepped toward him but my knees were watery and weak and it turned into a stagger. “No, that’s all wrong, you’re making a mistake.”

  He held up a flattened palm. “There’s no mistake. I know what I heard.”

  “But, Logan,” I said on a sob. Tears brimmed on my lower lids. “But what about what we just did? Surely it meant something to you.” Standing naked before a giant of a man who was looking at me with ice-cold eyes was becoming more excruciating by the millisecond. I knew I couldn’t dig into much more of my pride, it was just about on empty. “It meant something to me. It meant a lot to me,” I pleaded. “And I know it did to you, too.”

  He pulled open the door and put one foot over the threshold. “It meant fuck all to me, Brooke.”

  “So, why?” My knees threatened to fold, my spine had turned to dust. Breathing was getting harder as my airway constricted and I fought not to vomit. “Why come here at all if you feel nothing, if I mean nothing?” I asked on a painful wheeze, clutching a clenched fist to my sternum.

  The muscle in his jaw flexed and his eyes narrowed. “Because.” He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Because I just wanted to make sure Fergal got his money’s worth.”