by Lily Harlem
We all touched glasses then downed our drinks.
My throat went on fire. I gasped and wheezed, pulled in air to put out the flames.
“Ha.” Vadmir rested his hand on my forearm. “I can see you need more practice, Miss Gunner. Another, bartender. Fill us up.”
“No, no,” I managed. “Really, I’m fine.”
“One more,” Vadmir said.
The bar guy was already pouring.
Mike reached for his and Vadmir pressed a small full glass into my hand.
“How you say, er…” Vadmir said, “Down the hatchet.” He laughed, threw his drink into his mouth and then looked at me expectantly.
I laughed feebly, braced for the flames and then drank. Again the sharp slap of alcohol hit me. Not just my throat but also my knees. My vision blurred a little and I giggled.
“See you like. I am good teacher, yes?” Vadmir said.
I held the bar to steady myself. The shots were like having an injection of noodles into my legs.
“You all right?” Mike asked.
“Yes, fine, but really no more. In fact, it’s getting late. I should go to my room.”
Vadmir looked monumentally hurt. “We are just beginning. The night is young.”
“Oh no,” I said, “You might be just getting started but I’m going to turn in.” I gestured to the door. “It’s been a long day and the night is late enough for me.”
“Would you like me to see you up?” Mike asked.
“No, no, I’ll be fine, really.”
Dustin’s words blustered into my mind about Mike having a crush on me. I didn’t think it was true, not for one minute. But it would be best not to encourage him, especially as there wasn’t any chemistry between us, in my opinion at least. His slightly nervous disposition didn’t do it for me, nor did his keenness to do as I asked, please me with every word and action. There was a certain element missing in his masculinity. I wasn’t sure what, and he would be perfect for someone, but not me.
Vadmir made a show of kissing both of my cheeks and then ambled off, holding another shot and a beer. He found a seat with Raven, Phoenix and Dustin.
“Are you sure?” Mike asked.
“Perfectly. I’ll catch you tomorrow before we head to the airport.”
“Okay.” He looked like he might try to kiss my cheeks the way Vadmir had, but he hesitated and I took the opportunity to step away.
I walked through the bar, nodded to Ramrod who was deep in discussion with Brick, and headed into the lobby. A security man on the door bade me goodnight and I went toward the elevator. It took only a few seconds to arrive, and when it did I stepped in and leaned back against the wall, watched the numbers rise to twenty and wished my legs weren’t so Jell-O-like.
Vodka did strange things to my knees.
My floor came and I wandered along the carpeted hallway, searching in my purse for my keycard. I knew it was in there somewhere.
I sighed when I reached my room, trapped my purse between the wall and my stomach and resigned myself to having to hunt through all of the zippered compartments. Where had I put the damn thing?
“You got a problem?”
I turned, startled by a deep voice behind me.
“You got a problem?” Dustin asked again, nodding at my purse that was now spilling its contents onto the floor.
“Er, no, just can’t find my key.” What the hell was he doing here? Following me?
He reached and straightened my bag, scooped my wallet off the floor along with a lipstick and dropped them in the open zipper with a clatter. “Have you checked your back pocket?”
“No, I’m sure I put it in here.” Why the hell was a flush spreading over my chest and up my neck? I resumed my rummage, trying not to look at him standing there all dark and brooding and gorgeous in front of me.
Whatever the hell it was that Mike was lacking, Dustin had it in bucket loads. He practically oozed masculinity and that was a dangerous thing for a sex-starved woman like me. Especially when he was so damn full of himself and such an egotistical pig.
“Only when your sweet cheeks were turned my way down at the bar, I could have sworn I saw the outline of a keycard in your pocket, like the ones they use in this hotel.” He shrugged. “You know, through the material.”
Flustered, I tapped my butt. Sure enough, I felt the credit-card-sized bit of plastic through my tight black pants and suddenly remembered shoving it in there on my way into the bar.
“Oh, yes, thanks,” I said, retrieving it.
He stepped a little closer.
I backed up to prevent my nose from hitting his chest. My shoulders lodged against the wall.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked, dismayed that my voice had come out so timid like, because he wasn’t intimidating.
Not one bit.
He stared into my eyes and swallowed tightly.
I waited for the rant to begin about my huge, colossal mistake at suggesting starting Jackson Price in a game against the Rangers.
“Help me with something?” he repeated quietly. “Yeah, I guess you can.”
“What?” My purse and the key slipped to the floor, but I didn’t bother to reach for them. I was becoming lost in him. In his dark eyes, in that delicious cologne he wore, and the shape of his bottom lip, its slight imperfection. I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d be like to kiss.
No, damn it. I pushed away. Determined to stop all these foolish thoughts about a man who presumed it was okay to call his boss “sweet cheeks.” He was just annoying, annoying and, I had to admit, damn sexy.
“Where you going?” he asked, pressing into me with his body and flattening his palms on either side of me on the wall.
“To my room.” I, too, pushed my hands against the flocked wallpaper, it was that or rest them on his chest and I didn’t want to do that. “It’s late.”
“Now there’s a word,” he said. “Late, because it’s too damn late for us to win tonight, isn’t it? That chance has been and gone.”
“I guess that’s the name of the game.”
“Oh no, you don’t get to use that excuse. You know damn well why we lost.”
I tightened my lips.
“You just won’t admit it, not to me anyway,” he said.
“What do you want me to say?” I tilted my chin.
“That you were wrong. That you should never have put the stupid idea of Jackson Price starting into Mike’s lovesick head.”
“Well I did, and it’s done now. Mike and I will both take responsibility for it. Ramrod, too, he was involved in the discussion, and we’ve all learned from it.” I frowned. “And Mike is not lovesick.”
He dipped his head lower and his breath washed over me. “I’ve been watching you all evening in the bar. You have them all wrapped around your cute little finger, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah you do. One woman, a room full of men. You just played them all tonight, working your way around the room, flirting, smiling, drinking, looking good enough to eat.”
Good enough to eat?
“I was not flirting,” I said indignantly. “And besides, I wasn’t the only woman in there, but I was the only one working. Debriefing.”
“That’s what you call it, eh?” He raised his eyebrows. “Vadmir would happily take you to his lair. I just watched him trying to get you drunk. Have you any idea what he’d do to a little girl like you? He’d have you for supper, chew you up and spit you out.”
“Two shots does not make me drunk, and besides, I wouldn’t exactly be interested in Vadmir or in any chewing up and…and spitting out.”
“Two shots and two glasses of wine.”
“Oh, you were watching me, weren’t you?”
“I don’t deny that. And why wouldn’t you be interested in Vadmir?”
“He’s not my type.”
His mouth twitched, as if he were holding in a smile. “What is your type?”
&nbs
p; I was beginning to wish I wasn’t having this conversation hemmed in by a man who was physically just my type. It was making thinking awkward and my brain had been a little fudged anyway from drink.
“Not a hockey player,” I said. “I don’t want to be like those girls who throw themselves at you, leave lipstick on your cheek and wear hotpants that show the crease of their asses.”
“Damn shame that. They’d suit you, those hotpants. Perhaps I’ll buy you a pair for when you give your next little pregame pep talk. That’d get pulses racing. Get the guys ready for action, you know what I mean?”
Okay, now he’d gone too far. He was completely forgetting who he was talking to. I pushed at his chest and gave a good shove to get him out of my way.
He didn’t budge.
“Move,” I said.
“No.”
I glared up at him, pushed again but he didn’t shift. Damn, I wished he would, my body was starting to respond to his nearness. My breasts were aching, there was a definite hum between my legs—why the hell were my hormones being so traitorous?
I shoved again with no luck.
“I said no,” he repeated. “Not until you admit something.”
I sighed and stilled. I couldn’t move someone as solid as a slab of concrete. “Admit what?”
He lowered his head so that his mouth was by my ear and his chin touched my jawline when he spoke. “Admit that you want me…sweet cheeks.”
I bunched his shirt in my hands. His breath had sent a wave of sensation down my neck and over my scalp.
Want him. No. His body. Oh yes. I could have some fun with that.
“Why the hell would you think I want you?” I whispered, studying the way his short hair was neatly clipped around his ear.
“Maybe because right now you’re physically hanging on to me. Maybe because you didn’t go off with Vadmir or Mike tonight, you came to bed alone, hoping I’d follow.”
“No, I didn’t, that’s ridiculous, I…”
“What?” He looked into my eyes, his nose just an inch from mine. “You what, Miss Gunner?”
“I didn’t hope you’d follow. You annoy the hell out of me.” I frowned, but as I did so my lips puckered, and I moved my head a little nearer to his. The urge to feel his mouth on mine was becoming overwhelming.
“And you annoy the fuck out of me,” he said, also drawing a fraction nearer. “Not least because you lost us the game tonight.”
“I didn’t,” I whispered.
He kind of growled and a tug in my belly told me that noise turned me the hell on, even though I knew it shouldn’t.
“And,” he murmured, “you annoy me because you won’t admit you need me.”
I was a little breathless. He was stealing my breath and my rational thoughts. His rich, low voice was almost hypnotic. “I don’t need you.”
“Yeah, you do.”
His mouth hit down on mine and he yanked me close. It was a kiss that was ravenous and furious and made my head spin. I was trapped in his arms, feeding him kiss for kiss. Our tongues at war and our teeth touching as he slanted his head to drive deeper.
I wanted to climb up him, get in him, have him in me. Fuck, the guy could kiss as well as he could stop a puck. It was intoxicating and a sudden desperation to get naked stormed through me.
“Dustin,” I managed against his mouth.
He was panting, so was I.
“What?”
“We should—” I said, glancing at my room door.
“No.” He released me as suddenly as he’d grabbed me and I faltered for a second to regain my balance. “No, we should do nothing.” He flicked his hand between us. The teasing humor had left his eyes, now they were cloudy, defensive. “Fucking nothing. Nothing at all.”
Oh God, he regretted the hottest kiss I’d ever had.
Well, that was okay, because I regretted it, too. Even though I could taste him, feel him. Even though my blood was boiling for him. I regretted it.
Didn’t I?
He crowded me again, backing me into the wall. His lips were shiny and his chest was rising and falling rapidly.
I didn’t speak, just stared up at his rugged, flushed face and wondered what the heck was going on.
“One day soon,” he said, his mouth almost touching mine and his body pressing into my chest. “You’ll admit that not only do you want me but also that you need me.”
I parted my lips, wanting his tongue, needing his heat and taste. Oh God, my head was spinning with it all—lust, confusion, desire, hell to the consequences.
“And I’m not talking about your bed,” he said gruffly, “I mean on the goddamn ice.”
Suddenly he pushed away, turned and strode down the corridor.
I watched him go with a sense of acute disappointment mixing with fury.
How dare he? Just because I’d had a moment of madness thinking I might do dirty deeds with his athletically honed body, it didn’t mean I was prepared to sign on the dotted line for another multimillion-dollar contract.
Manipulative bastard.
Chapter Four
The trip back to Orlando was uneventful. I sat as far from Dustin as physically possible on the plane and made a point of escaping the rush of the airport without saying goodbye to anyone. I wanted to be alone.
Alone and in Dad’s air-conditioned, peaceful house away from the damn Vipers. Because, damn it, who would have thought one of the wily snakes could have almost charmed his way into my bed during my first few weeks in control.
God knows what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped it. Or was it the other way ’round? Had he stopped it? My memory was a little fuddled. Shots didn’t suit me and neither did wine on an empty stomach. If I hadn’t been halfway to being drunk there was no way I would have kissed such a bad-mannered man. No, that was wrong, let him kiss me, because I really hadn’t had a choice, he’d backed me into a wall and devoured me. That’s what I remembered anyway.
The trouble was whenever I thought about his lips on mine and his big body pressing into me, a quiver started in my belly. It traveled up to my chest, causing my nipples to tingle, and it also shot heat down to the juncture of my thighs, making me press my legs together and clench my internal muscles.
It wasn’t that I liked him—Dustin—it was just that I liked the thought of what he could do to me. Jesus, if just the memory of a kiss had me buzzing, imagine if we were together for real, doing the deed, fucking. It would be off the scale.
But that was never going to happen. So with a handle on what was going on with the team finances, I decided to head to the island and see my father. I’d nearly lost him a month ago, and that fear, that heart-twisting dread on the flight back from Paris thinking that I might be organizing his funeral was still weighing heavily on me. So if there was a chance to go and spend some time with him, even if she was there, then that was what I should do. Plus, it would give me the chance to catch up with him about some of the money-saving ideas I had for the Vipers.
I organized for Clifford, Dad’s driver, to pick me up and take me to the small private airfield we used. It wasn’t far and I made a few phone calls on the way. Let Mike know I was out of town and also called my mother, checked in that she was recovering okay from her latest round of plastic surgery. It seemed being single again had sparked a need for a total body revamp. She’d been beautiful before but who was I to judge?
I made it to the small, out-of-town airfield in good time, but unfortunately the plane was delayed and I ended up hanging around in the empty departure lounge sipping from a water bottle and reading my Kindle.
My cell rang and I glanced at the screen, wondering who it could be. It flashed up Henri’s name and a picture of him standing on the wall around the glass pyramid at the Louvre.
I smiled and hit answer. It had been weeks since I’d heard his sexy French accent.
“Bonjour, Henri,” I said.
“Ah, Gina, how are you? It has been so long. My ’eart is breaking.”
&n
bsp; I smiled and pictured his handsome, expressive face. “I’m sure your ’eart is just fine, Henri, but it is nice to know you care.”
“I do care. I was calling to see how you are, and your poor papa, how is he?”
“Doing well, home from hospital and taking it easy.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw a vehicle pull up in the adjacent private lot, a large black wagon. I turned from the brightness of the window and paced beside a row of plush red chairs. “It’s keeping me busy, though, sorting out his business affairs.”
“But you like to be busy, no?”
“Yes, I guess. What about you?”
“Ah, that is why I am calling, ma cherie. I have exciting news.”
“You do?”
“Yes, and I wanted you to be the first to know.”
“Wow, you got that job in Reims?”
“No, no, I didn’t want it, they want me, I say no. I am a Paris boy, how could I leave?”
I heard the automatic door whoosh behind me, glanced at the screen to my left and saw that my father’s plane was just landing. Good, I’d soon be on my way.
“What is it, Henri? You have me all excited.”
“You remember Marie, the girl from the café?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we are to be married, next month.”
“Married.” I felt as though I’d been gut-checked. Damn, Henri and I had only been messing about, but really, within weeks of me dashing back to the USA he was getting married, to Marie, the girl I’d told him on several occasions was always giving him the eye and following him around the room with her gaze. Seemed she’d been biding her time for me to get out of the picture and I had to give it to her, she’d nabbed her man with impressive speed and precision.
“Gina, say something. You are not happy for me?” He sounded worried. “You will be okay, non?”
“Yes, yes of course. Yes, I will.”
“You don’t sound it.”
“It’s just…It’s all so quick, you know, to meet, fall in love and then get married so soon. You and I, we…” My words trailed off. “But yes, that’s wonderful. I’m very happy. You’ll be a wonderful husband.”
“Thank you. It is the way of the ’eart sometimes, but you know I will always love you, oui.”
