Beauty and the Beefcake

by Pippa Grant

  Silence works wonders.

  He finally goes away.

  I still don’t like him.

  19

  Felicity

  Now I can add finished a show despite simian interruption to my résumé.

  Because I’m sure that’s somehow relevant to a physical therapy assistant degree.

  We tumble back into Gammy’s house shortly before eleven. Loki snored in Ares’s lap the whole drive home. Ares didn’t snore, but I don’t know that he stayed awake the whole drive either.

  Or maybe he just doesn’t want to talk to me anymore.

  The Thrusters are already playing, so I flip on Gammy’s TV before I cart my trunk back upstairs. Loki, the little brat, hitched a ride to the club in it, which I figured out when I found dried apricots stuck up Harold’s butt after the show. He must’ve leapt out when I wasn’t looking at the trunk while I was deciding which puppet to use tonight.

  Sneaky little monkey.

  Who’s completely and totally and irresistibly adorable when he makes I’m sorry eyes at me.

  Which he did in response to Ares’s grunt-order when I joined them in the car.

  I’m intentionally ignoring Maren and Kami’s news that Doug showed up.

  We met at the club. It makes sense he’d show up. He likes to laugh.

  Or so he says.

  It also freaks me out just a little. But since he didn’t actually talk to me, I feel like it’s overkill to call and report the interaction to the police.

  However, obviously I’m glad to have a massive hockey player taking up most of Gammy’s couch when I wander back downstairs. I’m hungry, and game time is the perfect time for a popcorn dinner, so I pop approximately two hundred cups of popcorn—assuming Ares will eat at least half and share another quarter of it with Loki—and join the two of them on the couch.

  It’s not weird to sit next to Ares on the couch, right?

  The couch has the best view of the TV.

  And it’s easier to share the massive bowl of popcorn this way.

  And to sneak glances at Ares’s face as he watches the game.

  The Thrusters are down three to one, and the second period just started. Jaeger, the rookie who’s playing for Ares this road trip, is struggling tonight.

  He’s spending more time in the sin bin than he is on the ice, and Nick’s good, but Arizona’s relentless. I catch my brother’s I’m going to fucking tear something apart with my teeth glare when the camera catches him repositioning his mask after he barely saves the puck with the edge of his glove, and I cringe.

  He hates losing.

  Not that I know many people who enjoy losing, but Nick hates losing enough that he’s pushed himself into being one of the best goalies in pro hockey. Professional athletes have a different level of hating-losing.

  Ares’s phone dings with a text message.

  He ignores it.

  He ignores it so thoroughly, I don’t know if he heard it at all. The TV’s muted again tonight, because the announcers are pompous shitheads. I wonder if the team knows how annoying they are? It’s not like Coach is listening to them. He’s pulling Jaeger and calling plays for the offensive line.

  “Heard Manning’s trying for a contract extension now that he’s out of his betrothal and doesn’t have to go back to Stölland in June,” I say to Ares.

  He doesn’t answer.

  Loki’s drifting off to sleep in his lap, one monkey hand in the popcorn bowl, the other dropping away from his mouth, popcorn dribbling out of his lips.

  So with the monkey basically asleep and Ares in the zone, I quit watching the game and watch the man instead.

  Quiet isn’t my natural state. Nor is ignoring a hockey game, for the record, but being quiet is more unusual. I was reading out loud everything I saw by the time I was three. My parents sent me to private kindergarten at four, tried enrolling me in second grade as a five-year-old in the public school system, but even though I could breeze through the academics, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

  It took four private schools to find one that would work with me with my chatterbox and academic challenges, and even then, I tested my limits practicing my venting at school. I might’ve gotten a classmate or two in trouble before the teachers caught on to me.

  So when I say I struggle to quit talking, I really mean it.

  It’s been a lifelong problem. And probably half of why I didn’t want to go into the sciences. Too much patience required when I really just wanted to answer all the rote memorization problems from history books and English lit quizzes and get on with life already, because that was easier, and it let me talk more.

  But tonight, I don’t want to talk.

  I want to observe.

  Okay, and possibly give myself another mental fantasy orgasm or six, but I’m going to at least pretend I’m trying to understand the man’s brain first.

  It takes me about five minutes to catch the first shift in his expression.

  Pain.

  I glance at the screen, and there’s Lavoie, bent over with a bloody nose.

  Lavoie’s hot. Deep green eyes, curly brown hair, husky Canadian muscles. Takes more to stay warm north of the border, and those Canadian boys’ blood runs hot. He’s a good kisser too. At least, he was six years ago, the first time I met him at Chester Green’s. We made out one night, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember it.

  Even at twenty-one, I didn’t like to take advantage of drunk hockey players. And I didn’t run into him at the bunny bar again, mostly because not long after that he met someone, got serious, and got married. Didn’t see him at all again until Nick was traded to the Thrusters last year, and though he’s divorced now, there’s no point in either of us mentioning the kiss.

  If he even remembers.

  As the sister of a player, I’m off-limits.

  But Ares isn’t exactly on the team right now.

  He’s out for probably two months. Or longer.

  His eyes go flat.

  I glance at the screen again and let out a “Fuck!” in my Lucy voice.

  Arizona scored again.

  Nick’s out, heading to the bench. Coach is pulling him.

  He downs half a water bottle, crushes it, and throws it to the ground. Don’t need to be a lip reader to understand that profanity, creative as it is. I clamp my lips harder together to keep from adding commentary.

  Ares’s fingers are turning the popcorn to dust.

  I’m almost certain he doesn’t realize it though. He’s so focused, so intense, he’s not sitting in Gammy’s living room.

  He’s out there in Arizona, on the ice, with the team.

  He knows where he belongs. He knows what he was born to do. Even if he’s not there right now physically, he’s there.

  He knows his purpose in life.

  He suddenly blinks and leans back on the couch.

  Commercial break.

  He twists his head to look at me, our gazes crash together, and I have to remind myself to breathe.

  “You know who you are, don’t you?” The words slip out on their own.

  He doesn’t nod.

  Doesn’t have to.

  Every cell in his body radiates with the confident knowledge that he, Ares Berger, was born to play hockey. He lives for it. He breathes for it. He does hockey better than any other person ever put on this planet.

  And it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t say much.

  He doesn’t have to say a thing.

  All he has to do is lace up his skates, put on his pads, and grab a stick.

  He’ll be the guy they’re naming bars after in another few years. The guy talked about in reverent whispers. The guy whose words will be remembered, because he uses them so sparingly.

  “How do you do it?” I whisper. “How do you find who you’re supposed to be?”

  He has a purpose.

  I just have a string of degrees that I keep hoping will get me hired by a team I’ve been obsessed with my entire life.

&
nbsp; He studies my eyes. Looking. Searching. Like if he peers deep enough, he can find the answer for me.

  It’s hard to breathe when Ares is scrutinizing me.

  Not because I’m afraid of what he’ll find.

  But because I’m afraid of what he won’t.

  What if I don’t have a greater purpose? What if I’m the example of what not to be? We put so much emphasis on the importance of being smart, but understanding calculus and knowing all the muscle groups in the human body and having a high GPA doesn’t give you the blueprint for life.

  It doesn’t tell you who you’re supposed to be. What you’re supposed to leave behind after you draw your last breath.

  Why you’ll be remembered.

  He reaches across the popcorn bowl and brushes his fingers to the top of my left breast. My nipples pucker, my thighs clench, and my breath catches in my throat while my heart pounds, reaching for his fingers.

  “You listen,” he says.

  “My heart gives bad advice.”

  He shakes his head. “Not listening right.”

  Clearly.

  Because right now, it’s demanding that I toss the popcorn against the wall, straddle him, and kiss him until all the answers to my life magically appear.

  Which obviously won’t give me a long-term purpose in life. How do you measure success in achieving kisses?

  You don’t.

  Technically, I suppose you could measure success biologically. Kiss, have sex, procreate, continue a genetic line. Success. Something to be remembered by.

  The idea doesn’t freak me out, but I don’t want to be a mom yet.

  I’m not opposed to the kissing and sex though.

  I’m very interested in the kissing and sex.

  His gaze drifts down to my chest. I’m in a tight pink sweater. If he can’t see the outline of my hard nipples, he’s blind. Based on the way his throat works up and down, I’m certain he’s noticed.

  And him noticing is making my clit throb.

  He could touch me. Nick wouldn’t have to know. Kiss a little, dip his fingers in my panties, throw me over his shoulder, take me upstairs and spank me—

  Stop it, Felicity.

  He lifts his hooded eyes back to mine.

  This isn’t just me. He feels it too. There’s raw, unfiltered desire etched in that heavy-lidded gaze.

  He’s not some dumb jock. He’s in complete control. Of his thoughts. His words. His actions.

  His desires.

  His fingers are lingering on the swell of my breast, right where my heart’s trying to beat through my ribs. I arch up into his touch, and his whole body stills.

  Completely motionless except for the quiver of his nostrils.

  As though he can smell my arousal—my panties are beyond soaked—and it’s taking every ounce of his control to not move. Not breathe. Not pounce.

  My clit is heavy and swollen. I want him to touch me.

  I want him to kiss me.

  I want him to strip me bare and show me how he plays off the ice.

  His massive chest moves as he sucks in an unsteady breath, not breaking eye contact.

  My clothes are on, but the longer he watches me, the more naked I feel. Like he knows.

  Everything.

  My secrets. My fears. My indiscretions.

  All my imperfections.

  The rough edges hiding under the face I put on for the world.

  We all do it, don’t we?

  He does it.

  Better than most. Because as probing as those deep blue seas are, he’s not giving up any secrets of his own.

  And I want to know them.

  I want to seduce every last one of his secrets out of him.

  One touch. One kiss. One stroke at a time.

  I lean in.

  His hand drifts lower, stroking the back of his fingers over my tight nipple straining against my sweater. Pleasure bubbles over my skin, and I offer him more of my breasts, panting, my eyes sliding closed when he presses his thumb to the hard tip.

  More.

  Slowly, so excruciatingly slowly, he circles his thumb around my nipple. I can feel my pulse beating in my clit. I want more.

  So much more.

  His breath touches my cheek, and I angle my head to capture his lips while he strokes my breast, his fingers spreading to cup me, his thumb teasing the hard nub of my nipple.

  His mouth brushes mine, and—

  A shriek splits the air.

  I leap back.

  Ares leaps back.

  Loki scrambles up Ares’s head and flings a fistful of popcorn at me. He shrieks again.

  “Down,” Ares says.

  Loki’s glaring at me.

  “Oh, shove it, monkey boy,” I vent as Harold. “Can’t sleep with you making all that racket. Plus, she’s easier to live with when she gets some.”

  Loki scowls.

  Ares scowls too.

  “Ignore him,” I say as Lucy. My cheeks are getting hot, and now there’s some throbbing going on in my black eye.

  Right.

  I’m attractive tonight.

  “Don’t listen to Harold. He’s just jealous because Gammy’s ghost isn’t interested in a grumpapotamus,” I add as Tim. I need to shut up. I need to shut up right now.

  I don’t want to just do Ares for the sake of doing someone.

  I shouldn’t be thinking of doing him at all. He’s probably the closest thing I have to a male friend in the entire world.

  “Oh, look, the game’s back on.” Thank god.

  Or so my brain says.

  My pussy’s pouting, and my heart’s trying to set some kind of world record.

  Not for pulse rate.

  For stupid decision rate.

  Ares is off limits.

  Nick would kill him.

  And that would be a loss for the whole world.

  Which brings up the bigger problem of me sleeping with Ares Berger.

  I don’t deserve him.

  His eyes narrow briefly at me before he turns back to the TV.

  I launch into commentary, because being quiet obviously doesn’t work well for me.

  Loki glares at me all through the second period.

  And before the third period is half-over, I do something I almost never do.

  I pull the chute and bail.

  The Thrusters are losing.

  Loki’s still glaring at me and throwing popcorn.

  And if I stay downstairs until the end of the game, I’ll have to walk upstairs to bed the same time as Ares.

  Thinking about Ares and beds together is a bad, bad idea.

  Ares and I can be friends.

  But we can’t be anything more.

  20

  Ares

  Hate losing a game.

  Hate watching it even more.

  Know what’s worse tonight?

  Wanting Felicity.

  Been a long time since a woman took more brain space than hockey.

  She’s not mine to want. But she doesn’t look at me like I’m a dumb puck. Like I’m a plaything. Like I’m a pet monkey to dance.

  She looks at me like I’m her hero.

  Like I’m somebody.

  Know the last time somebody asked me for advice?

  Me neither.

  But she did.

  Like she thinks I’m smart.

  Her door’s closed when I go upstairs for bed. Good. I give Loki a stern glare.

  He chirps innocently.

  Like he wasn’t the one who opened her door last night. Yeah, I know my monkey.

  He dashes up my arm to sit on my shoulder, and Felicity’s door creaks open.

  I wait.

  She doesn’t come out, so we peek in.

  She’s smothered under the covers, mumbling in her sleep.

  Loki steps closer to my head, and this time, when he wraps an arm around my head, he’s not offering me comfort.

  He’s looking for it himself.

  I shrug off the chill prickling m
y skin. Something opened that door.

  She needs a new place to live.

  Is this place haunted?

  Don’t know. Don’t care.

  But she needs somewhere else to live.

  With a doorman.

  She needs to be safe.

  And I need to be safe too.

  Safe from temptation.

  21

  Felicity

  I leap out of bed Friday morning already knowing I’m running late. My door’s half-open again—seriously, Gammy’s ghost?—and Loki’s sitting in the opening like he’s been watching me sleep. I wonder how much popcorn I have in my hair.

  And then I think more about last night, about popcorn and hockey and Ares, and I wonder if Ares ever masturbates.

  Also, it’s now not even two minutes after I woke up, and I’m thinking about masturbating.

  Thanks, Loki. Little cockblocking monkey who ruined that amazing kiss.

  He chirps like he heard my thoughts.

  I dash out my door—without hitting it this time—and as I hit the hallway, Ares steps out of the bathroom two steps away.

  Wet.

  And very happy to see me, which the small pink towel wrapped his waist can’t hide, nor can his fist, holding the towel together.

  His left thigh isn’t completely covered, a solid mass of muscle thick and powerful, just like the rest of him. His tattoo peeks out from above the towel, the swirling vortex of a Milky Way sunset.

  I want to lick it.

  Our gazes lock, and I realize, once again, I’m in nothing but panties and a tank top.

  Pink lace panties.

  White tank top.

  A muscle ticks in his jaw. His eyes have gone midnight blue, and his lips part while his gaze drifts down my body.

  My thighs clench. My breasts tingle. If I don’t kiss him, I’m going to combust.

  “Bad idea,” he says, but his eyes are stuck on my panties, which are basically going up in flames under that intense scrutiny.

  “I love bad ideas,” I whisper.

  I take a step toward him.

  He doesn’t back away, but his gaze flicks up to meet mine.

  Stop, it says.

  I suck in an unsteady breath.

  Because that same look is also saying touch me.

  And lick me.