Beauty and the Beefcake

by Pippa Grant

  More than I need to exist.

  I’m not special.

  She’s special.

  She’s also delicious. Sexy. Soft. Strong. Funny. Kind.

  She’s a million-leaf clover.

  I don’t believe in good luck charms.

  But I believe in her.

  Can’t kiss her enough. Hold her tight enough. Touch her enough.

  Her lips meld with mine, her tongue slides so easy, so generous, her breath tickling my cheek, her soft whimpers fueling the hard, desperate ache in my cock.

  She moves, and she’s straddling me, nestling me between her thighs, her hands roaming over my hair, down my neck, gripping my arms, kissing me back.

  Too many clothes.

  Too much coat.

  Need to touch her. Feel her. Be inside her.

  She breaks free. “Ares,” she whispers. “Let’s go home.”

  The park swims back into focus. Brown grass. Cool air. Jogging path. Soccer fields.

  We should go home.

  But I don’t want to let go.

  I. Love. Her.

  Want her.

  Here. Now. Everywhere.

  I roll her hips over my cock.

  Her eyes flutter shut, and she rocks against me while I grip her tight. “You turn me inside out,” she whispers.

  She owns me.

  She’s the piece I didn’t know I was missing. The words to my melody. The ice beneath my skates.

  I kiss her jaw. Her cheek. The corner of her mouth.

  Her hair tangles in my stubble. Sweet, like candy apples. I stroke the soft locks, she thrusts against my aching dick. I kiss her neck, she moans.

  “Ares,” she gasps. “Someone could see.”

  But she’s still riding me. Too much clothing between us. Too many layers.

  Park’s empty.

  Blocked from the road by the bushes and trees.

  House on a hill, too far.

  “Oh, god, I’m so close,” she whimpers.

  I reach under her coat, under her shirt, to palm her breast and pinch her nipple, and she goes rigid against me. She buries her face in my shoulder, biting down, stifling her cries.

  I want to feel her come.

  Want to taste her. Want to take her.

  I can’t stop myself.

  Even if she doesn’t know.

  She owns all of me.

  41

  Felicity

  Wow.

  Just holy wow.

  I’m back at clinicals for my final day this morning, but my mind is back in the park Sunday afternoon. And then in Gammy’s living room on Monday. Her kitchen Tuesday morning. Her bedroom every night. The guest bedroom too. On the stairs yesterday.

  The shower this morning.

  Yeah, that gets its own special mention.

  This has been the most amazing week in the history of amazing weeks.

  And it’s not just the sex. It’s walking into Gammy’s house after a long day and finding Ares in the kitchen making vegan chili. It’s hanging out on the couch with Ares and Loki, and sometimes our friends—his teammates, my friends, our friends, whoever wants to hang out—calling games as my puppets while we watch Zeus and New York on their away series, or the Thrusters in their home series.

  It’s waking up to a cup of coffee on the nightstand.

  It’s the warm glow in my chest when he smiles.

  It’s the tug on my heartstrings when he gets that haunted look in his eyes when one of his teammates mentions the media training the whole team’s been having this week.

  Actions speak so much louder than words.

  But the videos of Ares tossing pucks to kids in the stands, of him pulling opposing players up off the ice after collisions and slapping them on the back—you good?—and scoring hundreds of goals are all from his Chicago days.

  Not enough with his Thrusters jersey.

  He only had two months before his ankle injury took him out.

  Coach says I’ll grow, he whispered to me last night.

  But how can anyone ask for more than perfection? The right three words have more impact than ten thousand wrong words, I told him.

  At least he’s staying off his ankle now. Manning and Gracie have been picking him up every morning to take him to the rink, and Gracie reports that the combined efforts of everyone are helping.

  Plus, apparently Ares is enjoying shopping for baby supplies with Gracie when he’s not in team meetings.

  A box showed up at Gammy’s house yesterday with something like fifty onesies from his favorite T-shirt website.

  “So, dinner, then?”

  Clinicals. Right. I’m in clinicals.

  I blink back to focus on Blake, the college freshman basketball player I’m assisting Jordan with today. “Yes, you should absolutely eat dinner today,” I tell him. “Preferably lean protein and lots of vegetables. Helps with healing.”

  Jordan eyes me and sighs.

  “Oh.”

  Blake grins a cocky, loud grin. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  I look at Jordan. “What did I do?”

  “I have no idea,” she says. “No offense, but you’re not all that. Do you bathe in pheromones every morning? Eat too many oysters? You do have nice skin. I thought you pale girls were supposed to have trouble with freckles?”

  “SPF 50 every morning.”

  “You dating Berger, or did you just bring him to terrorize the staff?”

  “We’re dating.”

  Not that we’ve officially said the words, but with Ares, words aren’t really necessary. Last night, when we were falling asleep, he put my hand over his heart and murmured, yours.

  Yeah.

  We’re dating.

  “You follow hockey?” Jordan asks Blake while she guides him into a stretch that makes him wince and try to cover it with a cocky smile that’s so loud and obnoxious I kinda want to smack him.

  “Barely,” he says.

  “Heard of Ares Berger?”

  “The Force? Hell, yeah. I mean, who hasn’t? Didn’t that guy once eat a cow raw? Leather and hooves and all?”

  “He’s Felicity’s boyfriend, and we don’t like bloodshed in our office, so quit hitting on her.”

  That’s one way to make a guy go pale. “I didn’t—I mean—isn’t he injured?”

  “You think an injured Force is less dangerous?” Jordan asks him.

  I add a dubious eyeball of don’t be an idiot to Jordan’s flat glare.

  “N-no,” he mumbles.

  The crazy part?

  Ares is probably the only guy I’ve ever dated who wouldn’t pound this guy into the ground.

  Pick him up by his belt loops and deposit him firmly outside the building?

  Yes.

  Leave him bruised and bloodied?

  No.

  We finish up with Blake. I walk him back to his mom—yes, his mom—in the waiting room. Melba flags me down from the front. “Felicity. The Thrusters have called six times. Say they need you at the arena.”

  Ares.

  Oh, hell. If Nick’s being an ass, I’m going to kill him.

  And if he’s being an ass and I have to bail on the last afternoon of my rotation here because of him, I’m going to kill him twice.

  Things have been tense between him and Ares this week.

  So I hear from Gracie. Who also reported that Loki’s original owner emailed Manning all of Loki’s paperwork, and we probably have two years before he’s due for puberty and insanity.

  Unlike my brother, who’s both post-pubescent and still insane.

  Ares shrugs off Nick’s attitude. He’ll get over himself.

  I duck into the employee room and dig out my phone. No messages from Gracie or Ares, but there are three from Nick. I call him back quickly.

  “Hey, you busy?” he says.

  “Yes, I’m busy. Tell me I don’t have to come down there and put a spike up your ass.”

  He sighs.

  I clamp my mouth shut, because if I’ve learn
ed anything the last two weeks, it’s that silence can be my friend.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” he grumbles. “Now can you please get your ass in here? Jenna up in admin something wants to talk to you. And me. And Ares.”

  “I’m off at three.”

  “Felicity—”

  “You do your job, I’ll do mine. And quit calling the clinic. I’d like to be able to get a real job somewhere when I’m done here, and clearly it won’t be with the Thrusters.”

  He sighs again.

  Like it’s exhausting being my brother.

  As if it’s not exhausting being his sister.

  I should hang up and get back to work.

  Instead, I hang up and text Ares. Everything okay?

  He replies instantly with a gif of a cow ramming its head into a fence.

  Which wouldn’t be funny if the cow wasn’t wearing a unicorn horn and farting glitter every time its head rams the fence.

  I reply with a gif of a cat leaping away from a cucumber of death and add a quick Gotta get back to work.

  Before I shove my phone back in my purse, another message pops up.

  A gif, of course.

  This one’s from The Princess Bride. Westley having his life sucked away.

  Like I’m a torture chamber operator.

  I’m smiling.

  And I keep smiling all afternoon.

  Until it’s time for me to have my final meeting with Dr. Ricci. I show up at his office door just after three.

  “Felicity. Have a seat.”

  This is where he tells me I’ve done a great job, I’m going to make an excellent PTA, and either they’d love to talk about hiring me full-time, or he’ll offer me a recommendation for when I fully complete the last of my clinicals after a rotation at the hospital that starts next week.

  At least, that’s how it’s supposed to go.

  But Dr. Ricci isn’t wearing his congenial grandpa face. Yes, he’s only forty-seven and nowhere near grandpa stage, but trust me, these guys all nail the congenial grandpa face early. Bosses have to, and they almost always use it with the cute young female things.

  Yes, it’s annoying, but it’s the way the world works.

  “I’ve really enjoyed working my rotation here,” I tell him.

  Still no congenial grandpa face. “Your technical skills are excellent,” he says.

  I smile.

  He doesn’t.

  “Are you certain you want to work with the public?” he asks me after a long minute.

  Oh, fuuuuuuuck. He’s just one opinion, I remind myself. He can’t sink a new career before it starts. “I love people.”

  He opens his mouth. Closes it. Takes a big swig from his World’s Best Dad mug.

  “People are fascinating,” I continue. Shit shit shit. Lucy’s about to start talking for me. I cannot go into freak mode right now. “It’s so rewarding seeing them making progress toward being healthy again. Getting back full range of motion—”

  “It’s not that you don’t seem to like people or aren’t capable,” he says, clearly picking his words carefully. “I’m more concerned that…certain people…seem to…overly appreciate you.”

  Now it’s my turn for the jaw flapping.

  “It’s entirely possible you’ll find that work in nursing homes would be more suited for your talents,” he says.

  I slump. “No, old men hit on me too. I guess I just have that kind of boobs.”

  He winces.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say boobs. I blame my brother. He’s a terrible influence.”

  “He really is,” Lucy says for me, because fuck, what do I have to lose? “And he’s probably not going to follow through with that offer to try to get Felicity a job with the Thrusters, because if she can’t be around normal men, how’s she supposed to work with hockey players?”

  Dating Ares pretty much takes it off the table anyway, and I’d rather have him.

  Holy shit.

  I’d rather have Ares than a job with the Thrusters.

  But that doesn’t answer the question of what I’m going to do with my life. With this degree.

  Who I am.

  I can’t just be someone’s daughter or sister or girlfriend. There has to be more to life than that.

  And even Lucy’s not optimistic enough to think that the hospital will be any different.

  I guess I could work with comatose patients.

  God, what’s wrong with me?

  Dr. Ricci rises. “It’s been a pleasure having you, and I wish you the best,” he says brightly.

  In other words, Get out, freak.

  I drag myself to the employee room and pull my purse and coat out of my locker. Nick said the Thrusters want to see me.

  I can’t imagine what for, and it doesn’t make me as excited as it should.

  Not when I’m realizing I may never find the career I’m supposed to have.

  “Good luck, Felicity,” Jordan says. She pauses, then shakes her head.

  “What?”

  “Just…there’s a program for transitioning from human PTA to animal PTA. I don’t know if there’s any job demand, but there’s a program. I can send you the information if you want it.”

  Right.

  Because I’m not supposed to be around humans.

  Not human males, anyway.

  I drag myself out to my car, kicking rocks as I go.

  This is bullshit. I can’t work a job that I enjoy because guys hit on me too much? How is that fair? How am I supposed to fix that?

  “It’s because you’re too pretty,” Lucy consoles me.

  “Highly unlikely,” Tim replies. “She wouldn’t win any beauty contests. It’s more likely the result of a rare genetic mutation in the concentration of her pheromones. She’s being punished for her body’s chemical composition. In other words, she’s a freak.”

  “If she wasn’t so fucking nice to everything that moved, maybe they’d get the hint,” Harold snarls, in a rare moment of passing up the chance to jump on the Felicity’s a freak bandwagon.

  I must be taking this hard.

  “No, men seem to prefer bitchy women,” Tim replies. “I know I do.”

  “Tim!” Lucy gasps. “How could you? And after I went and waxed my asshole for you too!”

  I drop my head to my steering wheel.

  If nobody else wants me…why would the Thrusters?

  My heart isn’t quite so light as I crank my engine and steer my car out of the parking lot, heading toward downtown.

  The Thrusters want something.

  Nick says so.

  And it’s most likely nothing more than the video of Ares singing with Alina.

  There’s no way they want me for me.

  42

  Ares

  Miss Felicity.

  Can’t stop thinking about her.

  She makes me okay.

  Doesn’t tell me I have to talk to the cameras. Doesn’t make me feel dumb when I get the words wrong. Sees my heart, and that’s enough for her.

  Hope she’s having a good last day at her clinicals.

  That she gets a job offer.

  She’s good. If I get anxious about my ankle not healing fast enough, she knows. She knows me. Calms me. Helps me.

  I frown.

  Makes sense now. Why her ex doesn’t want to let her go.

  Because she’s fucking perfect.

  Haven’t heard from him since late last week. Hope he got the message.

  “No more frowning,” Gracie orders.

  She’s baking cookies at Manning’s place. Her place. Loki’s sticking to my side, like he’s afraid I’m going to leave him. Just left him here one night—Sunday night—and he’s been clingy ever since.

  By law, probably belongs here. But laws and hearts don’t always mix.

  Loki hands me a pair of women’s underwear.

  “Ohmydog, bad monkey.” Gracie dives around the island and rescues them, shoving them in her pocket.

  I shrug at Loki. Women do
n’t like their underwear in public.

  He chirps.

  My phone vibrates on the counter.

  Felicity.

  It’s a selfie. Her standing outside Mink Arena in that big puffy coat, her reddish-gold hair blowing in her face.

  I pull out my crutches. Places to be. People to see.

  Hate the crutches, but she’s right. Ankle’s getting better. Doc’s talking rehab Monday.

  I can rehab the shit out of getting better.

  Just need the chance.

  Loki scrambles up my arm and perches on my shoulder. I pat Gracie’s head. Loki steals a cookie. And we’re off.

  We get to the arena and take the elevator to the top floor.

  Thrusters business offices.

  Don’t need to ask where Felicity’s at.

  Can hear her.

  “I think you have me mixed up with some other cat who can help you,” she’s saying as Lucy. “I’m not tricking anyone into anything.”

  “Sshh. Nobody’s trying to trick anybody.”

  “Says the man who mails four thousand dick cookies to his sister’s ex-boyfriend,” Tim the Goat replies.

  “And don’t forget the video he mailed to the one guy’s grandma!” Lucy adds.

  “You won’t let us, you mangy cat,” Harold says.

  “You’re a PR nightmare, Mr. Murphy.” Jenna Tucker’s standing between them in the video production room. She’s smiling.

  Felicity’s not.

  Don’t much care if Murphy’s smiling or not. Still walking around with a stick up his butt.

  The flat end. Not the handle.

  I swing into the door, and all of them look at me. Felicity smiles. Hi.

  My heart swells like a balloon stuck on a helium tank. Might float me away.

  Yeah.

  I got it bad.

  Jenna moves forward. “Ares. Good. Let’s get started.”

  Felicity folds her arms over her chest. Crease between her eyes. Cloudy. Worried.

  I crutch over to her side.

  “Do you know—” she starts.

  I silence her with a finger.

  I know what they want us to do.

  They want Felicity to use her talents to make us look good.

  All of us.

  Gonna have her talk for me and show Murphy’s good side at the same time.

  Bugged Jenna all this week with videos of Felicity from her club until she finally told me she was waiting on management’s approval and an NDA from legal to bring Felicity in and see what she could do.