On the Edge of Scandal

by Tamsen Parker

  Where moments before I’d had only warm fuzzy comfortable feelings, irritation flares. I shake off his arm around me and push up on my elbows to look him in the face. His surprised face. “You know, I’m really fucking tired of dudes telling me what I should do. I don’t mind it on the ice, because you know what you’re talking about and I trust you out there, but in here? Do you really think I’d be here if I didn’t want to be? Do you think I would be lying in a bed with you if I felt like you were manipulating me? I don’t. If anything, I feel bad because you’re probably feeling guilty for betraying your professional moral code.”

  I wish I had a ruler to slap into my hand to emphasize my points while I school him, but given how he’s looking at me, I don’t need one.

  “I am, some,” he concedes while looking up at me with wide eyes. It’s not just surprise, though, there’s something else there. Like he wants me badly, but doesn’t think he should. Like he’s hungry, and I’m a nice ripe apple that he’s drooling over but can’t quite bring himself to pick. I want to be picked, I want him to sink his teeth into me.

  “Did you mean it when you said I could have anything I wanted? That it was just sitting there, waiting for me?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Then give me this.”

  I lean over him, bearing my weight with my hands on either side of his head, and kiss him. He hesitates, and if he pushes me away, I’m going to have a serious case of tomato-face. Also rage-face, because I’m not a little girl who doesn’t know my own mind. If this will cost him too much, I’ll back off, but I think he wants this, too.

  After an unbearably long time of pressing my lips to his, he gives in and starts to kiss me back, his tongue licking against the seam of my lips, asking for entrance to my mouth which I’m only too happy to grant. It makes my insides warm, makes blood flow to the pertinent parts of my body, makes my breathing come hard.

  We kiss for a while, learning each other, exploring, tasting. His hands settle at my waist, tentatively, as if he’s not sure what else he’s allowed to do even though we’re pretty well ravaging each other with our mouths. It’s not relaxing like sitting at his feet or laying by his side, but it’s tensing an entirely different part of my body, spaces I don’t mind so much being wound up. With a break between us, I beg, “Touch me, Ash. I want you to touch me. Under my clothes. Everywhere.”

  Again with the hesitation, but I don’t stop, just kiss him again, hoping my genuine enthusiasm will coax him into doing what I’ve asked. I don’t want him to doubt that I want this, I want him. One of his hands finds a firmer grasp on my waist, and the other slips between my shirt and my back, his fingertips skimming along my skin, up to my bra strap.

  Unhook it, unhook it. But I don’t say it; I can be patient. Sort of. Sometimes. Fuck that. I sit up, straddle his thigh and pull my shirt over my head. He’s clasping me at my waist again and clenches his jaw when I reach back and do it myself, and when I strip the cotton from my chest and my arms, drop it on the floor, he mutters, “Fuck me.”

  “That’s the plan.” My chipper reply earns me another choked noise as I grip the placket of his shirt, and tug. “Can I take this off?”

  I love the groan he makes, and love even more how he responds not with words, but with pulling the shirt out of his waistband while I attack his buttons. When it’s joined my shirt on the floor, I lean over him and gasp, because our chests against one another feels as good as I’d ever hoped for.

  Scratchy and soft at the same time, I take advantage of the sensation until my nipples are drawn up and taut, aching to be touched, and blood pooling in my breasts and between my legs. Which would explain why I start to rock against his thigh, pleading for contact and friction.

  Then he’s gripping the sides of my ribcage, pressing me up far enough to slip his hands between our chests and work at my breasts, kneading and taking my nipples between his knuckles to tweak that makes me grind against him even harder.

  “Inside me, I want you inside me now.” It’s possible I shouldn’t be so very horny—it’s not like I’ve had any sort of dry spell—but even when I’m a mess mentally or emotionally, sex has always had a way of being a way to sort myself out some. Physical intimacy and also using something I’m good at to handle things I’m not so great it—all good things.

  I roll onto my back, unbutton and unzip my jeans, shove them over my hips and kick the lot to the end of the bed. Then Ash is turning to hover over me, but he’s got that pained look on his face. Stupid, stupid, Bronwyn, when are you going to learn? When are you going to be as considerate of him as he is of you?

  I stop him with a hand on his chest. “Is having me like this going to hurt you?”

  I can hear the grit of his teeth. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine. If it’s going to hurt you more than you already hurt, it’s not fine. We’ll figure out another way.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Levenson.” I use my hand to shove him onto his back. “I don’t want to worry about whether I’m hurting you while I’m getting fucked. It would be distracting. So tell me, would this be better? Me on top?”

  His glass-green eyes narrow, but he doesn’t argue with me. “Yes, that would be better.”

  “Cool. Do you have condoms?”

  He gestures with his head to the bedside table and I lunge to slide open the drawer, pull out a strip of them. “Got your quota, I see?”

  Ash barks a laugh. “Yeah, sure do. I don’t know why, I wasn’t planning on . . . Just a fit of optimism I guess?”

  “You think six is optimistic? I think we’re lucky there’s two of us so it’s double. Think we can do it?”

  His eyes roll back in his head and he blows a breath audibly through his mouth. “I don’t know, but that’s the kind of challenge I can get behind.”

  I rip one off the strip and toss it on the bed, but as eager as I am for him, there’s something I want to do first.

  Ash

  “Pants off.”

  Holy hell, my head is going to explode. She’s like a block of C4, and her combination of being bossy in a caretaking way, but also needing me so badly is intoxicating, makes a chain reaction set off in my brain. She’ll be lucky if I last at all once I get inside of her.

  I expect her to unbutton and lower my fly, tear open the packet, take me in hand and roll the latex over me while I throb and try not to spill in her grip, but she doesn’t. We work together to get my pants all the way off and then she settles herself over one of my thighs again . . . and goddamn, lowers her head to take me in her mouth. If I thought I was in danger of losing it before, I’m skating on the edge of indignity now. Not that anyone could blame me, with her dark hair making a curtain around her face, framing the pretty picture of her pink mouth sliding up and down my cock, her dark lashes fanned over her cheeks until she looks up at me with those gold eyes.

  She wraps a firm hand around me before she pops off. “I meant to ask if this is okay, but I . . . got distracted.”

  Her gaze darts back to where she’s leisurely stroking me and when she moistens her lips I just about die. “So can I? Do you like this?”

  “I . . .” Fucking hell, why do I sound like I swallowed a frog? “Yes, I like this very much, and of course you can, but . . .”

  Any protest I was going to make dies in my throat as she swallows me down, her tongue slicking a sense-blowing spiral over the head and down my shaft, like almost all the way down, so far she has to unwrap some of her fingers to make room.

  The woman has no discernable gag reflex, and it’s taking all of my willpower not to blow in her mouth. Christ on a cracker, cannot think about spilling in her mouth, because that renders my mind into gray matter Jell-O. Horny brain matter soup. Partly because of what she’s doing, but also her generosity and easy acceptance of my limitations. Some of the women I’ve dated haven’t been as easygoing about it. They’d made me feel like a disappointment and a burden. Bronwyn makes it seem like more of a game: how can
we make this work, how do we both get what we want?

  Gratitude has me slipping my fingers into her loose hair to offer affection, greed has me gathering it away from her face so I can watch her while she’s sucking me. She draws off again, and I think I’ve gone too far, even though I was careful not to tug or yank. There’s a glow in her eyes that tells me this is in no way pity head, but that she’s very much enjoying it, and then her swollen mouth tugs into a wicked grin.

  “You can pull, you know. I like it. Not like jerk me around, but a little strain on my scalp?” She hums with pleasure, her eyes closing in a long blink, and shit, yes, I can do that. With a graze of her breasts over my aching dick, she settles again and when she takes me in her mouth again, I do as I’ve been given permission to, wrap my fingers in her soft hair and draw my hands back until she makes a pleased little moan around my cock. I have died. Died and gone to heaven.

  After a few more minutes, I cannot take it anymore, at least not without this being over, and I don’t want to disappoint her. Not after what she’s given to me, not after what she’s asked for.

  “B, if you want to come with me inside you, we, uh, have to move to the next portion of this program.”

  There’s the vibration of a laugh around me, and I have to brace myself in order not to just spurt down her throat. But there are no insults, no roll of her eyes, and though I would so not mind if she took this all the way, I like that she’s determined to hold onto what she wants, too. Finally she’s rolling the latex over me, and settling herself over my hips. Since I can basically stay still, it’s not so painful. Way less painful than a bunch of the alternatives, at any rate, and I’m willing to suffer a little for this.

  “I can’t . . . I can’t move a lot, but you can ride me as hard as you want. I’ll be okay, promise.”

  She gives me a look that says she doesn’t quite believe me but I don’t want to leave room for argument. “Look, this is one of the best options. Yes, it’ll be a little painful, but I’m deciding it’s worth it, and I want it. If you get to make that call, so do I.”

  I grab her hips and pull her in and thank the hockey gods that she grips my cock to angle me right while she sinks down. It feels like every good thing I’ve ever asked for, and while she starts out at a gentle rock, she doesn’t stay that way for long. Soon she’s thrusting back, spreading her legs as wide as she can, and working her clit against my pelvis until she’s panting and digging her short nails into my shoulders.

  “God, Ash, you feel so fucking good. Yes, oh my god, yes.”

  Which is when I feel it, the pulse of her internal muscles gripping me, urging me toward my own climax. I hold off as long as I can so she can rock out the rest of her orgasm on me, but it’s not long until I’m digging my fingers into her hips and holding her still so I can make a few painful but also, god, exquisitely pleasurable thrusts up into her slick core.

  Dead, dead, I’m fucking dead, my mind blown wide open, all thoughts of anything but her scattering to the corners of the earth. After we’ve both eked out every ounce of pleasure from coming, she rolls to my side and I use a tissue to clean up while she pulls up a blanket from the foot of the bed and drapes it over both of us.

  That is not how I anticipated that conversation going, but if this is how I can help get her through the rest of the SIGs, I’m not going to argue.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ash

  The girls had a great practice today after handily dispatching with an outmatched Swiss team two days ago, and I was tempted to let them go early, but that’s not a good precedent to set. I do, however, let them scrimmage, since they enjoy it and, honestly, it’s fun to watch. Also, it gives the coaching staff an opportunity to look out for habits we’ve drilled in practice that players drop when it’s time for games. Happens all the damn time.

  They’re doing well, though, and it’s . . . fun. Easy. They’ve worked their asses off and it shows. It’s paying off. Are they perfect? No, of course not. But they’re human, and damn close to flawless, which is about all a man can ask for. Of course, I’ll demand more on the off-chance they’ll give it, but if they can’t, I sure as hell won’t be disappointed.

  My eye is drawn to a bit of a scuffle in the far corner of the rink, and I think about shouting at them to get out of the corner and knock it off, but it breaks up before I make my call. They all appear to skate off, get back in the game, but it’s getting chippy out there. Too much adrenaline, too much aggression, too much excitement for the game tomorrow.

  On the one hand, it’s good for them to get some of that out here with their own team instead of earning time in the sin bin for that kind of shit tomorrow. On the other hand, I want them to keep some of that nervous energy pent up so it’ll explode when it’s needed, because we’ll need it against the Canadians tomorrow. Also, I don’t want anyone getting hurt.

  It’s shitty enough getting injured in a game, but in practice it’s even worse. Ignominious, because what the hell was it even for? At least in a game it was for a cause, it was to win. But practice? Boo. Nobody wants that.

  I’ll give them two more minutes to blow off some steam, and then I’ll call it. I scribble a few notes on my clipboard about the observations I made during practice, contemplate how to address issues—to the whole team, one-on-one with the player, what’s the best strategy for getting my message not only heard, but the fixes implemented. This is what I don’t think a lot of coaches spend much time thinking about: communication style matters. And while I don’t want to sound like a sexist pig, in my experience it matters more to women than to men, and—

  My planning and musing is interrupted by more jostling. Apparently two minutes was too long for them to go without getting into trouble. Then I hear it. The sickening crunch and grind of a player hitting the ice hard, and a sharp cry. Not just a yelp of surprise or grunt of impact. My girls are tough. I’ve seen them played bloodied and bruised, and I’ve had to take some of them out over their protests when they were clearly hurt and could injure themselves further if I kept them on the ice. I rarely hear noises like that and when I do, it’s not good. Whatever just happened, it hurt someone.

  I’m on my feet as soon as my brain can send the message to stand, and yeah there’s a twinge in my hip, but it’s not as important as what just happened on the ice. When a few bodies clear, I can tell that what just went down is Bronwyn, and that’s when my head explodes, supernova style, and everything goes black except her.

  Against my better judgment, or really any judgment whatsoever, I’m over the boards and on the ice, moving as fast as I dare because if I hit the ice, it’s all over. I hate the way I can only shuffle over when what I want to do is sprint. Hate how she’s still lying on the ice, hate how she’s got an arm wrapped around her waist and is curled up around it. What did she hurt?

  Broken arm? Broken wrist? Shoulder? Did she take a stick to the stomach? I didn’t hear or see her get slammed against the boards, but could be. I should’ve been paying better attention.

  When I reach Bronwyn who’s still curled up like a pea in a pod on the rink, Nguyen’s standing there, no helmet on with a guilty-as-hell look on her face.

  “Coach, I’m sorry. We were just getting a little rough, and then—”

  I don’t wait for her explanation or her excuse or whatever is going to come out of her mouth. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

  Nguyen’s eyes go wide with shock, and I can’t blame her. I don’t swear at the girls, never ever. Yes, I sometimes curse in front of them, and I don’t shy away from profanity in the locker room, but it’s never directed at one of my players. Maybe a small distinction, but an important one. I’ll deal with the self-recriminations and apologies later, but for right now, I’m all hot rage and roaring protectiveness.

  “It’s all fun and games until someone gets seriously hurt. There’s a gold medal on the line tomorrow, and Bronwyn’s one of our best.” At least I manage to get those logical protests out—even if I did call her Bronwyn
instead of Perry—over what’s actually shrieking through my head. Mine. My Bronwyn is hurt, in pain, her career could be over just like mine. My stomach is rioting with panic, concern, and fury, but as I kneel down, I try to tamp them all down because she must be afraid. Suffering.

  My hip screams as I drop to the ice but the physical discomfort is nothing compared to the emotional distress. We’ve been sleeping together for a week, and yet it feels like we’ve been involved for far longer than that. Maybe it’s that I’ve known her for years, maybe it’s the effects of the SIG snow globe, or maybe it’s that I can see us being a thing beyond the SIGs, like far beyond, but whatever it is, my heart is juddering in my chest, threatening to bust out of my ribcage if she’s really hurt.

  “Hey, B. Don’t move, just talk to me. Can you do that?”

  There’s a pause and then a sad hiccup that squeezes my heart until it might burst. “Yeah.”

  “What’s hurt? Is it your neck? Your back? Can we take your helmet off?”

  I want to touch her, offer comfort, but all I’ll get is handfuls of plastic, foam, and fabric. Absent that, I want to see her face.

  “Yeah, nothing to do with my spine.” She reaches a hand up to unclick the strap of her helmet, but I beat her to it and help her ease it off her head. Aside from the exertion flush that’s coloring her cheeks, she’s paler than normal, but she’s alert, doesn’t seem in danger of passing out at all, no tear tracks on her cheeks.

  “Then what is it?”

  One of the SIG medics that’s on hand has finally made I over and is kneeling herself with her kit, starting to fire questions at Bronwyn.

  “What is it?” Yeah, it’s rude but I need to know.

  “It’s my hip, took a helmet to it in the pile-up.”

  Her words are cautious and her breathing measured, and there’s a sheen of warning in her eyes. I open my mouth, and I’m not sure what’s going to come busting out first. Yelling at Nguyen more, chastising the medic for not getting over here sooner, assuring Bronwyn she’s going to be okay even though I’m feeling sick to my stomach because there’s the definite possibility she won’t be.