On Thin Ice

by Susan Andersen

  Sasha’s neck was stiff with tension as she watched. She really could have done without the audience here today; this was awkward enough as it was. Witnessing Lon back on the ice after he’d been away from it for so many years was an emotional milestone, one that she couldn’t help but feel should have been private between the two of them. Then she rolled her shoulders in an impatient little shrug. Well, as those old philosophers The Stones were so fond of saying, you can’t always get what you want. And a damn shame it was, too.

  Awareness of Mick beside her, his shoulder warm, pressing against hers, his legs sprawled out, left knee within brushing distance of her right, added to her edginess and served to divide her attention. She kept anticipating, now that Connie was gone, that at any minute he would say something, would crank up the heat he invariably generated whenever they were in contact these days. But he sat quietly. Crowding her as usual in the physical sense, he nevertheless left her a little mental distance.

  And the fact that she was so pathetically grateful for an act of thoughtfulness that for all she knew might be entirely accidental served as a pretty good indication of the kind of shape she was in. What was obviously needed here was for her to take a giant step backward, to put some distance between herself and the events that had been unfurling these past few weeks.

  The fact did remain, however, that whether he deserved it or not, Sasha did experience a spurt of gratitude toward Mick for having the sensitivity not to push her today. In truth, she didn’t think she was up to coping with his high-energy expectations on top of everything else.

  Shoot, the real truth here was that she didn’t want to have to concentrate on anything beyond her yearning to skate with Lon. It had been so long since they’d skated together and it used to be one of her very favorite things to do. They had a connection on the ice that she’d never experienced anywhere else. With anyone else.

  Watching him skate with the three line women, she observed the progress that evolved in the very short time that they advanced from several walk-throughs of the routine to a creditable rehearsal complete with taped music. It was all she could do to simply sit still and watch. She wanted to be out there and if it had been just the two of them, just she and Lon, she would have given him some time to reacclimate—say, ten minutes—and then hit the ice with him.

  As it was she felt constrained by all the watchful eyes.

  Lonnie apparently labored under no such constraint, for suddenly he bellowed her name.

  Sasha jerked in surprise, pushing her shoulder hard into Mick’s. “What?” she croaked, in a tone so low she was surprised he even heard her.

  Evidently he did. “Get your skates on, sweet thing,” he yelled at the top of his voice, “and get your butt on out here.”

  “What am I, your pet dog?” she yelled back. “If you’ve got something to say to me, Lon Morrison, then come on over here and say it properly!” But she was already toeing off her street shoes and digging through her skate bag.

  Seconds later, he stopped with a flourish in front of her. “C’mon, Saush,” he commanded impatiently. “There’s a song on this tape we gotta skate to. It’s got our name written all over it.”

  “Yeah?” Bent over to tighten her laces, Sasha raised only her eyes. She cocked an eyebrow, appraising him with mock coolness. “You harboring the illusion that you can keep up with me?”

  “In my sleep, babe.”

  “So what are we waitin’ for?” Without so much as a glance in his direction, Sasha clambered over Mick’s legs and joined Lon on the rink. Mick watched them skate to center ice. He watched them put their heads together, occasionally using hand movements, a sweep of an arm, or tiny steps to pantomime an action.

  Connie flopped down next to him. “This should be good,” she said with cheerful enthusiasm. Casting him a glance out of the corner of her eye, she pondered how he was taking this big reunion but was ultimately forced to shelve her curiosity. His face didn’t offer any clues and she conceded defeat with a shrug. What Vinicor didn’t want known clearly wasn’t revealed.

  Out on the ice, the huddle broke up. Lon’s head lifted and he called out, “Hit it, Sara. And pump up the volume.”

  Drums, hot and heavy, pounded out of the speakers. Sasha launched off, skating fast as she swung her hips and ran her hands seductively up her body, outlining thighs, hips, skimming her waist, lightly cupping and lifting her breasts, before extending her arms out in front of her as she rocked her shoulders. The drums were joined by horns and then Don Henley’s hoarse tenor asking how bad do you want it, and Lon took off after her in heated pursuit. The song had a driving beat. It was rhythmic, sexy, and Morrison and Miller played it for all it was worth. Lon pulled Sasha up from a fast Death Spiral and hooked an arm around her waist, jerking her close. Their pelvises thrust and bumped, rocking in time to the music with exaggerated sexuality before she broke away once again to lead him on another chase. When he caught up with her, he wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck, crowded up close behind her, and they both bent and swayed in unison. Then she was gone again.

  Mick leaned forward in his seat and watched. So this was the much-vaunted Morrison and Miller sex-on-ice act he kept hearing so much about. It was hot enough to generate steam, no question.

  Not that he personally gave a damn.

  It was a sentiment that probably would have played a lot better if he hadn’t ambushed Sasha when he came across her on her own a short while later. Most of the onlookers had drifted away by that point and Mick was himself on the verge of leaving when he crossed paths with Sasha in one of the corridors that led off from the arena.

  He had a hot, leaden feeling deep in his gut, and he didn’t stop to think matters through when he came abreast of her; he simply reacted. Reaching out, he snagged her by the back of the neck and slammed his body up against hers. “God, you’re makin’ me crazy,” he said hoarsely, staring down at her. Pivoting on one foot, he backed her into the wall. Then, before she had time to react one way or the other, he was kissing her to within an inch of her life.

  Sasha barely knew what hit her. One minute Mick was approaching down the hallway, the next he was all over her. His body was heavy against hers, his mouth was hot and damp and demanding, and so fierce it drove her head into the hand cupping the back of it and then ground that hand in turn into the cement wall. Her sense of self stood up in outrage. Dammit, he couldn’t treat her like this.

  Yet she was simultaneously compelled by his very aggressiveness. It wasn’t civilized and mannerly. It wasn’t wooing with sophisticated settings and witty repartee. It was pure animal attraction, tinged with a sense of desperation, and the truth was she felt equally attracted, equally desperate. Most likely she should be fighting it tooth and nail. Instead, she felt a tightening deep between her thighs.

  She had just begun to kiss him back when Mick suddenly ripped his mouth way. Breathing raggedly, he demanded, “Was Morrison one of the two?”

  “Huh?” She stared up at him with dazed eyes. “Two what?”

  Mick’s head dropped and he licked into her mouth with a lascivious sweep, sucked hard on her full bottom lip, and then pulled away. “Don’t toy with me, Sasha,” he said in a harsh voice. “Of your two lovers . . . was Morrison one of them?”

  She had been blinking lazily as she’d peered up at him, not putting any particular effort into collecting her scattered wits. But his abrupt interrogation was like being splashed in the face with a bucket of cold water, and her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know why you’re so damn interested in my pitiful sex life,” she began, only to be immediately cut off.

  “Has he kissed you the way I do?” Mick growled, his face close to hers. His hand reached up between them and spread over her breast. “Has he put his hands on these beautiful little tits?” Insinuating a hard thigh high up between hers, he watched her face and demanded, “Or spread your legs and buried—” His voice dwindled away at the sudden change that came over her expression.

  It was as
if a sheet of bullet-proof glass had suddenly dropped down between them, sheer but impenetrable. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment but he knew he’d made a serious tactical error. She froze beneath his hands and raised a face to his that was as cool and shuttered, as calm as a nun’s. There was a strength, a dignity, in the depths of her clear, gray eyes as they stared into his, and shame, scalding and complete, flooded him.

  Jesus, what was the matter with him? His mother had taught him better than this. Mick retracted his thigh; his hand started to slide away from her breast and he took a step back. Good God, since when had he needed to resort to molestation to get what he wanted? “Sasha,” he said with sincere contrition. “Jesus, I’m sorr—”

  There was a roar of rage directly behind him and suddenly he was gripped in strong hands and whirled around. Two seconds later he slammed into the wall.

  Instincts honed over the past eleven years erupted and Mick propelled himself away from the bulwark at his back. Crouched low and leading with his right shoulder, he plowed into the body of the man standing in front of him and drove Morrison across the hall into the opposite wall. The impact echoed in the narrow corridor.

  Mick welcomed the chance to brawl; he wanted to use his fists, to pound on Sasha’s precious Lonnie until he was nothing but a smear on the concrete floor. But it was a wish not destined to be granted, for he made the mistake of looking into Morrison’s face at the same time he was cocking back his fist, and he saw that Lon wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring at Sasha and there was something tortured in his eyes.

  “Has it never stopped, then?” he demanded hoarsely. “Good God, Sasha, do you still have men pinning you down to cop a feel?”

  The strength left Mick’s arm and it fell to his side. He craned around to stare at Sasha also, not at all liking the connotations of what Morrison was asking her. And he heard the echo of Sasha’s voice saying, I’m actually not all that big on sex if you want to know the truth.

  “No, Lon, it’s not like that,” Sasha assured him earnestly. “Really. I know what it must have looked like, but Mick is . . . different.” Face flushed, she risked, before returning her attention back to Lon, a quick glance in Mick’s direction. It was really hard for her to admit to any such thing right in front of him, especially in view of the way she’d been trying to hold him at arm’s length, but she didn’t want them fighting because of her. Besides, it was the truth, in its own way. Her relationship with Mick, such as it was, did differ from any other she’d ever had, even if, for just a second there, the feel of his hand on her breast had been like a time warp sending her reeling back into the hometown mode of defense.

  Mick released Lon and stepped back, but the two men eyed each other like two tomcats facing off over a boundary line. “You do anything to hurt her,” Lonnie promised in a low voice, “and I’ll serve her up your balls for breakfast. On toast points, Vinicor—count on it.”

  Only professional survival instincts prevented Mick from retorting that he wasn’t the one who’d asked her to play the whore to secure him a job. Which, if she had a goddam history of being molested, was an even shittier thing to have demanded of her than he’d originally believed.

  But he bit down on his tongue. Sasha just might begin to wonder how the hell he knew she had vamped old Garland into giving Lon the job; and somehow he doubted that explaining he was tapping her phone and following her every move would earn him any points. Blowing his cover wasn’t in the game plan.

  But he was damned if he’d just walk away and leave this bastard with the last word. Thrusting his face aggressively close to Morrison’s he said softly, his voice full of insinuation, “Hurting her is not in my plans. Wearing her out with my lovin’ maybe . . .”

  “You sonofabit . . .” Lon threw a punch, which pleased Mick no end. Before the swing was complete Mick had already ducked under it and grabbed Morrison by the shirt front, slamming him back against the wall.

  “You heard the lady,” he murmured in the same soft voice, one that was pitched too low to be heard by anyone other than the man whose face was mere inches from his own. “I’m different. You keep pressing it and I’ll show you just how different I can be.”

  “Stop it, both of you!” Sasha was suddenly there trying to get between them. She grabbed one of Mick’s wrists in both her hands and tugged. When his grip didn’t budge, she sank her nails in. Hard. “You’re causing a scene, damn you both, and I won’t have it.”

  The combatants turned their heads to look at her. Mick then looked beyond her to the small group standing at the end of the corridor. It consisted of Connie, Brenda, Karen Corselli, and Jack the driver, and they were all watching with unabashed interest.

  Son of a bitch. Real professional behavior, here, Vinicor. He looked back at Sasha and noted that her face was pale except for the two bright splotches of color that burned high across her cheekbones.

  “Take your claws outta my wrist, darlin’,” he said gently. As soon as she complied, he released Morrison and stepped back. Cocking an eyebrow at Sasha, he inquired, “So. You ready to go then?”

  “In your dreams, Vinicor,” Lon snapped. “She’s riding back with me.”

  Sasha damn near exploded. Taking a giant step backward to distance herself from both men, breathing deep to keep from screaming, she said through clenched teeth, “If the two of you were going up in flames, I wouldn’t cross the street to spit on either one of you. The next time you want to make a spectacle of yourselves, you damn well leave me out of it. I’ve had enough of this shit to last me a lifetime.” She hated men, hated, hated, hated them.

  Turning on her heel, she stalked down the corridor. Seeing Karen open her mouth as she drew near, she snapped, “You say one word about my language, Corselli, and I’ll flatten you. C’mon, Connie,” she commanded in a more moderate tone as she passed her friend, “let’s go back to the hotel.”

  “Why do they do that kind of stuff?” she demanded on the short ride back to the inn. “I don’t understand men at all; I swear I don’t. I mean, what’s it to Mick whom I’ve slept with? I don’t ask him about his prior love life . . . and you can bet it’s a whole lot more extensive than mine could ever hope to be.” She noticed the driver eyeing the two of them in the rearview mirror, listening to their conversation with obvious interest, and dropped her voice. “And, jeez, Connie, where on earth would he get the idea that I’ve slept with Lon? That would be like having sex with my brother.”

  “Ah, finally, a question I think I can answer.” Connie gave her friend a tender smile. “Sasha, it was obvious from the way you talked about Lonnie at the Dome earlier that you know him very well. One might even be forgiven for assuming you know him quite intimately. Add to that the image the two of you project when you skate together, and it’s really not such a surprising conclusion to jump to. And, hell, it’s not like you’ve ever told Mick anything about your relationship with Lon. So he simply drew his own conclusions based on what he observed, and it gave him a case of the green-eyed monster.”

  “All right,” Sasha conceded slowly. She was reluctant to relinquish her fury but ultimately forced herself to acknowledge the logic of Connie’s words. “Yeah, okay, I suppose I can understand that. But what’s Lon’s excuse?”

  Connie shrugged. “That I don’t know. By the time I got there, Mick had him rammed up against the wall. Well, I guess he did that twice, didn’t he? The first time, then. Perhaps if you reconstruct the events you’ll have a better understanding of Lon’s reasons. Just what started the whole thing, anyhow?”

  “Oh,” Sasha whispered, suddenly remembering. “Okay, so maybe Lonnie thought he had cause.” She filled Connie in on the incident that started the brawl. “I kind of regressed for a minute there when Mick put his hand on my breast. But all that fighting and posturing . . . You know, when it comes right down to it, Con, I swear men get off on this kind of thing.”

  “Yeah, it’s one of those male deals that women never quite comprehend. I sure as hell don’t underst
and what they find so appealing about the prospect of getting their teeth kicked down their throats.”

  “Me either. While I think it started off being about me, in the end I think it was really about them. Some territorial muscle flexing thing.” She sighed. “Oh, hell, let ’em duke it out if it makes them happy. For once in my life I’m going to use my brain and just steer clear of both of them.”

  If everyone else was vastly entertained and highly amused to see Lon Morrison and Mick Vinicor fighting over Sasha Miller, Karen Corselli was not. She was perturbed.

  Seriously perturbed.

  She was very unhappy with the way events had been unfolding of late. Mick had turned down her freely offered body . . . while actively pursuing little Miss Butter-Wouldn’ t-Melt-in-Her-Mouth’s. Why, for heaven’s sake, when he could have her? She didn’t understand it; she truly didn’t. And she and Lon had been “such good friends,” as the saying went, once upon a time; yet he hadn’t so much as looked her up or even said hello since his arrival yesterday. His only interest seemed to be in namby-pamby Sasha. Karen was getting heartily sick of the sound of that name.

  Although she would perhaps admit that she’d been just the tiniest bit impressed when Sasha had warned her with such fierceness against issuing a lecture concerning her language . . . not that a reprimand wouldn’t have been well deserved, for it had been most improper. Few people had ever deterred Karen from objecting to anything she felt strongly about—and heaven only knew her feelings regarding the inexcusable use of such language were strong and pure. Yet, in spite of herself, she had been deterred. For just the merest instant, she had caught a glimpse, an intimation, of such power in Miller’s eyes . . .

  Karen’s backbone snapped erect. Well, she was certain it was an aberration; for if there was one thing she’d determined a long time ago, it was that little Miss Miller wouldn’t know what to do with real power if it came right up and tapped her on the shoulder. Besides, even if it had been the genuine article it was a puny thing compared to her own.