On Thin Ice

by Susan Andersen

  “See that you do, Miller. Without it, you don’t get back on the ice.”

  “So you said this morning.” Sasha turned away before he could see the tears that rose to her eyes. She never cried. Hardly ever. Her armor was just a little thin this afternoon; that was all. She’d be back in fighting trim by tomorrow.

  But she would never, not until the day she died, understand the rules in this damned man/woman game.

  Now granted, her brains were pretty scrambled last night. But she could have sworn that Mick hadn’t begrudged taking care of her. No one had asked him to, after all; he’d just sort of taken it upon himself to take charge. And he’d been patient and gentle and, truly, for a man of his temperament, pretty downright sweet actually.

  This morning though . . . Well it wasn’t as if he’d suddenly turned into a snapping, snarling adversary or anything. In a way she would have understood surly, because taking care of someone who’s ill is not exactly a laugh a minute and he’d probably gotten even less sleep than she had. But it hadn’t been like that. There’d simply been this . . . wall. This lethally polite, impenetrable wall.

  She’d never seen him distant like that, and it was amazing how authoritative a little aloofness could make a man appear. She’d gotten the strongest impression he wanted her off his hands, as if she were a stranger he’d accidentally knocked down in a train station and now all he wanted to do was to pick her up, brush her off, and send her on her way. He’d checked her eyes for pupil reactions with cool, impersonal professionalism, declared the worst of the concussion over, and as soon as was decently possible had passed her off to Connie with strict instructions that she be taken back to the hospital to have her neuro signs checked.

  When she’d tried to demure, feeling, if not one hundred percent better, then at least worlds improved from the night before, he’d looked at her without an iota of the previous night’s gentleness and demanded, “You want to skate again, Miller?”

  “Y-yes, of course,” she’d stammered, feeling unaccountably betrayed by his abrupt coldness.

  “Well, you’re not going to do so without a doctor’s release.”

  “Yes, sir,” she’d snapped out smartly in response, drawing herself up, damned if she’d allow him to see that it mattered to her how he acted. She’d stood there feeling vulnerable and exposed in his oversized T-shirt; then, with a dignity she’d taught herself years ago and pretending she wasn’t buck naked underneath a piece of cloth that suddenly felt insufficient, she’d gone quietly around the room gathering her scattered belongings. She’d turned to Connie, who had been standing silently, looking from her face to Mick’s. “Do you have my room key?”

  “Yeah.” She’d produced it and handed it over to Sasha, who had turned once again to Mick.

  “Thank you for your care last night,” she’d said quietly. “I appreciate it.” She’d turned and walked out of his room without a backward glance.

  She didn’t glance back at him now as she walked to the elevator. But Mick watched her. His jaw tightened as he saw Morrison run to catch up with her, solicitously helping her aboard the car and bending down to murmur something in her ear. He watched until the doors closed behind her . . . and that son of a bitch Morrison. Then he turned back to the next person in line.

  Lon had intended to stay away from Karen. It was a promise he’d made to himself the minute he’d found out that she, too, was skating for Follies on Ice. And what a little bombshell that discovery had been.

  The skating world was a small one—he’d known that—but this almost bordered on the ridiculous. Good God, small was one thing . . . but who the hell would have expected it to shrink to these proportions?

  Well, shrunk it had and it didn’t matter whether he was prepared for it or not. The basic fact couldn’t be changed: he and Karen Corselli were skating for the same company. So, looking at it realistically, avoiding her entirely was probably out of the question. The next best thing, he had determined once he got past the shock, was to simply steer clear of her.

  No ifs, ands, or buts. He wasn’t about to put himself in the way of temptation, and that was the beginning and end of the matter. Jesus, especially not that temptation. Karen Corselli was one lesson he’d learned the hard way. He was keeping his distance.

  But he had forgotten the strength of her will when there was something she wanted. At the moment, apparently, that something was him. And she was certainly one enticing woman. He was as fascinated now by the contrasts in her personality as he had been several years ago.

  Sasha had never known about his association with Karen, and Lon would just as soon keep it that way. She had never thought to ask who had turned him on in the first place to the fast money to be made in drug trafficking, and since he’d actually been caught because of his own stupidity, he’d been careful not to bring Karen into it.

  The woman had a real flair for intrigue; she loved the sneaking around and meeting on the sly; she got off on presenting one image to the public while displaying something entirely different in private. Way back when, her two different sides had drawn him in. They continued to tug at something inside of him today.

  He found it amazing that her public persona wasn’t some hypocritical display put on simply to fool the troops. She had a sincere abhorrence of hearing anything that smacked of taking the Lord’s name taken in vain, and her fight to combat smutty language wherever she encountered it was a genuinely held conviction, one that she lived by. You wouldn’t hear obscenities passing Karen Corselli’s lips in public or in private.

  But, ah God, the other uses that woman would willingly put those lips to behind closed doors was enough to raise the dead.

  He looked down on them now, unpainted and innocent looking, engaged in an act that was anything but innocent. His hands clenched in her hair, his eyes closed, and his head fell back as he groaned. Call him weak; call him a fool. He’d known how good it would be and in the end just hadn’t been able to stay away.

  But there always seemed to be some kind of payment required when it came to sex with Karen, a hidden cost, which when the heat and need were upon him he tended to forget about. Afterwards, however, lying depleted in sweet postcoital bliss with Karen’s head nestled on his shoulder and her fingers strolling lazily up and down his chest and stomach, he was forcibly reminded of it.

  “That was nice,” she murmured. She twirled a curl of chest hair around her finger. “Turn on the night-light, will you? It’s getting dark.”

  He complied, amused as always by her irrational fear of the dark when she was so fearless in every other way. But he knew better than to comment. Karen had no sense of humor whatsoever when it came to that particular little frailty; she refused to speak of its origins, and he had wisely learned to keep his amusement to himself.

  They lay quietly for several moments. Then she inquired casually, “How are you set for money, Lon?”

  He shrugged. “It’s tight, but I’ll get by until payday.”

  “How would you like to earn a nice little nest egg?”

  Lon raised his head up and tucked his chin into his neck to stare down at her. “Doing what?” he asked flatly.

  “Nothing you haven’t done before, doll.” She smiled up at him, her hand stealing down to stroke him to hardness once again.

  “Uh-uh, no way.” He reached down and removed her hand, determined that this time at least she wouldn’t use that particular method to make him do what she wanted. “Where’d you get scag to sell, anyway?” he demanded. “I thought you got out of the game when they sent me up.”

  “Um-hmm.”

  He jerked up on one elbow, dumping her off his chest and onto the mattress. “Jesus, Karen—”

  “Don’t take the Lord’s—”

  “Yeah, yeah, sorry. You did give Quintero the seventeen kilos I gave you to give him back, right?”

  “Ummm.”

  “Right? ”

  “More or less.”

  “More or less?” He felt like shaking her. “
What the hell does that mean, more or less?”

  “It means I cut ’em with a little sugar and held a teensy bit back, kind of in reserve for a rainy day.” She’d done it for the power of knowing she could do it . . . and get away with it.

  “Karen.” He stared down at her. “How much is a teensy bit?”

  She shrugged coolly. “About a quarter.”

  “You held back four and a quarter kilos? ”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Jeez.” Lon whistled through his teeth. “You’ve got nerves of steel, girl; I gotta hand you that.” Then he frowned. “But what about when you contacted the dealers in all the cities? It had to have gotten back to Quintero.”

  “Do I look stupid, Lon? I didn’t contact his dealers.”

  “So who’s pushing the product?”

  “Me . . . when the mood strikes me. And now that you’re here, you.”

  “No. Not me. If that’s your plan, you can just get it out of your head right now.”

  “Yes you. I want you to.”

  “Too bad, baby, because I’m not getting back into that shit.”

  “Lon,” she warned sternly, but he overrode her interruption.

  “Don’t tell me not to use that language, Karen, because sometimes it’s the only thing that fits. I just spent five years of my life in a correctional institute—five years, babycakes, and I ain’t never going back. Besides, I promised Sasha . . .”

  Too late he swallowed the rest. Ah, damn it to hell.

  He really wished he hadn’t brought her name into this.

  NINE

  Even back in their amateur circuit days, Karen had displayed a curiosity regarding Sasha’s sexual proclivities that Lon had found difficult to comprehend. She was messing around with him for God’s sake, so why all the interest in Saush’s sex life? What was it to Karen who Sasha did or didn’t sleep with?

  The way she used to hound him, though—Karen simply could not resist digging up the dirt. She wanted to know every little detail about every single person she came into contact with. What possible use that information was to her once she’d gotten her hot little hands on it was anybody’s guess, but the minute she decided she needed something she was like a damn pit bull with its teeth sunk in and its jaws locked tight, shaking, shaking, shaking until it was hers.

  Lon had caved in on a number of her demands, mostly because it was easier than arguing about a bunch of stuff not worth fighting over. But he’d never caved when it came to Sasha’s personal business. Sasha was his best friend; he didn’t sell her secrets for even the best blow job in the world.

  Which surely most folks would agree was all very noble and heartwarming of him. He still wished to hell he hadn’t brought Saush’s name up now.

  Karen had grown very still, but she slowly pushed herself up first onto one elbow, and then to a sitting position in the middle of the bed. Unmindful of her nudity, she swept her blond hair out of her eyes. “What did you promise Sasha?”

  Shit. Well, there was no dancing around it now. Lon looked her dead in the eye. “I promised her I’d stay away from the drug scene and most particularly that I wouldn’t sell again.”

  The look Karen gave him was incredulous. “Why on earth would you do that?”

  He wasn’t about to attempt an explanation of those tempestuous small-town teenage years to Karen Corselli. Mind racing, he snatched a partial truth out of the air. “Because she put her neck on the chopping block getting them to hire me.”

  “Yes, Lon, who exactly did she sleep with to secure you this job?”

  “Maybe she prayed for it, Karen,” he drawled, knowing that would bug her. She considered praying her forte, arrogantly assuming that because not everyone made as big a production out of their faith as she did they must therefore somehow be lacking in it. Reaching for his pants, he rolled to his feet and climbed into them.

  Karen watched in frustration. She was losing control here and she didn’t like it. Moreover, she absolutely refused to tolerate a loss of power for a moment longer than she had to. Men did not walk away until she was darn good and ready to let them go.

  Yet from the very beginning, Lon had been different. Some of the time she had been able to dominate him with the same ease as other men. But there were other times when he was as recalcitrant as a Missouri mule. Unlike the majority of the men she was accustomed to dealing with, men whom for the most part she could master simply by displaying her displeasure or withholding her sexual favors, Lon thrived on adversarial situations. He enjoyed arguing and putting her back up and would do so whenever the mood struck him, just for the sheer thrill of it.

  And from the beginning she’d let him get away with it because there was something about his attitude that she found extremely . . . stimulating. She watched now in silent mental and sexual frustration as, without so much as a further glance in her direction, Lon slid into his shirt, gathered up his socks and shoes, and sat down on the side of the bed to put them on.

  She squeezed her thighs together. How dare he deny her wishes and then simply ignore her this way? Who did he think he was? Needing a scapegoat and disregarding Lon’s active penchant for doing the opposite of anything he was commanded to do, she petulantly decided she knew precisely where to lay the blame for this most recent little display of independence.

  Squarely on Sasha Miller’s doorstep.

  For as long as she’d known Lon, he’d been protecting Sasha Miller’s interests, and frankly Karen was tired of it. Sasha had entirely too much influence over him, and that was a source of power Karen would not countenance. Between her interference in Lon’s decisions and this business with Mick Vinicor, she was really beginning to get on Karen’s nerves.

  Something would have to be done about her and that was a fact.

  Something a bit more conclusive than that pansy little accident on the ice the other day.

  Sasha thought that by knocking on Mick’s hotel room door, she was probably asking for trouble. As a last resort, however, having exhausted every other resource and unable to locate him anywhere else, she didn’t see what other option she had. There were only three hours until tonight’s performance and he’d made it painfully clear that she wouldn’t be part of the program without a clearance from her doctor. Then—and she perceived this to be an act of deliberate malice on his part—having laid down the law, did he make himself readily accessible? Oh, no. He was nowhere to be found when she tried to hand the damn thing over to him.

  Her knock went unanswered. Damn, not here either, apparently. Slamming her palm against the door panel in frustration, she turned away and was two steps down the hall when the door suddenly opened behind her. Sasha turned back.

  Her heartbeat threw in an extra little thump and then picked up speed as she stood there looking at him. It was obvious she had interrupted his shaving.

  Barefoot, wearing a white T-shirt tucked into olive-drab Dockers, he was using the towel draped around his neck to wipe creamy foam off his throat, and his cheeks and jaw were shiny in that way that only freshly shaved skin can be. His hair was slicked straight back from his forehead, still damp enough to show the track marks of his comb.

  Sasha thrust the doctor’s okay at him. “Here.” Okay, so she sounded a little surly. But damned if she was going to stand around and pump up his ego by admiring his manly charms.

  Mick took in her high color, the temper sparking in her gray eyes. Without bothering to reach for it, he glanced down at the paper she was all but jabbing into his chest. His eyes lifted once again to look into hers. “What’s this?”

  “What do you think it is, Vinicor?” She waved the paper under his nose this time. “It’s my medical clearance.”

  “Uh-huh. Let’s see that.” He took his time looking it over before he finally returned his attention to her. “So you really feel okay?”

  “Right as rain, bud.”

  “No lingering effects? No light-headedness, no weakness?”

  “No.” Without thinking she cocked an arm a
nd flexed a biceps at him. “Strong as an ox.”

  “Good.” He reached out, curled his fingers around the proffered muscle, trapped his other hand around the back of her neck and pulled her into his room. Slamming the door with a raised knee, he crowded her up against it. “Because I’ve waited long enough for this.”

  Sasha was just opening her mouth to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing when his hands plunged into her hair and his mouth came down on hers. It was akin to being struck by lightning, something she should have remembered from the other times he’d kissed her.

  In a fuzzy, faraway corner of her mind was a thought knocking to be heard. She shouldn’t allow him to get away with this. She was going to regret this lamentable lack of willpower and she really ought to put a stop to it. Reasons to do just that, good reasons, at the forefront of which was a nebulous feminist rhetoric that tried to insist he couldn’t just grab her and kiss her whenever he damn well pleased, got jumbled together in her brain. She couldn’t seem to formulate one complete, coherent thought.

  Which was probably just as well since her senses refused to get caught up in anything that might cause her to call a halt to this anyway. Not when it felt so good. Not when those self-same senses were being overwhelmed with all these hot urges.

  God, his mouth. It . . . felt . . . so . . . good. His lips were strong and his tongue was aggressive, and Sasha raised up on her toes to get more of both, sliding her hands up to frame his cheeks. She reveled in the feel of his flesh, so warm and smooth beneath her fingertips.

  Mick made a noise deep in his throat and widened his mouth. Then he dragged it closed, sucking at her lips, licking at all the sleek, hidden hollows. It wasn’t until quite a bit later that he finally raised his head to look down at her.

  Sasha was slower to open her eyes and Mick observed her passion-induced lethargy with satisfaction. Her skin was flushed and her eyes were heavy-lidded and dark as pewter when she finally dragged them open. Her hands still clung to his cheeks as she stared up at him in a daze.