On Thin Ice

by Susan Andersen

  “Oh, yeah. It was—so—” She shrugged helplessly, digging her shoulder blades into his diaphragm. Words just failed her.

  But then she pulled away and turned to face him. “But it’s gotta be a one-shot deal, Mick. I mean, I thank you and everything . . . but I don’t think it’d be a good idea to make a habit of this.”

  Mick felt his mouth drop open. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Of course I’m not kidding!”

  “What? Is it because I came so fast? Usually I can last longer than five minutes, I promise you. You just had me a little on the hot side and . . .”

  “My God, it’s not that.” She was standing there stark naked in front of him and it was his choice of topics that caused her to blush. She wasn’t even aware of their lack of clothing. “I didn’t need you to last longer than five minutes, you may have noticed, and—dammit, Vinicor, we’re getting off the track here!” Her posture grew very erect. “I think perhaps that drug Prozac was invented for people like you, Mick,” she said stiffly. “You could use a personality pill.”

  “That’s a helluva thing to say!”

  “Yes, well, I’m sorry. But you’re different people at dif- ferent times and I never know from one minute to the next who you’re going to be or how you’re going to react to anything—especially how you’re going to react to me. And this”—her hand twirled expressively at the bed—“well, I’m not saying it was a mistake exactly . . . I’m just saying we shouldn’t do it again, is all.”

  “This,” he said through gritted teeth as his larger hand imitated her gesture at the bed, “has damn well been building between the two of us since we first clapped eyes on each other. Admit it. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else.” He stepped close and when she backed up, he just kept right on coming until her bottom pressed against the dresser. Fingers groping behind her to curl around its edge, she gripped it tightly and thrust her chin up at him. He leaned over until they were nose to nose.

  “It’s going to keep on happening,” he promised her in a hoarse whisper. Slapping his hands down next to hers, he leaned back and looked her up and down. “Over and over and over again until we damn well get it right!”

  “I thought we got it right the first time!”

  “All right, then, until we perfect it. As for my personality” —he drew himself up and his eyes blazed down at her with affronted pride—“I was jealous of your goddam good friend Morrison, okay? This is not exactly an emotion I’m accustomed to feeling or anxious to admit, Sasha, so cut me some slack.”

  “That’s it? That’s the big apology?” She quit leaning away from him and stood up straight. “So what are you saying here, Mick? That it’s Lon’s fault you’ve been acting like Yay-hoo the Yo-Yo Man?”

  Mick rammed his fingers through his hair as he stared down at her. “Christ, you’re a hard sell!”

  “What is it you’re selling, precisely?” She shoved him aside and snatched her panties up off the floor. Stepping into them she then located her bra, but merely let it dangle from her fingers as she turned her head to glare at him. “I haven’t seen you exactly knocking yourself out to convince me you feel bad about behaving like a jerk, Vinicor. But maybe I’ve got it all wrong; let me see now.” She ticked off his transgressions on her fingers. “You cop a feel in the back hall of an ice arena and then pick a fight with my oldest friend.”

  “He started the fight, Sasha, not I.”

  “You take care of me when I’m injured, and Lord you’re so gentle and nice. But then the next morning you turn from the man I thought was my friend into the Manager from Hell. And today you make love to me and then treat me as if I’m a two-dollar whore.”

  “That’s not fair; I never—”

  “You had sex with me, the likes of which, incidentally, I have never had before,” she interrupted. “But once it’s over, do we get to bask in the postcoital glow? Oh no. Before we’re even finished, practically, you’re knockin’ me loose and accusing me of wanting to rush off and do the same with a boy I’ve known—”

  “Morrison’s no goddam boy!”

  “—since I was ten years old! Her voice kept raising, until she practically screamed, ”But, because that boy gave you a little twinge of jealousy, that makes it okay, right?”

  “A twinge?” Mick’s voice was contrastingly quiet as years of iron-clad self-control went down the tubes. “Is that what you think it was, a friggin’ twinge? ”

  “What else would you call it?”

  “Christ, Sasha, look at me! ” He waved a hand at his erection. “What you’re basically telling me here is that I’m an asshole, and I must be, honey, because I’m hearing it but I’ve still got a hard-on for you that won’t quit. Jesus, I see Morrison put his hands on you and I don’t care how innocent it is; I want to knock him on his ass, kick his fuckin’ teeth down his throat. I said it before but maybe you weren’t listening. You’re mine now.” Mick forgot that possessiveness was not professional. He stalked over to her.

  “So you tell me,” he said in a low, rough voice, leaning over her. “Was I supposed to be in a big time rush to open myself up like some goddam sacrificial virgin by just handing you that kind of power?”

  “So what then?—you just figured you’d hurt me first and beat me to the punch before I could hurt you?” His sincere emotion had taken a lot of the sting out of her ire, and she touched her fingers to his chest. “Mick, don’t you honestly know me any better than that?”

  “No, that’s the whole point. I don’t.” He gathered her hair in one fist and held it away from her neck. His eyes roamed from her toes to the top of her head. “I mean, I know I crave your body. And I know I want to learn everything about you there is to learn: who you are, what you think. But I don’t really know you at all.” And what he thought he knew scared the hell out of him.

  Sasha just looked at him for several silent moments. She knew what she wanted and if the thought of it frightened her a little, well . . .

  “Then, I suppose,” she finally said, “we had better get started working on that.”

  TEN

  Sasha spent more time in Mick’s room then she should have. Now the clock was ticking down; she was due on the ice in seven minutes. Still she sat in the line women’s dressing room, very carefully checking out the attachment of her blades to her skates. She went over them screw by screw and ascertained that each and every one was screwed and glued on tight.

  Then, grabbing them up, she raced down the corridors to the back stage area. God, she was such an idiot. It had been one of those freak things; that was all. It was ridiculous to think anyone she knew could have loosened them purposefully. Why would anyone want to hurt her?

  They wouldn’t have; they didn’t. But, squatting down to carefully adjust her laces, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was nevertheless going to be checking and rechecking her skates for a long time to come.

  Connie went to Mick’s room later that evening when she failed to find Sasha in her own. There wasn’t much doubt that Saush would be there; hell, it had been the talk of the troupe all night tonight that he’d finally stopped circling around her and moved in for the kill. So to speak. Connie knocked authoritatively.

  Minutes later the door was yanked open and Mick, breathing heavily, his hair disheveled and his collarless denim shirt half unbuttoned, its left front shirttail pulled free of his pants, stared down at her. “What?”

  Connie just grinned, enjoying his frustration. She thought that Vinicor probably got his own way much too often; it wouldn’t hurt him to put his hormones on ice for a few minutes. “I was going to ask if Sasha’s here but one look at you and it’s kind of a redundant question, isn’t it?” she said cheerfully and pushed him aside, stepping past him into the short hallway. She heard a scramble of bed springs and called out, “Make yourself decent, Saush; I need to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  Rounding the wall, she flashed an ironic smile at her friend who was sitting primly, fully dressed, in the middle of
the bed. Sasha cocked one eyebrow at her inquiringly. The pose would have been a lot more effective, Connie thought wryly, if only her cheeks weren’t flaming and her mouth wasn’t all swollen from Vinicor’s kisses.

  “I won’t keep you,” she said with a knowing smile. “I just wanted to know if: one, you’re going to Dave’s big spaghetti feed tomorrow night, and two, if we’re still on to see the troll under the bridge in the morning.”

  Having tucked in his wayward shirttail, Mick sat down on the mattress next to Sasha and rubbed a possessive hand up and down the instep of her bare foot while he eyed Connie challengingly. It was precisely that sort of claim-staking behavior at the arena tonight—not to mention Sasha’s tactile responses to it—that had set the line women’s locker room and the back stage crews to buzzing. “What the hell’s she talking about?” he demanded, not taking his eyes off Connie.

  “You know Dave DiGornio—”

  “The set crew guy?”

  Sasha nodded. “He’s from Seattle and whenever we’re in town his family invites everyone over for a huge pasta dinner.”

  “Okay, we’ll be there,” Mick told Connie decisively. He turned to Sasha and raised a brow. “That all right?”

  “You kiddin’, a chance to eat a home-cooked meal? You bet we’ll be there.” Seeing the next question forming, she explained, “As for the other, well, Seattle’s one of the most interesting cities when it comes to public art, Mick. Their sense of humor’s a little different here. We’ve been hearing about the troll for months now from Dave. It’s under the Aurora bridge, he said, in a district called Fremont, where there’s this other piece called “Waiting for the Interurban” that Connie read about in Sunset magazine. We wanted to see this stuff while we were here.” She looked at Connie. “I still do. Have you rented the car?”

  “Yeah. The only problem is, I can’t find any Aurora bridge on the map. There’s like seven bridges in this town but none of them are named the Aurora.” She shrugged. “We’ll just have to ask Dave, I guess—I’ll see what I can do about tracking him down tonight.”

  Mick said, “I want to go too, okay?” Knowing Sasha would probably defer to Connie’s wishes in this instance, he turned to her and added persuasively, “Include me, Nakamura, and I’ll do the driving.” He remembered from their trip to the Saturday Market in Portland that the women were ruthless in their attempts to avoid driving. They liked to sightsee without having to worry about traffic and directions.

  “Fine with me,” Connie said. “Brenda and Sara are going, too. There’s room for one more, and, hey, if you’re willing to drive . . .” She shrugged and stood up. “Well, I’ll let you get back to . . . whatever.” She flashed them a smile that said she was cognizant of what that “whatever” would entail. “Let’s meet in the lobby at nine. Dave said there’re some good restaurants and cafés in Fremont where we can get breakfast.”

  Sasha walked her to the door. When she came back Mick was standing at the side of the bed unbuttoning his shirt. He shrugged it off and tossed it over a chair and then moved to loom over her. Sliding a hand beneath the fall of her hair at her nape, he lowered his head, lips parted. But just centimeters before his mouth would have touched hers, he drew back. Changing the angle of his head, he came at her from another direction but did the same thing, stopping just short of kissing her. Sasha watched, mesmerized, as his tongue came out to slick across his lower lip. Gripping his bare shoulders, she stood on tiptoe to reach his mouth.

  “Now, where were we?” he murmured with a crooked smile, holding his head just out of her reach.

  “Dammit, Vinicor,” she growled, “don’t you mess with me.” She dropped back onto her heels and peered up at him through narrowed lashes. “Unless, of course, you’re anxious for me to toddle off down the hall and visit with Connie for the rest of the night.”

  He growled back. But she made note of the threat for future use. For it didn’t escape her notice that he promptly left off teasing and gave her what she wanted.

  “Mick?” It was late, but even though he’d been quiet for some time, Sasha didn’t think he was asleep. She rubbed her cheek against the smooth swell of his chest and felt his arm tighten around her.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Do you have any family?” She raised her head up to peer at him through the darkness. Felt him stiffen and then relax again. But then his heart began to beat a little more heavily beneath the hands she’d stacked upon his chest to prop up her chin, and she frowned. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded, shifting her palm to lie flat against his sternum, registering its deep thud. “It’s an easy enough question, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, sure.” But one that drove home the reason he was here in the first place, a reason that, with an uncharacteristic lack of professionalism, he’d been shoving to the back of his mind all day long. Mick sat up, dislodging Sasha from her indolent drape across his front. Face composed and utterly unreadable, he sat back against the headboard and gazed down at her. “I’ve got folks in Billings.”

  She scrambled to sit up. “Montana?”

  “Yeah. My mom and dad.”

  Sasha sat cross-legged, pulling the sheet up to tuck under her arms. “Are you an only child too, then? So am I. Did you always wish for a brother or sister the way I did?”

  Mick could feel his features growing stiff. “I had a brother. He’s dead now.”

  “Oh, Mick, I’m so sorry.” Her sympathy was immediate and genuine, and she scooted over to curl up against his side, wrapping her arms around his middle to hold him tight. “Tell me about him.”

  Part of him wanted to peel her off of him and shove her away. Violently. It was because of people like her that Pete was dead. But a larger part wanted to do exactly what she said and tell her. Tentatively, he put one arm around her.

  “His name was Peter,” he said and was surprised by the hoarseness of his voice. He cleared his throat. “Pete. He was eight years older than me.”

  “I bet you idolized him, huh?”

  His arm tightened slightly around her. “God, yeah. He was golden, my big brother. Smart and funny, good-looking. And nice, you know? I mean, I was a pest, always wanting to hang out with him, and he’d actually take me along with him sometimes and just laugh when his friends objected.”

  “What happened to him, Mick?”

  “Vietnam.”

  Her head snapped up. “That’s how my dad died. I was just a baby, so I never knew him, but . . .”

  “Pete didn’t die there, Sasha,” Mick interrupted her. “He got hooked on drugs there.”

  “Oh, Mick.” It was said with true compassion. But a spear of ice seemed to find her heart and she withdrew just a tiny bit. Why was it every time she turned around she seemed to be confronted by the specter of drugs?

  Her subtle withdrawal wasn’t lost on Mick and he was filled with a wave of contempt so fierce he nearly choked on it. Unable to vent it by lambasting her with his opinion of drugs and the sleaze who dealt it, he vented it in another way. “That fuckin’ war took Pete away from us and sent home a stranger,” he said bitterly. “By the time he died when I was fourteen, he weighed one hundred and seven pounds and he’d steal the fillings from your teeth if he thought they’d buy him his next fix of scag.”

  “Scag?”

  Oh, please, like you don’t know, babe? Mick’s posture was absolutely stiff within the circle of her arms. “Heroin.”

  Sasha, too, stiffened. Oh, damn it. Damn it clear to hell and gone. What was it about her life that seemed to lead all roads straight back to that same corrupt substance, over and over and over again?

  Did she dare tell him about Lon? Chances were that he’d likely already heard via the grapevine anyway. Which, even more than the jealousy he claimed regarding her relationship with Lonnie, would go a long way toward explaining Mick’s antipathy where her oldest friend was concerned. But she could still tell him about how it had affected her, couldn’t she? It gave them a great deal in common. Why not tell him how jus
t hearing the name of that narcotic these days was enough to make her teeth grow tight with rage?

  But, no, better not. Judging by his rigidity, tonight was not the time to give vent to her pet revulsion. Merely trying to hold Mick at the moment felt like hugging Plymouth Rock.

  He obviously wasn’t in the right frame of mind to listen right now.

  Mick was fed up to his eye teeth with all the bullshit and hypocrisy. Sasha’s, that was, not his own. As far as he was concerned, his lies and half-truths were merely a matter of doing his job.

  From start to finish everything about this case had differed from any other he’d ever handled. The main difference of course was that he was accustomed to ingratiating himself into the lives of known dealers. The question, when dealing with them, was not were they or weren’t they. The question was: would they buy his scam. Everybody just sort of automatically assumed that everyone else was as big a crook as the next guy, or they worried that the next guy was a narc. But this . . .

  He’d screwed up royally last night. For God’s sake, you did not tell someone who dealt a particularly toxic drug that their narcotic of choice had killed your beloved brother—a move like that was strictly amateur. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known it perfectly well at the time, either; he sure as hell didn’t have the excuse of ignorance. Still some dominant voice had kept whispering in his ear, insisting he had to tell this woman the truth.

  Bullshit like that was going to get him killed if he didn’t watch his step.

  He could not believe what he had done, couldn’t believe he’d actually hamstrung this operation by divulging that particular slice of family history. Just how likely was she going to be to confide in him now about her little sideline?

  Not bloody likely, that’s how.