Hot on Ice: A Hockey Romance Anthology

by Avery Flynn

  “Ow.”

  “Good hurt or bad hurt?”

  “Is there a good hurt?”

  “Yeah, it’s like it hurts, but you don’t really want it to stop.”

  “Okay, it’s good, I guess, but it still hurts.”

  “Just breathe through it, it will relax in a minute.” When he finished with the first, he pressed on the twin knot on the other side of her spine and then worked his way back to her neck, taking care of every trigger point he found in between—there were a lot.

  He slid his thumbs up the back of her long neck, past her hairline to the base of her skull—more knots. Shit, this girl was one big knot of tension. He massaged her scalp and she let out a moan that was porn-worthy. He closed his eyes and began silently reciting the names of the New York Spartans—he hated the fucking Spartans. He thought it would be the perfect erection killer, unfortunately even the Spartans couldn’t compete with Trish, his hand in her hair, her scent surrounding him, her skin warming under his touch, and that damn blush that sent heat pulsating from her. He checked the urge to nibble her neck and quickly, before he did something incredibly inappropriate, slid his hand from her neck, over her shoulders and then down her back. He cleared his throat. He’d gotten to the backup goalie and was thinking of the names of the coaches. “There, how’s that?”

  “Better, thanks. If you ever stop playing hockey professionally, you could make a mint as a masseur.”

  “Good to know.”

  She turned toward him, her big dark eyes were darker—dilated and she bit her bottom lip before her pink tongue poked out to wet the top. He stared, she’d obviously been abusing that poor bottom lip. He absolutely had to stop thinking about her mouth, her lips, hell, anything that was part of Trish Reynolds.

  “We’re supposed to stop by Humpin’ Hannah’s. Karma wants to see you in the flesh.”

  He raised his eyebrows and watched her pale face flame. Interesting choice of words. “Is that an exact quote?”

  Trish bit her lip again and shook her head. “No, why?”

  He shrugged. “Just curious.” And now relieved. The way Trish had said ‘in the flesh’ had him strolling right down the fantasy aisle in his mind, and he wanted to be sure Karma wasn’t generating the trigger words—although the knowledge that Trish was didn’t make his jeans any more comfortable.

  “She wants Guido’s—”

  “And Karma usually gets what Karma wants.” He was just glad he wasn’t on the menu.

  4

  “Stryker’s always touching me.” Trish whispered into her phone from the last stall in the ladies’ room at Guido’s—the best pizza west of the Hudson River, or so her three friends from New York say. She’d been racking her brain, trying to figure out what all the touching meant, but the one conclusion she’d come up with was put directly in her too-good-to-be-true file. She needed a second opinion—and maybe a third too, but since Karma would be the third, Trish couldn’t contemplate going there. It was bad enough she was forced to call Mary Claire from Guido’s bathroom.

  “And why is Stryker touching you a bad thing?” Mary Claire laughed before she could cover it up with a cough or something.

  “Because it’s for the wrong reasons. When he didn’t recognize me at the airport, I had to introduce myself—”

  “He didn’t recognize you?”

  The door opened and shut, someone came into the stall next to hers.

  “I think I might have overdone the outfit.” Trish flushed the toilet to cover their conversation.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “A toilet flushing.”

  “You’re on the phone with me while you’re going to the bathroom?”

  “No, but it’s not like we all haven’t done that at one time or another. Sometimes you just have to go, but this time I came into the bathroom at Guido’s to call you. I couldn’t very well pull out my phone and have this conversation in front of Stryker, now could I?”

  “Fine. Back to Stryker, you didn’t overdo the dress, you looked amazing. He’s just never seen you dressed up.”

  “Mary Claire, he just stood there staring at me, like he couldn’t believe it, and then put my hair up behind my head, and stared at my face. He asked for permission first, of course, but I gave it before I had any idea what the hell he was asking.”

  “Oooh, that’s so… sexy, almost intimate. Did it feel intimate?”

  “I don’t know, I was so shocked, and then he was sooo close, my brain shut down. I started blabbering about the nine types of intelligence, and it went downhill from there.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh my God, Claire. You should see the stuff written on the bathroom stall door.”

  “Trish, focus. What happened? How did it go downhill? Everything seemed fine—better than fine when you came into the shop.”

  “I’m trying to forget that part.”

  The woman in the next stall flushed, stepped out and made her way to the sink. “I was practicing my mindfulness while he was dumping things in his bedroom, and well, I suck at it. When he returned, he misinterpreted my concentrating face for my I’m-about-to-pass-out face, which I don’t have, by the way, and then he picked me up and laid me on the bed. The only thing that kept him from running downstairs to get you was the fact I grabbed onto his shirtfront and wouldn’t let go.”

  “I have a picture in my mind. You know, Stryker’s bigger than I remembered, and stronger. When I gave him a hug—I could swear that man’s muscles have muscles. His chest is hard as a rock, and as for the rest of him…” She trailed off and that last M sounded more like a sound Mary Claire made when she took her first sip of a Huckleberry Milkshake—her one weakness, well, other than Jack. “I can only imagine.”

  “Oh my God! No you can’t. Mary Claire Bennett, you’re a married woman. That’s virtual cheating. You cannot have mind sex with Stryker. Ever.” Besides, mind sex with Stryker was her thing. And since she was single, mind sex with Stryker was maybe not totally appropriate, but certainly understandable. Mary Claire mind fucking Stryker was just wrong.

  “I’m not having mind sex with him, I just wondered what kind of heat he was packing. It was just a fleeting thought, mind you.”

  “I’ve never had that fleeting thought about Jack.”

  “But you’ve had it about Stryker, and I’d be willing to bet it wasn’t at all fleeting either. But on the positive side, Stryker’s already gotten you into bed. The man certainly works fast.”

  Trish groaned. “What do I do?”

  “About what?”

  “The way he touches me. A lot.”

  “His touching you twice does not exactly equal a lot.”

  “Yeah, well, after the whole bedroom fiasco, Karma called and pissed me off. The woman is taking this whole ownership of Stryker thing way too literally if you ask me. You know how Karma can be. There was no talking to her. She demanded we show up at Hannah’s and then hung up on me before I could say no.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I’ve been so stressed out—especially since I’ve made a complete fool of myself in front of him multiple times in the last two hours, and I guess he noticed, because the next thing I know, he’s giving me a massage.”

  “On the bed?”

  “No, in the living room, why?”

  “Was it good?”

  “Oh yeah. The man has magic hands, and I swear he was able to ferret out every knot in my neck, back, and shoulders. Even on my scalp. Did you know you can have knots on the back of your head?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Touch him back.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Sure you can. Just do what the Law Of Attraction gurus tell you. Act as if you already have what you want. Act like you would if you two are already together. What do you have to lose?”

  “My dignity?”

  “You lost that when he mistook your concentration for a fainting spell and put you on
the bed, not to mention when you lectured him about intelligence—you really must tell me how your mind ended up there after your initial brain reboot. And then ran into a bathroom to call your best friend for dating advice. In other words, you have nothing left to lose, so just go with it.”

  “Mary Claire—”

  “Trish, have I ever steered you wrong before?”

  “No, but then I’ve never asked for advice about men before.”

  “I love you.”

  “Yeah, I know. I love you too.”

  “Call me later and tell me how it works, oh, and wash your hands before you go. Public restrooms gross me out.”

  Stryker stood when Trish returned to the table, letting out a relieved breath. She’d been gone so long, he wondered if she’d ditched him and slipped out the back door. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Were you trying to be present again, in the bathroom?”

  “No.”

  He watched her blush spread from her chest to her forehead.

  “I got a phone call.”

  “Boyfriend?” Shit, he hadn’t even thought to ask if she had a boyfriend, not that he was interested, but if she were involved with someone else… The thought of Trish with someone other than him—he cut that one off. It wasn’t something he wanted to think about. He took a drink of his beer, but the picture of some guy doing to Trish what he’d spent the last few hours thinking about doing to Trish kept creeping back to the movie screen in his mind, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  “No. It was business.” She slid her hand down his arm, not quite in a caress, but it wasn’t a pat either.

  It hadn’t escaped him that she hadn’t said who she spoke to or denied the existence of a boyfriend. But then if she did have a boyfriend, he’d have to be a stupid shit to let Stryker, or any other guy for that matter, hang out with her for an entire week without making it known that she was good and taken. If she were his, he wouldn’t have allowed it, at least not before he threatened the guy’s life a few times if he so much as thought about… what? Tying her to a bed and kissing, licking, and sucking every square inch of her body before he got to the good stuff? Yeah, that.

  Her hand was still on his arm, and she gave it a squeeze. “What’s got you so riled up?”

  “I’m not riled.”

  “Could have fooled me, you’re clenching your jaw, and your hands are in fists, your arm just seemed to turn from human flesh to concrete beneath my hand, and you’ve got that primal look on your face. The one you wear when you’re about to take down some poor slob on the ice. They don’t call you The Enforcer for nothing.”

  “You didn’t say whether or not you have a boyfriend.”

  “You didn’t ask. You asked if it was a boyfriend on the phone.”

  “Well, do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Are you seeing someone exclusively?”

  He waited.

  And waited.

  He knew not to say another word. No, he let the uncomfortable silence fall over the table. The two guys at the next table—the ones who checked her out all the way to the bathroom and back—were silent as well, listening for her answer.

  She pulled her hair to one side, letting it hang over one shoulder, exposing her neck to him. She must have put lip gloss or something on her mouth when she was in the bathroom because her lips were red—just like they’d been the first time he’d set eyes on her in the airport. Red, and kissable, and shit, he wanted her. But this was Trish—his quiet, mousy, brainiac tutor turned hot fantasy girl. And that made her doubly dangerous because she knew him.

  She knew him better than anyone else on the planet. She knew every last one of his secrets—the one secret he’d hidden from everyone but her for his entire life. She hadn’t used it against him yet and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had ample opportunities. She could have hung him out to dry when he was the star defenseman on his college team. Hell, she could have done a tell-all with ESPN when he’d signed with The Rajuns. Now he was about to spend a week with her surrounded by the fuckin’ media who would kill for a story like this. Talk about a nightmare. What if she unintentionally let it slip? He’d be screwed. What if some shrewd reporter asked her how she knew him? What would she tell them? Would she tell them that she’d tutored him all through college? Would she say he’d been so stupid, he couldn’t even read until she taught him? Would she tell them that, without her, he wouldn’t have had a million-to-one chance to pass even one of his classes?

  “Why do you want to know?”

  If it had been any woman but Trish asking him the question, he’d swear she was acting coy, but Trish was no actor. No, everything that crossed her mind usually came right out of her mouth, or if not, it sure as hell showed in her eyes. Right now, hers were laced with confusion. The woman may have the brains of a computer, but when it came to seeing herself, or more specifically, seeing how other people saw her, she was clueless. He figured she might be lacking in both interpersonal and intra-personal intelligence. Maybe he wasn’t so dumb after all.

  He slid his chair toward hers and motioned her to scoot nearer. Yeah, he was going to whisper a secret in her ear—one very hot secret. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, tugging her against him. “I’m wondering…” He breathed into her ear and felt the shiver that ran through her. “If I’m going to have to fight some guy after I do this.”

  “Fight?” She turned her head so they were nose-to-nose. “What are you talking about?”

  “This.” He slid his hand to her neck and then higher, his fingers cupping the back of her head, threading through her thick, silky hair. He was going in for the kiss. The kiss he’d wanted since the first second he set eyes on her. The kiss he’d been trying to talk himself out of. If the confused look in her eyes meant anything, the kiss she never saw coming.

  Her lips parted slightly on a shocked intake of breath as his mouth slid over hers in a whisper of a kiss. Her eyes shot open so wide, he would have laughed if not for the softness of her lips, the taste of her, and the way her pulse fluttered under his fingertips. Since she didn’t slap him, he kissed her again, not quite a whisper this time, but close, soft, slow, and with a bit more pressure. He nibbled her lips and slid his tongue over the bottom one, asking for permission. For the first time in his life, he was unsure of the answer.

  Trish’s hand fisted in his shirt, pulling him toward her and almost off his chair. The difference in their heights and his precarious position on his chair meant that he was either going to end up on her lap, or she on his. He had no problem with that, he wanted to be closer, too, and took that as permission to move her. He lifted her to a better kissing height, settling her firmly on his lap, just as he slid his mouth over hers. He wrapped his arm around her waist, slipping his tongue into her mouth, tasting, tangling with hers, doing his best to remember they were in a restaurant when all he wanted to do was take.

  It seemed that he was the only one who remembered where they were if the moan Trish let out was a clue, so he gently but firmly ended the kiss and waited for her to open those beautiful eyes of hers. When she finally did, she came out of it all soft, slightly disgruntled, and completely unfocused. He saw the split second that she cleared the fog because that slightly dreamy, mildly disgruntled expression morphed into shock and embarrassment. That was a nanosecond before she attempted to vault off his lap. Thanks to his quick reflexes, strength, and sense of self-preservation, he was able to keep her right where she was. If she’d been successful, she might have unmanned him—literally. “Calm down, you’re fine.”

  “Let me go.”

  God, she was hot when she got all prim and proper and pissy. “You first.”

  “What?”

  He wanted to kiss that miss manners death glare right off her face, but she looked mad enough to bite, so he refrained. “You need to let go of my shirt, unless you want to stay right where you are, which would be fine with me. It may make eating our pizza a little d
ifficult, but I’m sure we can work around it.”

  She redirected her gaze from his mouth to the hand fisting his shirt in a mini kung-fu grip and released him, then tried for another lap vault.

  He held her still and slid his mouth back to her ear. “Careful, let me help you back to your chair.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “You do if you don’t want to damage any of my equipment, Cher.”

  If her eyes weren’t bugging out before, they certainly were now. It was as if she’d been unaware of her effect on him, although how she missed it was a true mystery. The look of dawning awareness on her face was priceless. He took advantage of her apparent shock to lift her gently off his lap and return her to her chair.

  “I never thought I’d hear a Boise boy go all Cajun on me.”

  “You’d be surprised by the things I pick up.” The two guys at the next table were guffawing, not even trying to hide the fact that he and Trish were the objects of their hilarity. He turned his head, and shot them the look he gave the guys on the ice right before he opened a big can of whoop-ass, and they both shut it down mid-laugh.

  Trish was still red as a Jersey tomato and her gaze traveled back and forth between the wrinkled front of his cotton button-down shirt, his mouth, and the stick currently tenting his pants.

  He cleared his throat. “You never answered the question.” He watched her as she rewound their conversation on the tape in her mind—obviously going double speed through their kisses. He knew she had total recall, but he had to admit, for an über-smart woman, she could be pretty dense. “The one about the presence of a boyfriend or significant other in your life and whether or not some guy is going to have a problem with the fact that I just had my tongue in your mouth and my hands all over you and that I can’t wait to do it again.”

  “You can’t?”

  “Are you being purposefully evasive?”

  “No.”

  “No to the question of evasiveness or to the question about the existence of a boyfriend?”

  “Both.”