Hot on Ice: A Hockey Romance Anthology

by Avery Flynn

  “Then give it a break, already, would you? You’re not dumb. You happen to be one of the nicest, smartest, most talented and attractive men I’ve ever met, so stop beating yourself up.”

  What she said was surprising, but it was the look in her eyes that shocked him. Once he got beyond the pissed off, brilliant princess thing she had going, what he saw was pure truth. He wasn’t sure which was more amazing, that she thought he was smart, or the part she let slip about his being nice, talented, and attractive. Obviously, the double dirty martinis let down her guard and loosened her tongue. He just wished he knew exactly what to do with that information.

  He should have left the bartender a bigger tip.

  Trish’s phone woke her. She reached over to grab it off her bedside table only to find air where her table should have been. She opened her eyes and cringed. She was not in her own bed, which could only mean one thing—she was in Stryker’s. She slid her eyes to the opposite side of the bed to see nothing but rumpled sheets and a dented pillow. Since she was not one to roll around a queen size bed on her own, she knew she’d had company. She sat up so fast, both her head and her stomach rebelled. Her phone was on the dresser, so she dropped the sheet—relieved to find she was not naked. Thank God, but the fact that she wore one of Stryker’s hockey jerseys—one she had a copy of hanging in her closet, but in a much smaller size—didn’t make her feel that much better. She grabbed the phone—anything to stop the ringing. “Hello?”

  “Are you okay?” Mary Claire’s worried voice carried past the pain.

  “I could use a few Excedrin and about a quart of coffee, but yeah, I’m basically fine. How are you?”

  “I saw what happened last night at Humpin’ Hannah’s.”

  “You were there?”

  “No, it’s on YouTube.”

  Trish backed up to the bed and sat, afraid her legs wouldn’t hold her. She ran her hand through her hair and found the dress she’d worn the day before folded neatly over the foot of the bed. “Oh God. What have I done?”

  “Other than have a fight with Stryker? I’m not sure.”

  “What exactly is on YouTube?”

  “A video of Karma jumping on Stryker and kissing him repeatedly, you stalking off, Stryker dealing with the crowd, oh, and the fight you had with him. You were in his face, poking him in the chest, and reading him the riot act. I don’t know what the hell you were saying—the music was too loud to hear and I don’t read lips, but you seemed really pissed, not to mention drunk.”

  “I wasn’t drunk.”

  “Oh yes you were. I’ve seen you with half a bag on, but never a full set of luggage. I thought things were getting personal with you two—in a good way, then I see you fighting. What happened?”

  “Oh my God, it’s really on YouTube?”

  “Yeah, and I’m watching it on the big screen TV. Wow. Just wow. You’ve got two hundred and eleven thousand views. People are even commenting. Make that two hundred and twelve thousand. I just can’t stop watching it. You were awesome.”

  Trish groaned. It was too early. It was too bright. It was too humiliating.

  “It is too funny. You had Stryker against the boards. Jack says you just schooled ‘The Enforcer’”

  Trish glanced at the clock and rubbed her forehead trying to rack her brain. “What did I say to him?”

  “That’s what everyone on YouTube is trying to figure out. You’re trending, girlfriend. Oh, do yourself a favor and don’t read the comments.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let’s just say they’re taking sides and it’s not looking good for you.”

  “Huh?”

  “They can’t hear what you’re fighting about but just between you, me, and the doorknob, that video steamed like a hot romance novel—not quite Fifty Shades but it definitely had the potential to get there. If not full-out BDSM, at least a little slap and tickle. Then Stryker seemed to go all primal and looked like he wanted to throw you over his shoulder and take you back to his he-man cave. I had to fan myself. Seriously, if I weren’t happily married, I wouldn’t mind being on the receiving end of that kind of dominance.”

  Trish slumped back against the headboard, took a deep breath, and reminded herself to stay present. She paid attention to her breathing and focused on the rumpled sheets of their shared bed. Yeah, on second thought, maybe today wasn’t a good day to practice being present.

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “What were you arguing about?”

  Trish took a mental ice pick to the visualization of her and Stryker rolling around said bed and wondered if it was a memory or just her very vivid imagination. She had to concentrate on her conversation with Mary Claire and thought she might as well get the hardest part over with—she knew Mary Claire wouldn’t let her off the hook. On the bright side, at least it wasn’t Karma on the other end of the phone. She lowered her voice praying that if he were in the next room, he wouldn’t hear her. “Stryker said a brainiac like me wouldn’t go for a dumb jock like him. Do you believe him? Of course I was pissed. He made it sound like I’m some kind of snob.”

  “So you poked him in the chest and screamed in his face.”

  Trish ignored the comment. And her thoughts went back to the Stryker she knew in college. He’d never come straight out and said it, but the vibe she’d always gotten was that he was embarrassed by his learning disabilities. It was as if they were his dirty little secret or something. “He was impossible in college and still is, obviously. I’m just praying that since our conversation wasn’t recorded, everything will be fine.”

  “Girl, I’ve watched that video multiple times. I’m sorry to tell you, that’s not what fine looks like to me—just saying’”

  “Mary Claire, he kissed me.”

  “Where? And why are you whispering?”

  “At Guido’s Pizza and on Main Street, in front of God only knows who, and in the apartment.” She was whispering because she had no idea where in the hell the man was or when he’d be back. She cringed. “I don’t have time to give you a blow-by-blow. I’m late and I haven’t even showered yet.” She didn’t mention she was still in the apartment and not her house, or the fact that it looked as if she’d spent the night with Stryker. Not that she thought they’d done anything other than share a bed… well, not that she could remember anyway.

  “Okay, just tell me this. Is he a good kisser?”

  “Oh yeah. Too good.”

  “That sounds promising. Still, how anyone can be too good a kisser is beyond me. Did he kiss you before or after the fight?”

  “Both. What am I supposed to do?”

  “If I were you, I’d enjoy the hell out of it. I expect a full report just as soon as you’re able. Call me later.”

  “No promises. I don’t even know what to tell you. I still don’t know what he means by this.” Or where he was. She didn’t hear him in the rest of the apartment—and it wasn’t a very large place.

  “Seriously? Usually when a man kisses you it means he eventually wants to get into your panties.”

  She was still wearing hers—thank God. Just panties and his jersey. She groaned again.

  “Okay, he definitely wants into your panties, especially if he took the time to kiss you well enough to confuse the hell out of you, which it seems he’s accomplished. Funny, I’ve known you since fourth grade and I don’t believe I’ve ever known you to be confused by a man before. I can’t wait to hear all about it. Now, go make yourself beautiful and do your best to scramble his brain as badly as he’s scrambled yours.”

  The bedroom door swung open. “Oh good, you’re up.”

  Trish put her hand up like a New York Cop trying to direct traffic. He stopped.

  “Who was that?”

  “Mary Claire, I’ve gotta run. I’ll call you later. Love you. Bye.” She pressed the end button on her phone, took a deep breath and smelled coffee. When she looked up, her mouth went dry. Stryker stood at the foot of the bed holding a cardboard cup
holder containing four large coffees. His Under Armor tank fit like a second skin, and the running shorts hung off his hips with that perfect I’m-too-sexy-hot-jock confidence. Shit. She couldn’t go there. Not now. Later—during a visualization exercise. Her eyes flitted from the coffees to his draw string and back again. She was going to need a closet with a lock for that session. Unfortunately, that closet was at Humpin’ Hannah’s and Karma had the key.

  6

  Stryker spent a sleepless night with Trish wrapped around him—literally. He would have slept on the couch, but the damn thing wasn’t big enough for a guy his size. The queen size bed wasn’t big enough for him and someone else—especially not someone who had the ability to get him hard just by breathing. It didn’t help matters that Trish had a penchant for curling up against him, her head on his shoulder, her breasts pressing against his chest, and her leg thrown over him. It took all his self-control not to roll her over and explore that body of hers—inside and out. Last night she’d turned him into her own personal body pillow and slept like a baby given a large dose of sedatives.

  He couldn’t remember ever getting into bed with a woman without having sex, no less spending an entire night. Sleepovers had never been his thing. Before last night, in his estimation, beds with women in them were meant for sex, nothing more. Maybe if they’d had sex, he would have been able to sleep, but he wasn’t so sure of that either. The only thing he knew for sure was that if Trish hadn’t been on the wrong side of tipsy, he’d have gladly given that theory a try, and he would have been more than happy to disprove it. Lord knew a full night of hot sex and no sleep would have beat the shit out of a night of intense disappointment any day.

  He realized he was staring at the jersey he’d managed to toss over her head. Another first—he’d never given his jersey to a woman, not even when he was in high school. Last night, he did it for mental health reasons—his own. He chose it because it was the largest shirt he owned and served to cover as much of her as possible. He thought it would help. It didn’t. The mere fact that his last name was written on the back of the shirt she wore was more of a turn-on than he’d like to admit. The damn thing was so big, when she moved it almost fell off her shoulders. The v-neck gaped, exposing soft creamy skin which had been seductively warm and pressed against him throughout the night.

  At first light, he stopped trying to sleep—thinking a long run would slack the sexual frustration. After running five miles through the foothills it did. He didn’t think it would return with a vengeance the second he set eyes on her again. “I stopped at Hyde Perk after my run.” The nearest coffee joint. “I didn’t know what you’d want so I got a few options: a mocha, an Americano, a chai latte, and tea. What’s your preference?”

  “The mocha or the Americano—I’m not into chai, and I don’t drink hot tea unless I’m sick.” She scrunched up her nose in distaste and damned if he didn’t think it was cute.

  “After last night, I’m surprised you’re not reaching for the tea.”

  “The best remedy for morning is coffee, especially a morning like this.”

  “Mocha it is.” He heard chocolate was a big deal for women—it supposedly helped their moods. He even heard it was an aphrodisiac. One could only hope. “I need to take a quick shower. I’ll be ready to go in ten.”

  “What?” She stared at him like he was speaking in tongues.

  “I’ll take a shower before we go to your place so you can shower and change. Then we can grab some breakfast and you can fill me in on whatever is going on in that busy mind of yours before we go to the inquisition at Humpin’ Hannah’s.” He didn’t bother waiting for a response, maybe she’d be better able to communicate after ingesting twenty ounces of caffeinated chocolate.

  Just to give her something to think about while she guzzled her coffee, he leaned down and gave her a thorough kiss, tasting chocolate, coffee, and Trish. He forced himself to end the kiss when all he wanted to do was push her back on the bed and rip the jersey off her along with the barely there thong she still wore. So his hand may have wandered over her incredible ass a time or two during the night. He was only human, and definitely not a monk or a saint. He was so far from a saint, he’d be lucky not to spend eternity in hell for all the things he imagined doing to her last night. He straightened, not bothering to hide his erection. He was wearing running shorts so he couldn’t have hidden it if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t. Maybe seeing the effect she had on him would do her good. He waited just long enough to make his point and then headed to the bathroom.

  When he got out of the shower, he expected to find her dressed and ready to go. Instead, she still sat on his bed staring at her phone as if it held the answers to all the world’s problems.

  “You might want to change unless you want to wear my jersey. I can probably give you a pair of shorts, but they might fall off.”

  She looked up to find him wearing nothing but a towel, and then looked down at herself like she wasn’t sure what she was wearing. She blushed crimson.

  “Right.” She rose and stepped around him to grab her dress and ran to the bathroom.

  Visions of the night before flared so white hot through him, he clenched his teeth to hold back a groan. He remembered every second of getting her dress off her and it was as painful now as it had been then. He’d untied the top, just as he’d imagined doing all day, since the first second he’d spotted her, and it fell from her breasts exactly as he’d known it would. It took a tug to slip the dress over her hips leaving her in a matching orange thong. That’s when he began counting from a thousand backwards by threes, doing his best to behave like the gentleman his mother raised and not the perv who vied for dominance.

  He’d admit to enjoying a good long look at her curvaceous, wet-dream-inducing, almost naked body before he turned away, lecturing himself about the importance of not tying her to the bed the entire time it took him to find the largest shirt he owned for her to sleep in. He remembered steeling himself, taking a deep breath, and praying for strength before he stepped closer to her, slid the jersey over her head without so much as copping a feel, and tucked her in.

  In the shower, he’d come up with a plan. It wasn’t much, but as far as he could tell, the best way to get to know a person without their input was to see where they lived. A person’s home could tell you a lot. Maybe not his—but then his place wasn’t a home. It was a place to stay when they played home games, where his mail was sent, and an address to put on his driver’s license. Plus, the team and the fans liked their players to live locally and he didn’t have any other place to be. He rented the place because it had a good gym and a pool on the premises. He’d paid a designer to furnish it and moved in, but he didn’t feel as if he lived there. During hockey season, he rarely bothered to unpack his suitcase. He might spend the off-season there, working out, hanging with some of the guys on the team, and skating whenever he could, but it didn’t feel like home. Now that he thought about it, he wondered what his place and his lack of attachment to it said about him.

  Fifteen minutes later they parked in front of a cottage with a well-manicured lawn, shade trees, and flowers everywhere, spilling out of terracotta pots, a whiskey barrel, and overflowing the planters on either side of the small front stoop. She showed him in, told him to make himself at home, and then left him on his own while she ran to shower and change. He checked out her place, noticing, for the first time in his history of seeing women’s homes, the furniture and decorations that made up Trish’s home. Before now, he only paid attention to whether a woman’s couch was big enough to have sex on or if he’d needed to move the party to her bedroom. He never thought about the way the place made him feel, or saw it as a key to unlocking the owner’s secrets.

  Trish’s home was bright, colorful, and looked like her—it screamed warmth, happiness, sunshine, and permanence. It was filled with old furniture, probably antiques knowing Trish—most of which he figured she and Mary Claire painstakingly refinished or repainted. There were m
ore flowers and plants than he could count, and shelves overflowing with books and knick-knacks.

  While Trish was in the shower, he peeked into her bedroom. He figured if she didn’t want him to look, she wouldn’t have left the door open, right? He wasn’t sure if he did it to torture himself or because he wanted to find out more about her. Next to her bed, he found more books, ones with titles that grabbed more of his attention than the sight of her bed.

  He’d expected highbrow literature but what he found shocked him and made him want to read them to figure out what the hell they were about. A bright yellow book with the title that jumped off the binding, You Are A Badass, and an orange book—the same color as the dress she wore yesterday entitled, The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck. What the hell? It had obviously been read more than once and it lay over a copy of Law of Attraction: How to Attract Anything You Want (Money, Relationships, Romance) Manifestation Book 1. Was she learning how to attract men? Hell, all she had to do was breathe, but the thought of her attracting someone else had him grinding his teeth with so much force it was a wonder they didn’t turn to dust. Then he saw the well-worn leather-bound copy of Think and Grow Rich. He blew out a relieved breath, maybe she was trying to attract money, not men—that he could get behind. There was nothing wrong with trying to attract money, and he always imagined she’d be one hell of a business woman. Then he saw the copy of Mindfulness in Plain English. It lay open on top of the pile he’d picked up. He’d heard her talking about being mindful, present, and didn’t know what she’d meant, he still didn’t, but for the first time ever, he wanted to know. The water shut off and he almost kicked himself wondering why he’d wasted his time in her bedroom checking out the reading material instead of the bedroom itself. Shit. He quickly stacked the books, trying to remember the way they’d been before he picked them up, and got the hell out of her bedroom. She’d never believe that he was just checking out her reading materials and not her underwear drawer. Damn, why hadn’t he thought of that?