by Avery Flynn
Well-earned sweat soaked through his goalie pads. People bitched that he wore too many. They said it gave him an advantage. Fuck 'em. He didn't exceed regulations. He didn't add in a little something extra here and there like his bastard of a father had. Let that asshole keep his spot in the hockey hall of fame as the last generation's premiere goalie. Flynn had something Kasper Kazakov would never have: Flynn's team had won the big one and his name was going on the Cup.
It had been the only thing he'd dreamed about since the first moment he stood between the pipes and stared down a frozen biscuit headed straight for him. The puck had hit him right in the middle of the chest, a hard shot to the breadbasket, and had left a gnarly green and purple bruise square over his heart but he'd denied the goal. Flynn might have his old man's last name and some hockey writers claimed the old man's fast reflexes, but he wasn't Kasper Kazakov. He was better than the man who'd knocked up a small town girl and left her alone to figure out what to do next. Now Flynn had the Cup to prove it.
This was the high point.
This was his win.
This was everything he'd ever wanted.
Success made his heart race and his throat tighten up. He skated back to where the rest of the Rage were huddled up at center ice. One glance confirmed he wasn't the only one feeling it. The reasons why they'd pushed themselves to this point may be different, but they'd done it together. Tonight they'd guzzle champagne in the locker room and party with the puck bunnies until the sun came up, but in the morning they'd go their separate ways to their families, their dogs and whatever else they had waiting for them. But tonight was fucking magic, it was the realization of a dream—everything else was just what came after.
So when he woke up tomorrow his head pounding and his mouth fuzzy from a hangover, what would he do then?
He handed the cup off to right-winger Archer Durham for his victory lap. Flynn's empty hands fell to his sides as he watched Durham skate away with it. Flynn should be thinking about the bunnies he'd bang tonight, but he wasn't. The answer to the only question in his head right now wouldn't be found in between a pair of long legs.
Because he had no fucking clue what came next for him.
Gillie
Six Weeks Later, Fort Worth
Billie Holiday crooned in the background that the world will always welcome lovers as time goes by, but a steady boyfriend—let alone a hot, naked side of beefcake on standby fuck-buddy status—was the last thing Gillie Pike was looking for. No, she was too busy trying to squeeze dollar bills out of a red ledger for that.
Of course, she'd have better luck getting the long-dead singer to appear live on stage at The Back Beat than finding the thousands she needed to keep her jazz club going past this fiscal quarter. Her brother, Marko, had warned her about the difficulty of establishing an old school nightclub with its speakeasy vibe, high-end cocktails and jazz bands in Fort Worth. If she'd located it on the other side of Arlington in Dallas, revenue would be stronger. He was probably right about that. However, Dallas held too many memories of the bloody-mess-of-a-shredded-heart variety, so here she was nursing a gin and tonic and wishing for cold hard cash to appear out of thin air. At this point, she'd do just about anything for enough to float the club until it found its footing.
The buzz of her phone cut through Billie's promises about kisses still being kisses. Gillie glanced down. No caller ID. Probably Marko. He was out on a job for B-Squad Security and Investigations in the middle of nowhere Idaho and he loved to check up on her as if she was still twelve instead of twenty-six. If he only knew what kind of trouble she'd gotten into back in college, he would have sat on her—literally—until their mom found a nunnery that still took in wayward daughters. She picked it up and swiped her thumb across the green phone icon. She loved her big brother, but damn Marko was a pain in her ass.
"You have got to stop being such a Mother Hen," she said not bothering with a hello.
The answering silence lasted just long enough for an embarrassed heat to beat against her cheeks.
"I've been called a lot of things in my life, but never that," said the man who was most definitely not her brother. "How ya doing, Torch?"
Her gut dropped down past her toes and sank right through the floor. Fuck. It had been years since she'd heard Orlando Perry's voice. In fact, the last time she had she'd been looking at some unwanted silver jewelry secured around her wrists while an overweight cop read her the Miranda warning.
"No one calls me that anymore." The only ones who ever had were the handful of people in their little merry band of jazz-playing thieves.
"You're not a torch singer these days?" Orlando asked, all honey sweet.
Unable to stop herself, her hand went up to the small scar at the base of her throat—a lasting reminder of the non-cancerous throat nodules that had ended her career before it ever really got started. "You know I'm not."
"So if you know this isn't about a singing gig, then why am I calling?"
She forced her hand back in her lap and tightened her grip on the phone. What did they say about being careful what you wish for? "I'm retired."
Orlando snorted. "Unless you hit the lottery and I didn't hear about it, you need the scratch and I have just the job for a barn burner like you."
Some of the tension melted from her tight shoulders. In jazz a barn burner was a hot chick. For a few years, it translated to a type of job where she posed as a femme fatale to gain access to the mark so the others could rob him blind. After the last time, she wasn't even a little bit tempted to try that again. "I told you I'm out of the game."
"You'll love the target." She must have paused for too long because he went on. "It's Flynn Kazakov."
Gillie almost dropped the phone. "What does he have worth stealing?"
Sure he was a professional hockey player with a fat contract, but he didn't spend like he had cash. After he'd turned down Dallas's contract extension in exchange for a sweet deal with the New Orleans Ragin' Cajuns, he'd driven out of town in the same dusty truck he'd driven for more years than Gillie had known him.
"It's not what you'll take from him," Orlando said. "But what you're going to give to him right in time for the cops to find it."
She pinched the bridge of her nose hard enough that she'd leave crescent-shaped nail imprints. Of all the people in the world, it had to be Flynn Kazakov—the man who'd saved her ass right before he'd broken her heart. If it was anyone else she'd tell Orlando to kiss off, but she owed Flynn. He may not deserve to get paid back, but a debt was a debt. She'd get what information she could about the frame job and pass it along to Flynn so he could protect himself like he'd protected her all those years ago.
And you'd get to see him again, a little voice whispered before she could shove it back into the oblivion.
"Stop talking in riddles and give me the details, Orlando."
"I knew you'd want to get your pound of flesh off the knuckle dragger." He laughed. "You know the Ragin' Cajun's won the Cup."
"I heard."
"Well your ex's day to spend with it is coming up."
She did not like where this was going. "So?"
"My client wants you to steal the cup and frame Kazakov for the theft."
Damn. No one pissed people off quite like Flynn, but that was still a pretty harsh revenge. If it worked, Flynn would lose his career, his reputation and his freedom. It was a toss up as to which one would bother him more.
"How much?"
"Enough that if you don't take the job, you're an idiot. Especially when, from what I hear, your little club is leaking greenbacks like a sieve—you know how musicians love to gossip."
Shit. If the money was that good it meant that if she didn't take the job, someone else would. "You already have someone else in mind."
"Yeah. I gotta new girl on the line, but no one has the same smooth skills you do. You don't have to sleep with him. All you have to do is break out your cat woman skills, swipe the cup, get Kazakov hard and wanting enough to
let you into his home and then you leave the cup where the cops will find it."
Oh yeah. She bit back a disgusted huff. It was a real walk in the park—if that park is in the seediest neighborhood in Fort Worth, at midnight and with all the streetlights burned out and a roving band of feral dogs on the loose.
"So are you in or out, Torch?"
Out. She was so out she wasn't even in the same time zone. "I'm in."
It took everything she had not to bang her head on the table and knock some sense into herself, but it was too late. Really, it had been too late the moment he mentioned Flynn. She might hate him, but she definitely owed him. And if someone else took the job, it would just make saving his ass that much harder.
"Perfect," Orlando said. "Plane tickets are waiting for you at the Cardinal Airlines desk. You leave at seven tomorrow morning."
"You sure were confident I'd take the job." That conviction on Orlando's part chapped her hide. She was very good at being bad, but that didn't mean she gave into it that easily anymore. Hell, she'd been on the straight and narrow for three years.
"How many jobs did we do together?" Orlando asked.
She shrugged as if he could see her. "Two maybe three dozen."
"And if it hadn't been for that last one, you'd still be one of the most sought-after cat burglars in the U.S. I knew you couldn't stay out forever. No one walks away from something they were born to do."
No. She'd been born to be a jazz singer. The next Billie Holiday they'd called her. Instead, she was a retired thief running a beautiful bar into the ground. She was a failure. But maybe if she did this, she could win some of her old self back. Putting one in the W column for once would feel good. Real good.
Gillie sighed. "One last job."
"Of course, Torch." Orlando let out a patronizing chuckle. "One last job.”
Flynn
Snow Bay, The Upper Peninsula Of Michigan
It was Thursday Night, Ladies’ Night and Ten Pints was rocking.
Half bowling alley and half bar, the place had been an institution in his small hometown of Snow Bay, Michigan for more years than Flynn could remember. All of the families who'd brought the kiddies to the bowling alley had gone home for the night and everyone still here was looking to get drunk and get laid in whatever order they could make that happen. It was the U.P. way.
The crack of balls crashing against the pin barely sounded over the mix of Top 40 blaring out of the speakers above the bar in the back corner. Michigan Upper Peninsula Yooper Pride signs and autographed photos of Green Bay Packers players hung above the shelves of liquor. Ten Pints' owner and Snow Bay's resident grouch, Marcy, was behind the bar still looking like she'd spent so much time ice fishing she'd been permanently frozen at eighty-six.
"If it isn't Mr. Big Time Hockey Puck." She flung a bar towel over one boney shoulder and gave him a snarly grin, but her eyes were smiling. "What can I get for ya?"
"Hey ya, Marcy." He scanned the logos on the taps behind her before he locked onto something he only got at home. "I'll have a pint of blueberry wheat."
"You betcha." She grabbed a glass with gnarled fingers and put it under the tap spout. Her gaze wandered over his shoulder to something behind him and her eyes narrowed. "Watch out, they're starting to circle. Looks like even some of the troll girlies have come on up for your homecoming."
Unlike in the rest of the continental U.S., a troll wasn't a mythical creature up here. It was anyone who lived south of the Mackinaw Bridge. There were only two reasons why the trolls would be up in early August. Their yearly unwind at a cottage or because of him. It wasn't ego. Just plain fact. Puck bunnies had been trying to get their hooks into him since he started juniors. Some men with his messy parental background would have bypassed the bunnies and been all honorable and good. He wasn't that guy. What could he say? He was an asshole.
Marcy handed him the pint and he took a long, deep swallow, keeping his gaze on the bottles of clear liquor lined up behind the bar rather than looking over his shoulder to take stock of the night's possibilities. Then, a cold breath of awareness blew down his neck, the same one that let him know when a puck was coming before the forward's stick even connected. Not turning around wasn't an option.
"Thanks, Marcy." He nodded at the older woman and made a slow one-eighty.
His gaze went past the preening bunnies trying to catch his eye, the couples making a dance floor out of the square feet of nothing space in front of the bowling shoe rental counter and a trio of sunburned FIPs (fucking Illinois' people) playing pool in the back corner until he spotted her. The world stuttered to a stop. The bunnies disappeared. The beer in his hand ceased to exist.
Gillie Fucking Pike.
He stared. She smirked.
He downed his nearly full beer in one gulp. She strutted across Ten Pints, drawing the attention of every man in the bar and most of the women too.
When he'd left her standing in the driveway of his empty Fort Worth house three years ago, looking too pissed off to cry, he'd never expected to see her again. He couldn't. She was a thief. She was his best friend's little sister. Worst of all, she was the only woman to ever make him rethink his priorities to the point that he nearly got him thrown in jail. There wasn't a bigger danger in the world for a man with one goal—and one goal only—than to fall for a woman like Gillie Pike. She was five-feet-nine-inches of sexy distraction.
By the time Gillie stopped in front of him, close enough she wouldn't have to shout over the din of Ten Pints, he'd almost got his brain back in gear. He'd have been a helluva lot more successful at that if most of his blood hadn't headed straight south at the sight of her. If Eve had looked even half as good as Gillie, there was no doubt as to why Adam had taken a big ole bite of that juicy apple. She was all curves and bad girl sex appeal topped off with long black hair that he knew from experience she loved to have pulled tight while getting fucked from behind.
She arched an eyebrow as if she knew exactly what he'd been thinking. "Buy a girl a beer?"
"I don't think that's a good idea." Hell, it wasn't even in the same hemisphere as a good idea.
Gillie stepped closer and raised herself up to her tiptoes, brushing her tits across his chest and bringing her full lips within kissing distance of his earlobe. "From what I remember you liked bad ideas."
Memories crashed through his brain. The quickie in the locker room. The flatbed of his truck in the parking garage. The showers at Devil's Dip Gym. Nothing like the adrenaline rush of maybe getting caught to add to the thrill of having Gillie naked and pressed up against the closest flat surface. They'd indulged in just about every bad idea either of them had. Intoxicating. Addicting. Absolutely fucking amazing. Right up until he'd learned the truth about her.
Now that memory should have knocked his brain clear like a puck to the helmet and deflated his fast-hardening cock. It didn't. When it came to dealing with Gillie, things so rarely did.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, hoping the gravel in his tone came off as badass instead of turned on.
She didn't back off or snuggle closer. Instead, she took the empty beer glass from his hand and set it down on the bar. "Paying back the debt I owe you."
"You don't owe me anything."
"We both know I do." She smiled sweetly, but the innocent act didn't reach her gold-rimmed hazel eyes. "Now, why don't we give these people a show they can talk about during the long, cold winter and then you can take me to your house so I can explain everything."
Fuck. He'd forgotten the rest of the bar. He was the hometown boy made good, there was no way everyone wasn't watching. That thought had half a second to register before the rest of her words shoved it aside. "What kind of show?"
She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. "Kiss me."
"I'm not kissing you." No matter how much he wanted—and God did he want.
"Okay." She shrugged. "If you insist."
He had a heartbeat to try to unwind that verbal knot before she shifted so she st
ood in front of him and then she kissed him. His brain short circuited and all he could do was give in and feel. His hands dropped automatically to her full hips and he hooked his fingers into the belt loops of her jeans and yanked her hard against him. The feel of her mouth, her tongue twisting around his, and the rest of her pressed close from hips to chest, was almost too much. No. It wasn't enough. There were too many clothes. Too many people watching. Too much time had passed without tasting her. Her hands were tangled in his hair then sliding down his chest, leaving a trail of fire before she pressed her palms firm against him and broke the kiss.
Her chest heaved and her eyes were dilated. She let out a shaky breath, the kind that just made him harder because he didn't want to hear her sigh, he needed to hear her scream.
Gillie blinked away the hunger in her eyes, replacing it with something more vacant and less real. She snuggled in close and let her hands glide down his shirt and dangerously close to his waistband. For anyone watching—and no doubt the whole fucking bar was—it was a show all right. They didn't know it was all fake, but he sure did. Lies were the only truth to Gillie Pike. What he didn't comprehend yet was why she was doing this.
She looked up at him with those lying eyes of hers, then leaned in close and dropped her voice to as much of a whisper as the noisy bar allowed. "Now, let's get out of here before you fuck this up, lose your career and end up behind bars."
He froze. "What the fuck are you—"
She grabbed his chin and jerked his face around so he faced her. "Not here." She nipped his bottom lip. "Your place."
The need to know what in the hell Gillie was talking about warred with the bone-deep need to get the fuck away from her. She was dangerous to his sanity and his ability to keep his dick in his pants—no doubt about it—but she wouldn't lie about this. Most everything else? Sure. But not this. He couldn't explain it, not even to himself, but he believed her. So he curled his arm around her waist and walked with her past the gawking boys and the glaring girls out of Ten Pints and into the night.
