Hot on Ice: A Hockey Romance Anthology

by Avery Flynn

  4

  Anders did not kiss like a virgin. He kissed like a lusty Viking, and Dahlia could not get enough. She stretched to her tiptoes; she ran her hands from his shoulders to the corded muscles of his neck. He hooked his fingers under the sweatshirt she wore—his sweatshirt—and found her skin.

  Yes, please.

  Before long, she was desperate for him. Too much more of this kiss, and she’d be begging him to get horizontal in the tall grass at the side of the footpath. Fire ran through her whole body, her center was heavy with thick need. She rolled her hips against his, gratified to find him hard. He grunted into her mouth, and pulled back.

  He ran his tongue over his own lower lip, as though he wanted to savor the taste of her. Because this couldn’t happen again. He wouldn’t have sex until his teammates lifted the bounty.

  But he didn’t let her go. He stood there with his hands on her hips, pressed her into his body.

  “Wow.” He wasn’t eloquent, that was for sure. But he smirked at her like he knew he didn’t have to say anything, as though he knew what he was about in a way that didn’t require words.

  She hadn’t said anything; she couldn’t find order to her thoughts. She almost wished he hadn’t kissed her. If he hadn’t laid her out with a brief caress from his mouth, she could forget about what it would feel like to have him thrusting inside her, she might be able to stop thinking about his hands on her body and how it would feel to be naked with him.

  “I have to go.” His face fell. “Not because of the kiss. Well, kind of because of the kiss. But I’m late for a job, so I can’t think about the kiss.”

  “You’d rather tend bar than continue kissing me?”

  No chance. She wanted to kiss him more than she wanted to eat. More than she wanted a place to lay her head. More than she wanted to save enough money to leave.

  “I’m not tending bar. I have a catering job. A wedding.”

  He let her go then, and she thought she might stumble back. Stupid, swooning over a hockey player. She didn’t swoon over anyone.

  “Okay, then. I guess I should let you get to it.” She pulled his sweatshirt off her shoulders, but he held up his hand. “You’ll get it back to me. I know where you work.”

  He looked down at the dirt. She hadn’t felt this awkward around a guy since she was a virgin. Maybe they shouldn’t have kissed. She’d enjoyed talking to him yesterday, and the kiss seemed to ruin it. Despite the fact he was a sports superstar, he’d seemed so normal. There was something about the way he looked at her that made her feel like the world was tilted right-side-up again. She hadn’t felt that way in a long time.

  “Thanks.”

  He looked up. “For what?”

  “Mostly the kiss.”

  His smile was back, but she really did have to go, so she ran back down the path. With every step, his sweatshirt caressed her body, and she wished it was his hands on her instead.

  North Star Brewery was up the highway from Thunderbay Cove. The two businesses had developed a symbiotic relationship. The resort hauled tourists to the brewery at least once a week for tours, and the brewery sent people looking to hold events in their space over to the resort for lodging.

  The rustic interior and gleaming steel tanks made for a great space for a wedding…if you didn’t mind the smell. And serious beer lovers often didn’t.

  This was an easy catering job; she only had to do appetizers, and the brewery was handling beverage service. It felt great to be in an industrial kitchen again. She didn’t mind that she was making some pretty simple stuff—bar food, really. Just wearing the chef’s whites made her feel at home, her lower back burning from bending over to make sure the food was picture perfect.

  She’d found amazing smoked walleye in town and paired it with a chive and garlic aioli on top of wild rice bread toasts. She’d already put together the cheesy potato balls—basically a hot dish in finger food form. All she had left were the stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates. Those had been a favorite at the restaurant she’d apprenticed at in L.A. They didn’t exactly go with the down-home, Minnesota theme of the rest of the appetizers, but so be it.

  She was working on the last tray of walleye crostini when Lilly walked into the kitchen. Dahlia couldn’t afford to pay servers, so she had to use family—her cousin, her sister, and her mom were on their way.

  “Do you need any help back here?”

  “No, I’m just about done.” Dahlia motioned to the crostini trays. “You can put those onto the cart and into the walk-in. The ceremony is running late.”

  “Runaway bride?”

  “Worse. Runaway flower girl.”

  “What does she have to be afraid of? It’s not like she’s tethering herself to one person for the rest of her life.”

  “Hmpf.” Normally, Dahlia would agree with her cousin, but for some reason she thought of Anders again. She didn’t know him at all, but she could imagine kissing him every day for a good, long while. She’d never felt that way.

  Honestly, Dylan had annoyed her at times. They’d shared a passion for food, for work. But he’d never understood her desire to be left alone sometimes. Or, maybe he had, and that’s why he’d neglected to tell her that he’d been seeing other women the entire time they were together. He’d gotten so involved with one of the women he’d been seeing that he’d decided to marry her.

  “Come on. Don’t tell me that you’re still thinking you made a mistake by not marrying Dylan.”

  “No, he’s a total hoser.” Lilly perched her hip on the edge of the stainless-steel counter next to her. She crossed her arms, and Dahlia had the feeling she was gearing up for a lecture. “I ran into Anders today. At the Temperance.”

  Lilly’s eyes lit up. “And?”

  She really wasn’t sure what she should tell her cousin. On the one hand, maybe she would be less confused about her feelings. On the other hand, Lilly couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Her aunt and mother would know. Her uncle would know. Fuck, the dog would know.

  “He kissed me. Or I kissed him.” Lilly’s mouth dropped open, and Dahlia’s stomach roiled. “There was kissing.”

  Lilly motioned for her to continue, but she really didn’t have all that much to say. “Was it at least good kissing? I mean, virgin kissing can be dicey.”

  “It was great.” Dahlia couldn’t stop thinking about it. And now that she’d broken the seal, kissed him, her thoughts could not be budged from his hard body, his gorgeous mouth. “He’s not a virgin at kissing.”

  Lilly pursed her lips. “Did you get close to winning the bounty?”

  She remembered Anders’ hands on her lower back and how close that had her to begging him to take off his pants. Her skin flushed again, and she turned to the oven to take the bacon out. “No.”

  “No?” Lilly got in her face. “I’m going to need more than a ‘no.’ Did you put your hand in his pants? Did he put his hand in your pants?”

  “No. None of that.”

  “So you just kissed him like you’re in middle school?”

  “The kiss was nothing like middle school. It was—”

  Dahlia started wrapping dates and motioned for Lilly to do the same.

  Lilly sighed, but she started wrapping without another word.

  “I’ve never met anyone like him,” Dahlia said. “He’s quiet. I’ve never been with anyone quiet before. Dylan was loud. He always had something to say. I was always a little bit on edge around him.”

  “And the big, burly, professional athlete doesn’t put you on edge?”

  Only on the edge of an orgasm.

  “No. When we were up in the woods today, I felt like everything else went away.” She shook her head. “I can’t really describe it.”

  “It sounds like you’re smitten.”

  “Smitten with who?” Fucking great. Mom’s here.

  “No one.”

  “Pull the other one.” Her mom put a box of plates and cutlery on the work surface and turned to Dahlia expectantly. Beth Clarno didn
’t suffer fools. “Who’s the guy?”

  Dahlia gave Lilly a look that would melt lard, but to no avail. “She kissed Anders Sorenson at the Temperance today. He plays hockey for the Cajun Rage.”

  “Shut up, Lilly.” Lilly needed to keep her mouth shut about the bounty if she wanted to live.

  Dahlia’s mom’s eyes widened. “A guy? And a professional hockey player, no less? Well, color me purple and call me ‘Barney.’”

  Lilly stuck out her tongue at Dahlia and said, “He’s a virgin, and there’s a $150,000 bounty on his virginity.”

  Dahlia turned around and started cutting more bread for crostini. Anything to get away from the conflagration of shame that would engulf her any minute.

  “What?” Dahlia’s mother sounded confused. “How old is he?”

  Dahlia tossed bread on a cookie sheet, not caring that the slices piled up willy-nilly.

  “He’s twenty-five.” Lilly was going to die painfully. Dahlia wondered if a meat thermometer could cut the carotid artery open.

  “Oooh, that’s the perfect age.” Dahlia’s mother started straightening the toasts. “But, why’s he still a virgin?”

  “Apparently, he was a dorky kid.” Dahlia didn’t believe he was anywhere near as nerdy as he said, but she had to take his word for it. “It never happened to him, and now he’s getting chased by groupies everywhere. I imagine it might be hard on a hard-on.”

  “Or maybe he’s gay.”

  Dahlia fumbled the knife and nearly sliced off part of her index finger. “He’s not gay.” Even though she said it, she wondered.

  “He’s gay,” her mom said.

  Is that why the bounty still stood? Maybe he was gay? Or maybe he was bisexual, but he mostly liked men, and he kissed her because she was kind of like a dude. She didn’t dress much like a girl, and she had rather boyish hips. Shut up, Dahlia.

  “Can you just not imagine anyone wanting to kiss me, Mom?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  Dahlia turned to face her mother. Lilly had slowly backed out of the room. “Oh, yeah? Of course, you would assume that he was gay instead of assuming that he’d want to sleep with me.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Her mother threw up her hands. “You always think the worst of me.”

  Yeah, because it was usually true. Dahlia and her mother didn’t seen eye-to-eye, and it had only gotten worse since high school. Beth could never understand why her daughter had turned from happy-go-lucky cheerleader into a morose goth kid. And Dahlia had never bothered to explain what had changed. She’d been ready to get the hell out of Dodge the minute she grabbed her high school diploma.

  Dahlia thought the worst of her mother because her mother didn’t make any effort to understand her.

  “Just forget it, Mom.” She put the last tray of crostini into the oven. “It was just a kiss. He was probably trying it out.”

  Anders hadn’t wanted to go to a wedding. He was supposed to be up here thinking. Tomorrow, he’d have the Cup. Each player on team that won the championship got the Cup for a day during the off-season. He’d been planning on using it as though it was an oracle of some sort. Maybe having a symbol of all he’d achieved—through self-denial—would tell him whether he wanted to go on denying himself.

  But the groom had accosted him when he’d returned after his hike and insisted he come to the wedding. Sitting in his room, looking out at the water, wasn’t clearing his head, so he’d accepted the invitation. He liked the fact that random people invited him places because he was that good at hockey. It was superficial, yes, but he’d been a pariah for so long that it felt good that people wanted him around. When shit like that happened, he could forget that fact that he would always be an outcast, no matter how much money he made.

  And thinking didn’t include kissing Dahlia again. Her lips on his had affected more than his long-controlled libido. Touching her, feeling all those luscious curves and soft skin against him, had shifted and rearranged his priorities. The few times he’d kissed a girl since the bounty was instated, almost immediately upon him getting called up, he hadn’t thought about what his partner was angling for by being with him. At that moment, when she’d laid out every temptation for him with a few movements of her lips, he hadn’t cared about the bounty. All he’d cared about was more of her mouth, her breathy sighs, and the way she fit with him.

  Not kissing Dahlia and not thinking about kissing her were going to be hard. Fuck, he’d accepted the invitation to the wedding, hoping this was the one she was catering.

  Now, after the toasts and with people dancing in between the tanks, he’d seen her slip out of a back room to make sure that food was circulating.

  He didn’t like the crease between her brows or the tense way she’d held her shoulders. She didn’t have to worry about the food. He’d snagged at least one of each of the apps laid out, and they were all delicious.

  The beer was great, too. Even if people weren’t really talking to him, but staring at him like they didn’t know what to say, the food and the beer might be worth the outing.

  “What are you doing here?” The waitress from yesterday was apparently also a waitress at the wedding, and she’d surprised him into spilling some of his sip down his shirt. “Sorry. I’m Lilly, Dahlia’s cousin.”

  “Nice to meet you.” No use being impolite just because she was clearly mentally inventorying what he looked like without a shirt.

  “It would be nicer to meet you if you didn’t have a crush on my cousin.”

  Anders felt his skin flush, and knew he must be tomato red when the tiny blonde laughed. She couldn’t be more different than Dahlia. Maybe it was because he’d met her colorful cousin, but Anders wasn’t sure he would be able to pick Lilly out of a lineup of puck bunnies with a gun to his head.

  “I, uh, don’t have a crush.” Grown men didn’t have crushes. He hadn’t had a crush since Kacey Nillson in the ninth grade. He’d wanted to ask her to the winter dance. Before he could scrape up the courage, he’d heard through the grapevine that she’d laughed and laughed when someone had told her “Pizzaface” Sorenson was going to ask her out. After hearing that, he’d scored his first hat trick, but he didn’t grow the stones to ask anyone out for a long time. By the time he was playing in the minors, he felt like it was too old to “come out” as a virgin to the few girls he’d had time to date. But, though he’d left his parents’ strict religiosity behind, he hadn’t wanted to sleep with just anyone.

  But Dahlia wasn’t just anyone.

  “You like like her, don’t you?” Lilly scrunched up her face. Some of what he’d been thinking must have shown on his face. Sweat dripped down the back of his dress shirt.

  “We don’t really know each other.”

  “You know her mouth.”

  Anders felt a streak of anger rip through his embarrassment. He couldn’t believe that Dahlia had told people about their kiss, knowing about the bounty. Maybe he’d mistaken the lust that coursed through him every time she was in his orbit for her having integrity. He didn’t understand why she’d talk about kissing him, knowing that he had literally never had sex because he didn’t want his business publicized.

  Still, he didn’t say anything in response to Lilly’s inappropriate remark.

  “Relax, dude.” Apparently, she wouldn’t be taking the hint and moving away. “I know everything about her. We’re that kind of family. Dahlia will keep stuff on the down low. And you don’t have to worry about her getting attached. She doesn’t really do that.”

  “Doesn’t do what?”

  “Relationships.” She grabbed a beer off another server’s tray. When Anders gave her a look, she shrugged and took a drink.

  “I thought she had a boyfriend until recently.”

  “He was really more of a business partner.” Lilly took a pull of her beer. “He was a convenience. I’ve known Dahlia since about an hour after I was born. We’re closer than most sisters. She only told me about the kiss because it was so out o
f character. She didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities or out you to anyone. Hell, I’m rooting for you two to sleep together.”

  “Why?” It seemed weird that Lilly was so invested in her cousin’s sex life—in his sex life.

  “Well, she gets a twinkle in her eye—one I haven’t seen since high school—when she talks about that kiss. And she’s the furthest thing from a puck bunny that there could be.”

  “So, you two aren’t plotting to get the bounty by lulling me into a false sense of security?”

  Lilly laughed. “No. I tried to convince her that she should go for the money, but she wouldn’t do that. Not her thing.”

  Dahlia chose that moment to walk out of the kitchen. She walked right over to Anders. He could feel her heat, and faint smell of her clean sweat teased him, reminding him of his lips against hers. Her hair was pulled back, neat as a pin. And, even in a bulky chef’s coat, he could make out her tantalizing curves. His cock stiffened thinking of peeling her out of that stupid jacket and laying her out on any surface. He wanted to taste her. He wanted so much more from her that he couldn’t see straight.

  “What are you doing here?” Her question was slightly threatening, and it jolted him out of his fantasy of licking cake frosting from her taut abdomen. Lilly slunk away when she heard the sharp tone of her cousin’s voice.

  “I’m an invited guest.”

  She took another step toward him and sucked air through her teeth. “You’re not here to humiliate me?”

  “Humiliate you?”

  “Yeah, if these fools get a hint that I practically humped you in the woods, I’ll never hear the end of it.” Her voice was flat and low; he didn’t like it. He wanted her breathy and moaning and desperate. Or, at least, happy to see him.

  “I would never tell anyone about us.” He crossed his arms over his chest, inadvertently brushing against the hint of breast he could make out in that chef’s coat. She started, but he bit the side of his cheek to keep himself from apologizing. He had nothing to be sorry for. He’d accepted an invitation. It wasn’t the first time he’d been invited to a family event by an overzealous fan, but it was the first time he’d accepted.