Face-Off

by Nancy Warren

  She was joking, but he seemed to take her words seriously.

  “My childhood was great. We had a pretty traditional family. My mom worked part-time as a nurse, which was a good thing with all the injuries in our family. Dad worked in forestry. He was a big, strong guy and he loved hockey. We lived on a lake and when it froze, we’d all be out there. He was the one who got us into the sport and I never saw him prouder than the day Jarrad got drafted.”

  He paused for a second. “We lost him a couple years back. A major heart attack. My mom moved to Victoria so she’s not too far away, but not too close either. She still nurses, gets over when she can.

  “I don’t know what else to tell you. I played a lot of hockey, hung out with the guys,” he said, his eyes seeming dark and mysterious in the dim light from the street. “Kind of like now. Except that now, I get to do grown-up things.”

  He stepped closer and her heart jumped. “Like this,” he said softly, maneuvering her into the entrance alcove of an upscale apartment building. “The adult kiss,” he said and covered her mouth with his.

  As his lips touched hers, lust slammed into her, flattening her the way Taylor’s body flattened hers against the thick glass door. She clutched at his shoulders, feeling at once overwhelmed and triumphant. He might be trouble, he might be a little rough around the edges, but she couldn’t stop her attraction to him. Her skin tingled as he pressed against her, her mouth opened under his and he thrust inside with greedy haste but with a finesse that surprised her. Giving in to the inevitable, she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

  This wasn’t an experience she was ever going to forget, she thought dimly as he took her mouth with the kind of fierce focus she imagined he’d bring to his hockey game. And, she hoped, his lovemaking.

  She was so carried away by his truly remarkable kissing, that she was only barely aware of a click and a whir.

  With a startled cry, she fell backward and realized the door had opened and she’d tumbled into the foyer of the apartment building.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered. She glanced around and saw a fountain wall, sleek granite floors, a couple of discreet elevators. She shook her head, trying to rattle her brains back into some semblance of order as the obvious answer to her question hit her. “You live here.”

  “I do.” He kissed her again, deeper this time, longer. Oh, she was lost. “Do you want to come up?”

  Even through the mists of lust she had to wonder at how convenient this all was. He happened to choose a dance place that was only blocks from his home? “Did you plan this?”

  A low chuckle was her answer. “No plan. No. I hoped.” He squeezed her shoulders in a way that could be purely friendly or wildly sexual depending on how turned-on a woman was. “But I’m an optimist.”

  A sensible woman would walk away now. She knew this. All her dates had been so carefully orchestrated, she’d thought through all the consequences before ever sleeping with a man. Now? She wouldn’t know sensible if it skated right over her toe.

  She nodded. “I want to come up.”

  “I am so happy you said that.”

  She realized there was something else she had to share, as embarrassing as it was going to be. “Um, there’s something else I have to tell you.”

  “What is it?” Something in her voice made him wary, she could tell. She drew a breath.

  “I don’t really have a boyfriend.” How stupid she felt that she’d lied in that infantile way. She was about to explain when he kissed her. “I know.”

  “How do you know?” Was she so wretched that he’d figured out right away she was manless? What was this, a pity date?

  “I called Irina. Made conversation and skillfully extracted the information that you are single.”

  She was beginning to realize that Taylor was a lot tougher than he appeared. Still, her jaw dropped in shock. “You called Irina?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “My coach Irina?”

  “Yep, that one.”

  “You bothered her at home?”

  “Yeah. She’s our coach for this gig. She’s getting paid.”

  In the years she’d trained with Irina, Becky could only remember calling her at home once, when she’d had flu so badly she couldn’t stand. Her fever was stratospheric, her head ached as though a demon was inside her skull with a jackhammer and chills shook her. Still, she’d contemplated showing up for practice rather than call Irina at home so strongly had the woman warned her that she did not like to be bothered when she was not working.

  “And you called her up out of the blue to interrogate her about my love life?” Annoyance began to creep into her tone. Not to mention a sense of betrayal. Wasn’t Irina supposed to be her personal coach? What was she doing giving out information about her private life? “And she told you anything you wanted to know?”

  “It wasn’t quite like that.” He gazed behind her shoulder at the fountain wall as though it might have a few answers. “Look, why don’t we go upstairs and I’ll tell you everything?”

  “Because you’ll distract me. I prefer to know right here and right now how badly my coach betrayed my confidence.”

  “She didn’t, exactly. Okay, I kind of sucked up. I called her to tell her how fantastic I think she is and to ask her for some advice on lifting.” He sighed and looped his hands around her neck. “Because the honest truth is I’m scared to death I’ll drop you.”

  “You won’t. We’ll work it until you get it right. I promise.”

  He didn’t look completely convinced, but he left the subject alone. “Anyhow, I said your boyfriend must be a lucky guy and she said you didn’t have one.”

  This did not sound like Irina. “She said, I don’t have one? That’s it?”

  “No. It was more like that weird noise she makes, like a chicken choking on birdseed, then she said—imagine this with a heavy Russian accent—‘Becky is not so foolish. What time has she for men?’ which I took to mean, no, you don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Oh.”

  “So who were you waiting for in the pub that night?”

  “Another figure skater. Jason. He sometimes drives me home, but his practice went late and he forgot.”

  “Lucky for me,” Taylor said and kissed her again. By the time he was done she felt as liquid as the wall of water. “So, why did you pretend you had a boyfriend?”

  His eyes were as blue-green as her fantasies of the Caribbean, and when he turned them on her she felt weak-kneed.

  “Because I wanted to prevent this, I guess.” And she reached up to brush his jaw with her lips.

  “Nothing was going to prevent this,” he said. “Not from the first second I saw you and you started bitching at me.”

  She’d have argued that it was his fault she was bitchy since he’d arrived late and swaggered in as if he owned the rink, but her mouth was too busy kissing him to be able to talk.

  They got to the elevator somehow, barely breaking contact. And then they were inside the small space riding up.

  He felt so good, so strong and solid and too amazingly sexy. She wanted to devour him and it was obvious he felt the same. He kissed her, using his lips and tongue and his whole body, so she felt kissed everywhere. His hands were in her hair, on her shoulders, running down her arms and then brushing across the tips of her breasts, almost by accident but not quite.

  “You feel amazing,” he said against her mouth.

  “So do you,” she whispered back.

  The elevator deposited them somewhere in the middle of space and she couldn’t have said what floor they were on or which way they turned, all she knew was that she could not get into his apartment, or his bed, fast enough.

  When Taylor dropped his keys as he fumbled open the door, she smiled to herself, happy he obviously felt as off-center as she did.

  He scooped the keys up, opened the door and the two of them fell inside, wrapped around each other once more.

  “Oh,” she said, wh
en she noticed the floor-to-ceiling windows. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “Tour tomorrow,” he said, walking her backward in a way that reminded her of their routine on the ice. This was a kind of dance too, she realized, moves of seduction and retreat, arousal and uncertainty. Now that she was here, retreat was too late, uncertainty banished. All she felt was need and heat, blistering heat that drove her on.

  He pushed open a door, danced them both through it.

  She was pressed gently back onto a big bed that dominated the room, and she let herself fall. Oh, those big, hockey-stick-wielding hands could entice her skin. The kiss became a full-bodied affair and from the impressive erection nudging her belly, she knew he was as aroused as she. Their breathing grew harsh.

  Outside, down below on the streets of downtown Vancouver, late-night partiers wandered, and she’d hear snatches of shouted conversation, the honk of a car, the muted roar of a bus going by, but in here it was private, dark and intimate.

  Her sighs sounded loud. When his hand began to draw her skirt upward, she felt every inch of her thighs hum with pleasure.

  She slid her thighs apart because she couldn’t help herself and the small move unleashed a wild coming together of mouths and tongues and bodies so fevered they grabbed and rubbed and pushed closer and closer until their clothes felt like heavy armor.

  She was so hungry for him she shocked herself. His hands were on her back, slipping around the front to rub her breasts, in her hair, gripping her hips, while his mouth was busy at hers, so hungry, so demanding.

  “Oh,” she said, tilting her head back. “Oh.”

  His mouth was busy at her shoulders, her neck. Drowning her with needs and emotions she couldn’t keep up with.

  “I need you,” he said raggedly. Not want, but need. She knew exactly what he meant.

  “Oh, yes,” she answered, knowing now that this had been inevitable. From the first moment she’d seen him, big and unkempt and gorgeous, she’d recognized an attraction more powerful than any she’d ever felt.

  “Every time I hold you in practice, I want you,” he muttered, his hands sliding into the silk bodice until he touched her breasts. They ached for him and when he eased the fabric down so that she was naked to his gaze, she reveled in the freedom. Now he could see her, her skin so pale under the moonlight sliding in the uncurtained window. Now he could touch the breasts that tingled for him, now he could taste them. He bent his head and took one nipple into his mouth and the sensation was so strong she felt that much more would be dangerous.

  “When you skate me backward?” she admitted in her turn, “I always imagine there’s a bed behind me, and we’ll fall into it and make love.”

  “It’s about to happen now.”

  How had this happened? She never lost control like this. She was Canada’s Skating Sweetheart but she felt more like Canada’s Skating Sex Addict.

  And if she didn’t get a fix, she would die.

  “Can I make a request?” she said in a low voice she barely recognized as her own. “Anything, sweetheart.”

  “Do you think I could see you naked?”

  5

  TAYLOR HAD PROBABLY felt this good in his life before, he simply couldn’t remember when that might have been.

  “Oh, yeah, I think I could do that for you,” he said, leaping off the bed and grabbing at his shirt to yank it over his head.

  “No,” she stopped him. “Slowly. I want you to take your time.”

  “I don’t know how much time I’ve got,” he said, but he did his best. He felt strange taking his clothes off as though it was a spectator sport, but at least the lighting was low so she didn’t have to know how completely she’d got to him.

  He felt her gaze on him as steady and fixed as a spotlight and he wanted so badly for her to like what she saw. Normally, he didn’t give his body much thought, but she was so small and perfect that he felt like an overgrown gorilla in comparison.

  What if she hated hairy chests? He had no time for guys who shaved them, but maybe that’s what she liked? He tried to gauge her expression, but it was hard to tell what was going on behind the eyes that watched him so intently. He felt enormous, like a big lumbering giant, and his cock, which he’d always been secretly proud of, felt too big. She was all muscle, but her frame was small. What if he hurt her?

  He got down to nothing and stood, feeling all of a sudden foolish and uncertain.

  She didn’t help. Looking at him like he was some new species she’d never encountered before.

  Maybe they could fool around for a little bit, and he could give her time to get used to his size. Make sure she really wanted an oversized ape in her bed.

  Then she spoke.

  “You are even better naked than I imagined.” She did not sound like she was scared or revolted or turned off. She sounded like a hot woman who could handle every hairy inch of him.

  And his momentary lack of confidence vanished like a puck disappearing into his opponent’s net. Slam. Gone.

  He stepped back over to the bed and slipped a hand to her knee. And then higher. She huffed out a helpless sigh and let her thighs part for him. He took his time, teasing his way up, higher, slipping the silk up her thighs so she would feel the cool air on her skin. Her panties weren’t more than a scrap of silk and lace, but it was kind of a turn-on being buck naked while she was still fully dressed.

  He played his fingers over the silk, and found it warm and damp with her arousal. She arched up against him, making a tiny sound in the back of her throat. He said in a conversational tone—as cool as he could manage under the circumstances, “Do you mind if I take these off?”

  A tiny, helpless moan slipped out of her mouth. The corners of his mouth kicked up, but that was the only indication he gave that he’d heard her.

  He looked down at her and her eyes were alive with anticipation. They were going to be so good together. Sometimes you just knew.

  He wanted to take his time but need was stoking him. He hooked his thumbs under the little strings at the side of her panties and eased them down.

  He slowly stroked his way up her inner thigh. Her skin was so soft and velvety. There was a tiny mole on her inner thigh that he had to stop and kiss.

  “I don’t want to mess up this pretty dress,” he said to her. “Do you think we could take if off?”

  She nodded. No words at all, simply a nod. He liked the idea that he’d robbed her of words.

  She sat up and together they peeled the black dress over her head. To his shock he discovered there was no bra under there. Wow.

  Her breasts were small and perfect. He loved the muscles of her, taut under her soft skin. The glint of the heavy silver pendant against her delicate body, more flashes of silver at her ears and wrist. He ran a hand down from her shoulder over her breasts, her belly, to her hip.

  “You are perfect,” he told her.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Shush.” Because she was, to him she was absolutely perfect and he wasn’t taking any arguments.

  He settled down beside her, “Now, where was I?”

  IN ANSWER, BECKY OPENED her legs wider, shocked at her own forward behavior. Usually she let the guy lead, but somehow, with Taylor she enjoyed their back-and-forth bossiness. It worked on the ice and she had a feeling it was going to work really well in the bedroom.

  Besides, she was throbbing with anticipation to feel his fingers play over her. She could see his hands as she’d watched them so many times, sturdy, capable hands that could stick-handle a puck down the ice and into the net but could also touch her with such sensitivity. He seemed to hover over her neediest place, and then, when she expected him to stroke her, he ran his fingers through her curls as though checking for tangles. He stroked and patted, and then, when he delved deeper to where she was slick and needy, her hot button already quivering, it was a shock to find him touching her there, stroking her, stoking her.

  Desperate. Had she ever been so desperate for a man in her life? It was
as though every minute they’d spent together had been foreplay for this moment. She was so ready she thought she’d fly apart the second he touched her.

  She wanted to hold on and enjoy every exquisite moment as he stroked her, obviously taking pleasure in her growing excitement, encouraging her with soft words until she shattered against him.

  Her urgency slaked, she wanted more, she wanted all of him. But she didn’t have to tell him that. He was already reaching for his nightstand drawer.

  A rip and a rustle and then they were kissing, more hungrily than before. His skin was warm against hers. His heart beat a crazy rhythm. Unable to wait another second, she climbed over and straddled him. He was a big man, but she was lithe and fit and her body had never felt so athletic, so perfectly tuned for action, as it did at this moment.

  He felt warm and very, very hard when she grasped him in hand. He made a tiny sound, a man at the end of his rope, a feeling she knew well. Her body was stretched over him, eager and wet and so very hungry.

  As she positioned him at the entrance to her body, their gazes locked. She saw the glow of his eyes in a face that was surprisingly serious. He’d always seemed to her like a carefree, everything’s-for-fun-and-why-bother-getting-stressed kind of guy. But as she’d come to know him through practice she realized she’d misjudged him. He worked as hard as she did, was equally intent and focused when they trained. It was only when the work was done that he let his crazy fun side out.

  But this wasn’t the crazy fun guy. This was a man letting her see into his depths. She tried to be as brave and held his gaze with her own as she lowered herself slowly onto him.

  “Take it easy, sweetheart,” he said softly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Would he hurt her? Maybe. She realized it was a chance she was taking, but he wasn’t hurting her physically. Not at all.

  Oh, she realized it had been a while and he was a big man. The stretch was amazing. Delicious. He seemed to go on and on, filling her completely. When they were locked, hip to hip, she took a moment to savor the deep connection, kissing him as though she’d never stop and then need took over. She moved on him, slowly at first as she accustomed herself to him, then faster as instinct and desire stronger than anything she’d ever known gripped her.