Players

by Rachel Cross

  “Your dad?”

  “He’s dead,” Shane said, briefly.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He looked away and swallowed hard. “He died when I was twenty-one.”

  “How sad.”

  “We weren’t close.”

  “Still.”

  He changed the subject. “When I was thirteen, my sister got a new voice teacher. She wasn’t placing as well in the pageants as my mom would’ve hoped. I was singing to her, mocking her one day, when we went to pick her up, and the voice teacher, Mrs. James, heard me. She convinced my mother I could sing. I started singing in Mrs. James’s church, then soloing at festivals, ballparks. Eventually someone watching a game saw me and thought I had enough talent to audition for a guy who was putting together a boy band. By seventeen I had my GED and was on the road with TruAchord. I don’t think my mother ever recovered. She was supposed to live vicariously through my sister’s success, not mine. She attempted to manage my career, but I fired her because she caused . . . problems.”

  “Wow.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. It was a freight train straight to boy bandom.”

  “And you’re not close with your mom and sister?”

  “I’m close with Natalie, but I don’t see her much; she’s married and lives in Tennessee. My mother? No.”

  “Gotcha,” Amy said softly.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  He leaned across the table.

  “Why do you live in that shitty house in Westwood?”

  She broke into a grin that tripled his heart rate.

  “Shane, you are the least tactful person I’ve ever met.”

  He smiled. He’d heard that before, but coming from her it didn’t sound like an accusation.

  “Skating for Enchanted isn’t lucrative.”

  He’d thought top skaters made a good income. “That surprises me.”

  “If you’re a former Olympian, you can command terrific money—or at least you could. Some of those ice shows have been on the rocks for years. Some have shut down, others are struggling. Enchanted seems to be doing all right but you’d never know it from what they pay their performers.”

  “What about your family?”

  “I told you, I don’t have contact with them, I ran away at seventeen.”

  “Ran away?”

  She waved a hand. “It’s a long story, and not that interesting.”

  “Are you kidding? Sounds like a movie of the week.”

  Amy lips curved, her perfect features radiant. “I’ve threatened to write a memoir, but my story isn’t unique.”

  “I’d like to know why you quit. You’re not a quitter and I’ve watched your practices, which are incredible.”

  “Thanks. But the performances we do with Enchanted are nothing like what they do in competition now. With the changes to the programs, there are more jumps required—what I skate in an ice show is about ninety percent less challenging than a competition at an elite level. People often encourage me to get back in, but even if I had the motivation, my body isn’t capable of doing those things—not anymore.”

  “But back then you won practically everything. And you were one of the last women to perform in both pairs and individual competitions. How you could give it all up right before the Olympics?”

  Her smile faded and she took a deep breath. “There was a lot of pressure—that’s a given. What makes figure skating—and gymnastics and dance—particularly hard is that our bodies change as we mature. Our weight, our height is constantly changing once we hit puberty—you don’t want to hear this.”

  “I do.”

  She twisted a strand of pale golden hair. “I had done very well in competition the year I turned fourteen. Well enough to get the attention of some of the judges, but later that year, I started having difficulty nailing some of the jumps. A problem I hadn’t ever had before. I’d grown, you see—a few inches, put on a couple of pounds. My coach and I were trying to figure out what worked all over again since my shape had changed and my . . . er . . . development threw off parts of my programs. My parents freaked. They were used to flawless. So they fired my coach, Olga.”

  “And you liked her?”

  “I loved her. Underneath the bluster she had the kindest heart. Olga and Rowena were my family.”

  “Are you close now?”

  “Olga died five years ago—breast cancer.”

  He watched Amy’s eyes fill and took her hand from across the table. She wiped the few tears away that trailed down her cheeks and withdrew her hand to take a swipe at her nose with her napkin.

  A knot formed in his stomach as he watched her try to compose herself. What she’d been through with those terrible parents, her coach, on her own at seventeen? How had he misjudged her so thoroughly? His heart ached. Any one of those things: the horrible demanding parents shipping her off at nine, firing the coach she loved, running away, would have destroyed someone else. Yet Amy retained an inner strength and a wide-eyed optimism he envied.

  “I’m so sorry.” Words were so inadequate. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and protect her.

  She shrugged and put the napkin down, picking at her plate. “That was crushing for both of us when she was fired. The new coach . . . ” A pained expression crossed her face.

  “Tough?”

  “Try impossible. She was a terrible fit for me. I was a people-pleaser back then and I wanted to make my parents happy. But Martina Yarotska? I hated her, I feared her. She was a bully and I wasn’t tough enough.” She cast a look through wet lashes. “I don’t think I’ll ever be tough enough to go up against someone like her.”

  His fist clenched in his lap.

  “My head was never quite right once I started training with her. From the moment she took over coaching, she pressured me to lose weight. I had to weigh in every morning and if it had risen even a few ounces, she’d post it up on the Jumbotron with . . . comments.”

  His fork clattered onto his plate. “What the fuck?”

  She stared pointedly out at the ocean like it held some kind of secret. “I . . . I developed an eating disorder,” she admitted, haltingly.

  He sat back in his chair, stunned. Here was the real reason she’d left competition. “I’m sorry. Did your parents know?”

  She shot him a cynical look. “Oh, yeah. Everyone knew. Rowena leaned so hard on my parents to get rid of Coach Yarotska that she nearly got fired. I collapsed a few times.”

  “Amy.”

  “At the end the judges were propping me up, giving me high marks for lousy programs. Everyone thought it was temporary—but once I started starving myself, I didn’t know how to stop, and my body was not capable of skating when it was deprived that way. The injuries multiplied.”

  “And so you left—all of it?”

  “Yep. Rowena could see what was happening and cared enough about me to intervene. A few weeks after I turned seventeen, I had trouble with my short program. My parents and Yarotska insisted I was only training too hard, but Rowena was worried enough to take me to a doctor. Between them they convinced me that I was killing myself. Once I realized my parents and my coach wouldn’t be part of the solution or get me the help I needed, I ran away.”

  He leaned across the table and took her small hand in his. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Rowena got me into therapy, I got my GED, and she helped me get my head together. We hid from my parents. I wrote them a letter telling them I was done, but they hired someone to track us down, and they threatened to prosecute Rowena if I didn’t go back and re-start my training. I told them if they did that, I’d write my autobiography and it would be worse than Mommy Dearest.”

  “Amy, I don’t know what to say, I’m just so glad you had Rowena. Are you still close?”

  Amy pulled her hand away and took a sip of water. “She lives in New England with her husband and three boys. I see her as often as I can. I don’t have much family, Rowena and Kyle and the Enchanted skate
rs, plus the set designers and—” she broke off with a laugh. “I guess I have a big family after all. Once everything went down, my parents left me alone—mostly. I joined Enchanted as soon as I turned eighteen. Rowena wanted me to go to college and quit skating altogether, but I wanted to have fun after being so miserable. I love skating. I promised her I’d go to college eventually.” Her face fell. “And I will, but not . . . yet.”

  Shane sat back in his chair, practically sitting on his hands to keep from yanking her into his arms and comforting her. Not that she wanted or needed his comfort, but God. Her story, her life, brought out protective instincts in him he didn’t even know he possessed. She relayed her story so unsentimentally, but it had to be painful being a commodity. Living someone else’s dreams was a burden no one should carry. He should know.

  “Did you spend the endorsement money?” he asked.

  “What endorsement money?”

  “What you got for doing, what was it? Yogurt, car, and . . . ” What was that last one?

  “Soup.” She narrowed her eyes, the first hint of a teasing spark in her gaze. “Been Googling?”

  “Yep.”

  “I never saw a dime. It all went to my parents.”

  He moved forward in his chair, staring at her intently. “Some of that money was yours.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t.”

  “Amy, you mean to tell me you never saw any of it?”

  “No, why would I? I was a minor,” she said, impatiently.

  “Are you for real?”

  She scowled and a tiny line appeared between her brows. He itched to smooth it away with his finger. Shaking his head, he said, “Some of that money had to be held in trust for you. Those are big companies you endorsed. Legally speaking, they can’t enter into agreements with minors without setting some money aside.”

  Amy’s lips twisted and she cocked her head. “I’m not sure it applies. My parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars so I could train with the best. It cost upward of fifty thousand a year, plus housing and my tutor.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Your parents can’t come after you for training expenses. That’s not relevant.”

  “According to who?”

  “I don’t know all the ins and outs, but I made money as a minor, too—nothing like what you made since TruAchord didn’t really take off until I was over eighteen, but I have a good attorney. Would you be willing to talk to him? Look into it?”

  She ran a hand over her mouth. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “It might bring me into contact with my parents again. I don’t want that.” Worry marred her perfect features.

  “You aren’t seventeen anymore. They have no power over you. It might make decisions about life after skating simpler if you have a nest egg. Let him at least look into it for you.”

  “I can’t afford an attorney.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “No, I really can’t. They’re hundreds of dollars an hour.”

  “I’ll take care of it, okay? He owes me a favor,” Shane lied. “You’ll just need to sign something that allows him to investigate. Open and shut. Please?”

  Amy sucked her lower lip into her mouth and a surge of lust shot through him.

  Quickly, he picked up the plates and carried them through the open sliding door. She followed with their glasses.

  God. His hands shook as he walked into the kitchen, rattling the plates. He’d been jonesing for her for weeks. Maybe this time he could have something real, with someone he cared about, without all the restlessness and emptiness that always accompanied his sexual encounters. This time would be different. She was different.

  Chapter Eleven

  A shiver ran through Amy as she set the glasses on the counter, then put the iced tea back in the fridge.

  “Still cold?” he asked, not moving away.

  His scent, the heat of his body behind her . . . every cell in her body was shrieking at her to leave. Bail. Retreat. But Amelia Astor, overconfident and rash as always, pushed Amy’s objections aside.

  She shook her head and straightened, closing the fridge without turning around. He was so close, she absorbed his warmth through his shirt and her thin dress, heating the skin on her back. She stared at the stainless steel door, hesitant to accept the challenge she knew would be in those cobalt blue eyes. She wanted this. Had wanted this since that first night she’d seen his tall, lean figure in the parking lot of the ice rink. She’d been desperate for it since that night at Spoke.

  She could handle a physical relationship. Now that she had a job starting in a few weeks, whatever she and Shane started had an automatic expiration date. All her relationships did. There was something liberating about knowing the end was near at the onset.

  He stroked his fingers down her arms, lightly. But instead of tickling, it started a throb, and she trembled. His hot, hard palm replaced his fingers as he smoothed them over her body, tugging his shirt off her shoulders, exposing and shaping her curves under the dress. Skimming lightly at first, then with firm pressure over her breasts, he ran them down to the indentation of her waist, then smoothed his hands over her ass.

  She heard the hiss of his indrawn breath.

  His hands went down the hem of her baby doll dress and lifted, sliding those scalding fingers into the curve of her buttocks, shaping them roughly, dragging up the material.

  “God, Amy. Your body is amazing.”

  She closed her eyes. His breath was humid against her neck. He used a hand to move her heavy blonde mane aside and pressed his lips to the erratic pulse there.

  Shane fitted his hands under the dress, and using his arms to hitch it up, he moved his palm around, across her taut stomach, slowly upward exploring her flesh, finding the mound of first one breast then the other.

  “Take a breath,” he muttered.

  She gasped.

  His touch seared through the thin lace of her demi-cup bra. Long fingers released the front clasp, and Amy pressed her palms against the steel of the fridge as he pushed the material aside to roll her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

  She bit her lip to keep from moaning, then glanced down to see his wide palm cupping the weight of her breast under the dress, fingers stroking, gently scissoring the pebbled tip until she cried out.

  His tongue traced the overheated flesh of her neck, and she tilted her head to give him better access while his other hand dipped down, back over her abdomen—stroking down her thigh. Her head swam; her body too lethargic and overwhelmed to do more than feel, she leaned more of her weight into her arm, pressing against the cold stainless steel appliance in front of her.

  She widened her stance, desperate to have him inside. Her body was an insistent, painful ache.

  She pushed back with her hips and rocked them against the front of his jeans. He groaned, cupped her sex in one hand and used it to stroke her backside against his erection. A finger slid into the front of her panties to tease her, and he growled his satisfaction at finding her slick heat. One finger pressed inside; she ground down on his palm and her legs shook so badly, she laid her cheek to the fridge and gripped the door handle.

  The hand playing with her nipples became more aggressive, pinching and pulling, startling, while his other hand stroked her sex softly—too softly.

  Amy bucked into his hand, her breath coming in pants. She tried to turn around, but he stayed her, holding her overheated body to the unyielding surface of the refrigerator.

  “No, like this,” he muttered.

  He pushed another finger into her, and her legs spread wider of their own volition. He pumped his fingers into her, then removed his hand at her drawn-out moan.

  Grabbing her wrist, he towed her down the hall, into a bedroom at the end. She was only vaguely aware the room had the same view of the ocean as he led her to the bed, directing her onto her knees on the edge, facing away from him. Lifting the dress over her head, he tossed it. He pe
eled off her bra, then her panties. Gently he applied pressure to the center of her back until she was on all fours, shivering, her breath coming in gasps.

  She tried to turn but again he stopped her. She heard the rustle as he removed his own clothes, the draft of air that hit her overheated body as he whipped off his shirt, the rasp of the zipper before he shucked his jeans and boxer briefs.

  Through the curtain of her hair she turned to watch as he covered his straining erection with a condom. Where had that come from? She wanted to face him—the pressure of his hand in the center of her back stayed her.

  He murmured her name and used his hands to spread her thighs wider. The ache in her sex was intolerable.

  She turned her head and met his eyes. “Shane, hurry up.”

  He worked the thick head of his cock against her, readying her, but she was there—slick and desperate, Amy pushed back against him.

  With a grunt he worked the wide tip into her; she was beyond aroused, but it had been a few months and her flesh stung as he pressed forward. Discomfort blended with desperation. Amy twisted her hips, trying to accommodate his girth.

  “God, you’re so fucking tight,” he ground out.

  He withdrew and worked his way halfway in again, grasping her hips and spreading her, holding the juncture where her thighs met her buttocks. He thrust all the way in and she gasped with the mingled pleasure-pain.

  He reached around to rub her with his hand. She rocked against him, her body trying to accommodate his length, each rough thrust sending her reeling toward completion. Desperate, she barely registered the gasping, sobbing noises emanating from her throat.

  She found his balls, already high and tight against his body.

  “Aww fuck, Amy,” he gasped out and his hand moved on her with lightning speed as he doubled his pace. She dropped her head into the sheets as she rocketed into her orgasm, crying out his name.