by Lia Riley
As he left Sully’s rectory, he dug out the number he’d scratched down on a piece of scrap paper and looked at the name.
“Well, shit,” he muttered under his breath before sending a short text. “Here goes nothing, Margot Kowalski.”
Chapter Five
Margot stared at her front door, pulse racing like a thoroughbred. Two minutes ago, after the unmistakable thunk of a slamming car door, she’d scurried to her living room window, peeking from behind a drape long enough to catch a flash of a Red Sox ball cap and a ginger beard.
Patch Donnelly should have knocked by now.
She wiped her hands on her favorite cat-faced LulaRoe leggings and chanted her favorite mantra. “Say no to stress and yes to ease.” Simple and effective. She repeated it again, and then a third time for good measure.
This was silly. There was no reason to go palm sweaty over a hockey player. After all, her two best friends were marrying the former Hellions captain and the Hellions head coach, respectively. Jed and Tor were just men. More attractive than the average bears, yes. But men just the same.
And even if Patch was a freakishly delicious genetic merging of Chris Hemsworth, Channing Tatum and Tom Hardy, it didn’t matter, because she was a professional. There was to be no mixing business and pleasure. Her lady parts had gone on furlough for this assignment—one-hundred percent out of commission.
Plus he was a ginger.
Red hair returned her to seventeen, and to her senior homecoming dance and the backseat of Chad Taylor’s Toyota Tundra.
She raised her chin and swallowed back a surge of bile. Right now was not the time to skip down memory lane. She had to get her head in the game.
She had one job. Help Patch find his way around a yoga mat. Give him a few skills so that the next time an opponent lit his fuse, he’d calm his tits rather than blow his stack.
She was going to help him discover his best self, and there was a privilege in that, from the point of being a fan. Because Patch Donnelly played hockey the same way Mozart must have worked over the ivories. Every movement was fluid, instinctive. Lightning-quick perfection. Undeniable genius. When at the top of his game, he was a force of nature.
Unstoppable. Unbreakable. Unbeatable.
She wandered to the kitchen counter, picked up a water glass and rubbed her thumb over a trickling drop before setting it back down again.
She braced her hands on the kitchen counter and sucked in a shaky breath. Tor was counting on her to help get his goalie’s head screwed on. And if she succeeded, Breezy was right. This could well be the boost she needed to get on the path to launch her own business.
Squeezing her eyes shut she visualized the Sanctuary: Grand Opening banner hanging over a front door.
She opened one eye and peered at the front door.
Still no knock.
She’d texted Patch her address, but he could have misread it. What if he was at her neighbor’s place, that ob-gyn who worked long hours. What if he thought she wasn’t home, and left, and . . .
“Shit!” She scurried to the front door. Flinging it open, she rushed out to hunt him down.
White light exploded behind her eyes as the cartilage in her nose pulverized against a sternum.
“Ooof.” She reeled backward, clutching her nose, the sickening crunch ringing in her ears. She loved a rock-hard man chest as much as the next gal, but this was ridiculous. She screwed her eyes shut and dropped her hands. “Is it broken?” she squeaked.
The ions in the air did a subtle shift, ushering in a sensual hint of sun-warm wood, leather and cinnamon chewing gum. Behind the throbbing pain came the unsettling sense of male physical proximity.
A big male.
Later, she’d blame the goose bumps peppering the sensitive skin between her shoulder blades as a physiological reaction to the wintry wind gusting through the open door.
“No blood. No bruising.” The low answer was considered and grave, the voice containing more gravel than a backcountry road. “Does it hurt to breathe?”
She took a tentative sniff. “Not really. No.” All seemed well in that department. “I don’t look like a bulldog with a squished-up face?” Her sense of humor returned as the pain began to ebb.
“Bulldog?” That earned her a snort. “Nah, you don’t have the jowls. But just in case, let’s slap something cold on it.”
She opened her eyes just in time to see the backside of the most infamous goalie in the NHL making a beeline for her shoebox kitchen. His straight-cut jeans fit nicely in the seat. Provided the perfect amount of room for a set of seriously well-developed quads.
She trailed in his wake. Common courtesy demanded that she look away, but it took more willpower than she possessed to refocus her attention on her Let That Shit Go framed poster above her floor cushions, or Nibbles, her bubble-eyed goldfish.
He glanced over one shoulder. “Do you mind?”
“I’m so sorry,” she blurted. “I didn’t mean to stare but . . .” Her voice faded because a) there was no good way to end that sentence and b) his brow furrowed into a genuinely puzzled expression.
“I mean . . . do you mind if I grab a frozen veggie bag out of your freezer? I don’t want to go busting in like I own the joint.”
“Of course . . .” She folded herself onto a high bar stool and smoothed a hand over the top of her head. Face-plant notwithstanding, at least her topknot was still on point. No doubt she looked a whole lot less frazzled than she felt. “My fridge is your fridge. There’s an acai pouch in there that’ll do the job.”
“Was that even English?” He opened the freezer and peered in as if expecting a boa constrictor curled up in wait. “A-sigh-what?”
“Acai. It’s like a berry. They are from the Amazon. Lots of antioxidants.”
“Like a berry, huh?” He reached in, grabbed the frozen bag and wrapped it in the dish towel hanging off the oven with a quick, efficient movement before passing it over. “Where I come from we’d slap a raw steak on our face and call it good, but hey, I’m sure fancy berries work.”
“I was told to expect a surly hockey player, not a comedian,” Margot said archly, applying the cold compress.
“Surly? Coach said that?” Patch’s face was unreadable.
He had peculiar features, each one strong almost to the point of being overpowering. His deep-set blue eyes made the sky seem colorless, while his close-trimmed beard held hues of wildfire and buckwheat honey. His cheekbones were sharp, and his long nose came to a point on the end. A moody face, brutish, but not cruel.
“Okay, that wasn’t an exact quote. He might have used a phrase more like ‘pain in my ass.’”
Patch’s chuckle came and went so fast she almost wondered if she’d hallucinated it. “That’s sounds like the coach I know.”
“Why were you lurking outside my door? Are you opposed to knocking?”
“Figured if I hung around long enough I’d be used for battering ram practice.”
His deadpan delivery took her a second to process even as he evaded the question. “More jokes?”
“Should have aimed for SNL rather than the NHL.”
“Ba-dum-dum-tish.” She rolled her eyes, pretending to hit an imaginary cymbal.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he addressed an invisible crowd. “I’ll be here all night.”
She removed the acai pouch. “Let’s have a do-over. Can I make you a cup of tea?”
He stared. “You think I look like a tea drinker?”
“I’m not in the habit of making assumptions.”
“I am. For example, you don’t have a single can of Coke in your fridge, do you?”
“I never drink soda.”
“Shocker.” His gaze ping-ponged around the kitchen. He wasn’t blinking. Was he scouting for the nearest exit? “Forget the tea. We gonna start or what?”
“That depends.” She leaned forward, tilting her head to one side. “Do you really want to be here?”
“Who doesn’t want to twist themse
lves into a pretzel?” His sheepskin collar nearly brushed his ears. Tension poured off him in waves.
“How about we start slow, focus on breathing.”
His brow arched. “I hate to break it to you, but I do that fine.”
“Well, actually, you aren’t inhaling deep enough.” She rose and stepped forward. “May I touch you?”
He gave a curt nod.
She reached into his open leather jacket and brushed her fingertips against his stomach, quick as static shock. Good lord. There wasn’t so much as a millimeter of give on this man. His abs were as solid as his chest.
Not that she cared one way or another. This was merely an impassive, factual observation.
“Feel this, right here?” She tried to ignore the tightening sensation in her chest. “This is the spot where you should be pulling from. It’s called diaphragmatic breathing. Right now your ribs hardly move. It’s too shallow. Why don’t you come into the living room, lie down on the rug and get more comfortable? Then I’ll show you what I mean.”
He didn’t budge. “Thought I was doing just fine sucking air. After all, I’ve been doing it for almost twenty-five years.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “I’m inching toward twenty-seven. So try respecting an elder and get on the floor.”
His features were an expressionless mixture of ice and stone, as cold and inscrutable as a glacier. “You aren’t what I expected, Margot Kowalski.”
“Oh yeah?” She hooked a strand of loose hair behind one ear, feeling scoured by his stare. “Is that good or bad?”
“I dunno.” He laughed hoarsely.
“Quite the endorsement,” she quipped.
He didn’t answer.
“Tough crowd.” She pointed to the wool carpet on her bamboo floor. “That’s where I want you.”
“How long is this going to take?” he asked gruffly, shrugging out of his jacket.
“You believe in hockey practice, right?”
He arched a brow.
“Yoga is practice too.” Patch looked so . . . big . . . kneeling down beside her pretty floral floor cushions. And overtly masculine. Like a piece of avant-garde art. Not pretty. Not conventional. But riveting in his own way.
“You’re not what I expected either,” she said carefully.
“Oh yeah?” He pressed his arms to his sides, stiff as a mummy. “Yeah?”
“I imagined you more of a bully.” The admission burst from her. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”
“No. It didn’t.” His gaze pinned hers. “Honesty is a lost art. If we’re stuck working together, that’s what I’m going to ask for.”
“Deal.” Her neck was hot, like sitting out by the pool and getting a slow sunburn. “I think that I expected someone meaner. Instead you’re . . .”
He waited, his chest not rising.
“Different,” she concluded.
Not nice. But . . . interesting.
There was perfect silence for two seconds . . . three . . . four. She broke it with a shuddering inhalation, blinking fast as if coming out of a daze.
“So . . .” She nodded to his cap beside him on the floor, desperate to say something—anything—to fill the empty air. “Red Sox, huh?”
His brows knit. “What about it?”
So much for small talk. Looked like he preferred this strange, heavy silence.
“Never mind. Let’s return the focus to the breath.” She sat cross-legged beside him. “I want you to put all of your attention right here.”
A tremor rippled through his abdomen at her touch. The motion vibrated through her skin, jarring her bones. Last summer, she’d been knocked around in the surf while boogie boarding in Mexico. The ocean spun her like a sock in a washer. Her insides now experienced a similar sensation.
“See, there goes your chest again, rising first.” She swallowed thickly. “If you don’t breathe correctly, it can leave you at a deficit during a game. Healthy breathing patterns are how your body maintains a fast metabolism and delivers oxygen to vital organs. If you breathe fast or don’t inhale deep enough, the pH in your blood spikes. This decreases the amount of blood getting into your brain and muscles and as a result, less oxygen is released.”
She put a hand over the spot she’d collided into and allowed a tight smile as she felt the pounding within. “Well, well, well, looks like you have a beating heart beneath all that brooding.” She winked. “But don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”
His hand gripped her wrist, moving so fast that she didn’t have time to gasp.
He was bigger, broader than most of the skinny-hipster-techy guys she encountered around the Denver singles scene. Just all around . . . more.
“What are you doing?” she asked. Not afraid. Despite his size, he didn’t seem violent. Or angry. Just unsettled.
“No idea.” He closed his eyes. “Don’t know what I’m doing about anything anymore.”
“You know, I feel like that way sometimes too. I think everyone does. They just don’t admit it.” When he released her hand, she reached up and pressed on his lats, where his shoulders met his neck. “You’re carrying so much tension in your body.”
“I get headaches.” He stared at the ceiling.
“Often?”
“I guess . . .” His eyes darkened. “For a long time. Since I was a little kid.” His gaze roamed the walls behind her as she began to knead the rigid muscles. It was like trying to soften frozen blocks of dough. “You have a lot of photographs.”
She smiled at the frames. There was her half-brother, Atticus, standing between her stepmom, Annie, and her husband, Sawyer, the mountains of the Eastern Sierras rising behind them. And Breezy their freshman year of college. Margot had come to Colorado lonely, adrift and heartsick. She hadn’t told anyone in her family about the incessant bullying, the slut-shaming. Her mom would have blamed her. Her dad was too busy trying to get it on with women that were barely older than her. Annie could have helped, but at the time she’d been reeling from Margot’s dad’s infidelity and Margot hadn’t wanted to drop that on her lap.
There were other pictures. A photo of her doing tree pose in the Denver Botanical Gardens. Another of the beach in Punta Mita, Mexico last summer. That place had been heaven on earth. Warm clear water. Golden beaches. Sunsets that threatened to break a heart with all the beauty.
“You like photography?” Maybe some small talk would loosen him up. His neck might as well be forged from steel.
“Of course, don’t you?”
“Don’t have many happy memories to keep around.”
The bitterness in his voice spoke volumes.
“Patrick.”
Using his real name had the intended effect.
His penetrating gaze traced her face, light and soft, almost a physical touch. “Why’d you call me that?”
“It’s your name, isn’t it?” She spoke the words carefully, the slower cadence the only way to ward off a tremble. The way he stared . . . the intensity was unbearable. A painful pleasure.
How would he look when inside a woman?
There was a hiss and crackle in her clit, a delicious burn as if a flame had burst to life.
“Yes.” He seemed to shudder. “But no one has called me that since . . .” His Adam’s apple—covered by a thick scruff—bobbed. “For a long time.”
“Since you were that little kid with the headaches?” Her own next breath was shallow, barely drawing oxygen into her lungs.
The vein in his neck pounded. God help her, she wanted to lick it, to taste the faint flavor of his sweat on her tongue.
She swayed a little, drunk with this unexpected desire, the cocktail of hormones.
Time to slow her roll. This was nothing. Just a normal, healthy physiological response.
There was no point to make a big deal over her body’s reaction, or read anything into the mechanics of basic biology. Right now she was simply reacting to the proximity of a big, brawny male. It had been a while since she’d gott
en any action. This meant nothing.
She swallowed. Hard. “Our pasts can wield a hell of a lot of influence over our present. Our bodies are remarkably good at holding on to old trauma.”
“I’m fine.”
His sharp tone didn’t win any convincing awards.
“Patrick.” Her tongue slid over the roof of her mouth as she pronounced the t. “Take off your shirt.”
Chapter Six
Patch didn’t move. He couldn’t. A hot jolt had zapped him in place.
“I know that you heard me.” Margot’s fine brows drew closer together. “But I’ll ask again nicely.” Her throat clearing was loud and purposeful.
His gaze flicked to her throat, the soft delicate hollow where she made the noise. She might be joking around, but the last thing he felt like doing was laughing.
“Would you pretty please with maraschino cherries on top remove your shirt?”
He didn’t respond—couldn’t. Shed his clothes? Have the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen put her hands on his bare skin?
Christ. He’d never be ready.
If God had tailor-made a woman designed to be his type, Margot Kowalski would be it. The moment she’d leapt back from her doorway—while he stood out there trying to psyche himself up to knock—and yelped about breaking her nose . . . he’d been on the fast train to Gonesville.
And now she waited. Patiently. Knowingly.
The question was why? What was it that drew him in? Was it her disquieting grey eyes, the same color of a secret pearl? Those perfect-ten breasts filling out her black leotard? Or her long legs stretching somewhere into tomorrow?
But despite the dancer-type clothes and elegant bun, she didn’t give off an air of untouchable yogi beauty. Her nose was too snub for starters, and her smile too warm. Then there were those freckles smattering her cheeks in two faint constellations. They slew him one by one.
He’d been prepared to endure an hour with a yoga teacher that he didn’t take seriously, someone who wore healing crystals and was named Sunbeam Calmspring.
In truth, her apartment had more than its fair share of hippie knickknacks—macramé wall hangings, houseplants, star-shaped paper lanterns, and baskets . . . who needed this many baskets? But the curveball to the whole situation was how much he liked it, being here in her apartment with its lavender-painted walls and feminine energy. The faint trace of spicy incense was homey. It returned him to his childhood, of being an altar boy—a role that had brought order to an otherwise chaotic existence.
