Carter shot Luc a look, but nonetheless reached underneath her skirt and pulled her panties down and off her legs, tossing them behind him. Jake shifted his gaze and saw Carter trail two fingers through her pussy, bringing them up to show him and Luc how her juices glistened on them. He remained silent, though, and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. He was acting so strangely. Maybe the thing with the three of them and Eva was bothering him more than he was admitting.
Then Eva moaned again, and Jake forgot all about Carter. Luc covered the sound as he kissed her again. When they broke, she pulled away a little and the guys let her go. Jake’s brow furrowed. Had they done something wrong?
“I want this, guys, but I’m not up for a lot of horizontal gymnastics. I really am full from dinner, and I’ve had a long day. Could we maybe just be mellow tonight?” She bit her lip as if she expected them to be offended and walk out on her.
Jake spoke first. “Of course we can. We’ll do anything you want—or don’t want—to do, honey.”
She smiled, and he understood what people meant when they said they were dazzled by a person’s smile. Eva took his breath away.
“So if I just wanted to lie here and snuggle and kiss and stuff, that would be okay?”
“That would be more than okay, baby,” Luc answered. “We want you to be happy. Hey, why don’t we find some dumb movie on cable and we can all curl up here on the bed and watch it?”
She turned her smile on Luc, and Jake could swear Luc’s breathing hitched. Eva scooted up toward the headboard, picked up the remote from the nightstand, and handed it to Luc.
Jake stood up, taking a moment to surreptitiously adjust his cock in his pants before saying, “I’m gonna go get some water. Anybody else want anything?”
“There are bottles of water in the fridge,” Eva told him. “I’d love one, thanks.”
“Ditto,” said Carter, who’d just come back into the room. Luc shrugged.
“Four it is.”
When he returned from the kitchen, they’d found something they wanted to watch. He settled down on Eva’s left side, with Luc on the right and Carter stretched out width-wise at the foot of the bed. The movie was one they’d all seen a million times, but that didn’t stop them from cracking up at all the silly jokes. At one point Jake met Luc’s eyes over Eva’s head and sent a subtle nod to the other man. Luc nodded back, his eyes shifting down to take in Eva. When he returned his gaze to Jake, Jake cocked his head a little toward Carter and Luc’s eyebrows rose in a “who knows” gesture.
Jake’s eyelids started getting heavy, and he pushed down on the bed until he was mostly horizontal. The next thing he knew someone had batted at his foot. He woke up and realized he’d apparently tried to stretch out in his sleep and struck Carter. He raised bleary eyes to Eva’s alarm clock. It was after one. He nudged Carter again, this time on purpose, and reached over Eva’s sleeping body to shake Luc awake.
When both men were sitting up, he whispered, “Should we stay? Eva’s only got a queen-sized bed, and things are pretty tight with all four of us in it.”
Luc nodded, and Carter said, “At least you had part of a pillow.”
“We should probably go home. We’ve got a hard practice tomorrow and a game the next night. We can’t afford to get sore from sleeping funny,” Jake pointed out.
“Agreed,” Luc said. “Should we wake her up?”
“We can’t just leave,” Jake reasoned. He touched Eva’s shoulder and she mumbled in her sleep. “Adorable,” he said. Taking her shoulder more firmly in hand, he gently massaged it. After a few seconds, she woke with a startle. “Hey, honey. We need to go, but didn’t want to leave without waking you so you’d know we were leaving. If you can find someone to go with, why don’t you come to the game day after tomorrow?”
Eva yawned and then nodded. “I’ll call Louisa and see if she wants to go.”
“That’s our girl,” he replied, leaning down to give her a quick kiss. “Just call any of us and we’ll leave tickets at Will Call.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want some help getting into your pj’s?” Luc asked with a grin.
She batted his hand away and sat up. “I highly doubt you guys would get home anytime soon if we did that.”
“You’re probably right, but sex is the best excuse for missing sleep that I know of.”
“Come on, Romeo. The bus is leaving,” Jake told his friend.
“Yeah, yeah. You wouldn’t leave without your captain.”
Jake snorted. “Like hell I wouldn’t.”
Carter, who’d left the room a few minutes ago, came back in and tossed Jake’s and Luc’s coats on the bed. Leaning down, he pressed a kiss on Eva’s forehead and then stood back up. “Let’s go before we’re so awake we can’t fall back to sleep.”
“I’m glad I don’t room with you. You’re so freaking grumpy when you don’t get your beauty sleep,” Luc teased.
Jake waved at Eva as they left the room and then followed his teammates out to his car. Climbing inside, he waited until the guys were buckled in and then pulled out of Eva’s driveway. When they were on the road, he watched out of the corner of his eye as Luc pivoted so he could see Carter in the backseat.
“So what the fuck is going on with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t kiss Eva on the lips at all tonight. Well, at least not after you stuck your tongue down her throat when we came to pick her up.”
“So what?”
“So I know from watching you,” Luc continued as Carter made a strange noise, “that you love to kiss women. You love kissing Eva.”
“Okay, you’ve got me,” Carter replied in an overly patient tone. “What do you make of my actions, oh wise one?”
“I think you’re withdrawing from her. When we were on the bed earlier you stayed down by the foot, and you didn’t really engage until I basically forced you to.”
“Look, man. I’m tired and I don’t really wanna have this conversation now.”
“Well, I do.”
“Just because you’re the fucking captain doesn’t mean the rest of us have to jump up to do your bidding when you say ‘boo,’ you know.”
“I know that,” Luc answered, and Jake took his eyes off the road long enough to assess his friend’s face, which was tightly drawn as if he’d eaten something he didn’t like. “But until you tell us what the fuck is going on inside that thick head of yours, we can’t figure out how to fix it.”
Swearing viciously, Carter punched the ceiling inside the car, and Jake jerked the wheel a little, shocked by Carter’s outburst. Of the three of them, Carter was most even-keeled. “Sorry, Jake,” Carter said. “As for you, Luc, you can go to hell. There’s nothing wrong, so just leave it alone.”
Jake knew Carter was lying. Hell, everybody in the car knew he was, but apparently neither he nor Luc was willing to call him on it. The rest of the drive to Carter and Luc’s condos passed without a word being spoken, and when Carter climbed out and slammed the door, Jake released a breath.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked Luc.
“I have no clue, but we’re gonna find out.”
“Don’t ride him too hard, man. I think he’s scared. People come to grips with shit like this at different speeds.”
“You seem okay with it.”
“Like I said, different speeds. Just cut him some slack.”
“Fine. I will, for now. But if this keeps up…”
Jake nodded, sighing. Sometimes dealing with the two of them made him feel like the middle child, the peacemaker. Luc, though not actually an oldest child, behaved like one, and Carter, an only child, had the personality of the youngest child. And when Jake wasn’t playing the peacemaker he oftentimes felt like their father. It had been that way since the three of them had forged their friendship a couple of years ago. Normally he didn’t mind, but every now and then it irritated the hell out of him. Right now he was irritated as hell. And worried.
Luc got out of Jake’s car and walked into his high-rise building. As he waited for the elevator with no sign of Carter around, he tapped out a staccato beat on his thigh. He’d never seen Carter like this. Of course, he’d never seen Carter stay with one woman longer than it took to order dessert, but still.
He decided to give it a few days and see how Carter reacted the next time they were with Eva. He was scheduled to get a massage tomorrow after practice and wondered if the other guys were, too. The thought of Eva’s hands on him, even in a purely therapeutic sense, made his knees weak, and he leaned on the wall beside the elevator. Finally the doors whooshed open and he stepped inside, wondering idly how many of Eva’s former boyfriends had asked her to give them free massages. Assholes.
If anything permanent became of this relationship, would she want to continue on with her massaging practice? Kelly still had the restaurant, but that was different. Even the notion of her massaging other guys made him want a put a hole in the wall. He doubted she would be appreciative of any attempts he or the other guys made to tell her what she could and couldn’t do, though, so if massaging made her happy, he’d support her.
He fell into bed and woke up to his cell phone ringing. It was his agent calling about a new endorsement deal, and Luc told the man for what seemed like the thousandth time that he didn’t change equipment in the middle of the season. That was just asking for trouble. In the end he promised his agent he would look at the company’s offerings, but not until the off-season. By the time he got off the phone he only had time to grab a protein shake to go and hop in his car for practice.
When he arrived, he hurried to put on his gear and get out on the ice. He liked to set a good example as captain, and scurrying into practice at the last minute wasn’t the way to do it. It would be a hard practice, he was sure, since Tom wasn’t at all pleased with their level of play, with good reason. Luc just hoped the head coach wouldn’t do a bag skate. With only the protein shake in him, trying to keep up with set after set of wind sprints would surely kill him, or at the very least, make him puke. Neither one was a very captain-like reaction.
Carter avoided him, which was probably just as well. Luc hadn’t gotten much sleep, lying awake much of the night wondering what he and Jake would do if Carter wanted out of the relationship. Would Eva be interested in just the two of them, or would she call it quits to the whole thing? His stomach churned at the thought. Normally he wasn’t a worrier like Jake was, but this thing was turning him inside out.
They started a shooting drill, and when Carter’s turn came up his shot rocketed off his blade and Scott hit the deck to avoid getting it right in the mask. As he sat on the ice, he pulled said mask to the top of his head and said, “What the fuck, Carter?”
Scott was pretty easy-going like Carter, but Luc didn’t blame him for being annoyed at nearly having his head taken off. Tom glared at Carter, who’d turned away and skated toward the opposite end of the rink. Then Tom turned his glare on Luc and jerked his head toward Carter.
Great…this is just what I need.
He dutifully skated down to where Carter was turning slow circles around the faceoff dot. “What’s up?”
Carter looked at him briefly before returning to his skating. “Nothing, man.”
Luc rolled his eyes. “I can’t tell him why you’re pissed, bud, so give me a plausible excuse.”
“I’m not pissed. You know as well as I do that shots sometimes go wild.”
“Yes, I do, and that’s not what just happened.”
Carter spun to face him. “So why don’t you tell me what the fuck did just happen? I guess you can read minds now, huh?”
Luc took a deep breath, trying like hell to stay calm. In a quiet voice so their conversation wouldn’t carry over the ice and attract even more attention than it already had, he said, “Of course not. But I know you’re not all right, so what am I supposed to tell Tom?”
“Tell him whatever you want.”
“You know that won’t fly.”
Carter leveled a gaze at him. “I’m fine.”
“Bullshit.”
Carter dropped his stick and charged him, getting in his face. “Let it go, Luc.”
Luc stood his ground. He really didn’t want their personal crap getting in the way of team productivity, but it didn’t look like he had much of a choice.
“Look, dude. Just leave your problems at home.”
“How the fuck can I do that when my problems are here at the rink with me every day?”
That got the attention of the rest of the team, and Luc closed his eyes and counted to ten before opening them again. Jake had come over. “What’s going on, Carter?”
“Oh, you, too? Jesus.”
“We’re just trying to help,” Luc said.
Carter pushed him. “Well, stop trying to help!”
Jake tried to get in the middle, but Luc pushed Carter back and soon both of them had thrown off their gloves. The situation had escalated before Luc could even wrap his brain around fighting with a teammate.
One of the assistant coaches skated over and shoved them apart. “To your corners, assholes,” the man said with a growl.
Carter seemed to realize what he’d done, because he retreated immediately and went to pick up his gloves. Tom skated over. “Nice job, captain.” He pointed at both Jake and Carter. “Hit the bikes. I don’t wanna see either of your ugly mugs for the rest of the day.”
Carter and Jake trudged off toward the bench and Tom’s gaze followed before swinging back to Luc. “You know what’s bothering him.”
Luc glanced at the rest of his teammates, who were almost falling over themselves on the ice to hear the conversation between himself and the head coach.
“I have an idea, but it’s not something I want to discuss in front of everybody.”
“Then get your ass on the bike until you’re ready to talk,” Tom snarled, and Luc quickly stalked into the exercise room to find Jake and Carter on bikes as far as away as they could get from each other.
“Very nice,” he told them, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “We need to lift weights when we’re done here and then we’ll all go get some lunch and talk. That wasn’t a request, by the way.”
He heard grumbling from behind him as he headed over to his own bike. After a while he hopped off and went over to the weight bench. One of the other guys came in and offered to spot him, and he returned the favor a few minutes later. Usually working up a sweat during practices and games helped calm whatever internal turmoil he was facing, but not today. Today he was a mess.
He was using the chin up bar when he heard a crash behind him. Jumping down, he spun around and saw Fredrik on the ground with free weights scattered around him. He was convulsing. “Go get the trainers. And call 911!” he screamed as he rushed over. “Did anyone see what happened? Get me a towel.” One of the guys tossed him a towel and he gently inserted it into Fredrik’s mouth so he wouldn’t bite his own tongue. Fredrik was expected to retire within the next couple of years—if he made it that far. Luc forced himself to ignore that macabre thought as the trainers rushed in and took over and he stood there helplessly while they worked.
After a little while Fredrik’s seizure stopped, but his eyes were still rolled into the back of his head and Luc had to turn away. He knew he needed to be strong for his players, but this was yet another weird occurrence, and coming on the heels of Leo’s episode it was bound to make the guys jittery. Hell, combined with whatever was happening with his heart, he was plenty jittery, too. What was going on?
Fredrik was rushed to the hospital and the rest of the team slowly made their way to the showers, the rest of their workouts forgotten. Jake and Carter followed him out the door without complaint, which he would’ve been grateful for if there hadn’t been such a horrible episode that predicated their obedience. In the car on the way to lunch, it was Jake who spoke first.
“I don’t think all the shit that’s been happen
ing lately is a coincidence. I’m worried about there being a connection.”
“What do you mean?” Luc asked him, glancing into the rearview to meet his eyes.
“I think there’s something tying together all these physical problems guys on the team are suddenly having.” He cleared his throat and continued. “You know, since you had the racing heart thing, Luc, I’ve been watching you and the other guys. There are two or three others who do the same thing you do, you all kind of rub your chests and breathe hard.”
“So?”
“I’m telling you—other guys are having the same trouble.” Luc’s eyes narrowed as he looked at his teammate again, but Jake continued nonetheless. “Or were, and with Leo and Fredrik both having these weird freak things happen, I dunno. Maybe there’s something to what Eva said about those new supplements we’re on. We haven’t really changed anything else.”
“Maybe,” Luc assented. “But I’d rather talk about what went on before that out on the ice.” He glanced over at Carter, who glowered back at him. “I’ve never seen you like this. Usually you’re the most easy-going of the three of us, but right now you’re wound so tight I’m surprised you’re not a corkscrew.”
“Everyone has a bad day,” Carter said.
“Come on, man. We’re your best friends. We’re all in this relationship together, too, and when Jake and I started talking about making things more permanent you freaked out. No matter what you say, you haven’t been the same since.”
“What do you want me to say? You want me to admit the idea of settling with one woman, who, by the way, would be settling down with my teammates, too, bothers me? Shit yeah, it bothers me. But I’m also afraid if I don’t just jump into this with both feet you guys will and I’ll lose my chance with her forever.”
“If you need some time, dude, take it,” Jake told him.
“Oh, sure, then you and Luc can get all cozy with her.”
“It’s not like that. We’re all in this together.”
Carr, Cassandra - Cold as Ice [Buffalo Intimidators 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 10
