by R. J. Scott
Wow, okay. That was unexpectedly graphic but wholly arousing.
“Yes! Like a bull. You would have heard me say that while I’m all for breaking glass ceilings and all that, but this is going to be an uphill fight not only with the stockholders of the team but also upper management, the players, and the fans.”
“Not my worry. I’m here to build a team, not play politics with your brothers and other rich assholes who worry about stock market dips.” We wheeled out onto a two-lane road, my dick a little more at attention than it should be during a business discussion. “Your father hired me to clean up the Raptors because he saw it was dying. A fish rots from the head down, and when teams are in the dumpster, it’s the coaching staff that goes first.”
He stared at me for the longest time. “And certain players.”
“Well, yes, and certain players but overall the head coach gets fired first.”
“What is so damn special about one woman?”
“Look her up on YouTube. Search for the Vancouver Olympics women’s ice hockey series and then find the final game between Team USA and Team Canada. Make sure you pay close attention to the young blonde woman with “Anderson” across her back. She’ll be easy to find. She’ll be the one scoring the hat trick that led her team to the gold medal. When you’ve done all that homework, then come back to me, and we’ll talk about why Terri is the perfect person for the position.”
He nodded, his lips flattened, which was a damn shame because they were so fat and nibble-worthy when he wasn’t pressing them together. I plugged my phone into the stereo and filled the nicely cooling car with “Lyin’ Eyes” from the Take it to the Limit album.
Those tempting lips of his puckered as if he’d just sucked off a lemon. “The Eagles?”
“That you even have to ask makes me sad for you.”
The eye roll was epic and quite regal. I bit back a smile as we cruised closer to Loveland and the Silver Newt Lounge on the outskirts of town. When we pulled up to the two-bit saloon, Mark and I exchanged looks. There were a large number of Harleys parked outside the establishment. And not the cushy roadsters that most senior riders got on to travel around on. These were mean-looking bikes with riders to match, or so I assumed. The parking lot was full. So full there were cars and motorcycles and trucks parked up and down the long stretch of desert road as far as the eye could see.
“And we’re going in here, why?” he asked, eying the brick building with the flashing C ORS LIGH sign in the lone window like a tiger about to pounce.
“This is where we find Colorado,” I said, turned off the engine, pocketed the keys, and exited the car. A small wind whipped across the dirt parking lot, the dust devil picking up gum wrappers and bits of dead leaves as it raced past our car and out over the road.
Mark got out of the car and met me at the door. “We find Colorado in Nevada?”
“That we do, my young prince.” I clapped his shoulder and pushed into the biker bar, the first strains of a Metallica cover by the opening band so loud it nearly blew the door out of my hand. Mark balked. I took him by the wrist and shoved him into the standing room only audience. We threaded through the crowd until we managed to wade close to the bar. I held up two fingers and pointed at the Coors tap. The barkeep, a young woman with a pink Mohawk and several rings in her ears, nose, and eyebrows, nodded and poured us two mugs of cold beer.
“I don’t like that beer,” Mark shouted when I handed him his mug.
“Tough.” I leaned into the bar. “When does Chaotic Furball come on?” I yelled as the opening band roared and raged onstage. I handed her a ten, then nodded when she held up five fingers. I nudged Mark and jerked my head toward the far corner. We wiggled through a sea of black leather and long hair until we were standing about four feet from a pile of amps. Mark seemed tense and completely out of place with his Gucci leather loafers and rolled-up pant legs. At least I’d gone old hippie casual with jeans, sneakers, and a vintage Doobie Brothers Takin’ It to the Streets T-shirt. We certainly were getting some bizarre looks.
Nursing our beers, we waited out the opening band who were good for nothing more than a cover band. Mark’s dark eyes flitted everywhere. I wondered if the rich boy had ever been in a biker dive bar before. Then I corrected myself. He’d not always eaten off that silver spoon he’d been born with. He’d seen hard times.
There was a short break as the stage was emptied of the first band’s drums to be replaced by Chaotic Furballs’ drum kit. Young women began to surge forward, filling the first several rows of fans lined up by the spacious stage. The lights suddenly went out. It was too dark to see my hand in front of my face.
Then four blue spotlights hit the stage, each glowing beam of sapphire on one member of the Furballs. The drummer, the bass player, and the lead guitarist all seemed to be cut from the same metal cloth. Wild, long hair, leather pants, no shirts, and ink tattooed into every available inch of skin. The lead singer, though, oh man, he was different. Tall and lean, he had shoulder-length black hair and a small ring in his nostril. A black tank top with black jeans that had been artfully shredded and black high tops. Silver bangles on his left wrist glistened and glittered in the blue spotlight. The crowd was deathly silent. Then the band sprang to life, hitting four chords that made the walls and floor vibrate. Colorado Penn grabbed the mic, and the women who had lined up began screaming his name as he launched into an original song about sex for sale with a strong Pantera feel to it.
Mark jerked a thumb at Colorado, and I nodded. He raised an eyebrow, but he stuck it out, sipping his beer on occasion and making a ridiculously cute face every time he took a drink.
After an hour, the band took a break, and Colorado waded through the adoring fans, male and female, to where we stood in the corner. The jukebox beside us kicked on, and an AC/DC song rocked to life.
“Outside,” Colorado shouted, and we slipped into the back room with him, then out into the now dark Nevada night. “Right, so I have twenty minutes. Talk hockey to me.”
He pulled up his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. I was happy to see he’d been keeping in shape. Nothing worse than a skilled player going to seed.
“I want you to come to Arizona and try out for the Raptors.”
Colorado eyed me with some suspicion. “You do recall I was suspended from playing for a year?”
“And your suspension was up as of July fourth of this year.”
“Um, if no one minds, may I inquire into why you were suspended from playing hockey?” Mark asked, shoving his face into the conversation. Sure, it was a pretty face, but it was an owner’s face, and so it should’ve been somewhere else while I tried to woo this man back to the ice.
“There may have been a video that included a hundred-dollar bill and two lines of cocaine,” Colorado replied, and there was defiance in his bright green eyes. The kid was a firebrand. Wild yes, and chaotic at times, but one of the most sought-after rookie tenders to have ever been drafted. Pity his youth and poor choice in friends had gotten him kicked out of the game with barely a year under his belt. With the right hand, he could be a Vezina winner, I had no doubt. He just needed the right kind of coach. And that right coach was me. “It wasn’t mine. I don’t do drugs.”
“But you were suspended,” Mark said, and his jaw bottomed out somewhere around his navel.
“That was a bad call. I’d been ejected from a couple of games before that, and they wanted to teach me a lesson.” He shrugged, and I waited for Mark to react and ask why Colorado had been ejected. I didn’t have to wait long.
“And exactly why were you ejected from games?”
“I may have spit water at a referee.”
“You may have?”
“The Z totally deserved it.”
Mark shook his head. “What the hell is a ‘Z’ and how the hell did he deserve…?” He waved his hands, seemingly lost for words.
“A Z is a ref. Y’know, the zebra stripes,” I explained when I saw Colorado frown at the question
. Last thing I needed was for him to wonder what the hell Mark was doing here if he didn’t know hockey terms.
Colorado sighed. “And if a Z calls no goaltender interference when a guy knocks you into your net expect to get spit at.”
“You wouldn’t have been ejected if you’d been on my team. A coach stands up for his players. He doesn’t throw them under the bus.”
Mark snapped his jaw shut, but oh, the thoughts were churning inside his head. I could tell by the bubbling brown of his eyes.
“Yeah?” Colorado asked.
“Yeah, but that’s the past. And this is now. The Raptors need you.”
“No, they don’t,” Mark said.
Colorado looked from me to Mark, then back to me. “Who’s this Calvin Klein worshipper?”
“First of all, my clothes are not Calvin Klein. They’re Yamamoto,” Mark fired back. “And second—”
“Second, we’re not here to talk fashion,” I interjected.
“Obviously,” Mark flung back after raking Colorado and me over with a haughty glare.
“We’re here to talk hockey. Ignore him.” I jerked my chin at Mark, who huffed. “We’ll pay for you to fly out to Tucson and tryout.”
“Oh no, we won’t!” Mark was quick to say.
“Then I’ll pay for the airline tickets. You can stay with me during training camp.” Colorado thought on my offer for a moment or two. “Look, I know you’re doing well here with the band, and the music is good.” He cocked a sleek black eyebrow. “Okay, better than good. You could probably make it as a singer, but your first love is hockey. I read your history. I know you were in the net back home in Michigan before you were five. If you don’t give it one more try with a team that’s eager to sign fresh new faces, then you’ll always live with the unanswered question of whether you really were as good as they all said you were.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I nodded and handed Colorado one of my new business cards. “Fair enough. If you choose to fly out, let me know, and I’ll get you set up and on the ice. You still have your gear from your stint in Jersey?”
“Yeah, I still have it.” Colorado offered me his hand. We shook, and then he eased away, giving Mark a wary smile before going back inside to finish out the night.
“That went well. Want to go find our hotel room?” I walked off, hands in my front pockets, knowing he had no choice but to follow. “There are no taxis or drivers to hire out here,” I added, just to let him know. “If you change your mind about standing out here all night, our room is right across the road.”
I walked on, leaving him in the parking lot, grabbed my bag from the car, and strolled across the street to the Desert Dew Motel and registered. When I exited with the room key—key, not card—Mark was still in the parking lot. I waved. He gave me the finger. Chuckling to myself, I walked to our room, unlocked it, and sighed at the double bed sitting there when I’d reserved a room with two beds.
“Well, fuck,” I said, then stepped into the stuffy room.
The AC came on with all due speed, and I took off my sneakers and placed them on the floor by my bag. The door flew open, and Mark blew into the cheap motel room like a hurricane. He slammed the door shut and rounded on me taking off my socks.
“You are honestly the most egotistical, stubborn, self-centered boar of a man that I have ever had the bad luck to meet! How dare you offer a player a tryout on the team without clearing it with anyone who actually has the right to hire and fire players?”
I pulled off sock number two, tossed them both to my sneakers, and then stood to face him. He was shaking with indignation. His curls were windblown, his cheeks thick with new whiskers, and his eyes glittering.
“You wouldn’t have made the offer,” I casually stated, then pulled my shirt up and over my head.
His eyes flared, then dropped to my chest before streaking back to my face. He licked his lips, and a jolt of pure grade-A lust speared me.
“Obviously not! He’s like a wild badger or something. Cocaine?”
“He wasn’t using.”
“And spitting at people? Is that even allowed on the ice?”
“Well, goalies are different,” I said, meaning no disrespect. It was just a simple truth that all tendies would agree with. I took a step closer to the disgruntled man. His tongue darted out to lick his lips again. “They tend to be given some leeway at times because of their eccentricities.” He shook his head as I took another step. I paused and waited for him to speak or blink or do something other than stand there, panting, eyes wide, hands rolling and unrolling. I eased closer. His sight roamed downward, and when his eyes met mine, there was fire there, but not the kind that had been there previously. “Why don’t you let me show you some of his game films before we go home tomorrow and—”
He lunged at me, his hands slapping to either side of my head and his lips grinding over mine. It startled me for a millisecond, the gnash of teeth and the hot press of soft lips, but then I felt the rush of desire race through me. I grabbed his lean waist and shoved him back just a few inches. His back hit the door, and he grunted into my open mouth. I swept in, lapping at his teeth, slipping my tongue in deeply. His reaction to my possession was to tangle his tongue with mine and tug on my hair. I leaned into him, sucking hard on his tongue, and thrust my stiff cock into his belly. A small, sweet sound of capitulation drifted out of his throat, making my balls tighten. One taste of the man had me close to coming in my shorts.
Then just as suddenly as he’d kissed me, he began pushing at me. I hated to leave the hot, wet joy of his mouth, but he slapped at my chest hard enough to force the air from me. I staggered back, chest heaving, his taste on my tongue, and watched in confusion as he ripped the door open and raced out into the night.
“Well, holy shit,” I whispered as a cool wind blew into the cheap room.
Seven
Mark
I’d never moved so fast, not even stopping to shut the motel door. I was halfway down the street before I started to breathe again and into an alley before I stopped moving.
“What the hell did I just do?” I asked the wall that was holding me up. “What in hell did I do that for?”
“You talking to yourself or me?” A growl of a voice startled me, and I jumped about a mile. Colorado stepped out of the shadows, his hands in his pockets, his long hair tangled from the wind that shoved and pushed down the narrow passageway.
“Shit,” I exclaimed and leaned back to the wall with my hand fisted on my chest. “Don’t sneak up on people.”
Colorado crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re full of rules, aren’t you? Don’t spit on Zs, don’t do cocaine, and now don’t walk down a perfectly normal alley to my own damn apartment.”
“Cocaine is bad,” I snapped.
“No shit, Sherlock,” he countered.
My head was a mess of panic. All I could think about was whatever had taken hold of me that meant I ended up kissing Rowen, but now I had a drug-taking, spitting, former hockey goalie moving closer and blocking my exit to the dark road beyond.
“I need to go,” I said in my best fake-normal voice and moved away from the wall to walk around him.
He stopped me with a hand to my chest. “Who are you?”
“Mark. I’m—”
“Rowen’s latest squeeze?”
“No, god, no!”
A car door slammed somewhere on the road, and I winced. What the hell was I doing running out on a kiss, ending up in an alley, and telling weird goalies my name?
It began to rain. I felt the first drop on my cheek, and then the heavens opened.
“Come on,” Colorado said and pushed at a door I hadn’t even seen was there, which led back into the bar that we’d not long left. I padded in after him, and the door shut behind me, and for a moment I wondered how wise it was to follow a near stranger into a dark place. Only when he opened the door, there were other people still there, although the crowd had thinned dramatically. All I could se
e were the perpetual drinkers and the guy behind the bar sorting glasses.
“Two,” he indicated to the barman, who didn’t lecture that it was after closing hours or that he was clearing up to go home. I didn’t question what Colorado had ordered two of, and found the nearest seat to plant myself on. The amber whiskey burned as I sipped it, the heat of the drink warming me from the inside.
While I drank, Colorado watched me with a focused stare that was unnerving. “Mark what?” he asked.
“Westman-Reid.” I waited for him to react to the name, offering condolences for my dad, or to mention the connection to the Raptors. Instead, he showed no recognition at all and sat back in his chair to nurse his drink. He wouldn’t quit with the staring. “What?” I asked when he clearly wasn’t going to look away.
“Nothing,” he murmured and finished his whiskey in one swallow. “You staying in town tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Motel?”
“Uh-huh.” Actually I was probably going to find somewhere else. Another room at the motel maybe or a doorway, who knew?
“So, tell me, what did the wall do to you?”
“Huh?”
“When I came into the alley, you were talking to the wall.”
“Not the wall, myself.”
He half closed his eyes and rested his hands on his flat belly. Where the T-shirt pulled tight, I could see the muscles there, but all I could think was how could someone who hasn’t played professional hockey for so long, still be in peak physical form, ready to tryout for the Raptors. Not that anything to do with the Raptors, or hockey, was front and center in my thoughts. Nope. At the moment all I could think about was the humiliating kiss I’d just planted on someone who hadn’t been expecting it.
“What was it you did?” he asked.
“Did when?” I really should’ve paid attention to Colorado as he was talking to me. I wasn’t the kind of man who zoned out. I was polite, and I listened.
“You were asking the wall for guidance on what you’d just done. What was it that you’d just done?”
