During the first intermission, Faith told Bo and Jules about her meeting with Miranda and her intention to become more involved with the organization charities.
“You getting more involved will be good PR,”
Bo said as she raised a bottle of Beck’s to her lips. “I’ll get on it.”
“I don’t want to be part of the PR for the charities.” Faith smiled. “I’m sure we’ll need some promotion and advertising for each event, but I think we want really targeted campaigns. I’ll get together with you and Jim when we’ve got something more tangible.”
Bo shrugged. “The celebrity golf tournament is in July, so let me know how much you’re going to be involved in that.”
Jules tore his gaze from the big screen above the bar as the second period began. “Do you play golf?”
She thought of the putting green in Ty’s house. Of the night she’d worn his shirt. The cotton against her bare skin and scent of his cologne on the collar beneath her chin. Of him standing behind her while she’d swung at the ball. “No, but I can drive one of those golf cars,” she answered and took a drink of her merlot. On the screen above the bar, she watched Ty skate across ice with the puck in the curve of his stick. He passed off to Sam, then he skated behind the net to the other side and Sam passed the puck back to him as a Detroit defenseman collided with him just inside the blue line. The two fought for possession, shoving and throwing elbows. Ty’s
head snapped back and the whistle blew. The ref pointed at the defenseman as Ty raised one gloved hand and covered his face.
“He was hit with the butt end of a stick,” Jules said, leaning across the table toward the bar.
Ty lowered his glove and blood ran down his cheek from the outside corner of his left brow.
“Not his face!” Faith yelled before she even realized she’d spoken out loud. “Don’t hurt his face.” She felt as if someone had hit her in the stomach. The Red Wing fans simultaneously cheered and booed as Ty skated from the ice and the Detroit defender skated to the penalty box. One of the Chinooks trainers handed Ty a white towel and he held it to his eye as he turned and watched the replay on the big screens suspended high above mid-ice.
“Shouldn’t he go to the hospital?” Faith asked.
Bo and Jules both looked at her like she was nuts. “It’s just a cut,” Jules pointed out.
Ty pulled the bloody towel away as the trainer looked at the corner of his eye and Faith’s stomach tilted a little more.
“Gee.” Bo shook her head and took a drink of beer. “It’s bleeding like he hit an aorta.”
“Your aorta is in your heart. Not your head,” Jules pointed out.
“Yeah. I know that, numb nuts.” Bo set her beer
back on the table. “It’s called overstating something to make a point.”
“It’s called stupid.”
“Stop it! How old are you two, for God’s sake?” Faith put her hands flat on the table. “Ty has just sustained a gash to his head. This could be serious.”
Bo shook her head again. “It’s not that bad.”
“They’ll have him fixed up and on the ice by the third frame,” Jules added as Ty and the trainer stepped from the ice and headed into the tunnel.
“I don’t think so.” If she’d been hit like that, she’d need a full night’s stay in a hospital and lots of painkillers. Ty wasn’t as big a baby as she was, but there was no way he could come back after receiving such a gash.
But Jules was right. When the front-line offense took the ice in the third period, Ty was with them. The corner of his eye was only slightly swollen and was taped with white strips. Blood stained the front of his white jersey, but he skated his shifts.
In the closing minutes of the game, the score was 4–3 in favor of Detroit. Coach Nystrom pulled the goalie and loaded the ice with his first-line players, but despite a hard effort, it was Detroit’s night, and they won 5–3, scoring on an empty net in the last ten seconds of the game.
“We’ll beat ’em in our building Monday night,” Jules predicted as they all three left the bar.
The drive from the bar to the penthouse took about fifteen minutes. Pebbles wasn’t around, which meant her mother was already in bed. Faith brushed her teeth, washed her face, threw on a Looney Tunes T-shirt, and went to bed herself. The wine and excitement of the game had taken its toll and she went out minutes after her head hit the pillow. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep when the telephone beside her bed rang and woke her up. She reached for the receiver in the dark and hit herself in the forehead. “Ouch. Crap. Hello?”
“Did I wake you?”
She blinked. “Ty?”
“Yeah. Are you alone or is that dog in your bed?”
“What?” She felt around and her fingers touched fur. “Pebbles is here.”
His soft laughter filled her ear. So rare it poured through her and woke her up inside. “That must mean my dad’s there.”
“He must have snuck in after I went to sleep. Did you want to talk to Pavel?”
“God no.”
She licked her lips. “Then why are you calling?”
“I’m not quite sure.”
She turned her head and looked at the glowing numbers on her bedside clock. “Do you know what time it is?”
There was a pause and then, “Three fifteen.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in my car. Sitting in front of your building.”
She sat up and pushed the cover aside. “You’re kidding.”
“No. We just landed a half hour ago. Did you watch the game?”
“Yeah.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed. “How’s your eyebrow?”
“I got five stitches.”
“It looked like it hurt.”
“Like a son of a bitch. You should come down and kiss it better.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not dressed.”
“At all?”
Through the darkness, she glanced down at her Looney Tunes T-shirt. “Completely naked.”
He cleared his throat. “Throw on a coat. I promise I won’t look.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Looking isn’t what gets us into trouble.”
His voice lowered and he said, “You like trouble. Apparently, so do I.”
She did. She liked it a lot. “What kind of trouble were you thinking we should get into?”
“The kind that has you naked and in my bed. Since you’re already naked, maybe you should
just come on down and go the rest of the way.”
She shouldn’t. Really shouldn’t. “That would be inappropriate.”
“Very.”
“And you don’t regret what happened the other night?”
“Not yet, but I’ve got a few twisted positions with your name on ’em. I figure that after tonight, we’ll be filled with enough shame and regret to last a while.”
“It sounds like you’ve been thinking about me.”
“A lot.”
She’d thought about him, too. She shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t help herself. And while he might not regret what had happened, she should. But at that moment, listening to his voice and knowing he was parked outside wanting her, she didn’t feel anything but a hot curl of lust tugging at the pit of her stomach. “Me too,” she answered just above a whisper. “There’s a golf tournament this summer. I think I need to practice.”
“Honey, you can practice with my nine iron all you want.”
“I’ll grab my coat.” She hung up the phone, then stepped out of her panties and pulled her T-shirt over her head. Right now, wanting to get into trouble with Ty won out over the guilt she would feel in a few hours.
She hurriedly brushed her teeth and hair and
grabbed her slick black raincoat from her closet. She shoved her feet into a pair of red pumps and dropped her keys into her coat pocket on the way out the door.
Ty stood next to his black BMW parked heading the wrong way next to the curb. Darkness surrounded him, and a cool breeze blew off Elliott Bay, tossing several strands of Faith’s hair in front of her face.
“Mrs. Duffy.”
“Mr. Savage.”
He opened the passenger door. “Nice coat.”
She stepped in front of him and looked through the darkness into his face. Stark white bandage strips were taped at the corner of his left eye. The same breeze that tossed her hair about her head brought the scent of his skin to her nose and she breathed him in. She placed her hands on his chest and raised her face to his. Beneath the cotton of his dress shirt, his muscles bunched and turned hard.
Ty lowered his mouth and kissed her. His lips pressed into hers and something hot and intense flooded her senses and her fingers curled into the fabric warmed by his flesh. His tongue touched hers as his hand slid between the lapels of her raincoat. His warm hand cupped her breast and he fanned his thumb over her nipple.
Just when she gave serious thought to grabbing
his wrist and leading him upstairs, he lifted his head and pulled his hand from her coat. “Get in,” he ordered, his voice a bit gravelly from exhaustion or lust or both.
He opened the door and she sat in the passenger seat and looked up at him. “What sort of twisted positions do you have planned for me?” she asked.
“Working our way from one end of my mattress to the other.”
She pulled her feet inside and remembered his king-size bed. “That could take a while.”
“Exactly.”
T
he brush of something warm across Faith’s shoulder brought her out of a sound sleep. Her lids fluttered open and she turned to stare into a pair of brilliant blue eyes a few inches from her face. Smile lines appeared in the corners, wrinkling the white strips covering Ty’s stitches as he lightly bit her shoulder.
“Good morning,” he said against her skin.
“What time is it?”
“A little before noon.”
“Oh my God!” She sat up and the white sheet slid to her waist. “It’s late.” A sudden knot of panic kicked up the beat of her heart and tightened her stomach. She hadn’t woken up in a man’s bed in…she didn’t know how long. She pulled
the sheet up to cover her breasts and glanced back over her shoulder at him. He looked at ease and relaxed in a gray T-shirt and a pair of loose shorts. “You’re dressed.”
“I ran five miles on the treadmill.”
“And you didn’t wake me?”
He rolled onto his back on top of the thick black paisley comforter and stacked his hands behind his head. “You were out.” His gaze ran down her bare back. “You didn’t get to sleep until around five.”
“Neither did you.”
“I don’t need a lot of sleep.”
With one hand she held the sheet to her chest and rubbed her face with the other. Her heart pounded in her throat as she looked around the room at the sparse oak furniture and the blinds closed across the huge, arching window. “Don’t you have practice?” She was twenty minutes from home—if the traffic was good—with nothing but a raincoat. What had seemed like such a fine idea last night felt like a horrible mistake in the harsh light of day.
“Not for a while.” He sat up and pushed her hair behind her shoulder. “I thought I’d drop you off on my way and pick you back up afterward.”
Her heart pounded in her ears. She didn’t even have a pair of panties. There was a time in her life when that wouldn’t have bothered her, but that was a long time ago. A different time and a whole
different life. She’d been a different person, and that wasn’t her anymore. Anxiety tightened her forehead and she feared she was going to have a panic attack. She’d worked hard to put that kind of life behind her.
“Faith?”
She looked at him. “Yes.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“You have to go to practice.”
He lowered his mouth to her shoulder and softly bit her skin. “I want to pick you up afterward. Maybe take you to a little Italian restaurant I discovered in Bellevue. Service sucks, but the food is great.”
“No!”
His head snapped up and he looked into her eyes. She had to think. Had to get control of her life and herself. She couldn’t
date
her hockey player. Her husband had just died. She couldn’t
date
anyone.
After several heartbeats, he said slowly, “Okay.”
“I meant…” What did she mean? She was so confused. She didn’t know. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out. I just meant…”
“I know what you meant. You just want to have sex and that’s it.”
Is that what she meant? No. Yes. She couldn’t think beyond the confusion tightening her skull.
He shrugged and took off his shoes and socks.
“I’m cool with that. A lot of women want to fuck hockey players.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head but he didn’t look cool. He looked a little angry. The T-shirt flew across the room and he yanked the sheet from her grasp.
“Ty!”
“Now we know where things stand.” He pushed her shoulders until she lay back looking up at him.
“You’re mad.”
He shook his head and leaned over to plant his hands beside her head on the pillow. “I was just trying to be nice before. Now I don’t have to worry about it.”
Faith raised her hand to the hard muscles of his chest. “I like it when you’re nice.”
“Too bad.” He lowered his face to the side of her neck.
Before she’d fallen asleep in his bed, they’d had sex twice. The last time had been in his shower that had body jets and could easily accommodate a party of six. Which meant her hair was probably a horrible mess. A frown wrinkled her brow as he kissed her throat. Her life was in crisis and she was worried about her hair?
“I don’t want to play nice anymore.” His warm breath fanned across her neck and down her chest and she felt a slight easing of her tension.
“How do you want to play?” she asked.
“Rough,” he answered, as his mouth moved across her neck, pausing to bite the side of her throat. He slid down her body to her right breast and looked up at her, his gaze a volatile mix of anger and lust as he opened his mouth and sucked her nipple inside. He drew her hard into his hot, wet mouth while he palmed her other breast. Gone was her lover of the night before. The man who used his big hands to tease and stroke a response wherever he touched. Gone was the man who took his time and paid attention to her response as he made love to her body.
He turned his attention to her other breast and stabbed at her stiff nipple with his tongue. His rough hands kneaded her soft flesh and God help her, but it turned her on. She grabbed handfuls of sheet and comforter and arched her back. She moaned deep in her throat and he laughed.
“If I’d known you like it rough,” he said as he kissed and bit his way down her body, “I wouldn’t have wasted my time playing nice.” He kissed her belly before continuing to her hip and stopping at her inner thigh. He looked at her beneath heavy lids, his beautiful eyes a shining turmoil as he sucked the sensitive skin just below the crease of her thigh, teasing her and driving her crazy with need. Just when she was ready to scream with frustration, he ordered, “Put your feet on my shoulders.” Then he parted her thighs and took
her into his hot mouth. He didn’t show her any more gentleness now than he had to her breasts a moment ago. He ate her like she was strictly there for his pleasure alone. He ravished her with his mouth and tongue, and God help her if she didn’t love that too. She blamed Layla.
Within a few short minutes, a hot, violent orgasm clenched her belly and burned her from the inside out. It shook her and left her gasping for air. Ty stayed with her until the last wave and then he rose to his knees. His heavy gaze stared into hers and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes looked into hers as he unrolled a condom down the length of his erection.
She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of one thing to say besides, “Thanks. I think.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s not over yet.”
Then he lowered himself and shoved his hard penis into her body. The force of his thrust pushed her up the mattress, and the oxygen whooshed from his lungs. “It’s not over until I say it’s over.”
She looked up into the harsh angles of his face and ran her hands around his shoulders to the sides of his head. Ty might be mad at her, but she couldn’t be mad at him. Not after the intense orgasm he’d just given her, and not while the head of his hot penis stroked her inside and started another fire only he could put out. “Okay,” she
whispered and rocked her pelvis, contracting and releasing her muscles around his thick shaft.
His breath hissed from his lips and he swore as he pulled out and drove into her. Over and over he plunged deep inside, stroking her, pushing her toward orgasm, making the air around her thick and hard to breathe. She wrapped her legs around his waist and met him thrust for thrust until a fiery climax pounded through her veins as he pounded into her body. She arched her back and held on as he rode out his own storm.
When it was over, they dressed in silence. He in his T-shirt and shorts. She in her raincoat. Neither spoke on the drive home. Ty stuck Linkin Park into the CD player and flooded the rich interior with heavy metal, relieving them both of awkward conversation. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, and she was still so confused she didn’t know what to say anyway. Even though he’d denied it, he was angry. Like she’d hurt his feelings, which, given his hard exterior and surly nature, seemed bizarre.
As he drove into the parking garage and pulled to a stop next to the elevator, he turned off the music. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
“You didn’t.” She felt a little tender in certain areas, but she wasn’t hurt. Quite the contrary. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”
“Faith, I’m not a girl.” His blue eyes looked at her through the deeper shadows of the car. “I don’t get my feelings hurt when a gorgeous woman tells me she just wants to use me for sex.” He laughed without humor. “Although you’re the first. It’s never happened before. It’s always the other way around.”
“Aren’t you just using me for sex too?”
He ran his gaze across her face and pushed the button to unlock her door. “Yeah. I am. Thanks.”
Monday night, Ty taped his socks just below his knees as Coach Nystrom pointed to the marker board. The rest of the Chinooks sat or stood around, waiting for the game to begin. The sound of ripping tape competed with Coach Nystrom’s last-minute instructions.
“Block the shots. Get in front of our goal,” he said as he drew
O
’s on the board.
In the arena beyond the tunnel, the Chinooks announcer warmed up the crowd as Queen blasted from the sound system.
“Keep your heads up and eyes on the puck,” Nystrom said one last time before the team followed the coaches out of the locker room and into the tunnel. They walked across the mats covering the floor. As the announcer read each number, position, and name, the player skated onto the ice. Ty stood at the back of the line and glanced up at the
owner’s box. Several people sat in the red stadium seats, but Faith wasn’t one of them.
Air horns split the air as the announcer called Sam’s number and name and Ty stepped closer to the opening. Yesterday he’d told her that he wanted to take her to dinner. No big deal. He’d just spent several hours having sex with her. She’d had her hands and hot mouth all over his body, and he wanted to take her out for some great Italian food. It wasn’t exactly unheard of. Any other woman would have expected it and more, but she’d acted like he’d asked her to have his baby. Her reaction had pissed him off, and he’d retaliated by having rough sex with her. Only it had backfired on him, because she’d loved it. He couldn’t stop thinking about the bite he’d left on her thigh, and that just made him madder.
The next player was called and Ty stepped forward.
He’d thought he’d regret having sex with Faith. He didn’t. He thought it would create complications for him. It hadn’t, and wouldn’t as long as no one found out. Physically, Faith was the perfect woman. Stunningly gorgeous from the top of her blonde head to her little red toenails, she was more than great tits and a nice ass. She had a brain and a sense of humor, but the most attractive thing about her was her determination and the strength of her will. To stand up and appear
confident even when she didn’t feel it at all. Ty admired guts and grit and balls.
Blake was called onto the ice next, and Ty moved closer. The one thing about her that used to annoy the shit right out of him now attracted him like a bee to a sweet pot of honey. Ironic as hell. Or maybe it was karma. Whatever it was, it needed to stop. Here he was, about to be called out onto the ice to play one of the most important games of his life, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Faith. He needed his head in the game. Not turned around because a beautiful blonde just wanted to have sex with him and nothing more. Not even dinner.
Vlad was announced and Ty stepped to the edge of the ice. With another woman, that might be the perfect arrangement, but Faith wasn’t any other woman. She owned the Chinooks. Something he kept forgetting with alarming frequency.
“Number Twenty-one,” the announcer said, his booming voice almost drowned out by the screaming crowd, stomping their feet and blowing horns. “Playing the center position. The captain of the Chinooks,
Ty S-a-a-v-a-a-a-a-ge
!”
With his head down, Ty took off like he was shot from the tunnel. The glassy surface of the ice sped past as he sprinted around the long line of his teammates and then turned his skates to the side, sending up a fine spray of ice and coming to an abrupt stop at the end of the line. The fans went
wild and he glanced up at the owner’s box. Faith stood at the rail looking down at the ice. He could not see her face clearly, but he knew she was looking back at him, and anger tightened his chest. An anger that was out of proportion burned a hole in his stomach. Even though he knew his anger was over the top given the true nature of his relationship with Faith, it still lowered his brows and shot sparks from his eyes. Sparks that did not bode well for the Red Wings’ defensive line.