“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I’m not sorry the way I should be.” His fingers followed the strap all the way down to where my heart was, then moved back up, traveling along my neck to my jaw until his thumb skimmed my bottom lip. I shivered.
“Oh.”
His chuckle was dark like a night with no stars. “One day, when I’m a famous hockey player, you can tell your friends I kissed you in a closet.” His phone beeped. He pulled it out of his pocket and silenced it. “Time’s almost up, pretty Poppy.”
He skimmed my arms, and when he reached my hands, he drew them up, clasping them behind his neck. “Keep them right there, okay? Don’t move them, please.”
“Why not?”
“Because that feels nice, and I want this to be perfect.”
“Okay.” I didn’t really understand what that meant, but I followed his directions, my tummy flipping over and over as I pushed up on my toes in order to link my fingers.
He was so much taller than me, it brought me right up against his body. Fear and excitement merged. He released a shaky breath that smelled like sweet alcohol and ground out a curse that made me blush.
Once again I felt his fingertips on my cheek. The pads were rough, but the touch was gentle.
“Tilt your chin up for me,” he whispered, guiding me with his thumb along my jaw.
I did as he asked, shaking. My mouth was dry. I wet my lips with my tongue. My head felt light.
“You okay?” I felt his warm, humid breath against my neck.
“Uh-huh.” I gave a tiny nod.
“Don’t be scared.” His lips touched my cheek. “I won’t hurt you.”
The next brush of his lips found the corner of my mouth. I sucked in a breath as weird tingles shot through me. He pressed his lips against mine, and the tingles became tiny explosions.
After a few seconds, he pulled back. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?”
“No.” It came out a whisper. I wanted him to do it again.
“This time when I kiss you, will you open your mouth a little?”
“Okay.”
“And when that door opens, remember who I was in here, ’kay? That’s the real me.”
He didn’t give me a chance to respond. Instead he pressed his lips to mine again. This time he pulled my bottom lip between his. I did what he asked and parted mine. His tongue touched my top lip, and I gasped. Then I felt the gentle, hot sweep of his tongue in my mouth. I gripped the back of his neck, and his arm came around me, hugging me close. His other hand came up to cradle the back of my head. He made a sound like he was in pain and angled my head to the side, his tongue sweeping my mouth again and again.
On the next slow stroke, I pressed my tongue forward, mimicking his movements, and his arm tightened around me further. There was no space between our bodies, and heat seemed to be building inside me, along with an ache low in my stomach and a wildness I hadn’t known existed until then.
His phone beeped again, and he made another sound, this time almost despondent, and a trickle of regret made me hold on to him tighter.
I didn’t know what to call the emotion that swelled inside me then, but years later I can identify it as lust. In that moment, I thought I was falling in love.
The door was wrenched open, darkness giving way to light that blinded me. Lance tried to grab for the handle to shut us back in, but my sister was right there, pushing her way between us. She yanked me away by the arm, and I stumbled back, off kilter.
“Poppy! What the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled.
She flattened her palm against Lance’s chest and shoved him away when he reached for me again. “Don’t touch my sister.”
I got one last glimpse of him as she dragged me away through the crowd of screaming teenagers. He swiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his pale green eyes locked on mine. The emotions I saw there were staggering, everything from hunger to anger filtering through. I swear he mouthed I’m still not sorry before the crowd swallowed me.
Lance’s hands cover mine, and his voice is a gravelly rasp, snapping me out of my inappropriate memories. “Poppy.”
“Is it too much pressure?”
“I think you need to stop.”
“I’m so sorry.” I attempt to drop my hands, but he’s holding them in place. His breathing is heavy, as if he’s anxious. My thumb is below his bottom lip. That full bottom lip I was just thinking about. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
He clears his throat. “Yeah. That’s not the problem.”
“I don’t underst—” The words get caught in my throat as I lift my gaze. The white sheet covering his body has a lump below his waist. A very obvious, ample lump.
He releases my hands, and they slide down either side of his neck. The action makes his erection twitch.
“Oh.” It comes out a squeak. I place my palms on the table on either side of his head.
“Oh is right.” He sort of cough-laughs.
“You really aren’t compensating at all.” I slap a hand over my mouth, because it’s probably the most inappropriate thing I’ve ever said to a client. “I’m so sorry,” I say from behind my hand.
This time Lance snorts.
I try to reclaim professionalism. “That’s a totally normal reaction.”
“Oh yeah?” Lance is looking at me with an expression that borders on amused, except there’s an accompanying hunger that I recognize. That look was only trained on me for a few seconds last year, but I’d felt it, and I feel it now—in all the wrong places. Or the right ones, depending.
“I’m going to give you a few minutes. Just, uh, tell me when you’re dressed.” I roll back my stool and tear my eyes away from his massive erection. I’ve been staring this entire time.
I go directly to the kitchen and turn on the tap. I pump soap on my hands, scrubbing away the oil and what I imagine is the scent of Lance’s cologne. At least I have the restraint not to be a total loser by sniffing them first.
I try not to envision him getting dressed, tucking that hard-on away. I wonder if he’s in my bathroom relieving himself. I wonder if he’s still hard.
“Stop it.” That I’m talking to myself again is a real issue.
I’m worried that I’m crossing lines I shouldn’t by treating him, especially here. It’s too personal, intimate in a way it shouldn’t be. Or maybe that part is all in my head because I have these memories he’s unaware of.
Either way, I don’t think I’m doing a good job of compartmentalizing him as a client. Here I am, treating him in my living room, and now he’s got a raging hard-on because of a face massage. My face massage.
I grip the edge of the counter, weighing my options. I should pass him over to someone else as a client. Marcie could work. Plus she’s older, and not really attractive, so maybe he’d be less likely to get hard for her.
Not that it’s me he got hard for. It’s just the physical contact. It has to be; the other possibilities are too out-there to entertain. And even if I am the reason for his hardness, it’s not like he’d want anything from me other than physical release. I’ve seen enough online to understand Lance isn’t a guy who dates. Wishing that wasn’t the case is another reason I should probably let someone else treat him.
“Hey.”
I look up to find him standing in the doorway of the kitchen with his hands in his pockets. I keep my eyes at chest level. “Oh! Hey.” I turn off the water and force what I hope is a natural smile.
“Got my situation all sorted out.”
“What?” I cough, and this time I look directly at him.
“Oh, fuck.” He raises his hands in the air. “I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t whack it in your bathroom or anything.”
“Right. Okay.” I try not to let that image become more than vapor in my head.
He continues to explain. “I thought about dead kittens and old, wrinkly boobs, and the situation resolved itself.”
“Gotcha.”
“Sorry. That was probably a lot more information than you needed. I’ve been hanging out with Violet too much lately.”
The twinge of jealousy over another girl’s name is as much a problem as my fixating on Lance’s hard-on.
“Is that your girlfriend?” I want to crawl into the sink and stay there for the rest of my life.
Lance laughs. “No. Violet’s my team captain’s wife. She’s nuts, and she has zero filter. She’s fun to be around, but a little crazy.”
“Oh.” I’m annoyed by my relief. “Can I get you something to drink? A glass of water?”
“Uh, yeah, sure. That’d be good.” He looks around my kitchen. “This is a nice place.”
“It’s old school, but I like it.”
“It’s comfortable. It must’ve been a nice place to grow up.” He leans on the counter and rearranges the apples in my fruit bowl. “My house is huge. Sometimes I don’t like it. Like, there’s too much space just for me. I try to fill it up with people, but that makes it worse a lot of the time.”
“What do you mean?” I pass him a glass.
His fingers graze mine when he takes it. I can’t tell if it’s intentional or I just want it to be.
“There isn’t balance, I guess. Like, it feels empty when it’s just me, but then when all the people are there, things get out of hand and I make bad decisions.” He straightens and chugs the contents of the glass before setting it down on the counter. “It’s like how I know I should know you, and I keep trying to find you in here.” He taps his temple. “But I was probably wasted as shit, and everything’s a big black hole.”
“There isn’t really anything to remember.” The lie tastes bitter.
His expression is intense as he regards me. “You don’t seem like the kind of girl who’d end up at my place. There’s gotta be a story behind how you got there.”
“Randy and Miller were there. Why don’t you ask them about it?”
“They don’t have the clearest memories, either.”
I give him a small smile and lie again. “Neither do I.”
He purses his lips and shakes his head. “Sorry. I should probably go. It’s late, and I’m making you uncomfortable.”
When I don’t say anything, he pushes away from the counter. “Thanks for taking care of me.”
“You’re welcome.” I walk him to the door.
Halfway down the hall he turns around. “When I get back from my away series, can I see you again? Like, can I come here instead of the clinic?”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
That stops him short. “What? Why not?”
Oh, God. He’s just so much…everything. I can’t be around him without thinking things I shouldn’t. “It’s just… I just… It’s unprofessional.”
“Is it because I got hard?”
My thighs clench, along with every single muscle from the waist down. It’s because I liked that you got hard. My clasped hands are suddenly very interesting.
“Sorry. That was crass. I like it better here than at the clinic.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“So it is because I got hard? I thought you said that happens all the time.”
I stumble over my words, unable to find anything that isn’t inappropriate. “It does. Sometimes. And that’s not the reason…” I make a hand gesture.
“Is it because of what happened last year? With your friend? At my house? I told you I was sorry about that, too.”
I can tell he doesn’t remember anything about that night, which is almost gratifying, because it means Kristi wasn’t a memorable lay.
“It’s really not about that. Kristi and I were never good friends anyway.”
“Then I don’t understand why you can’t treat me here again.”
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“You’ve already said that.” He’s agitated now, chewing on his bottom lip as he shifts from foot to foot.
“I shouldn’t have done the home treatment. It blurs lines.”
“Okay. You can treat me at the clinic if it makes you feel more comfortable. I like you touching me.”
Those words and his tone are going to haunt me tonight. I know it already.
I can’t tell if he means it the way I’ve taken it: suggestively. “What about the team therapist? Shouldn’t you use him?”
His expression is as pleading and panicked as his tone. “I don’t want to go to someone else. Please, Poppy.”
He’s so hard to say no to, especially with how worried he seems. I don’t know why he’s so intent on it being me, but I want to erase his anxiety.
“No more home visits.”
“Okay. No more home visits.” He blows out a quick, relieved breath and flashes me a grin. “I’m gonna go now, before you change yer mind.”
That Scottish accent kills me.
He shoves his feet into his shoes and opens the door. “Bye, Poppy. Thanks again for taking care of me.”
I can’t make eye contact, so I look at his forehead. “Bye, Lance. You’re welcome.”
When the door closes, I sag against the wall.
I don’t know how I’m going to manage this. Part of me wants him to know the truth: that he was my first kiss. That I never forgot it. With a decade of life and experiences, of boyfriends and plenty of new first kisses, I should be long past romanticizing Lance in my head. But I’ve been searching for the spark I felt when he kissed me since then, and I’ve never been able to find it.
Maybe it was just because it was my very first kiss. A part of me has always wanted to test that theory, and last year I almost had the chance, until I let Kristi get in the way.
When Lance made the NHL, I watched every game, because even after all that time, seeing him brought back that memory and the fleeting feelings that came with it.
But if I told him the truth, I’d also want him to know how my perfect memory was tainted when the gossip mill started churning out pictures of him with all these women. And how that night at the bar, when I saw him for the first time in over a decade, he shattered the beautiful glass jar I’d kept that first-kiss moment safe in for all these years.
CHAPTER 11
PUSH
LANCE
I’m sitting in the airport, and I’m bored. I’ve done the Sudoku in the paper. It took me all of fifteen minutes, and it was supposed to be one of the hard ones.
If I hadn’t come across hockey, I probably would’ve gone into some kind of career where I could work with numbers all day. I love numbers. They make sense. They’re constant, and they don’t change. A formula is a formula.
People don’t work the same way. Emotions make them unpredictable. Like right now Miller is in a shit mood. He’s been texting Sunny every three minutes and researching signs of labor and statistics on first-time pregnancies. Baby Butterson should be hanging tight for a few more weeks, but apparently he’s getting antsy.
Miller puts his phone to his ear. “Hey, Sunny Sunshine, we’re gonna board the plane soon. I wanted to check on you one last time—yeah…yeah. I know. I get that. I don’t like that I’m not there right now.”
He drops his voice to a whisper, gets out of his seat, and wanders toward the windows, watching the planes as he runs his hand through his hair, making the short blond strands stand on end.
I don’t know whether to feel sorry for him or envious. I have no idea what it’s like to need someone like that. Well, I guess maybe I do. Although, with Tash it wasn’t about need; at least not in the same way I think it is with Miller and Sunny. It was more about want.
Sometimes I wonder if I only wanted her to myself because she’d never give me that. Which is fucked up. There are things about me that aren’t right, and I know it’s because of how things went down in my house as a kid.
My dad comes from money. Lots of money. So does my mum. It’s the reason I have the house I do. My hockey salary is great, but I already had lots of cash flow before I started earni
ng my own. The weird thing about money is that people equate it with stability, but there was nothing stable about my childhood.
I remember the way my mum used to go after my dad. Sometimes I wonder if my propensity for aggression is hereditary, or maybe she conditioned it into me. She was a small woman, always watching what she ate, always taking some kind of class or drinking something that was supposed to help keep her thin or whatever. I’m pretty sure it was just booze, now that I think about it.
On the days she was really fired up, she’d go at my dad, who I’m built like. He’d laugh and let her have at him—slapping him, punching, kicking—and the more he laughed, the angrier she’d get until he’d pick her up and take her, screaming and flailing, out of the room.
If my brother and I were there, a nanny would take us away, so we wouldn’t witness it. The next morning my dad would be at the breakfast table with a smile on his face, usually accompanied by faint bruises and the occasional scratch. He never talked about it, just went on and pretended like it hadn’t happened.
I usually wouldn’t see my mother for a good twenty-four hours after that. And when I did, she’d be back to a version of normal, but far more subdued, almost vacant. She’d be physically present, but she wasn’t really in there, just a body going through the motions. Flowers would arrive. My dad would take her away for a little trip, and then things would calm down for a while.
But as I got older, the pattern started to change. The violence became more frequent. My dad traveled more. And when my brother died, everything fell apart. Eventually, when Mum’s mourning turned to anger, it found a new target. An easier target. Me.
I thought maybe it would stop when we moved to Chicago. It didn’t. It went on long enough that it changed the way I’m wired.
“Romance?” Fingers snap close to my face, and I jolt. “Your phone’s ringing.” Ballistic points to my hand.
I look down. Usually by this point Tash would’ve given up, but she’s still calling, still leaving messages for me. I’m actually impressed that I haven’t responded to her, even though I’ve read the messages.
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