by Sarina Bowen
She shakes her head vehemently.
Right.
“Okay. Water and Bridge Street, then.”
“Where’s that?” Heidi asks. Her eyes are closed.
“My place.”
Heidi lifts her head and does an awkward fist pump. “Wow. Yes!”
That seems like a lot of enthusiasm for sleeping on my couch. But whatever.
On second thought, I wonder if I’m supposed to take the fold-out couch. I am a gentlemen. But I’m also six-three, and she’s at least a foot shorter. She’d totally fit on my sofa...
These are my thoughts as Heidi stirs beside me. Even with her limited dexterity, she’s able to climb into my lap. And then kisses me very sloppily on the corner of my mouth.
“Whoa, Nellie!” I pull my head back. “None of that.”
“But I can’t wait,” she says in a breathy voice. “Finally…” She leans in again.
I weave out of the way, like a prizefighter trying not to get punched. “Um, when I said we were going to my place, I just meant—”
“Sex!” Heidi says, her warm body settling more firmly onto mine. “Dirty, filthy sex. Sweaty, clawing, pounding, burn-your-soul-to-the-ground sex!”
I let out a groan of frustration.
But my drunken companion misinterprets it. “You’re going to really fuck me, right?” she asks, blinking at close range.
Parts of me rise up and cheer. “Maybe. But not tonight.”
“Please,” she says breathlessly. “Boys are always too polite with me. The ones who’ll date me are afraid of Daddy. I’m starting to think that polite sex is worse than no sex at all.”
I’m wondering—who the fuck is her daddy? Maybe Heidi is a mob princess. Maybe her father controls all the gambling in Brooklyn or runs guns in Jersey.
“What’s polite sex like?” asks the driver. “Just asking. For science.”
“It’s too gentle,” Heidi says, relaxing against my chest. “Too sweet. Maybe I just attract the wrong kind of man. I need to know if headboards banging against the wall is a real thing.”
“Oh, they bang,” I say with a sigh.
A small hand runs up my chest and then back down. Then fingers dip beneath the hem of my T-shirt. “You’re so…hard,” she says dreamily.
You have no idea.
“How soon ‘til we get there?” she asks, her lips coasting up my cheek. “Someone wrote on the ladies’ room wall that you like to tie women up when you have sex. Will you show me?”
“Damn,” the driver comments from the front seat. “Can I come, too?”
How much longer can this night get? “Listen, Heidi. When I said we were going to my place, I just meant that you need a place to—”
“Here we are!” the driver announces cheerfully.
“My body is ready,” she whispers.
I wonder if they teach that at charm school.
Heidi opens the door and climbs out. And then? She tumbles to the curb.
I curse as the doorman comes running outside, but I get to her first. I scoop Heidi off the pavement and into my arms. She slumps against me.
“Everything all right, Mr. Castro?” asks Miguel.
“It will be. This one had a little too much to drink, and now she’s going to sleep it off.”
“You smell nice,” Heidi says, wrapping her arms around me like an octopus.
Miguel laughs. “You need help?”
“Nope. I got this,” I say, beginning to tow her toward the building. He runs to open the door for us.
“Are there stairs?” Heidi mumbles. “I don’t think I can do stairs.”
No kidding. She can’t even do flat pavement. It’s only about fifteen feet, but I’m basically carrying her toward the door. I turn around just as we reach it and see the driver grinning at me through the open window of the car.
Laugh it up, buddy.
Somehow we make it through the lobby, and Miguel has already summoned the elevator. When it arrives, he blocks the doors open for me. “Good night, Mr. Castro.”
“Night,” I grumble. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime.” He tips his hat to me as the shiny doors close.
He didn’t press the floor button, though, so now I have to do it myself. “Let’s see,” I say, parking my elbow against the paneling so I can stabilize myself and Heidi at the same time. Her body is in my way, and the first time I reach out to hit the button for the third floor, I miss.
“Goodness,” Heidi gurgles. “You’re like my ex-boyfriend trying to find my clitoris.” She smacks her hand on the console and presses the button. As well as two others.
That’ll do, I guess.
“Your ex-boyfriend?” I ask by way of conversation. “Let me guess. He was a hockey player?”
“Yup,” she says, snuggling her face into my neck. The elevator begins to move upward. “You’re my type. I love your body. It’s so…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. But one of her hands wraps around to explore my ass. “Wow.” Her hand travels all over my backside, then runs right up the center between my—
I twist away from her. “Getting a little fresh, are we?”
She kisses my neck. And I won’t lie—she smells good, too. Like citrusy perfume and bad decisions. I’m not immune to those soft lips on my skin. But she’s wasted, so we’re not going there. Maybe ever. Screwing a coworker was a bad idea from the outset, right? This is fate’s way of slapping my hand.
Ding! says the elevator as it arrives on my floor.
“Come on. Everybody out,” I say as the doors part.
“Sleepy.” Heidi puts her head on my shoulder. Then her knees buckle again.
But this time I’m ready and catching her is easy. “So it’s gonna be like that, huh? Miss Perky passes out?” Great. I’m talking to a sleeping person.
With a sigh, I tuck her head against my body and lift her cute butt with the other. I stagger into the hallway and toward my apartment door.
I would bet any amount of money that Miguel is watching this via the security cameras and laughing his ass off right now.
When I get to my door, I have a problem. Both hands are busy, and I still need to unlock. It’s a keycard setup, but the card is in my wallet.
“Come on now, Heidi,” I coax. “Now would be a good time to do your share.” I set her feet gingerly on the floor and nudge her arms to close around me.
She hugs me, thankfully, and I reach for my wallet.
“Is this your place?” she whispers in my ear. “Take me to bed.”
My lizard brain hears only the word bed in that sentence, and for a split second I can picture it in my mind. Peeling off our clothes and getting hot and heavy sounds much more fun than putting a drunk girl to bed and hoping she doesn’t puke everywhere.
But we can’t always get the things we want.
I fumble the door open, grasp Heidi, and carry her into my apartment. She doesn’t say a word, and I have the strange sensation of starring in that movie about the dead guy they haul around—Weekend at Bernie’s.
My life. So glamorous. A glance at Silas’s bedroom door shows me that he’s already turned in for the night. Lucky guy.
Heidi is completely limp as I carry her to the sofa and pour her onto it. “Ow,” she says, even though I’m careful not to let her hit her head.
“What hurts?”
“My stomach.”
Oh, fuck. She sits up quickly, alarm in her eyes. “I think I’m going to—”
She stands up fast and runs for the rear of my apartment.
“On the left,” I bark as she sprints. The girl is surprisingly agile for someone who was limp as a ragdoll a minute ago. But every hockey player knows that adrenaline has superpowers.
Not even four seconds elapse before I hear the door slam and the sound of retching.
I sit down on my sofa and put my face in my hands. I allow myself a chuckle. At least I didn’t insist on taking her home to Manhattan. She might be puking on me in the back of a car right now.
Things could always be worse.
Heidi appears a few minutes later, looking pale and sheepish. She sits down beside me on the couch and lets out a drunken sigh.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She clears her throat. “Yeah. I don’t usually drink.” There’s a slight slur to her words.
“Because it’s impolite?”
A giggle escapes her. “Don’t tease! It’s embarrassing enough already. There’s no mess, though. I’m a very ladylike puker.”
That makes us both laugh.
“I borrowed your mouthwash,” she confesses. “Sorry.”
“You borrowed Silas’s, because that’s his bathroom. But we can do even better than that. Come on.” A glance at my phone tells me it’s midnight. In six hours I have to be up and on my way to Long Island, where the next part of training camp is scheduled to happen.
I need to sleep, and that can only happen after I make sure my unexpected guest is comfortable. Heidi follows me into the giant master bedroom, and then the huge en suite bathroom. “Wow. Nice place.”
“Thanks.” It is a nice place. Silas and I are paying exorbitant rent, although some of our teammates bought their units. We refer to this building—a hundred-year-old factory that was renovated into luxury condos—as the Million Dollar Dorm. It’s pricey, but its proximity to the practice facility is irresistible. So a significant percentage of the team lives here.
I haven’t tried to buy my unit yet, since I don’t want to jinx myself by assuming the Bruisers will keep me. Especially after the way last season ended.
“Here,” I say, fishing a new toothbrush out of the medicine cabinet. “And let me find you a T-shirt and a pair of shorts.”
Ten minutes later I tuck Heidi into one side of my king-sized bed. And then I climb into bed on the other side. I’m not sleeping on my couch—not if I have to scrimmage tomorrow under the watchful eye of coaches who are still trying to cut players.
Besides, if Heidi is here with me, I can keep an eye on her. And—bonus—the bathroom is nearby.
This will only work if she doesn’t get frisky, like she was in the cab. I shut off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. All is silent for a moment, and she stays on her side of the bed. Then I hear her sigh. “The room is sort of…”
“Turning?” I guess.
“Yessir. How did you know?”
“It’s called having the spins.” She wasn’t kidding that she doesn’t drink very often. Who’s never had the spins? “Should we find you a bucket for beside the bed?”
“No.” She groans. “My stomach isn’t sick anymore. Now it’s only my head. But I hate it. It’s like I’m turning through space.”
“You’re not, I promise.” I reach across the bed and take her hand. “See? I’ve got you.”
She squeezes my hand with her smoother one, and then she wiggles backward. Suddenly my arms are full of warm, curvy girl. Her back is to my chest, and she pulls my arm over her body and hangs on tightly to it, as if I’m the only thing tethering her to Earth. “That’s better,” she whispers.
Her hair smells like flowers. And she’s just as soft and warm as I thought she’d be, damn it.
“We’re not having filthy, dirty sex right now,” she observes.
“No, we’re not,” I say firmly.
“Because I puked.”
“Because you needed to puke,” I correct.
“And that’s off-putting. It’s not ladylike. Maybe Mama was right all along.”
“Nah.” I smile into her hair. “That’s not the reason.”
“No?”
“Nope. The reason is that having filthy, hot sex—”
“Filthy, dirty sex.”
“—is that having filthy, dirty sex with wasted girls isn’t gentlemanly. Turns out I do follow a few rules.”
“Oh. I thought tonight I would finally be a wild child. I guess I lost my shot.”
“Yeah, you did. But I still think you’re pretty wild. It isn’t often I beat Bayer and Silas at darts, three times in a row.”
“I’m handy at skeet-shooting, too.”
“No shit?” There is something deeply appealing about the image of Heidi blasting clay plates out of the sky with a shotgun.
“No lie,” she says, and the way that “lie” is flattened a little to “lah,” makes my body respond. Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s stroking my hand with her softer one. Then she sighs and wiggles a bit in my arms.
Goddamn it, now I’m hard. Of course I am. I’m lying in my bed with a beautiful girl who I’ve been staring at since the day she showed up on the team jet last spring. And her perfect lips keep repeating the words, “filthy, dirty sex.”
You’d have to be a dead man not to respond. And I’m very much alive. If I shifted my hips a couple of inches, we could be…
I hold back my impatient groan. So much for a good night’s sleep.
“Good night, Jason Castro,” Heidi whispers. “Thank you for being such a good guy.”
“I’m not,” I argue.
“No, you are. You listened to me. Earlier, when I was upset.”
“Oh.” She really is drunk. “That’s nothing.” She was damned entertaining.
“It’s not nothing. Not at all. You made me laugh and told me to be daring.”
“I was only trying to get you naked,” I admit.
She sighs against my pillow. “But that’s nice, too. Nobody ever does that, either.”
I squeeze her hand in mine, wondering how that’s possible. She’s not the only one who feels a little disoriented, either. I’m not usually a cuddler. I don’t usually snuggle up to my hookups, because I don’t want to send the wrong impression. But it’s unexpectedly pleasant to feel Heidi’s smooth skin against mine.
I’ll never be anyone’s boyfriend again. That’s by choice. But I’d forgotten what this was like—holding someone who needs me. Years ago I used to sneak through my high school girlfriend’s window so I could hold her all night just like this.
And now I’m both horny and wistful. What a strange night. I feel stirred up inside, but I lie still, unwilling to disturb the sleepy princess beside me. My eyes drift closed, and I find myself wondering what it would be like to have someone in my bed every night like this.
It’s not like me to have these thoughts. While my body runs hot, my heart is pretty cold. But something about Heidi warms me all the way to the center. She’s willing to tell me her flaws. And she’s unafraid to say she doesn’t have all the answers.
And I sure as hell don’t, either.
On that happy thought, I fall asleep.
4
Jason
When my alarm goes off the next morning at six, I’m not alone.
Unfortunately, the other person in my room is not the hot blonde woman with long, silky legs that tortured me last night. Instead, my roommate Silas is standing at the foot of the bed, nudging me with his knee.
“Aren’t you getting up?” he asks, drinking deeply from the Delilah Spark Fanclub mug that my teammates bought him for his birthday. It was meant as a gag gift, but Silas drinks from it every morning.
“Yeah, I’m coming. Jesus.” It wasn’t a great night’s sleep, unfortunately. Too much tossing and turning against Heidi’s body. Too many horny dreams.
“The bus leaves in thirty minutes,” Silas reminds me.
“You know what?” I squint up at him. “Let’s just drive out there. Fuck the bus.”
“In your new car?” he asks brightly. “I’m so there!”
“Sure, I’ll drive you—so long as there’s more of that coffee.” I lift my head and look toward the bathroom. “Did you see Heidi anywhere around here?”
“Jesus, did you actually fuck her?” Silas’s eyes pop wide.
“Of course not. Didn’t you see how sloppy she got?” I should’ve known she couldn’t hold her liquor.
“Good thing.” He shakes his head. “Banging the commissioner’s daughter is not a great career move.”
/>
I play that sentence back in my head, and it still doesn’t make sense. “Wait—whose daughter?”
The question catches Silas in the middle of a sip of coffee, and he has to gulp it down to avoid choking. “Seriously? You don’t know who Heidi is? And her nickname didn’t clue you in?”
“Hot Pepper.” The truth hits me like a punch to the gut. “As in... Tobias Pepper?”
Silas laughs. “What rock have you been living under?”
“A big one, I guess.” Jesus. My mood plunges. What a terrible mistake I almost made. “Did you hear her leave this morning?” It’s just after six, and there’s no sign of her.
“Nope, and I’ve been up for a half hour already making coffee.”
Hmm. “Pour me some? I’ll be your best friend.”
“You already are.” Silas heads out of the room.
I sit up and shift my feet to the floor. I check in with all of my muscles, half of which are stiff. But that’s how it always is during the season.
My phone is on the bedside table so I grab it and scroll through my contacts. I’m pretty sure I have Heidi’s number; last spring she was in charge of transportation for one of our road trips. And—bingo. I shoot off a text. Morning, sunshine. I hope you’re feeling better today. It’s a nice, friendly little message. And that’s the only kind I’m going to send this girl.
I almost fucked the commissioner’s daughter. Who knew?
“Are you packed already?” Silas calls from our kitchen. “We could leave in thirty.”
“Yeah, already done,” I grunt. My garment bag is hanging on the back of the closet door, and my golf clubs are standing in the corner. I even remembered my bathing suit.
In spite of the five-star accommodations, this boondoggle on Long Island isn’t my favorite preseason ritual. Who wants to wear a tuxedo and mingle with rich fans after a long day of hockey? Not me. Tomorrow, at least, I get to play a round of golf on one of the best courses in the nation.
But even the golf won’t be relaxing. It’s a charity event, so I have to make small talk with rich preppies while we play. Last year our foursome included a guy named Maximillian Rothchester Barrington III. That was his real name. But—and this is where it gets weird—preppies have strange nicknames. This guy was called Bink.