by Kate Meader
Something else was rousing. Christ, he needed to touch her so badly. A full hour of sexual frustration ticked over before he saw a chance to make his move.
He found her in the kitchen, instructing the catering staff sergeant-major style to send out more canapés. Isobel stood off to the side, looking sullen. Neither of them noticed him.
“We could announce it tonight, while they’re half drunk,” Isobel said. “By the time the New Year rolls around, they’ll be used to the idea.”
Harper curled her elegant fingers around the stem of a champagne flute. “Did you see Deacon’s column on last night’s game? We’re still viewed as freaks, every win as a fluke. Right now, we have this pitch-perfect balance, so why the hell would I upset that by appointing a new coach midseason?”
“You mean a female coach, Harper?” Isobel hmphed. “What happened to grabbing pro hockey by the balls and showing them how bitches get shit done?”
“Maybe it would be an option if I’d found out you quit your last job from you instead of from the press.”
“They were supposed to keep it under wraps until I was ready to deal with it.” Isobel raised her chin, noticing Remy for the first time. “What about you, Remy? Would you have a problem with a woman running skating drills?”
So not getting in the middle of this. “I’m sort of biased, growing up with so many women. Hell, I’m practically honorary in the sisterhood.”
Isobel grabbed a beer bottle from the kitchen counter. “You’re going to have to realize that this is a joint operation, not just Harper Chase’s personal fiefdom.” She left the kitchen, a gust of indignation in her wake.
Harper met his gaze, acting all surprised. “Remy! Were you looking for the restroom? It’s in the corridor behind you.”
“We need to talk.”
She blinked at him, panic in her eyes that quickly faded to an indifference he wasn’t buying. “I’m pretty busy. Perhaps you could make an appointment with my assistant tomorrow.”
He snagged her wrist as she walked by him. “Perhaps I could kiss you senseless in front of everyone at this party.”
“Remy—”
“Just a minute of the boss’s time.” Something on the back counter distracted him. Something both obscene and poorly crafted.
“Is that a ceramic co—?”
“Mug tree? Yep. I know, it’s awful, but Violet made it and we’re trying to encourage her artistic side. Sculptural version of kids’ drawings on the fridge.” She laughed softly. “Come with me.”
He followed her through a doorway off the side of the kitchen, then farther down a corridor. She opened a door, waited until he stepped inside what looked like a laundry room, then closed it behind them.
Hands on hips, she faced him. “Now what’s so urgent that it couldn’t wait?”
“This.” He gripped her waist and pulled her flush against his full arousal. The heat of her turned his blood to liquid fire. “Have you any idea how hard it’s been for me all night?”
“Getting an idea of the extent of your problem.”
His lips dropped to her shoulders. “You know I love these shoulders.”
“You’ve never told me that.”
Surely he had. “If I haven’t, which I very much doubt, then I should have. These shoulders are a work of art.” He laid a trail of kisses across one, then the other. “These shoulders should be cast in bronze and set outside Rebels HQ so men can worship. They can rub the shoulders and make wishes.”
She giggled. “Wishes for what?”
“That their wives and girlfriends had shoulders so sexy.”
She laughed again. God, he loved her laugh, and he especially loved causing it.
“So what did you think?” she asked after a minute of rubbing and kissing and soft little moans.
“Thinking’s not really an option right now.”
She pushed him back. “My speech.”
He paused in his exploration of the curve of Harper’s exquisite neck. “I think . . . you’re doing a mighty fine job of selling hope to a crew that hasn’t felt it in a while.”
“I’m not trying to sell it. I’m trying to instill it.”
He placed a finger under her chin. “You’ve made some good decisions since you took over. The team sees you working hard. I see you working hard—maybe too hard. We know what you’re putting in and we appreciate it. Hope? I’d say we have it.”
Had he just said “we”? When did he start lumping himself in with the Rebels?
Something hung in the air between them, the knowledge that he’d crossed some invisible line. Hope—that damn four-letter word again—reflected back at him in those beautiful eyes. Shit, he didn’t want this burden. It was one thing to wish her the best, it was quite another to chain his own hopes and dreams to hers.
“Okay there, DuPre?” A slender hand coasted down each button of his shirt, dipped below his waistband, and settled over where he was most definitely okay. Thank Christ one of them had a head in the game here.
“You know I think you can do anything, Harper. Whatever your father thought, whatever the press throws at you, whatever other team owners say . . . you deserve to be here, running this organization.”
A little whoosh of breath left her, and in it he heard her relief. She had her sisters, but he also knew that she felt alone in this. Her father hadn’t trusted her. She was carrying an enormous weight on those beautiful shoulders. Every minute he was with her, she needed to hear that he had her back.
At least on some abstract level, because this didn’t change his plans. Come January, he’d be out. Tommy was already fielding interest. Remy had given the Rebels his pound of beaten-up flesh, now they owed him a one-way ticket off the island.
She sniffed and her eyes took on a suspicious shine.
“Minou,” he murmured. “I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”
He meant his emotional support, nothing else. But every bite of her lip, every blink of those bewitching eyes, every heave of those perfect breasts drew him deeper into her orbit.
“Thanks, Remy,” she whispered, and then she kissed him. Soft, sweet, with a breathy little moan that destroyed him. They both pulled back at the same time, recognizing that the terms had changed, but neither of them knowing how to navigate this new path.
She spoke first. “I should get back to my guests.”
He nodded, unable to form words that would likely have emerged scratchy anyway.
“Need a second?” she asked.
Only a lifetime.
She rubbed over his significant erection. “I mean this.”
“I’ll manage,” he choked out. Tough as it was, he could turn off his desire for her. His . . . everything for her.
He had to.
Smiling like she knew all his secrets, she opened the door and found her sisters standing outside.
Harper was tempted to shove Remy back, close the door to the laundry room, and pretend that her sisters were not facing her, smirking like finalists in a well well well, what have we here? contest.
Womaning up, she stepped out into the corridor. Remy stood behind her, and the urge to lean back against all that solidity almost overwhelmed her. For a moment there when he told her she could do anything, she’d come close to breaking down in tears. Her, Harper Chase, crying! His support toppled her, mostly because she hadn’t realized how much she craved it.
“Contract negotiations?” Violet asked with Dad’s crooked grin. Isobel stood with fists clenched on hips, looking like she wanted to flay Harper alive.
Strong hands gripped her shoulders and soft lips grazed the top of her head, leaving no doubt that her relationship with Remy was more than boss-employee.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he said.
She turned to him, gaping. “You’re throwing me under the bus?”
“
You’d rather I stayed to explain?” His mouth twitched in that wickedly adorable Remy way. “Okay, ladies, here’s how it works. When a man wants a woman, a crucial part of his anatomy gets very, very—”
Harper held up an imperious hand. “Be gone, DuPre. Back to your broody Scottish date.”
He leaned in and kissed her, a gentle brush of her forehead. “Call me later, minou.”
As he walked away, three sets of eyes tracked his long-limbed move back to the party, noting how that charcoal wool clung fondly to his very fine ass.
“Cute flanter, soulful gazing, and min-noo?” Violet batted her eyelashes. “That sounds awfully romantic.”
“Well, it’s not,” Harper snapped back. “It’s filthy. An insult, really.” And just about the sweetest thing anyone had every called her.
Isobel still looked furious. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Harper’s heart thundered violently against her rib cage. “I’m just working off some steam. These last few months have been so stressful and . . .” She waved a hand to fill in the rest.
Violet scoffed. “If you’re working off steam, what’s he doing? Because the cooking tells a whole other story.”
Isobel’s eyebrows shot so high they became one with her hairline. “Cooking?” Said like it rhymed with “puppy beating” or “seal clubbing.”
Violet laughed. “He’s been using the bartenders at the Empty Net as a delivery service. Remy’s cooking for Harper—actual cooking—and then sneaking it to her like some sort of food ninja in love.”
She could deny. She could insist Violet was imagining things.
“You can’t tell anyone.” Harper eyed her sisters. “I mean it,” she added for emphasis when neither of them spoke.
Isobel frowned. “You mean we can’t tell anyone that the boss is banging a player on her team after she expressly forbade her own sisters from doing the exact same thing.”
Harper flushed and muttered, “Yes, that.”
“And the cooking?”
Another shameful mutter. “Especially that.” It was just so damning.
Violet shook her head. “Far be it from me to tell anyone how to conduct their sex life, but I have to say this does not seem like the behavior of Harper ‘The Team Is My Life’ Chase. I get that the vag can be mightier than the brain, but what about ‘the world is watching’ and ‘our mission is to represent women owners in professional sports’?”
Harper groaned. “I know. Oh, God, no one knows more than me how messed up this is.” She’d been doing this alone for so long, and there was comfort in being held by someone. That’s all it was. Everyone wanted a warm body to hold on to around the holidays.
“It’s just sex and it’s winding down. That first flush, the thrill is gone, et cetera, et cetera.”
“That did not look like it was winding down,” Isobel said. “He was affectionate with you. Like he cares. You have to end it.”
Harper was already nodding before she’d finished. Of course she had to end it. Not only that, she had to come clean about everything. “He’ll be traded out soon.”
Isobel’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about? We just traded him in.”
“About that . . .” Harper filled them in on the bargain she’d struck with Remy at the start of the season.
If she thought Isobel was annoyed before, she hadn’t reckoned on how this would fling her over the edge. “I can’t believe you made this deal without consulting us! We’re supposed to be in this together.”
“Isobel—”
“We don’t have to trade him,” Isobel rushed on, her fury replaced with plaintiveness. “He’s holding the team together. We get rid of him and who knows what’ll happen?”
“I made a promise,” Harper said. “And it’s for the best. He goes, and I don’t have to deal with the mess. It’s surgical.”
“Kind of sneaky on DuPre’s part,” Violet said, her tone filled with admiration. “He gets a hot time-bounded affair and a decent shot at the championship.”
“It’s not like that,” Harper said, unsure why she was defending him. He wasn’t using her. She was using him. They were using each other.
Isobel was back to pissed. “You shouldn’t have made this deal with him in the first place, and now we have to get rid of him? Is that what happened with Billy Stroger, Harper? ‘You broke my heart, here’s your pink slip.’ You can’t use the team as your personal harem, and you especially can’t make trades because it’s awkward for you to be around an ex.”
With a frustrated wave, Isobel walked off, leaving Harper stricken.
Violet mouthed holy shit. “Don’t worry, she’ll calm down. You can bang whoever you like.”
But she couldn’t. Isobel didn’t know the whole sorry shitfest that was Billy Stroger, but she wasn’t so far off the mark. Yet again, Harper had flown too close to the sun. When you were bathed in a light as bright as Remy, it was all too easy to forget the painful burns of the past.
TWENTY-THREE
Feeling like a kid in a Christkindlmarket, Harper tiptoed through the snow blanketing the ground at Chicago’s annual tradition, the European-style Christmas market in the city’s Loop. She made it a habit to visit at least once each holiday season, knowing it was the perfect spot to get away from it all and do her last-minute holiday shopping. Productivity had always been the best therapy.
Magic was all around, which Harper acknowledged was about the sappiest thing ever. But one of her happiest memories was when her father had brought her here when she was only six, the first year it opened. It was the Christmas after her parents divorced, but Cliff had insisted that nothing would change. Of course, she didn’t know then that Isobel was three months from entering the world with a hockey stick in one hand and Cliff’s heart in the other or that this would be the last Christmas he would be truly present.
Shaking off the maudlin, Harper combed the stalls, looking for stocking stuffers and tchotchkes, trying not to get all gooey-hearted at the sight of couples walking hand in hand and families straight out of Disney Central Casting. That wasn’t for her. Apparently she was destined to want guys she couldn’t be seen in public with. Any psychologist with a crappy diploma would have a field day.
You are drawn to zee unavailable men, Ms. Chase, her inner therapist said in a heavy German accent. Zee relationships with zee expiration dates zat are doomed from zee start. Zat way, zey cannot choose to leave you—it is already written in zee stars.
Self-awareness should have helped, but instead it left her depressed. It was a pattern she gravitated toward because, in patterns, Harper’s world and her place in it made sense. Remy couldn’t hurt her because he would be gone soon. Their business arrangement kept it clean, a bloodless severance. No fuss, no muss.
One more month.
A cold wind whipped in and sliced through her shearling coat, icing over her soft heart. Perhaps a hot chocolate from the stall she’d passed on the way in would help to warm her up. She turned and walked right into the arms of a heated wall.
“Minou.” Said low and husky enough to melt that ice around her weakening love muscle. Remy’s blue eyes twinkled in mischief.
“Um—I was just thinking about you,” she blurted. Dumbass.
“Doesn’t surprise me. Once I get in, I’m hard to get out.”
Unfortunately true. He wore a faux fur hat pulled down low with hanging earflaps that should have looked silly, but just looked like Remy. His arms had circled her waist and her body settled in against him naturally, fitting into the warm nooks like a desperate limpet.
“Remy,” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“Holiday shopping. Like you. Like everyone else here.”
“We can’t be seen together.”
He tweaked at her over-the-ears beanie. “Harper, with this headgear, we’re unrecognizable.”
“So you usually throw your arms around strange women?”
“I mean that we’re unrecognizable to the public. My body, on the other hand, would know you in a blizzard.”
She’d been thinking something very similar, but she bit back her agreement.
“You’re all covered up and I’m wearing this dumb hat that Josette sent me and we’re just a couple walking through the Christmas market, doing our holiday shopping and sipping hot chocolate.”
A couple. The ice floe in her veins melted while something fractured in the vicinity of her chest. She was having a hard time speaking.
He continued applying the pressure. “If you deny me this, I’ll think you’re only interested in my body.”
“I am only interested in your body.”
“Jesus, couldn’t you try fake-liking my personality for a bit? I’m a professional athlete with a fragile ego that needs constant positive reinforcement.”
Feeling overwhelmed—so what was new?—she angled her hip so it brushed against that intriguing ridge in his jeans. “This kind of positive reinforcement?”
His grin lit her on fire. “My ego’s feeling better already.”
Remy had taken a chance on running into Harper at the market. He’d stopped by her assistant’s desk at lunch when he knew Harper was in the weekly scouting meeting, flirted a little, and happened to notice that Harper had Christkindlmarket on her schedule. After he’d Googled it because his German wasn’t nearly as good as his French, he headed to the city to do his Christmas shopping. This market was as good a place as any to buy knickknacks and tree ornaments and creepy-looking nutcrackers that he knew his momma would eat up with a spoon.
It was also the perfect place to spend a little quality time with Harper that didn’t involve a rush to get naked and a sprint out the door before the sun rose. Don’t get him wrong—every moment Harper spent in his bed was amazing. But he liked talking to her, as well. He liked breaking down games, picking her wily brain, listening to her run rings around him in that bombshell gush.