by Kate Meader
Maybe he could have everything he wanted after all.
Back to the game. Stroger was out on the ice pounding down the lane, headed straight for St. James. Both of them were big guys, but Bren was faster and proved it with a deft swerve that left Stroger blinking and puckless. The captain passed to Shay on the left, who unloaded the biscuit and hit it bar down. Score! Thirty seconds later, St. James was on the bench sucking down Gatorade.
“Good move,” Remy said, because it was. Remy had never seen anyone as light on his feet as Bren. When the guy was on, he was unstoppable.
Bren nodded but didn’t say a word. Likely he was still annoyed after their conversation at the club last night. Screw that. Remy didn’t owe the Rebels his soul, and no amount of stink eye and cold silence was going to change that.
“Stroger’s more pissed than usual,” he said, because while Remy could appreciate silence in others, he wasn’t much good at keeping quiet himself.
“Guy’s been pissed since birth.”
A light went on in Remy’s head. Being with the Rebels for most of his career, Bren would’ve played with Stroger six years ago, back when Harper had “dated” the guy. Would Bren have known about that?
He probed a little. “So his personality has always been shit, then?”
“Aye.”
Aye? Remy stewed on that for a few seconds, trying to work his tongue around a query. Bren turned, one eyebrow raised, perhaps assessing Remy’s worthiness to be on the receiving end of a confidence.
Remy decided to lay it out there. “Stroger and Harper were together for a while.”
“You want to know what she saw in him.”
He did, and maybe he wanted to know more. Remy was getting the impression there was a whole lot more to Bren’s relationship with Harper than he’d first suspected. They’d known each other a long time, seen the team through more downs than ups.
“Go on.”
“Just a little late-blooming rebellion, that’s all, stickin’ it to her daddy. Women like dangerous men, or so I’m told. Never would have lasted.” He sniffed. “Even if he hadn’t hit her.”
A rushing sound blocked up Remy’s ears. His blood turned to an icy-cold slush, then stopped moving altogether. One minute he was present in this world, the next it tilted and crashed.
Fuck—no.
He turned, but Bren was staring at the ice as if he hadn’t just blown Remy’s universe to rubble.
Jagged pieces that had previously been floating in the air dropped like weights and fell into place. Her reticence in the locker room, that tough-girl act she wore like emotional Kevlar. Stroger had hurt Harper. His Harper. Raised a hand to the woman Remy loved and made her afraid. Jesus, how could she bear to be near any hockey players? Violent assholes who thought nothing of sorting out their on-ice problems with a fist.
This fucking fils de putain had made his woman fearful. Made her feel less than the amazing person she was. A million questions fought for the right to be asked, and he turned to the man with the answers. But Coach was already calling the captain back to switch out the line, and Bren skated off, leaving that unexploded bomb ticking in time to Remy’s hurting heart.
And there was only one way to handle the imminent blast.
It wasn’t as if Harper had never witnessed a team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory before. Hockey could turn on a dime. One minute you had a two-goal lead and every pass connected. The next the score was tied after your laid-back veteran center was assessed a match penalty and ejected from the game.
She knew there was bad blood between DuPre and Stroger—there was bad blood between everyone and Stroger—but no one could have foreseen Remy bearing down on the Cougars’ defender with the puck nowhere in their orbit so he could pound the snot out of him.
And she meant pound.
“Holy shit!” Isobel yelled, jumping up in the executive box. “What the hell is he doing?”
Remy had slammed Stroger against the Plexi, thrown down his stick, and removed his gloves. He meant business, and that business came in the form of a rearrangement of Billy Stroger’s face.
So deep in shock was the entire arena that it took a full twenty seconds for anyone to react, which allowed Remy to make several jaw-smashing connections. It was also possible that the delay in pulling them apart might be better credited to the fact that Billy was one of the least popular players in the NHL. Even his own team was slow off the mark. By the time the officials had restrained Remy, Stroger’s nose was spurting blood and he was slumped against the boards like a puppet with cut strings.
There was no question of it being game related or accidental, and there was only one possible outcome: ejection for Remy.
Two minutes later, she stood outside the locker room, staring at size five feet that refused to move. Déjà vu all over again, as the great Yogi Berra would’ve said.
Inside, Remy sat on the bench, skates off, helmet on the other side of the locker room, stick broken in half. That must have happened when he came in.
“Remy.”
His head snapped back. “Harper, what are you doing here?”
“I had to see if you were okay.”
As she stepped in closer, he stood, his hand raised to hold her at bay. “You shouldn’t be here. Someone could see.”
She didn’t care about that. He was more important, though she acknowledged deep down that the last time she was in this position—the position of entering a locker room to tend to a man she cared about—she’d ended up with a little more than she bargained for. A busted lip to match that broken heart.
She stepped toward him, her body hyperaware of every change in his: the heave of his broad chest, the tic in his jaw, the trickle of sweat taking a lazy trek down his temple.
“Don’t come any closer, Harper.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a lot of pent-up rage here and I might need to channel it.”
“You didn’t get it all out there on the ice?” She cocked a hip and backed up a mental moment. “Want to tell me why you did that?”
“Anyone who hits my woman doesn’t deserve to walk off that ice.”
The words both slammed into her and lifted the weight of six years off her chest.
“Harper,” he gritted out. “You should have told me. You should have—” The words died in his throat, though his expression of betrayal remained fixed. He wasn’t pissed at Stroger, or at least he wasn’t right now. He was furious because he was the last to know. Apparently she owed him this.
“Why should I have told you, Remy?”
His face strained with incredulity. “Because I could have helped you.”
“How? With more violence? It didn’t happen to you. It happened to me.” She struck her breast, anger blazing that he was turning this into some chink in their growing intimacy. Why did men have to make it all about them?
As ever, Remy was evolved enough to realize this. “Harper, I know this is your pain. But if you’d shared it with me, it would be mine, too. I want it to be mine. I want to help you shoulder it. I know I can’t make it right, but I can be there for you. Don’t you understand that, minou?”
Hurt, she turned away from the compassion he wielded like a weapon. Love wasn’t supposed to slice ribbons from her soul.
With her back to him, she curled her fist and placed it against the frame of one of the players’ lockers. “What do they say? A trouble shared is a trouble halved? Not for me. Sharing this ruined everything.”
Sunlight was supposed to be the best disinfectant, but shining a light had cast her into the wilderness. Some secrets were supposed to remain that way.
“That kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen to—” Women like me, she almost said. Strong, well educated, liberated. She was supposed to be in control of her love life and the men she let into it. “But I wanted to prove to my
father that my gender wouldn’t matter or I could use it to my advantage. I could corral this beast and be a great leader of men. I don’t know. He—Billy . . .”
She heard him move closer, could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head. “He what?”
She faced him. “He punched me and split my lip after a game where he was ejected for starting a fight.”
His mouth twitched, the irony not lost on him. “Harp—”
She held up a shaky hand. Let me say this. Let me surrender this thing you need to carve out of me. “He was always making trouble. Usually I could soothe him with—with sex, but not this time. He lashed out. At first I thought it was an accident, you know, his fist inadvertently meeting my face. Isn’t that crazy?” Her voice had taken on a high pitch, like it belonged to someone else. How stupid to think Stroger might have lashed out unintentionally. Her love-starved heart had given him the benefit of the doubt.
“But he didn’t apologize. Not until later, not until his spot on the team was under threat, and I knew then that he needed to inflict his pain on someone weaker. I was convenient. I was weak and I would never be able to live up to my father’s standard of toughness. But it was only once.”
Fury at that excusing word restarted a tic in Remy’s jaw. “You told Cliff?”
She would have kept it to herself for any number of reasons—shame, not wanting to rock the boat, fear of failure in her father’s eyes. Women were expert at inventing excuses for men. Look at her mother.
“I didn’t want to. It would just confirm everything he thought about women in the man’s world of pro hockey. But someone had seen it.” Bren, her white knight, punched Stroger, then immediately went to her father. She’d begged him not to, but his anger on her behalf—the anger she couldn’t muster for herself—would be appeased only one way. “Dad traded Stroger out, but he was pissed he had to do it. That he had to think of me before the team. He never forgave me for it.”
This is why women should not be in charge of a professional sports team. Hormones, Harper. Fucking hormones.
She’d learned her lesson about opening up and exposing her underbelly. No man was worth that feeling of helplessness that rocked her in the split second after Stroger drew blood. For years she had paid her dues, trying to make up for her mistake, her female weakness, only to have her father rip her heart out with his insurmountable hurdles.
But now she was in charge. This team was hers, and she made the rules.
Remy stared at her, his expression as anguished as a wounded animal’s. She’d had time to adjust to this, and she supposed it would take him a while to return to the easygoing, let-the-good-times-roll Remy she knew and loved.
“You should have told me, Harper.”
“So you could defend me? Like you did out there? It’s done, and years later, you turn into a caveman and get an ejection for your trouble. For my trouble, because you’re not on the ice winning, Remy. That’s what I pay you to do. We’re probably going to lose this game, and that’s down to you. That’s down to you thinking with your—”
Heart. That dumb, stupid heart she loved so much. She had learned long ago that a heart could fool a brain into the worst decisions, but she’d set that knowledge aside while she let Remy DuPre in. Broken her own rules. No more. “I don’t need your defense. I’m perfectly capable of standing up for myself.”
He stepped in closer. “And in doing that, you closed yourself off to the possibilities. Built this impenetrable shell.”
“I had to! I had to prove to my father that what had happened was a glitch. He’d never give me the team if it came out publicly I’d placed myself in a position of weakness with a player. I worked my ass off for years to prove myself worthy and then . . .”
Remy cupped her face and drew her toward him, his breath a whisper against her lips. “And then Clifford fucked you over when he made you share it.”
He had no idea, and she had no intention of sharing exactly how much her father had screwed her with his “playoffs or bust” demand. She wouldn’t use that to make him stay. “You don’t need to fight my battles, Remy. I’ve been on my own for a long time and I’ve figured out what I need.”
“Christ, Harper.” His thumb swiped her bottom lip. Gently. Roughly. Oh, God. “Have you?”
Yes. At least, she’d thought so before Remy DuPre stormed into her life with his amazing sandwiches and supersized heart and hands that could heal every hurt. She felt it every time they were together, that build to something strong and pure and more.
She didn’t dare hope. She didn’t dare dream.
“Have you?” he repeated, but it sounded like he was pleading. It sounded like he was the one hurting, because he wasn’t around then to protect her, because every decision she made since was filtered through the prism of one man’s fist. She didn’t want him to hurt. Billy Stroger wasn’t worth this good man’s pain.
She could give Remy what he needed, and in giving him that, she would give him all she had left.
“I came down here to soothe your Cajun werewolf, DuPre,” she whispered. “Your Loup Garou.”
He pushed her back against the locker, his hand already shaping her ass and aligning her core with his erection. Not even his bulky hockey pants could hide his desire for her.
“Then soothe me, Harper. Make me better.”
She kissed him, pretending it was for him but knowing it was really for her. Remy intended to turn her memories of Stroger to dust, to replace horror with reverence, neglect with love, because he valued her. She truly wanted to be worthy of this man who made her feel like anything was possible.
The kiss deepened, reaching a private, closed-off place, telling her stories in the way only Remy could. This is how good we are. How amazing we could be. Let me take care of you.
She wanted so badly for this fairy tale to be real.
Fumbling with his hockey pants, she pulled them down along with his boxer briefs and cup to release the cure for her ache. Anyone could enter the locker room, but she was beyond that, existing outside reality. This, only this, was everything she needed, and it trumped the fear of discovery.
“Please,” she gasped.
Cupping both hands below her ass, he hitched her up, walked several steps, and pushed through the door to the equipment room. Even now, he was protecting her. Giving them privacy, though she’d have been perfectly happy to let him pummel her to oblivion in the locker room. They could be on the jumbotron, and she wouldn’t have cared one iota.
Holding her in the cradle of one arm, he shoved aside a shelf-load of gloves and pads and placed her ass on it. He yanked her skirt up her thighs until it bunched around her hips, pushed her panties aside, and drove deep in one all-consuming thrust.
“Remy,” she gasped at the sweet invasion.
He held her still, his hands spreading her thighs wide, his body a piston into her over and over. Pounding away the pain, replacing it with pleasure, and leaving sweetness in its wake, he wiped out the memories and gave her new ones to cherish.
TWENTY-NINE
His body still covered hers, and she had no idea how much time had passed. The period would be over soon, the players on their way back. Sensing this, they quietly parted. He kissed her forehead and fixed her clothing before attending to himself.
“If you can work it out, I’d prefer Philly,” he said.
Not your typical postcoital sweet nothings, but nothing about this was typical. An affair with an expiration date, a built-in self-destruct button, and all she had to do was push it.
That’s all she had to do.
“Shouldn’t be a problem. They have at least two players who would work out for a trade.” They’d made a pact. She’d promised his mother, for heaven’s sake. She loved him and she would do anything to ensure he got to hold that hardware high above his head come June. If her own heart shattered in the process, then them�
��s the breaks.
With his nod and ready acceptance of her acquiescence to his request, a small part of her died that he would leave without hesitation.
“That’s step one,” he said.
“Of what?”
“Of the plan. Once I’m off the Rebels, we move to step two.”
What was he talking about? “Step two?”
“We go public.”
“Go public?” She sounded like a mad parrot.
“You and me. We give this”—he waved between them, because not even Mr. Verbal, Remy DuPre, had words to describe adequately what this was—“a chance.”
He wanted to give them a chance.
He thought there was something worth nurturing here, and while this should have been a dream come true, why had her heart stopped cold?
You know why. Sure, they were consenting adults, but she paid his salary, and just because he was no longer on the team, the dynamics were no different. Questions would be raised about roster choices and contract decisions, all under the influence of her vagina. “Conflict of interest” and “workplace fling” would be the main thrust of every headline for the rest of the season.
Details, Harper. Stupid little details. You know why this won’t work.
“This isn’t what either of us had in mind, Remy.”
His mouth curved slightly. “Sure wasn’t. I was supposed to serve my jail time, make myself invaluable, and head for glory. Do not pass go. Do not collect a hot, gorgeous woman who happens to be my boss. Do not second-guess every decision that’s brought me to this point.”
“That’s all good advice. You should listen to it.” She put a trembling hand on the door, her ear straining to hear movement outside, which was incredibly difficult when your heart was pounding like a jet engine.
“Harper, I love you.”
Oh. That pounding heart cannoned out of her chest, plopped unceremoniously to the floor, and flapped about on the dirty linoleum.