by Lily Harlem
We just had.
Soon my dreams stole me away, the sound of the birds became the sound of a puck pinging off a goalpost, the heat turned to ice cold and a mountain of fans appeared around me, all looking for the team, demanding to know where they’d gone. What had I done with them? Why had the best players left? Why were the Vipers bottom of the league? Why? Why? Why?
I tried to explain, searched the sea of faces for my father, for Mike, for Ramrod. Eventually I saw Dustin, called his name but he was walking away. I pushed forward through the swarm of arms and shoulders, chasing him, trying to reach him. I could just make out his head and shoulders rising above the crowd, but he was moving fast, I couldn’t keep up.
Someone stuck their leg out. I saw them do it, on purpose, to trip me up. I fell, hands outstretched into the shadows around everyone’s feet. All I could see were shoes, shoes that were moving, trying to kick me, jab me.
I started. A sudden jump that made me aware of the bed beneath me and the end of the dream.
Opening my eyes, I saw the light had dimmed and the sky was flaming orange and pink. I turned onto my back, propped myself on my elbows and studied several skinny black clouds that were slicing the horizon like long branches.
A blanket covered me—the Aztec-patterned one from the lounge. Dustin must have laid it there when he’d moved away.
Yawning, I spotted my discarded bikini bottoms and sarong folded neatly on the bottom of the bed. I reached for them, threw the cover off and quickly slipped them on.
I winced as I spotted my grazed knee. It definitely hadn’t helped going for it in a squashed doggy-style position. The skin around the cut was red and inflamed and the graze looked as if it had bled some more. I probably should clean it properly, put a bandage on it.
There was a first-aid box indoors, so I pulled on my top, got up and wandered into the shadows of the villa, wondering where Dustin was.
It was deathly quiet. No shower running, no TV, no music or banging kitchen cupboards.
My stomach rumbled as I passed the fridge and I realized I’d hardly eaten anything all day, and after all that exertion too. I’d rustle up some dinner in a minute. That had to be the next priority.
After quickly seeing to my knee and using the bathroom, I searched the fridge. There was smoked fish and salad. I decided to cook a pepper risotto to go with it.
I plonked the ingredients on the counter, feeling relaxed, at ease. I was a little tender between my legs, but I smiled to myself, enjoying the sensation and remembering the wild orgasm I’d shared with Dustin.
Dustin?
A noise coming from the corridor, one of the bedrooms, caught my attention. I headed toward it.
At the second doorway, the one next to mine, I paused and peered in.
Dustin was sitting on the end of the bed, his face in his hands. His whole posture screamed torment, despair, misery. Despite his size he seemed small.
“You okay?” I asked, stepping into the room.
He sighed.
“Dustin?”
“No.”
My hand itched to rest on his shoulder, give him comfort. But something stopped me. I was the cause of his distress that much I could guess. Whether it was because he regretted what we’d done or because of his contract I wasn’t sure.
“You want to talk about it?”
He dropped his hands from his face. There were lines on his cheeks. He must have been sitting like that for ages. “You must really fucking hate me now, huh?”
I shook my head. “No, no I don’t hate you.”
“Jesus, you should.” He straightened, clenching his fists and setting them on his wide thighs.
I said nothing, just twiddled with the knot on my sarong and studied the width of his shoulders. They were a little red, he’d caught the sun.
“I mean I just picked you up, threw you on the bed and fucked you. Sweet cheeks, you shouldn’t think that’s acceptable.”
I opened my mouth to retort that I’d fucked him, but he cut me off.
“And to top it all I didn’t even use a damn condom.” He shook his head. “I was so caught up in it. In you. So damn consumed with the need to screw, bury deep.” He paused and when he spoke again his voice had quieted. “I swear I’ll stand by you if…” He pointed at my belly. “If you know, we made a little Reed today.”
I stroked my hand over my lower abdomen and he followed my movements. “We won’t have. I’m on the Pill.”
“Oh.” He glanced up at my face. “Okay.”
“No little Reed to worry about.”
He nodded and stood. “I’m clean, in case you were wondering. Full screen a couple of weeks ago with the team medic and there’s been no one…”
“Me, too.” I looked up into his anxious face. I’d never met anyone with so much expression in their eyes. I could almost tell what he was thinking, how he was feeling just by the way he looked at me. He was either mocking, angry or desirous, there wasn’t much else, but this, this was a new one. He looked vulnerable in that instant. Despite his talent, his self-assured attitude, he looked as if he needed something, someone even.
I reached out and took his hand in mine. “I’m going to cook, I’m starving. Do you want to eat too?”
He rolled his lips in on themselves, closed his eyes for a few seconds, then said, “Yeah, and then I should go.”
Chapter Nine
I didn’t want Dustin to go. That was all I could think as I was chopping peppers and sweet onions for the risotto. But how could I be feeling like this, when only hours ago making Dustin leave was my number-one objective?
Scraping the veggies into a pan, I thought back to our crazy fuck. Crazy was the best way to describe it. We shouldn’t have done it, gone for it like that, like a couple of damn animals.
It had been momentously unprofessional of me to get down and dirty with one of my players. Him, too, he’d behaved like a Neanderthal, and to top it off we’d been completely irresponsible when it came to thinking about a condom at the necessary moment—we just hadn’t.
I glanced out the large patio doors. They were flung open and the sound of the waves filtered into the house. Dustin sat on the deck, staring at the last sliver of sun as it dipped beneath the waterline. His shadow stretched out behind him and I knew he’d have the same grim look on his face that he’d had since we’d…
Damn. What a fucking mess.
I added rice and stock, stirred in a few herbs and then set the pan on simmer. Reaching for the fish, I quickly slipped the two sea bass fillets under the grill. It was one of my favorites. I hoped Dustin liked it, too.
While the meal cooked, I slipped into my room. Brushed my hair and pulled on a sweater. I knew from experience once the sun went the temperature dropped.
“Here you go,” I said, stepping onto the deck and carrying a tray holding dinner and two bottles of beer. That seemed to be his drink of choice so I’d stick with it. Safe option.
He looked up at me. For a moment it was as if he’d forgotten I was even there, in the villa. It seemed as though his mind was a million miles away.
“I hope you like fish,” I said, setting the meal down.
“I eat anything.” He shifted his chair ’round so he could use the table.
I sat next to him rather than opposite, wanting to see the waves and watch the moon round the mountain. His cologne hit me again, mixing with the scent of the lilies that were in full bloom in large pots.
Despite the knots in my stomach, I was hungry and tucked into the meal. Dustin devoured his as though he’d never been fed before. He used his knife and fork quickly, and ate in a functional manner, barely savoring the flavors it seemed, just shoveling it in.
Like I’d previously thought. Peel back the layers and he was pure Neanderthal.
The sounds of the cutlery and the skim of the sea on the sand were the only noises while we both demolished our meals. Eventually, plates empty, we sat in silence. But my thoughts were tumbling, the silence giving them
permission to be loud. Clattering around my head like rocks tumbling down a mountainside.
Where would he go? The hotel was full and he couldn’t get off the island tonight. There were no flights or ferries. What if some of the mugger’s accomplices had seen the direction we’d walked in and decided to follow? What if they wanted revenge? Or to steal more from me?
No, that was a silly thought that stemmed only from the fright of the mugging. I’d been alone at the villa many times and never given security a moment’s worry.
My brain jogged along a different path of anxiety.
Had Dustin hated fucking me so much that now he couldn’t stand to be around me? Was that why he wanted to go? He couldn’t even bear to look at me? Was he so ashamed, so full of regret?
Well, if that was the case, good. I’d hated fucking him, too.
I sighed.
That was a lie. I hadn’t. It had been off-the-scale sexy. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so caught up in a moment, so acutely focused on finding satisfaction in the quickest way possible.
“I should head off,” he said.
I realized my sigh had been loud.
“Where will you go?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. I’ll figure something out.”
“You don’t have to. You could stay here.” I drained the last of my beer. “There’s plenty of room in this inn.”
He laughed but not with humor. “You a masochist or something?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, whatever the fuck that was, between us,” he nodded behind himself, at the bed, “it was a major fucking disaster.”
Well, that put me in my place. Now I knew where I stood—in the disaster zone. “But it’s done now. Like you said, a one-time-only thing.” I shrugged, going for nonchalant. “We’ve got it out of our system. It won’t happen again.” I pulled down my mouth, as if the whole thing had not been to my taste either. Though of course that wasn’t true, it had been right up my dirty street.
“Is that what you want?” He leaned forward and folded his arms on the table, twisted his head to study me. Shadows slanted across his face, making the bump on his nose more noticeable as well as the indent on his bottom lip where the scar slashed across it.
“Yes. It’s ridiculous to think there could ever be anything between us,” I said, also folding my arms but leaning back in my chair instead of forward.
“I agree.”
“Good.”
“You’re not even the sort of woman I go for,” he said.
“And I already told you you’re not my kind of guy.” I thought of Henri, suave and sophisticated with his sexy accent, smooth skin and carefully tailored clothes. Dustin was the exact opposite with his rough-and-ready style. Well, it wasn’t even a style, he just…was. He had an absolute lack of vanity, an obvious disinterest in fashion and I wouldn’t be surprised if he just kept his hair that short so he didn’t have to worry about brushing it.
He stood, wandered into the kitchen and left me looking at the craters on the full moon. Dad had used to tell me to look for a face in the pits and valleys. I could when I was a kid. Tonight, though, I struggled to determine any features. I guessed I was finally growing up. It did that, money worries.
Dustin reappeared with two more bottles of beer.
“Here,” he said, setting one down in front of me. “It’s been a long fucking day.” He struck a match and lit the citronella candle in the center of the table. “I’ll stay, if you’re cool with that.”
“Sure, I said you could.” I watched the flame rise upward and a hazy glow spread over our empty plates. I was relieved that he wasn’t still planning on leaving, tonight at least.
He sat and once again leaned forward. This time the shadows on his face were golden. “So now we’ve scratched the itch to screw each other stupid,” he said, “and established that it isn’t gonna happen again, do you think you could tell me what the fuck is going on with the team?”
“What do you mean?”
“Back there.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the beach. “You said something about the mess you’d inherited.”
I clamped my lips together. The team’s finances had been the furthest thing from my mind the last few hours and I’d enjoyed the reprieve from worry. Besides, what was it to do with him?
“Of course you don’t have to tell me squat,” he said, “though it might help, you know, a problem halved and all that.”
“I really need to speak to my father about it all first. I think he’s had his eye off the ball this last six months. I don’t know if he had a grand plan or if it was just rolling along like a runaway train.”
He took a sip of his drink. There was a small popping sound as he removed the bottle from his lips. “You know something,” he said. “I’m not as dumb as you think.”
“I never said you were.”
“You don’t have to say it, sweet cheeks, it’s the way you speak to me in the locker room and how you look at me whenever I mention the contract. You think I have nothing but cold air between my ears.”
“No, not at all.” I’d never thought that. Dustin was witty, sharp and had never given me the impression that he was anything other than fully switched on.
“You know my parents are both lawyers,” he said. “Until I won a scholarship for the Academy, going into law was my first career choice.”
“Really?” I struggled to keep the surprise from my voice. I just couldn’t imagine him in a suit marching in front of jury. I was sure he’d be slung out for cursing, or spitting or throwing a woman over his shoulder and marching off to give her a good seeing to.
“Ha, that shocked you,” he said with a huff.
“No. You would have made a great lawyer.” I wasn’t sure how sincere I’d sounded.
“Nah, I’d have been shit, I just needed to be on the ice. I was hooked and wanted it to be my life. Luckily my parents saw that and stopped hassling me. Worked out okay though, in the end.” He paused. “Well, up until this point it has. Right now it’s kinda going to the dogs. Vipers were all I ever wanted, that’s the team I’ve been busting my balls off for years to goaltend for.”
I watched as he peeled the corner of the label on his bottle, his big fingers poking agitatedly at it.
“And the money,” he said, “It’s fucking nice, yeah, but, it isn’t the be-all and end-all. And I’ve been wise with investments. I haven’t pissed it all away. Some of it, sure, I like to party, hang out with the guys, but it isn’t like that if I’m in Austria or training. Then I’m head down, working, focused.” He ripped the label off completely and flattened it on the table with his palm. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” I studied his fingernails. They were short and square, so different from my neatly shaped ones that were painted with MAC’s Confectionary polish.
“It’s money, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“It’s the finances. The Vipers. Your dad left it in a bad way. That’s the issue, isn’t it?”
I reached for my beer. Took a long slug and then licked the drop left behind on my top lip.
He was watching me. “You’ve inherited a financial mess,” he said, “and it’s up to you to sort out.”
“Do you understand about confidentiality?” I asked quietly.
“You mean like am I gonna tell the guys I’ve fucked the boss lady? No way. Confidential information. I get that.” He huffed.
“Yes, absolutely. No one must ever know what we did.” I suppressed a shudder at the thought of Dustin telling Brick, Phoenix and Ramrod about fucking me. Them all having a great guffaw in the locker room. Vadmir slapping him on the back, Raven touching knuckles and Mike trying to laugh along but wondering how I could have stooped so low.
He reached over and rested his hand on mine. “I promise, sweet cheeks, no one will ever find out about what happened on that bed, not from me anyway. And I can’t imagine you want a newsflash either. I think we’d both by embarrassed to
hell and back if that dirty snippet got out.”
“Yes. That dirty snippet, slip from sense, whatever you want to call it, stays strictly between us.”
“Goes without saying.” He squeezed my hand.
“As if it never even happened.”
“Never happened. I may act like a caveman but I know when to keep my mouth shut.” He lifted his hand and made a zipper movement across his lips.
“Good.”
An owl hooted in the distance. The sound, like so many things here, transported me back to my childhood. I thought of Dad again. Hoped his tests had gone well and Giselle was looking after him. Not wearing him out.
I wasn’t sure how to start the Vipers’ bank balance conversation with him when he got back to the island. Had he known what was going on? That more money had been going out in the last six months than coming in? He must have, he was an on-the-ball businessman, a millionaire many times over. But perhaps the oversight had been a symptom of him becoming unwell. Not paying attention when he should have been.
Shit. Yes. What if he didn’t know anything and when I spoke to him that knowledge made him ill again, when he was on the road to recovery and doing so well? I’d feel terrible, like the worst daughter ever when in actual fact I was trying to stand up and do the right thing. Look after the family’s interest.
“Jesus, you look like you have the weight of that fucking moon up there on your shoulders,” Dustin said. “Is it really that bad?”
I sighed. What the hell. “Are you really good at keeping your mouth zipped?”
He pressed his lips tight and nodded.
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Certainly not good anyway.”
“Why, what’s happened?’
“Simple math. The income from the arena, you know, tickets, broadcasting rights and merchandise isn’t enough for the bills. The team is in the red.”
He was quiet for a moment, then, “And you’re looking for ways to cut the monthly housekeeping.”
“That’s putting it simply, yes. I need to tighten my purse strings, not be as frivolous as Dad has been of late.”