On the Brink of Passion--Snow & Ice Games

by Tamsen Parker

  Right on cue, my cell rings. I jab my finger at him once more for good measure, and because it makes me feel better even if he can’t see me. “See? This is her, and you better get ready to go because I’m sure she’s calling with a new room assignment for you.”

  I turn away and stalk toward the bathroom, because it’s as far away from him as I can get. Slamming the door, I turn on the shower, partly so Beckett won’t hear what I’m saying, also because I find the white nose soothing. And I need some goddamn soothing at the moment.

  “Daphne. Thank god. What’s Beckett’s new room assignment? He’s all acting like he owns the place already, so the sooner I get him out of here the better.” I should be annoyed he didn’t take his boots off before he swung them up on the bed, but I didn’t comment because that’s one less thing he has to do before he gets the hell out of here.

  She makes a clucking noise that does not bode well, and I brace myself for the verdict. “So, here’s the thing . . .”

  Beckett

  I expected Jubilee to pace, because she does that a lot, but instead she walks into the bathroom, slams the door as well as she can given how cheap and flimsy they are, and proceeds to crank on the shower. While I completely agree she could use a good cooldown, I doubt she’s actually hopping into the shower. Instead, I hear her voice rise, and I can tell she’s yelling at Daphne, even if I can’t understand the words being said.

  At some point, between the travel fatigue and the bizarrely soothing combination of the white noise of the shower spray and poor Daphne getting chewed out, I must fall asleep, because I get yanked out of a very pleasant dream of the kind of fun I’d like to have with the Swiss Alpine skiing team by someone grabbing my feet and shoving them off the bed, nearly making the rest of my body follow. “Hey!”

  “Were you raised in a barn? Get your boots off the bed.”

  Now she cares about my shoes on the bed? After I’ve sat up and rubbed my eyes, I open them to a crossed-arm Jubilee standing in front of me. She’s got on her usual off-ice uniform of yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt, and her hair’s up in this ponytail that’s so tight and high, I’m surprised she can still move her face.

  “So what’s the verdict? Where am I headed to? The boiler room? Equipment storage? Broom closet?”

  Jubilee uncrosses her arms, narrows her eyes and her mouth tightens just enough for me to know that she’s using every bit of her willpower to not bite my head off. While some people might twitch and be apologetic, Jubilee is not other people. The only sign I get that she’s disconcerted at all is that her thumb won’t stop rubbing her phone.

  “Unfortunately, the village is overfull as it is. There’s no place for you to go.”

  What? But before I can interrupt, she continues in that strung-taut voice that might break if it got plucked in a perfect way. “If someone from Team USA needs to go home for whatever reason”—and we all know those reasons are never good, so neither of us will wish for that—“you may be able to move, but at this point, we’re stuck together. So I suggest you take your shoes off before you lie down again. Also, if you’re going to snore like that this entire month, please stop and get me some ear plugs, because you sound like a chainsaw. Not a new one either. Don’t move my things, don’t touch my things, don’t comment on my things. Don’t hog the shower, don’t touch the thermostat, don’t hide food because we’ll get pests. Don’t talk to me unless you have to, and don’t bring anyone back here. I need privacy.”

  Way to roll out the welcome mat, Jubilee. So much for Southern hospitality. I don’t really have a problem with any of that, because I’m not exactly thrilled to be bunking down with her either, except the last bit. I have been waiting months for this. I am going to have sex. A lot of it. She can set our schedules and I’ll stick to them because she knows what she’s doing, but she is not going to make me be celibate. I don’t mind abstaining when we’re back home because there’s the possibility of a relationship—do not want—but here, where everyone knows the score?

  “You can’t forbid me from bringing someone back here.”

  “I just did.”

  “Jubilee—”

  She shakes her head so hard her hair whips around her face. “No. I will not be coming home to you . . . doing whatever it is you plan to do with whomever you plan to do it with. I find a sock or a note on the door, I’m coming in, and pitching a fit until your . . . companion leaves. Got it?”

  I wish the extra desk was sitting in front of me instead of being across the room. I’d really like something to flip or bang my head on right about now. Speaking of banging, though . . .

  “No. I do not agree to those terms. I have been working my ass off for you for the past two years. Do you know when the last time I had a girlfriend was?”

  Her arms are back across her chest but she doesn’t interrupt me. Also, I don’t really want to answer that question. Sure it’s been my choice to keep things the way they are, but two years is a long time and I don’t like it. Not to mention I’ve pretty well settled on being single until my competitive career is over, so I can’t entirely foist that on Jubilee. But what I can blame her for is me not getting in some meaningless, stress-busting, mind-clearing sex while I can with women who aren’t going to expect anything more because we’ve got the same M.O.

  “The only times I get laid are when we go to competitions. I show up at practice, I show up at performances, I am crazy charming during all the press you insist on. I show up at every goddamn thing you want me to do and I’m at the top of my game, but you’re not going to tell me I can’t have a sex life.”

  Her head tilts ever so slightly, her dark ponytail falling over her shoulder. “Been wanting to get that off your chest for a while now, huh?”

  This woman is maddening. No wonder she couldn’t keep a partner before I showed up. I mean, sure, some of them were just flat out not of her caliber, because not many people are. But some of it is her ice princess attitude. I don’t so much mind the possessive part, especially when we’re skating against our old partners. That actually makes me feel good in a way. Wanted. But she’s also as controlling as Sabrina ever was, and no one else would tolerate that. Except I guess for Todd Everhardt, and good luck to that poor bastard.

  The only reason I’m still here with Jubilee is that she’s the best. We’re well-suited on the ice. After an uncertain couple of years, we’ve proved to be each other’s tickets to this year’s SIGs, and if we’re lucky, to Trondheim in four more years. Bottom line, I don’t care at all if she likes me or not, or whatever else I have to put up with, we have to win. The sacrifices I’ve made at least make sense because they’ve led to Denver. But being a poster boy for abstinence? This is too far.

  “No. I don’t care the rest of the time, because we have our arrangement. We both work ourselves to the bone to get this right, to get those gold medals around our necks, to win. But in the hours we’re not training, I don’t belong to you. You may have bought and paid for our coaching, but control over my dick is not part of the package. I don’t give a crap how many people you fuck or when or how or if you want to take a vow of celibacy to appease the gods of the rink or some shit. As long as it doesn’t interfere with how you perform, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you do at all.”

  “Okay, then.”

  For a second, I think there’s a flash of . . . hurt? that flits across Jubilee’s face, but that must be a hallucination, because the woman is a machine. Never seen her cry no matter how hard the fall, never seen her smile no matter how hilarious the joke I told—and my jokes are frigging hilarious—never seen her feel anything at all except driven. I take that back. There was just one time, but we don’t talk about that, because I think if I ever mentioned it she’d manage to slit my throat and make it look like a freak side-by-side camel spin accident.

  The thought makes me rub a finger over the scar I’ve had since I was a kid. The one that runs through my eyebrow and, if my partner had been much closer, could’ve cost me
my sight in that eye. That’s . . . not as funny as some of the other ways she could hypothetically murder me.

  At any rate, another woman—another person—might be hurt that someone they spend eighty percent of their waking hours with doesn’t give a goddamn about how they spend their other twenty percent, but not Jubilee, oh no. Feelings may as well not exist as far as she’s concerned.

  “Look, I’ll do what I can to keep it in my partners’ rooms, but I’m not making any promises. I am goddamn well going to get some ass this month, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Except do very bad things to me in my sleep and possibly murder me after this is all over. No way she’ll murder me before, because she works as hard as I do and it’s all been for this. She’s not going to toss it away on revenge. I have no idea if she’s planning on trying to compete in Trondheim. I hope she is, because I’d like to without having to find yet another partner. If Jubilee does, she’ll be on the older side, especially for a woman, but if anyone could defy the odds it would be her. Hell, we shouldn’t even be here after partnering for only two years, but here we are. In this one small suite, about to rip each other’s heads off.

  I guess that could only happen if Jubilee’s head doesn’t explode first. She looks about ready to pop, her face red with rage and her small hands curled into fists. Which is when I get an idea. An idea she’s not going to like at all, which is absolutely goddamn perfect. I know I’m not the smartest guy around, and that’s fine. I’m also not dumb as a rock, and I have other things going for me. But when I have a good idea? It’s really freaking good, and this one is fan-fucking-tastic, emphasis on the fuck.

  Finding my stride, I push off the bed, and it forces Jubilee to give a little ground before she plants her feet and all five feet and one-hundred pounds of her makes a stand. I don’t need her to move. It’s actually better if she stands there. I walk up close enough that she has to tip her head to look at me, and woo boy, she must hate that.

  “There is another solution.”

  Hands on her hips and dark brows forming a threatening V, Jubilee narrows her eyes. “And what’s that?”

  “You could sleep with me and then you wouldn’t have to worry about any visitors. You’d have all the privacy you wanted, you wouldn’t have to worry about me coming in late and waking you up. You wouldn’t have to worry about me being late to anything because we’d be together. All. The. Time.”

  I lean down a bit to punctuate each word, and we’re nearly nose to nose by the time I’m done. Sometimes—okay, yeah, most of the time—I find her dark eyes intimidating. They’re so dark brown you almost can’t tell where her pupils end and her irises begin. It’s freaky as hell. But at the moment, she doesn’t scare me. She actually looks uncertain, and her gaze skitters from mine for just a second. Yes. I’ve got her precisely where I want her. I can practically taste it, how sweet victory is going to be when she gives in and tells me to do whatever the hell I want and to just not fuck things up before she hauls to the bathroom in a huff. How do you like them apples, Jubilation Lee?

  But as soon as I taste the victory, the corner of her mouth ticks up ever so slightly. The honeyed sweetness that was resting on my tongue turns to vinegar in the space of a heartbeat, and when the next sentence leaves her mouth, I almost choke.

  “Works for me.”

  Chapter Three

  Jubilee

  You want to play chicken, little boy? He’s messing with a master. I’m the one who gets tossed around the ice like a rag doll, who has his hands all up in my crotch on a regular basis, and he thinks the threat of sex is going to scare me? Pfft. And now Beckett is standing there with his eyes bugging out of his head and his mouth hanging open. It’s tempting to reach out and use a couple of fingers to close it. But let him stew in his own stupidity for a few seconds. That’ll teach him.

  Honestly.

  Yes, he had the upper hand briefly, because he had the element of surprise, but if he thought I was going to back down, he was so very mistaken. I’m not afraid of sex. Not that I’ve had a lot of it since Stephen died, but I’ve had . . . some. Mostly with random guys I’d pick up at a bar because my left hand and my vibrator just weren’t cutting it anymore. They wouldn’t know who I was, and they wouldn’t care. All they knew was that I was reasonably attractive and wanted to fuck, and that seemed to be good enough for them. Do I want to sleep with Beckett? No, because life has taught me that getting involved with your partner is a surefire way to emotional ruin.

  It doesn’t matter anyhow, because it’s not as if this is actually going to get that far. Beckett is going to shut his mouth—eventually—and then he’s going to apologize, and give in. He’ll get over it. Not being able to fuck as many willing partners as he’d like over the next month or so isn’t going to kill him. Who knows, maybe all those people who swear by not fucking in the days leading up to competitions are actually onto something, and he’ll be even better than he usually is. Maybe I’ll even leave earlier than I’d planned so he can have the room to himself to shag whomever he’d like for the last few days of the bacchanal. I could do that. It’s not like I want to stick around any longer than I have to. In the meantime, I’ll wait. Wait for him to come to his senses, because Beckett doesn’t like me. Tolerates me because I’m his ticket to the SIGs, and has respect for me as an athlete, but I don’t think he enjoys my company, and as he made clear moments ago, gives no shit about what I do with my time away from him. Nor have I ever had the slightest indication he finds me attractive.

  When Stephen and I were teenagers and would train together, there were more than a few times that I noticed he was sporting some pretty serious wood. Yeah, some of that was because we were kids and he was still learning how to control his dick, but some of it was that he wanted me. Thought I was pretty. Liked my body. We could be ourselves around each other, chat and laugh. He liked me. And it wasn’t super long after that we started fooling around and then sleeping together. Who else were we supposed to go out with? We spent all our time with each other.

  I suppose I should’ve found someone else, though, because when I lost him, I lost goddamn everything. Which is why I will never, ever, ever, fall in love with my teammate ever again. Beckett’s made it easy thus far. Yes, he’s good-looking, but that curly flounce of blond hair women seem to go wild for does nothing for me, nor do those clear blue eyes. Also, he’s younger than I am—not by that much, but the way he acts makes it feel as though he’s eons behind. Maturity is definitely not his strong suit. Not to mention his jokes are terrible. Yes, Beckett’s made it easy not to fall anywhere near in love with him.

  All that’s left to do is wait for him to duck out of this ridiculous game of sex chicken. I have mastered the ice, and I have walked through fire. He may be very good, but he doesn’t have anywhere close to the power of elements, he’s still just a man. I fucking dare you, Beckett. Try me.

  “Are . . . are you serious?”

  Oh, how the tables have turned. He may be taller, faster, and stronger, but I am absolutely the brains of this operation and now I get to toy with him, even though he’s still looming over me. “Sure. Why not? Like you said, I won’t have to worry about finding you here with someone else, you won’t wake me up when you stumble in at three in the morning because you can’t even be bothered to sleep over—”

  Beckett cuts me off with a finger pointed in my face and an expression dripping with affront. Clearly, I have insulted his fragile masculinity. “Hey, I spend the night. And I make breakfast, too.”

  Why am I having this conversation? I don’t want to know about how Beckett thinks he’s god’s gift to women because he makes a goddamn omelet before he leaves and never talks to them again. I need to move this along, get him to give up. Ounce for ounce, he can’t compete with me in stubbornness or cleverness. He should at least be smart enough to know that he shouldn’t try.

  “Whatever. My point is that it’s efficient.” Yes, I’m really going to sell this plan on its merits. He�
��s going to be so bored he won’t even be able to get it up. Perfection. “I know you don’t think so, but I’m actually human, and I get urges, too, you know. We won’t have to devote time or energy to finding people to fuck, which means we’ll be able to devote all of our resources to competing. We may as well scratch that itch.”

  I’ve said some not-super-nice things to Beckett in our time together, but he generally shrugs them off, either because he doesn’t understand my insults or he doesn’t care how I feel about him. Apparently, though, I’ve gone a bridge too far, because he looks as though I’ve just impugned his character or accused him of doing something particularly unsavory.

  Elite athletes tend to have healthy egos, because why the fuck shouldn’t we, and Beckett has never struck me as insecure, but apparently that’s only because I’ve never questioned his aptitude at wielding his dick.

  Beckett

  “Sweetheart, I’m not an itch-scratching kind of lay.” I turn on my best panty-melting grin, but Jubilee’s nose wrinkles slightly. How can she not be affected? I am an attractive man, and she of all people should appreciate things other women pretend to be impressed by but don’t really understand. No, figure skating isn’t at the tops of manly man sports that men play, but Jubilee knows how badass you actually have to be to do it well. So I pour it on thicker, because god knows doubling down is always a good idea when it comes to her. “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m phenomenal in the sack.”

  Her brows go up a fraction of an inch and it makes me want to shake her. What do I have to do to impress you, honey? You know I’m strong, talented, work like an ox. A lot of people would kill for a chance at this. I’m only stuck with you because you said so.

  Her doubtful “Okay?” makes me want to go out and obtain references from everyone I’ve ever fucked. And cooked breakfast for, thankyouverymuch. I make a mean omelet. But I’m not going to stand here like some kid and stomp my foot, insist that I’m the best. Even though I totally am. Okay, maybe just one more and then I’ll let it go. Because, come on.