Naughty Or Ice

by Sylvia Pierce

  Eva topped off her own glass, then finally met her sister’s eyes again. “I never thought I’d leave New York, but I feel like I need a fresh start. I’m in a rut, Marybeth. The bills are piling up, the tuition thing is hanging over my head like a freaking cloud of darkness… I can’t seem to get ahead here. This job… it’s just about perfect for me. Well, other than the location.”

  “And the constant exposure to hockey boys,” Marybeth teased lightly.

  “At least they’re nice to look at.”

  Marybeth smiled and held up her wineglass. “Tradeoffs.”

  After a beat, Eva reached forward, tucking a lock of hair behind Marybeth’s ear. “You do so much for us. You have no idea what it means to me to have you in my life. Nate, too. I love you both so much. I just… I need this. I need to be able to support my family and not rely on favors.”

  “Okay, first of all, you’re my sister. Gracie’s my niece. It’s not a favor—it’s family.” Marybeth glared at her, as if she were trying to brand the word right into Eva’s heart.

  But family wasn’t just a word. Not to them. When their mother divorced their father when the girls were teenagers, and Mom became even more distant and cruel, Eva and Marybeth made a pact: from that moment on, they would choose their own family, blood or not. It was just a handy coincidence that they were related, they’d reasoned; they would’ve chosen each other anyway. Years later, Marybeth fell in love with and married Nate, and their family expanded. Gracie was born, and their family expanded again.

  Their mother was part of their lives, but not part of their family. Neither of them wasted time with platitudes about how much their mother loved them deep down, or about how she only wanted what was best for them. The truth was, their mother was a very selfish woman, and both girls had spent their childhoods—and a good part of their adult lives—chasing affection that was always just out of reach, dangled before them only to be snatched away when they got too close.

  The times over the years when they’d longed for a mother’s affections, they vowed instead to be each other’s mothers, offering the guidance, the friendship, and yes—even the tough love—that would otherwise go missing from their lives.

  Eva and Marybeth took care of each other, not because they were obligated to, but because they wanted to. They’d chosen to, again and again.

  “You leaving Buffalo doesn’t change a thing, Eva,” Marybeth said, her voice softer now, full of love and support. She reached under the blanket and squeezed Eva’s foot. “Anyway, I’ll be there as often as I can. In fact, I’m going to start planning my vacation time now so I can help you guys settle in.”

  “I don’t even know if I’ll get the job. It kind of depends on Walker.”

  “Nah. You’ll get it. And you’ll kick so much ass. I know it.” Marybeth beamed, even as she wiped tears from her eyes. “God, Eva. I’m so proud of you. This job sounds perfect for you.”

  Eva blew out a pent-up breath, relief and love washing over her, her own eyes wet with tears.

  “I’m happy for you,” Marybeth said. “I’ll miss you like hell, but I’m really, really happy for you.” She held up her glass and touched it to Eva’s, beaming. “To new adventures.”

  “And to family.”

  Marybeth smiled. “You are such a sap.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  The girls finished off the wine, then opened another bottle, talking and dreaming about the future, about possibilities, about hope.

  When the fire had burned down to embers and the wine had finally run dry, Marybeth said, “Well, I guess there’s not much point in getting attached to him, then.”

  “No,” Eva agreed, as much as the thought made her feel hollow and sad. “And I’m definitely not getting attached—not to Walker or anyone else.”

  She was just enjoying a little harmless flirting—no strings. Besides, even if there were strings, how far could they really take this thing? If all went according to plan, Eva would be leaving town in a few months, and Walker would be back on the active roster, traveling the country with his team, breaking records, his brief time with Eva on the ice a distant memory for both of them.

  “I’m really not, Marybeth,” she said again, but even in her severely buzzed state, she knew the words weren’t true.

  Not by a long shot.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Practice could not come soon enough.

  Walker had spent the whole weekend texting with Eva, and the thought of seeing her again was the only thing that had gotten him through being stranded at Wellshire for three days. After that insane lake effect storm, when the sun finally rose Monday morning and Henny showed up to dig the truck out of the parking lot, Walker wanted to run into the street and kiss the rock-salted pavement.

  But now that he was on the ice, geared up and ready to go, his insides were a tangled damn mess. The roads were fine, so why was she late? Eva was never late. Their texts had gotten pretty steamy last night—was she freaked out? Did he push her too far? Maybe she was regretting what’d happened Friday. What they’d done.

  Or maybe you’re acting like a fifteen-year-old boy who just got his first blowjob, asshole.

  Walker checked his phone once more, then dropped it into his bag, doing another lap around the rink to work off some of his restless energy. On his third time around, she appeared, stepping out onto the ice in her skates, still trying to zip up her fleece.

  “Sorry,” she said, her cheeks pink. Her red hair was everywhere, falling down past her shoulders in damp waves. “I had to drop off… something. At my sister’s place. Roads are still a little dodgy.”

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” he said.

  “You, too.” She finally smiled, and up came the damn sunshine. “I bet your mom was sad to see you go this morning.”

  “Not as sad as Paulette.”

  “I’ll bet.” Eva cracked up. Walker had told her the whole story over text, updating her with Paulette’s antics all weekend. “You’re such a heartbreaker, forty-six.”

  “What can I say? Ladies love me.”

  “Especially the blue-haired set.”

  “And the red.” Walker reached forward, brushing the hair out of her face. He couldn’t help it; his fingers ached to touch her.

  Eva’s breath caught, though Walker wasn’t sure if it was his words or his touch that had given her a start.

  “You’re beautiful, princess,” he said, trailing his fingers across the silky-smooth skin of her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, taking a moment to catch her breath.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking about,” he said.

  “You,” she whispered. It sounded like a confession, like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been.

  Despite Walker’s best efforts to stay cool, his heart hammered in his throat. “Hmm. I guess I made quite an impression. And look, it’s only Monday.”

  Eva laughed, but the joke made her open her eyes, made her pull back. Walker regretted it immediately.

  “That’s not what I mean.” Her smile faded into a sigh, and Walker braced himself for the gut-punch of rejection. “Yeah, you made an impression. But we still have a job to do, forty-six. A big one.”

  Walker cracked a smile. “Trust me when I say I’m highly motivated to keep impressing you. With a big one.”

  “I’m serious!” She smacked him playfully on the chest, her eyes sparkling. “I need you at a hundred percent. Focused and ready to work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life.”

  He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her close, eliminating the space between them. God, they just fit together, their bodies lining up in all the right places, responding to each other almost instantly. He could feel it in the quickness of her breath, the beat of her heart, the tremble in her legs she was trying so hard to hide. And Walker? He was already hard, already imagining what it might be like to take her on that bench again. “I don’t think hard is going to be a problem, princess.�
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  “Walker…” Eva let out a moan as he pressed against her, but despite her soft smile, she placed her delicate hands on his chest and sighed. She wasn’t pushing him away, exactly, but hell… she may as well have been. Every one of her signals was suddenly telling him to back the fuck off.

  Saving her the trouble of asking, he stepped back, put some space between them.

  Something like regret flashed in her eyes, but then it was gone. Her arms dropped to her sides, and just like that, Eva and Walker were back to business.

  Nice job, dick. You totally freaked her out.

  “The knee feeling okay?” she asked.

  Walker’s head was spinning. Fucking her was supposed to have eradicated her from his mind. Cleared out all the sexual tension and the naughty, curious thoughts so they could get back to work with nothing lingering between them. But now that he’d had a taste of her, and they’d spent the whole weekend teasing and flirting and all-but-sexting on the phone, all his hopes of getting back to normal were dashed. He was craving her, needing her, wanting her in a way he’d never felt about a woman in his whole damn life.

  And he was fucking doomed.

  She slicked her hair back, wrapping it into a bun with a rubber band she’d had around her wrist. “Ready to rock?”

  He thought about making another joke, another innuendo, anything to see that light in her eyes again. But in the end, he only nodded, and Eva pressed her pretty lips together in a tight and completely professional smile, skated over to where she’d left her bag on the bench, and pulled out her clipboard and stopwatch.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Walker had barely touched her—just fingers on her cheek—and already Eva was ridiculously, embarrassingly wet.

  Her mind was on autopilot as she guided him through the drills, recorded his times, shouted out pointers for better positioning and more speed and less energy expenditure and all the stuff she knew by heart, which was a good thing, because his touch had once again left her completely incapable of original thought.

  She was pretty sure she wasn’t fooling anyone with all that “let’s get to work” stuff—especially not Walker. She made it through two more sets of slalom drills when she finally dropped her clipboard, skated straight for him, and slammed him against the boards.

  Walker wasn’t the type to wait for an invitation. One look into her fierce, desperate eyes, and he dropped his stick, slid his fingers into her hair, lowered his mouth to hers in a white-hot kiss that made her toes curl up inside her skates.

  McKellen’s words echoed… full-time… salary and benefits… but the memory was fading fast, replaced instead by the sound of her own breath, her own heartbeat, the soft sighs escaping her mouth as Walker kissed her senseless.

  There was no point in denying her desire, in pretending she didn’t want Walker’s hands on her bare skin, his mouth on her most sensitive places. She let him lead her off the ice, back toward the bench she now thought of as theirs, but that wasn’t his final destination. The moment they’d stepped out of their skates, he grabbed her hand and led her further up the shallow concrete steps, all the way up to the viewing suite at the top.

  The room was larger than it looked from the outside, with plush carpeting that smelled new and several leather chairs and couches. A mahogany bar set up with tall, leather-covered stools bisected the open front area, all of it offering a perfect view of the entire rink.

  “Wow,” she said, breathless and a bit dizzy. But Walker hadn’t brought her here to admire the view. Before she could say another word, he kissed her again, deep and desperate, dropping to the ground and bringing Eva right down with him. They were on the floor, that thick, luxurious carpet soft on her back and shoulders as Walker kissed a searing hot path down the front of her thermal, tugging the pants down over her hips.

  He pulled back, a slow, appreciative grin stretching across his face as he took in the view.

  “Are those…” He leaned in close, inspecting the little red-and-green pattern on her white panties. “Mistletoe?”

  Eva nodded, her cheeks flaming. Her sister had given them to her as a joke this weekend, and now she wondered whether wearing them had been a mistake. She’d hoped that adding an extra layer between her flesh and Walker’s mouth would help her avoid giving in to the very desire coursing through her veins, but now she resented them. She wanted nothing more than for Walker to tear them off with his teeth and plunge his tongue deep inside her aching flesh.

  “I thought you didn’t wear panties on the ice.” Walker’s voice was gravelly, his eyes dark with desire.

  “Well not normally, no. But these… they’re… festive.” Eva smiled, the sound of her wild heart throbbing in her ears. “’Tis the season!”

  “You’re fucking adorable.” He flashed that wolf’s grin, then lowered his mouth to her thigh, kissing her with a powder-soft touch that left her trembling and begging for more. She arched her hips to get closer, but Walker was in complete control, teasing her with his lips, his tongue, whispering against her flesh about all the ways he wanted to make her come.

  “I want to taste you,” he said, licking the sensitive skin where the lace of her panties curved across her abdomen. He kissed her through the fabric, blowing a hot breath against her clit, then pulling back, inhaling her scent, his impossibly strong hands sliding the panties down off her hips, then slowly guiding her thighs apart.

  Eva was out of her mind, writhing beneath him, slowly losing touch with reality. Her nerves were overloaded with sensations—the tug and tangle of her hair rubbing against the carpet, the scent of Walker’s skin close and warm, the hot press and release of his tongue as it circled her bellybutton, the taste of his name in her mouth as she let it fall softly from her lips.

  She wanted more, all, rough, soft, hot, hard, slow, fast.. Her thoughts were unspooling faster than she could pin them down. She slid her hand inside her own shirt, cupping her breast, pinching her nipple until it ached with delicious pleasure. Walker whispered her name against her thigh, and she threaded her fingers into his silky hair, twining deeper, urging him closer to her center, desperate to feel his hot, wet mouth against her flesh.

  “You have no idea how bad I want you,” he said, so close his lips brushed teasingly across her clit, the vibration of his deep voice rattling right down through her core. “Fucking hell, Eva.”

  She moaned in response. He pinned her thighs to the ground and slid his tongue inside her, stroking deeper, harder, then slow, his breath and lips teasing her clit as his tongue tasted every bit of her. She arched her hips and pulled him closer, warmth swirling in her belly, spreading on an electric current to her arms and legs, heat building between her thighs as Walker licked and sucked and teased, stroking her faster now, faster and harder and deeper as the lights blurred and her thighs shook and she fisted his hair and screamed his name as everything inside her exploded, all at once, hot and bright and beautiful.

  It felt like days before Eva finally came back to her body, before she could finally remember how to make words. She propped herself up on her elbows and watched in awe as Walker kissed the curve of her knee, her thigh, her hipbone. When he finally got to her mouth, he hesitated, and she pulled him close, kissing him as deeply as he’d kissed her. His lips were warm and salty, the skin around his mouth damp with her arousal, and her heart hammered a new beat inside her chest.

  He’s mine, she thought.

  And then she pulled back, a scared little mouse once again, tugging those silly Christmas panties back into place.

  “I don’t do this,” she said breathlessly. “I mean, I did do it. But I really don’t do it. This. Ever.”

  Walker laughed softly, and she forced herself to meet his eyes. He was smiling at her, his hair wild from her touch. “Princess. What are you even talking about?”

  “This.” She motioned between them, her hands like nervous little birds. “Hook up with… with clients. Why did you…” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Opened them again, bu
t he was still watching her, amused. “Why did you even do that?”

  “Do what?” he teased. “Kiss you so hard I made you come?”

  “Kiss me there. Like… that. The way you…. God!” Words were escaping her again, the ache between her thighs too fresh, too sweet. Her body was still calling to his, missing the weight of him.

  Walker grinned and cocked his head, clearly enjoying this particular bit of torture. “You’re wearing mistletoe panties, princess. Where was I supposed to kiss you?”

  “You weren’t supposed to kiss me. That’s the whole point. Just… clients and coaches shouldn’t hook up.”

  “That’s not what you said Friday. Or all weekend. Or down on the ice when you practically jumped me against the boards.”

  “What? I did no such thing.”

  Walker wagged a finger at her. “Santa doesn’t like liars, Evangeline. They go straight on the naughty list with all the other bad girls.”

  Eva swallowed. She knew she was being crazy. What the hell was wrong with her? They obviously liked each other. Why couldn’t they just have a little fun? See where things went?

  Because you are already getting way too attached. And in three months, you need to be gone.

  “It’s just… it’s inappropriate,” she said weakly. Walker’s smile finally faded. Eva didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  “You are the queen of mixed signals,” he said, blowing out a breath. “But you’re lucky. Because in addition to being a hockey god, I’m also a genius.”

  Eva couldn’t help but smile. God, he was infuriating.

  “Is that so?” she said.

  “Bet your mistletoe-covered ass it is. And I’ve got a solution to this whole situation.”

  She rolled her eyes playfully. “I can’t wait to hear this.”