by Elise Faber
“I won’t give you any shit. It’s just—” She hesitated, not wanting to push. Rebecca wasn’t normally rainbows and sunshine, but she also didn’t tend to have slightly reddened eyes and an air of fragility. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just . . . can you go easy on me today?”
Bex nodded, guilt pouring through her at the inference that a request to go easy on her friend that day in particular meant she often didn’t go easy on her on other days.
How many other days had that been true?
“Of course,” she said, instead of asking her friend to validate her concerns. “Now, how can I help.”
Rebecca began explaining her fliers. An elementary class was taking a field trip to the rink to learn about the team. They’d meet a few players, tour the training facility, and talk to Rebecca about the importance of nutrition.
Then they’d have some free skating time with some of the rink’s training staff on hand to help with the basics. The nutrition program Rebecca had come up with was quite comprehensive for kids, but she’d also made it into a fun scavenger hunt for the third graders.
Fun with a dash of learning thrown in.
Rebecca had done good.
“The diet works,” her friend muttered, stacking and unstacking the fliers again for several long moments before her shoulders dropped on a sigh. “I know it does. The guys are healthier than ever . . . despite what he says.”
Another gust of wind and they both launched toward the papers, all but jumping on top of them to prevent them from flying away.
Bex waffled for a moment, trying to decide if agreeing to go easy on her friend also meant leaving that comment where it lay or if she should push for more details. Obviously, Rebecca was upset and hurt, but ultimately, Bex figured that it was better to leave it for the moment. The wind was picking up and the weather was their most prominent enemy at present.
Though she definitely was curious as to the he to whom Rebecca was referring.
“We’d better move the table inside,” she said instead of pressing.
Rebecca sighed but nodded. “Yes. Clearly, this is a lesson in the futility of fighting the wind.”
“Grab that end,” Bex told her. “I’ll help you.”
They each moved, lifting either side of the length of plastic and shuffling toward the doors to the practice facility. Once they got there, the doors presented their next obstacle. Because Bex was in her usual heels and had her bag tucked under one arm, and with her coffee precariously perched on the corner, she couldn’t manage to open them and hold on to the table without dropping or spilling something. Of course, the other factor was that she’d spent an inordinate amount of time that morning styling her hair—
Not because she was planning on seeing Kevin. She just liked to look good, okay?
Fine. It definitely was because some part of her hoped to see Kevin.
Stupid as that was.
Regardless, the shining rows of soft waves she’d perfected that morning had been effectively destroyed by the freaking wind. And now her hair was in her face and she couldn’t see the door handle as she scrabbled for it with one hand, and—
The table disappeared from her other hand.
Gasping, she stopped her search for the door handle and reached for her end of the table, hoping the fliers would stay stacked, the coffee unspilled and that she hadn’t just ruined all of Rebecca’s hard work—
“I’ve got it.”
Kevin.
It was as though someone had poured warm honey over Bex’s head. The liquid heat slid over her scalp, dripped down her spine, soaked into her center. And yet, incongruous to the slow-moving warmth, her heart rate spiked.
She glanced up at him, getting lost in those gray eyes for a pathetically long time.
“Hi,” he murmured, smiling down at her.
“Hi,” she murmured back.
Fingers along her jaw. “Your hair looks nice.”
Her cheeks flared hot. Rebecca Fucking Stravokraus was blushing like a child. “I thought you were on the ice,” she blurted.
He shook his head. “Forwards had an off-ice session. Tape review.”
“I’ve got it!”
They glanced down the table, saw the team’s doctor, Gabe, was attempting to wrestle the plank of plastic from Rebecca’s hand.
“Let me help you, dammit,” he growled.
“You’ve helped me enough,” she growled back.
Then they jostled the table so much in their struggle for six-feet-of-plastic-plank dominance that the fliers Rebecca had so painfully laid out were at risk of hitting the ground, along with everything else on the surface.
Bex lunged, scooping up her coffee cup.
“Shit,” Kevin muttered, side-stepping so the table didn’t overturn.
“Rebecca,” she called loudly, knowing that it would if she didn’t put an end to this. “Can you grab this door? I’ll get the one inside.”
Her friend froze, wide eyes drifting up and she appeared shocked that she and Gabe had an audience to their theatrics. Apparently, he was the he she’d been grumbling about earlier. But to Rebecca’s credit, she released the table—making Gabe scramble so it didn’t crash to the concrete—lifted her chin and walked over to yank open the door.
Bex didn’t say anything, just silently strode past her friend and opened the other set of doors that led into the lobby.
Gabe and Kevin carried the table through, pausing to wait for Rebecca to direct them to its final location. Once it was placed to her satisfaction, Rebecca thanked them then called, “See you later, Bex,” and took off back to the staff-only section of the facility.
Gabe nodded to Bex and Kevin and followed her.
“Um,” Kevin began.
“I know,” she said.
What the hell had that been about?
“No, not that,” Kevin said. “He’s been sniffing around Nutritionist Rebecca for ages.”
Her brows drew together. “Then what?”
“Bex?”
She rolled her eyes. “Two Rebeccas in one conversation necessitated a nickname.”
“And you just volunteered?”
She bent to fix one of Rebecca’s handout piles. “No,” she said.
“Then how did Bex come around?”
A sigh. “If you really must know,” she grumbled. “I lost at rock-paper-scissors.”
His lips twitched.
“Don’t you dare laugh.”
He didn’t, but his smile held enough nonverbal laughter to fill the space between them.
“I need to go,” she muttered, turning away to walk back to her office.
Kevin trailed her, ignoring her when she glared up at him. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
He shrugged. “I’m doing it.”
Grr.
Then, apparently, because doors had decided to become her archnemesis, she found herself struggling with the handle of the one that led to the hallway outside her office. The damn curls went into her face again, her coffee sloshed in her carafe, and her bag almost hit the floor.
“You have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen,” he murmured, brushing it out of her face. “And the softest.” He ran a strand of it between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s like pure silk.”
She shook her head, tugging the piece of hair free. “It’s a mess.”
“Beautiful.” He snagged her bag, opened the door for her.
Rebecca didn’t move, just studied his face, trying to figure this man out. He was the strangest combination of alpha and sweet, of persistent and low pressure. But the biggest thing she couldn’t begin to fathom was, “Why now?”
She didn’t realize that she’d spoken the question aloud until Kevin’s face softened.
“Because my contract means that I’m going to be around for a while,” he murmured.
That was what worried her the most. Because she liked Kevin, and he wasn’t the type of guy a woman had a quick fling with. He was
one of the good ones. He deserved care and—
A woman who could give him everything.
“You should find someone your age,” she said softly.
A thumb brushed over her bottom lip. “Except, I like you.” A beat. “And because you see me now.”
He was right. She did see him. He’d always been hot as hell, but she’d never seen beneath the façade, and now he’d opened up to her, shared just a few things from under that surface, and it was impossible to ignore exactly how wonderful he was.
“I’m too—”
Kevin wrapped his hand around her wrist, tugged her inside the hall, and a heartbeat later she was pressed against the plaster with his body flush to hers. And there were storm clouds in his gray eyes.
“Don’t you fucking dare say you’re too old for me,” he growled into her ear, hot breath raising gooseflesh on her nape.
“But—”
“Fuck age. Fuck playing by society’s rules,” he snapped. “You like me. I like you. Who gives a shit if there are a few years between us?”
“Ten,” she said, hands on his chest.
She should have been pushing him away. She definitely shouldn’t have been curling her fingers into his sweater, resisting the urge to wrap one thigh around his waist and climb him like a tree.
“I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck.” He nipped her jaw, leaned heavy hips against hers. “It could be a century, and I’d still want to see where things went with you.”
“You just want me because I haven’t fawned over you. Because you like the chase.”
More storm clouds, now with a little lightning mixed in.
“You think—” He shook his head and leaned back. “I do have a brain, and it’s not ruled by my dick.”
“If not that,” she muttered. “Then what? I know I have a nice body. I know I’m pretty”—those were facts that she’d accepted long ago. She wasn’t model gorgeous, but she took care of herself and had decent features. But that didn’t mean anything other than she’d won a small hand at the genetic lottery.
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he said. “But that’s not why I like you. It’s this”—he tapped his temple—“and this”—his heart—“and this”—his forehead. “I breathe and I want you. I hear you laugh, and I want to find out why. I love how smart and driven you are. But more than any of those things, I can’t stop thinking about you, and I can’t shake the notion that you are someone I need in my life.”
Her heart was pounding, her head spinning.
Aside from those being some of the most beautiful words she’d ever had someone say to her, she couldn’t deny that she hadn’t been able to get Kevin out of her mind.
Not since he’d made her see him.
She wanted him.
Wanted to find out what made him laugh, too, how he looked in the morning. What made him grumpy and his favorite place to vacation. And she really hoped it was a beach, because the sensation of sand sliding between her toes was the absolute best.
But aside from their age—which, based on Kevin’s vehement reaction, was much less a barrier to him than she’d anticipated—there was still one other thing that she had to know.
One thing she couldn’t give him, but desperately wished she could.
“Do you want kids?”
He froze, reared back. “What? No.”
Rebecca’s chest loosened, hope welling up inside of her. Maybe—
“Not for a few years anyway.”
Her heart sank.
Hope disappeared.
And . . . there it was.
He cupped her cheek. “There’s no rush, sweetheart. I just know that you’re something I can’t pass up. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to explore—”
She couldn’t even listen to the rest of his words because it hurt too fucking much.
“Come out with me again, baby. We had a good time, so let’s just keep seeing how things go. No expectations, no pressure just—”
“No.”
Her throat had spikes on the inside, sharp deadly spikes that stole her voice.
Or at least made it weak.
But she’d been weak before, and she knew how to make herself strong again. Pull back, pull close, pull tight. Keep a safe distance and don’t expect miracles and happy endings.
They didn’t happen to women like her.
“Baby—”
“No.”
She shoved him, slipped to the side.
“Rebecca,” he began, but she stopped him with a raised palm.
“No, Kevin,” she said, spikes transforming to ice. “This isn’t happening between us, and you need to accept that. Dinner once was fine. We got to know each other and nothing’s there.”
His palm rested on her shoulder, gripped firmly. “That’s bullshit.”
“Nope.” She reached for her bag, but he held it out of reach.
And she snapped.
Already at the end of her rope, emotions strung tight, wanting and sadness and need knotting together with the agony of memories. Hospitals and chemo. Radiation and the news that she’d never be a mother.
Oh, she could adopt, of course, but who would let her?
The cancer would always be hanging over her.
She’d beaten the odds once, had shown clear bills of health since, but that didn’t mean the disease would stay away forever. It was insidious and tricky, and it might come back. Her genetics said that much. She’d nursed her father and mother through their own fights with cancer, fights that had ultimately ended in loses.
Rebecca couldn’t do that to someone else . . . and certainly not someone she might come to care for.
“Give me my bag,” she gritted, eyes burning, heart pounding . . . and shattering and hurting like a motherfucker.
He lifted it higher. “Not until we talk about—”
She exploded. “Now who’s acting their age, little boy? Give me my fucking bag, y-you child.”
Frost in those storm-cloud eyes, hail and snow and fucking icicles.
Kevin lowered her briefcase and slowly held it out. The moment she gripped the handle, he released it, spun away, and stormed down the hall. A burst of noise greeted her as he entered the locker room, but then all was quiet, and she was alone.
Alone.
Just exactly like she’d wanted.
Ten
Kevin
“Little boy.”
“Child.”
Fucking perfect.
Just exactly what he’d been trying to prove to her he wasn’t, and he’d all but taunted her with her bag then stomped off . . . like a child. He’d been too irritated and frustrated by her waffling moods to understand, and he’d missed the trigger that had caused her to go from warm and pliable in his arms to lashing out.
Kevin was well familiar with that particular brand of protective armor, and yet he’d missed the clues.
Of course, she’d struck at the perfect chink in his confidence.
The fact that he was younger than her.
He didn’t give one fuck about the years between them, but obviously she did, and while he thought it was beyond stupid because they were both grown adults who could make their own fucking decisions, he also knew that she wouldn’t be the last person to comment on it. And that made him fucking furious.
Who gave a shit?
But people would.
They’d comment and stick their noses into their business and—
It wouldn’t fucking matter because the only thing that really did matter was what was happening with Rebecca and him. And he’d been so busy convincing himself of that fact that he’d acted like an idiot, missed the signs that she was striking out at his soft spots because he’d hit one of hers.
Inadvertently, of course.
But he’d cornered and pressed and then had been surprised when she’d struck back.
Stupid.
Fucking.
Moron.
All of his plans about taking things slow, of letting her come to him in her own t
ime and . . . he’d blown it.
So yeah, once he’d cooled down—or rather, once he’d shot a bucket of pucks into the net, skated his fucking ass through a series of drills that were the absolute worst, then had shot another bucket of pucks at Brit. Glutton for punishment, that one, but she’d grabbed him before he’d hit the locker room and asked him to shoot at her like he had before practice had started.
And so he had.
Hadn’t held back, hadn’t let up. Not until that bucket was empty and they were both sweating like pigs.
Now his arms were like Jell-O, and his captain had forced him to go to a woman he liked but sure as shit didn’t want to see. Mandy had taken one glance at him, straight out of the shower but still dripping sweat and had ordered him up onto a table.
“Face down. Shirt off,” she muttered.
“Things I live to hear.”
“Hilarious. But I’ve heard it all before. Now lay down and I’ll rub you down—”
He snorted. “You can’t say things like that.”
Her fingers dug into his shoulder, just on the wrong side of too hard, and he bit back a groan. “I can say whatever I want.” The strong ass massage hurt like hell, but it made the muscles in his back relax. “Especially when without me, you’d hardly be able to move tomorrow. What the hell were you thinking, Hayes?”
“I was thinking, I either shoot some fucking pucks or I might check one of my own teammates, and nobody needs that shit.”
A pause. “Is something wrong in the locker room?”
“Nothing wrong with the team,” he muttered.
“Ah.” She placed some sort of lotion concoction on his back, rubbed it vigorously into his skin, then followed it with a hot towel. “It’s a woman.”
Her words made him stiffen . . . then promptly realize it was the exact wrong reaction. He’d all but confirmed her statement.
Fuck.
“I won’t press,” Mandy said after a moment, and he snorted at the irony in those words. Ironic, not because she wouldn’t abide by them, but ironic because the same exact sentiment had gotten him exactly nowhere with Rebecca.
“Thanks,” he muttered.