Full Contact

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  “It’s nice.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She fidgeted with the strings on his sweatshirt. “That you like looking at me. But it’s not creepy. I haven’t had that kind of attention in a long time.”

  “I hated how those guys talked about you.”

  “Yeah, they’ve always been asswipes. Too bad that back in high school, they were right. I did sleep around, until…”

  “Until?”

  “I don’t know you, okay?”

  Anders turned his body toward her. “But you want to?”

  “That’s not going to happen.” She shook her head, and some of her hair came loose from her ponytail.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re only here for a few more days.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t know each other.” He moved one of the loose strands of her hair and smoothed it back. He didn’t know what possessed him. “And if you tell me your deep, dark secrets, I’ll leave town with them. Keep them safe.”

  He’d leaned closer to her without meaning to. Again, they were almost close enough to kiss. “There’s nothing safe about you.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. She had no idea how safe she was with him. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “If I tell you all my secrets, will you tell me yours?”

  For a second, he thought she knew about the bounty. Of course she would have Googled him. She would know by now. He wouldn’t have to tell her, but he’d give her his side. His telling her wouldn’t change anything. If she knew about the bounty, anything that happened between them wouldn’t be about the two of them anymore. It would be about the money, and he couldn’t get past that. No matter how hard he tried.

  “They were friends, teammates, with a guy who got me drunk so he could have sex with me back in high school.” She took a deep breath, which gave Anders the opportunity to move back. No wonder she hated hockey players.

  “He raped you.” His hand on the railing tightened so much he would probably crack the weathered plank. Right then, he felt like Thor. He felt like he could rain fire down on the whole town, and he wished like hell he’d done more damage to that other guy’s face.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think of it that way back then.” She shrugged, as though it was no big deal that someone she went to school with, someone she possibly still had to interact with now, had raped her. “And the rest of the team thought it meant I was a slut.”

  “So you knew what they were probably saying about you when you walked out of the room?”

  She nodded. “It’s the same thing they’ve been saying about me for five years.”

  “And you have to be back here because of your dickhead ex?” He turned back to the view. “Is he still here? The one who raped you?”

  Anders promised himself he wouldn’t go and find him. He wouldn’t be able to stop with a bloody nose or a black eye. He would have to tear the guy to bits and feed him to a bear or something.

  “Nah. He’s in prison for selling oxy.” Thank God. “Not many people get out of town here.”

  “You will.” If she could face down goons like the ones she’d faced down last night, she would get out of town—if that’s what she wanted to do.

  She snort-laughed. “You forget, I got out of town once, and it didn’t work out so well for me.”

  “That doesn’t mean you should give up.”

  She turned on him, her nose wrinkling again, eyes narrowed. “I’m not giving up.” She looked down. “It’s taking me some time to get back on my feet again.”

  A strange idea came to him. What if, assuming she didn’t know about the bounty, he slept with her and found a way to get her the money without her knowing it? No. That would never work. He might not know her, but he knew enough to guess that she wouldn’t like taking money for sex. She deserved it, regardless of whether they had sex.

  He didn’t have time to think anymore, because she grabbed his arm and dragged him up the trail.

  “What are you doing?”

  She looked over her shoulder. “You’re doing that mopey bastard thing. You need some exercise.”

  “But my knee.” He had never used an injury as an excuse to get out of a practice, a game, or a training session. He’d always been the guy trying to defy his doctors’ orders. But now, he didn’t want to go on a walk?

  “The terrain’s even. You’ll be fine.”

  Sure enough, once they got up past the falls, the ground flattened out, and nothing but the dull ache returned. She didn’t talk anymore, and he wanted to say something about what she’d told him, something to make her feel like she was right to trust him with that information.

  “You know, I wouldn’t hurt you. I mean, I’m not like the guys you went to school with.”

  She stopped in her tracks and turned around. He stopped less than a foot away from her. “I know that.” She sighed and reached out as though she was about to touch him, but decided not to at the last moment. “I’m not broken, okay?”

  “I didn’t think you were broken. You must be—I don’t know—traumatized or something.”

  She threw up her hands. “I’m not a victim. So many women have it so much worse. Sometimes they’re stuck in violent, shitty situations for years. Sometimes they don’t get out.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that what happened to you was any less bad.”

  “It sucked. And it sucks having to live here and be reminded of how badly it sucked.” She had a fighter’s stance, and he could tell she was trying to keep all her pain and rage bottled up. It was the same way that he felt most of the time. Especially since he didn’t have hockey to pour all that energy into anymore. “But I’m over it. I’ve had plenty of sex.”

  His whole spine went rigid upon hearing her say the word. And he felt a completely unjustified amount of jealousy of all the sex she’d had with other men.

  “I know that you’re a virgin. About the bounty.”

  Fuck. Seriously, fuck the Internet. He hung his head, ready for the questions people usually asked when they found out about his problem.

  “Your teammates are assholes.”

  “I know.”

  “So, why are so depressed about the knee?” She stepped closer, and he felt his chest seize. When she was close enough to have to look up at him, he tentatively placed his hands on her upper arms.

  “I love the game.”

  She reached out and touched him then; she traced his pec through the technical fabric of his t-shirt. It was his turn to shiver then. “Then, why don’t you resolve the bounty thing once and for all?”

  The only way he could resolve the bounty was to have sex. That wasn’t the problem. In fact, right now it really wouldn’t be a problem. His dick was so hard that he couldn’t think straight. He knew Dahlia had just offered to have sex with him, and he could choose to push her away, knowing that she needed money and probably saw having sex with him as an easy way to get it.

  But it wouldn’t be easy. And after what she’d told him about her ex, and especially what had happened to her in high school, he knew that notoriety as the winner of a bounty on a professional hockey player’s virginity wasn’t what she needed in life.

  “Are you saying that you want to have sex with me?”

  Dahlia snort-laughed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You guess so?” Anders stepped back. “That’s not really a ringing endorsement.”

  “I definitely want to have sex with you, but I don’t want to do it for money.”

  “You want to do it for free.” He touched his hand to his heart in a feigned swoon that made her snort again. “Well, I do declare. That’s the most flattering offer I’ve had in the whole of my life.”

  Her laughter got more intense. She leaned over, putting her hands on her knees. “I take it back. That accent is terrible.”

  “I’ll never use it again.” She looked up at him, raking her gaze over his body and lighting him up inside. She licked her pink lips, and he could have fallen to his knees rig
ht then. He had to kiss her. Just for fun, for the two of them. “Stand up.”

  She straightened like it was an order from a commanding officer, and he tried to rein himself in. But his heart was pounding, and he couldn’t stop himself from cupping her cheek. “I’m going to kiss you, if that’s okay.”

  She smirked at him before going on her tiptoes and kissing him. Her thin arms wrapped around his neck as he sank into her plush, gorgeous mouth. For the first time in months, he wasn’t thinking about his knee. He wasn’t thinking at all. Everything centered on soft skin, sweet sighs, her tongue.

  He touched her low back, the dip and curve there. She pressed her body full-on into his, squirming and making him harder.

  It wasn’t like he’d never kissed anyone before. That had happened in high school. His chemistry partner had kissed him on the condition he tell no one. He’d kept his promise.

  And he’d kissed women during college and since he’d been in the league. But this was different. They were both sober and aware of their actions. Nothing about this was sloppy. The way she touched him was intentional, and she heated him. It made him forget about the bounty, and about the fact that he’d never actually had sex before. The throaty sounds she made and the way she clung to him made him feel like a master.

  Four

  Anders did not kiss like a virgin. He kissed like a lusty Viking, and Dahlia could not get enough. She stretched to her tiptoes; she ran her hands from his shoulders to the corded muscles of his neck. He hooked his fingers under the sweatshirt she wore—his sweatshirt—and found her skin.

  Yes, please.

  Before long, she was desperate for him. Too much more of this kiss, and she’d be begging him to get horizontal in the tall grass at the side of the footpath. Fire ran through her whole body, her center was heavy with thick need. She rolled her hips against his, gratified to find him hard. He grunted into her mouth, and pulled back.

  He ran his tongue over his own lower lip, as though he wanted to savor the taste of her. Because this couldn’t happen again. He wouldn’t have sex until his teammates lifted the bounty.

  But he didn’t let her go. He stood there with his hands on her hips, pressed her into his body.

  “Wow.” He wasn’t eloquent, that was for sure. But he smirked at her like he knew he didn’t have to say anything, as though he knew what he was about in a way that didn’t require words.

  She hadn’t said anything; she couldn’t find order to her thoughts. She almost wished he hadn’t kissed her. If he hadn’t laid her out with a brief caress from his mouth, she could forget about what it would feel like to have him thrusting inside her, she might be able to stop thinking about his hands on her body and how it would feel to be naked with him.

  “I have to go.” His face fell. “Not because of the kiss. Well, kind of because of the kiss. But I’m late for a job, so I can’t think about the kiss.”

  “You’d rather tend bar than continue kissing me?”

  No chance. She wanted to kiss him more than she wanted to eat. More than she wanted a place to lay her head. More than she wanted to save enough money to leave.

  “I’m not tending bar. I have a catering job. A wedding.”

  He let her go then, and she thought she might stumble back. Stupid, swooning over a hockey player. She didn’t swoon over anyone.

  “Okay, then. I guess I should let you get to it.” She pulled his sweatshirt off her shoulders, but he held up his hand. “You’ll get it back to me. I know where you work.”

  He looked down at the dirt. She hadn’t felt this awkward around a guy since she was a virgin. Maybe they shouldn’t have kissed. She’d enjoyed talking to him yesterday, and the kiss seemed to ruin it. Despite the fact he was a sports superstar, he’d seemed so normal. There was something about the way he looked at her that made her feel like the world was tilted right-side-up again. She hadn’t felt that way in a long time.

  “Thanks.”

  He looked up. “For what?”

  “Mostly the kiss.”

  His smile was back, but she really did have to go, so she ran back down the path. With every step, his sweatshirt caressed her body, and she wished it was his hands on her instead.

  North Star Brewery was up the highway from Thunderbay Cove. The two businesses had developed a symbiotic relationship. The resort hauled tourists to the brewery at least once a week for tours, and the brewery sent people looking to hold events in their space over to the resort for lodging.

  The rustic interior and gleaming steel tanks made for a great space for a wedding…if you didn’t mind the smell. And serious beer lovers often didn’t.

  This was an easy catering job; she only had to do appetizers, and the brewery was handling beverage service. It felt great to be in an industrial kitchen again. She didn’t mind that she was making some pretty simple stuff—bar food, really. Just wearing the chef’s whites made her feel at home, her lower back burning from bending over to make sure the food was picture perfect.

  She’d found amazing smoked walleye in town and paired it with a chive and garlic aioli on top of wild rice bread toasts. She’d already put together the cheesy potato balls—basically a hot dish in finger food form. All she had left were the stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates. Those had been a favorite at the restaurant she’d apprenticed at in L.A. They didn’t exactly go with the down-home, Minnesota theme of the rest of the appetizers, but so be it.

  She was working on the last tray of walleye crostini when Lilly walked into the kitchen. Dahlia couldn’t afford to pay servers, so she had to use family—her cousin, her sister, and her mom were on their way.

  “Do you need any help back here?”

  “No, I’m just about done.” Dahlia motioned to the crostini trays. “You can put those onto the cart and into the walk-in. The ceremony is running late.”

  “Runaway bride?”

  “Worse. Runaway flower girl.”

  “What does she have to be afraid of? It’s not like she’s tethering herself to one person for the rest of her life.”

  “Hmpf.” Normally, Dahlia would agree with her cousin, but for some reason she thought of Anders again. She didn’t know him at all, but she could imagine kissing him every day for a good, long while. She’d never felt that way.

  Honestly, Dylan had annoyed her at times. They’d shared a passion for food, for work. But he’d never understood her desire to be left alone sometimes. Or, maybe he had, and that’s why he’d neglected to tell her that he’d been seeing other women the entire time they were together. He’d gotten so involved with one of the women he’d been seeing that he’d decided to marry her.

  “Come on. Don’t tell me that you’re still thinking you made a mistake by not marrying Dylan.”

  “No, he’s a total hoser.” Lilly perched her hip on the edge of the stainless-steel counter next to her. She crossed her arms, and Dahlia had the feeling she was gearing up for a lecture. “I ran into Anders today. At the Temperance.”

  Lilly’s eyes lit up. “And?”

  She really wasn’t sure what she should tell her cousin. On the one hand, maybe she would be less confused about her feelings. On the other hand, Lilly couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Her aunt and mother would know. Her uncle would know. Fuck, the dog would know.

  “He kissed me. Or I kissed him.” Lilly’s mouth dropped open, and Dahlia’s stomach roiled. “There was kissing.”

  Lilly motioned for her to continue, but she really didn’t have all that much to say. “Was it at least good kissing? I mean, virgin kissing can be dicey.”

  “It was great.” Dahlia couldn’t stop thinking about it. And now that she’d broken the seal, kissed him, her thoughts could not be budged from his hard body, his gorgeous mouth. “He’s not a virgin at kissing.”

  Lilly pursed her lips. “Did you get close to winning the bounty?”

  She remembered Anders’ hands on her lower back and how close that had her to begging him to take off his pants. Her skin flushed again, and she turne
d to the oven to take the bacon out. “No.”

  “No?” Lilly got in her face. “I’m going to need more than a ‘no.’ Did you put your hand in his pants? Did he put his hand in your pants?”

  “No. None of that.”

  “So you just kissed him like you’re in middle school?”

  “The kiss was nothing like middle school. It was—”

  Dahlia started wrapping dates and motioned for Lilly to do the same.

  Lilly sighed, but she started wrapping without another word.

  “I’ve never met anyone like him,” Dahlia said. “He’s quiet. I’ve never been with anyone quiet before. Dylan was loud. He always had something to say. I was always a little bit on edge around him.”

  “And the big, burly, professional athlete doesn’t put you on edge?”

  Only on the edge of an orgasm.

  “No. When we were up in the woods today, I felt like everything else went away.” She shook her head. “I can’t really describe it.”

  “It sounds like you’re smitten.”

  “Smitten with who?” Fucking great. Mom’s here.

  “No one.”

  “Pull the other one.” Her mom put a box of plates and cutlery on the work surface and turned to Dahlia expectantly. Beth Clarno didn’t suffer fools. “Who’s the guy?”

  Dahlia gave Lilly a look that would melt lard, but to no avail. “She kissed Anders Sorenson at the Temperance today. He plays hockey for the Cajun Rage.”

  “Shut up, Lilly.” Lilly needed to keep her mouth shut about the bounty if she wanted to live.

  Dahlia’s mom’s eyes widened. “A guy? And a professional hockey player, no less? Well, color me purple and call me ‘Barney.’”

  Lilly stuck out her tongue at Dahlia and said, “He’s a virgin, and there’s a $150,000 bounty on his virginity.”

  Dahlia turned around and started cutting more bread for crostini. Anything to get away from the conflagration of shame that would engulf her any minute.

  “What?” Dahlia’s mother sounded confused. “How old is he?”