Neutral Zone (Love on Thin Ice Book 2)

by Amber Lynn

  He didn’t kid himself into thinking there wouldn’t be a time when she said to stop. He was fine pushing the limits, but as soon as she said that one word, he would back off. The night before he’d laid awake, after he’d sent her off to her room a little uneasy on her feet, thinking about where the point of too far was.

  Would she let him tie her up and blindfold her? That was probably on the agenda for that night. He was fairly sure she’d go along. But, what about spanking? If he pulled her over his knee and smacked her bare butt a few times, would she call uncle?

  It was strange that he hadn’t thought about all the possibilities before. When he pictured them together, it was just good sex. It was good sex multiple times on many surfaces, but still it was just sex. The way she’d responded to his dominance the day before made him think she didn’t need just a great fuck. She needed someone to tell her exactly what she needed.

  Brady had made it back to the locker room and threw his gloves in his stall. The air rushed out of him as he took a seat to start stripping things off. He really didn’t feel like giving any of the usual interviews and hanging around to hear what his teammates thought about his fighting skills.

  The interviews he couldn’t get out of, but a quick shower and being first to have the reporters swarm him could maybe get Brady out the door faster. Brady usually didn’t mind hamming it up for the media, but since Lupscion had heard about Brady and Nina, there was a chance the news had spread further.

  That was the kind of thing Nina probably hadn’t thought about when she decided she could have everything she wanted by buying the team and getting Brady to fall for her trap. She probably thought he should thank her for being so generous to check with multiple lawyers to make sure it was okay for them to have sex. It would have been real swell if she’d have bothered consulting with him.

  He tossed the rest of his pads in his stall and made his way to the showers. He hadn’t bothered trying to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror to see what the damage from the fight was. There were no real direct shots to the front of his face, so he doubted there were any good battle scars. Hits to the nose and mouth usually ended up bloody and there definitely wasn’t any of that.

  He turned the water on so the knob was all the way to the hot side. It usually worked best if you did that and let it run for a few seconds before adding some cold in. If you didn’t, you had to wait longer for some reason. As soon as the water got to a comfortable, only mildly scalding, level, Brady stepped into it and let it run down his body.

  The idea of taking a quick shower always seemed to dissipate slightly once the warm water started massaging parts of him Brady didn’t remember hurt. His left shoulder was particularly stiff, probably from a hit he delivered in the second period. Brady moved over a little to let the water focus on that spot.

  His eyes were closed, so he didn’t expect to feel someone’s hand caress the side of his face. The touch made him step back quickly as his eyes sprung open. He hadn’t thought one of his teammates had decided to study the side of his face Lupscion beat on, but he also didn’t think for a second Nina would show up in the showers.

  She was standing a little too close, and the gray t-shirt she was wearing with the team’s logo on it had gotten wet. It wasn’t drenched, but it was clear something had splashed her pretty good.

  “I know you own the team and all, but I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be here.”

  Brady looked behind her to make sure no one else was standing around watching the two of them. It was bad enough everyone knew she was living with him. The idea of her running down to check on him would make Brady the butt of all jokes for the near future.

  “Shut up. I saw that goon banging on your head. I had to make sure he didn’t knock your brains out.”

  The horn to announce the game was over echoed above their head. Brady sighed, knowing there wasn’t time for her to make a grand escape. She blew him a kiss and waved.

  “I’ll see you at home. Anywhere particular I should be waiting?”

  The question was tempting, but if she could make it out the door within ten seconds, he had a chance to not be the guy the owner came down to check on when he got in a little fight. It was weird that she had, given her wonderful personality. He shook his head and shooed her away. Once he got showered up and was closer to being on his way home, he’d come up with some directions to send her. His place was big enough that the options were endless.

  She smiled on her way out the door. Brady could hear voices chattering coming closer. Chances were at least someone would catch a glimpse of her running out, but maybe they’d think it was a ghost. Whenever they went on losing streaks at home, someone always brought up the urban legends of the arena being haunted. Like a ghost would seriously get pissed off and somehow tilt the ice in the opponent’s direction.

  Hockey players could be really weird, which didn’t say much for Brady. Grabbing a bottle of shampoo, he worried about cleaning up and finishing up the night.

  He was kind of hungry, so maybe it was the night he turned Nina into a buffet table. Putting some whipped cream and cherries on her seemed too easy. He was thinking more along the lines of letting some steak cool down a little and placing chunks of it on her torso. Then maybe some peeled shrimp and cocktail sauce on her tits. Of course, there’d be a sundae for him to eat for dessert, but he’d have to work his way to it.

  Chapter 19

  “I have a problem.”

  Nina hated saying the words. It didn’t matter that the person she said them to was paid to help her deal with her problems.

  Dr. Barnes was scribbling something down a piece of paper. Since Nina hadn’t thought the previous topic they’d been discussing was too interesting, it was probably notes about how crazy she thought Nina was or what she was going to do with all the money Nina was paying her. Nina knew neither option was true, but she sometimes hated whatever was being written in the book.

  She often spent minutes of her sessions just glaring at it. She should’ve been as annoyed at the pen doing all the writing, but the book got all her general loathing during the sessions.

  Looking up from her doodling, Dr. Barnes raised her eyes and sat back in her chair. She had clearly put on her concentration hat, which only came out when whatever Nina said was some kind of conundrum. Nina didn’t always think the things she said warranted the look.

  “You have a problem?”

  There was some disbelief in her voice, not surprising since it was the first time Nina had admitted it. They’d spent hours talking about Nina’s problems, but she’d never brought anything specific into the conversation that she labeled a problem.

  Problems weren’t things she had. If something was wrong, she had someone fix it, and if people had a problem with her, that was their own problem.

  “That’s what I just said. You don’t have cotton in your ears or something, do you?”

  Dr. Barnes had been attentive enough that Nina was sure that wasn’t the case. It was probably the first time the doctor had needed to verify something Nina had said. She’d looked at Nina like she was a little nuts when she talked about certain things from her past but never asked for something to be repeated.

  “Of course not. I’m just not sure what response you want me to go with. It’d be unprofessional for me to tell you that the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one in a sarcastic tone, but I have a feeling that’s the one you thought you’d get.”

  The doctor knew Nina pretty well, that was why she was still getting paid. Nina had tried a few other doctors before finding Dr. Barnes, and they didn’t seem to understand Nina at all.

  There were times it was clear the brunette questioned Nina’s reactions to things. There were even times when Dr. Barnes told her she was being dumb, obviously without using that exact word. The two of them rarely agreed on whether Nina was right or wrong, but they somehow got along, because the doctor knew the right things to say.

  Nina didn’t think the st
atement really needed a response, so she waited for the doctor to direct where the talk would go. She wasn’t ready to blurt out what made her say the words. She wasn’t sure if finally having a problem for the doctor to solve would be the time where something stupid was said that told her it was time to look for a new shrink.

  She’d spent a year grooming Dr. Barnes, and she couldn’t afford to have to find someone knew to mold into the perfect shrink when she actually needed help. She didn’t want to mess things up any more than she already had, which was basically to cosmic proportions.

  “Since this is the first time since March that you haven’t brought up Brady, I’m going to assume it has something to do with him.”

  Nina smiled. The doctor was already on the right path. Nina had been in her office for about twenty minutes and kept things largely mundane.

  “Yes, it has to do with Brady. He’s being an idiot.”

  The indignation Nina felt was clear in her voice. It had been thirty-six hours since the clock struck midnight and their contract was up. Nina had thought the whole thing about him washing his hands of her had been a joke, but when she’d gotten home from work, she found all her stuff sitting out on the front porch waiting for her. She’d instinctively tried to use her key to get in and convince him she didn’t need to leave right away, but the key didn’t fit in the lock.

  The son of bitch had kicked and locked her out and wasn’t responding to any of her text messages or phones calls. She’d even gone over to Hannah’s and grabbed her friend’s phone to call from it to see if he’d pick up, but he wasn’t having any of it.

  The doctor looked over to her computer and clicked on something. After studying whatever it was, she looked back to Nina.

  “If I marked my calendar right, your contract has expired with him, right?”

  Nina hadn’t known her little bet had warranted a spot on the calendar. She scoffed at the idea of the doctor writing it down.

  “Yes.”

  It wasn’t quite time to reveal he’d thrown her to the curb. Nina had missed her last appointment because Brady had decided sex at her work sounded like an afternoon of fun. He had been particularly proud of himself for thinking up the idea of having sex in John’s office while the other man was away at lunch. The sex part notwithstanding, the missed appointment meant Dr. Barnes was behind on some developments.

  “And did the contract end as you expected? I know you were hoping to get sexual satisfaction from Brady, but sometimes real life doesn’t match the fantasy we dream up.”

  Nina laughed. The fantasies she’d dreamed up had been pretty good, but they were nothing compared to real life.

  “I suppose you could say I got what I was looking for. I spent three days having the most degrading, sometimes even painful, sex I’ve ever had, and I loved every minute of it. Brady took over full control, and it was great.”

  Dr. Barnes held up her hand before Nina could go into more detail. There was plenty more sitting on the tip of Nina’s tongue, ready to spill, but she waited to hear what the doctor had to say.

  “Since you mentioned painful and degrading, I think we should stop there and verify that everything was in fact consensual. You’ve told me about other lovers, but you’ve never mentioned those kinds of words. I don’t need to hear any specific details, just that you gave him the green light to do those things.”

  That was a funny way to put it. How can you give the green light when you don’t even know it’s something you want? Nina never told him to stop, so it was as green a light as anyone could get.

  “I’m pretty sure I phrased it with the fact that I loved every minute of it, so don’t worry that these are going to turn into sessions about me being sexually abused. I’ve got enough problems as it is.”

  Hannah had been a victim of a sexual assault, so Nina sympathized with anyone who had gone through that kind of trauma, but she didn’t want Dr. Barnes thinking what happened with Nina compared to that. Brady was rougher than anyone else she’d been with, but there were no lasting marks or anything, and she had enjoyed herself, many, many times.

  “Okay, I just wanted to make sure that was clear. So, you got the sex you were looking for. Are you back at your place now? I know you haven’t lived with someone else since college, so I imagine going from cohabitating to not may need a little adjusting period.”

  It was an interesting conclusion. Dr. Barnes knew how much Nina loved her independence, so the fact that she thought Nina might not be adjusting well to it caused Nina to sit back in her chair and consider the other woman. Nina hadn’t expected her to see through her that easily.

  Adjusting to being alone wasn’t exactly the problem, but it could easily become a bigger part of the problem. Nina had movers bring everything back to her place, but she hadn’t spent much time in her apartment since then. There had been a hockey game the day before and Nina was working on figuring out travel arrangements for the year so she could travel with the team.

  She hadn’t originally planned on going to the away games when she bought the team, but Brady’s avoidance made those plans change a little. It hadn’t even been two days yet, so rushing to uproot part of her schedule wasn’t logical, and even Nina knew that, but she was a confused woman who had a team jet at her disposal.

  “You don’t understand. The contract actually finished a bit abruptly. Brady wasn’t happy when he found out I bought the team, and he decided that the sex marathon we had planned would lead up to the three weeks being over instead of following us living together for three weeks. If things had gone how I planned them, I’d still be locked up in his bedroom for another day and a half.”

  Something in the words made Dr. Barnes put her pen to use, scribbling on the paper. Nina imagined she’d decided to draw a flower in the margins or something, but she knew that wasn’t the case.

  “I did warn you that keeping that a secret wasn’t in anyone’s best interests, including your own. How did the other people in your life react to the news? You’ve talked a lot about Curtis before. I’m guessing it didn’t sit well with him that you bought the team he plays for.”

  Nina’s forehead scrunched up as she considered the words. She was there to talk about Brady and how to get him to open up to the idea they should spend more time together. How Curtis reacted to her buying the team meant nothing to her. Curtis made no qualms about letting everyone know he hated her.

  “Who cares? All that it could do was make him hate me even more.”

  “I was thinking about the fact that you told me you were supposed to be his children’s godparent. The fact that he’s agreed to that means you’ve been making gains with him. I was curious if your secret coming out erased any of that.”

  Nina still didn’t understand why that mattered when there were more important things to talk about. Curtis wasn’t Nina’s problem. Brady was.

  “I slept with Brady.”

  Dr. Barnes wasn’t following the conversation, so Nina had to finally blurt out the issue that started the whole conversation. She thought going over what happened leading up to her moving out would get them there, but the doctor clearly wasn’t following as well as she usually did.

  The room was quiet as Nina waited for a response. The wait wasn’t long, but at least ten seconds of silence went by before the doctor replied.

  “You already told me that. Was there something I missed? I know I cut you off when you were talking about the sex, but if there is something that happened that you think you need to talk about, I’m all ears. You said something about him taking control. That’s different, right?”

  Nina rolled her eyes and shook her head. The stories she had about the sex would probably make the poor doctor’s ears turn red. She always gave Nina the impression she was on the uptight side. The fact that she immediately thought Brady had assaulted her instead of driven her completely mad with lust was a small indication.

  “Yeah, that’s different, but I’m not talking about sex. I slept with Brady. The last night we were
together, he didn’t ask me to leave his bed, and I didn’t want to. I didn’t even spend all night staring up at his ceiling. I cuddled up next to him and slept.”

  Brady had been gone in the morning, which wasn’t a surprise. He’d mentioned he had practice, but a part of her wished he would’ve woken her up to at least say goodbye. Especially since he must have come straight home from practice to throw all her stuff outside.

  “What?”

  Dr. Barnes was appropriately surprised. Her pen was posed to write something, but it didn’t move.

  “Exactly. I don’t remember the last time I slept with someone. It was probably Hannah after I’d had too much to drink and crawled into her bed.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  That was the million-dollar question, because Nina was too confused to make sense of it. On one side, it scared her to think she let her guard down. That should’ve been the end of the story, maybe the fear changing over to anger, but it should have been all about her letting her guard down.

  It wasn’t, though. She felt safe when she was in Brady’s bed. His powerful body had spent hours taking and giving pleasure, and when it wrapped around hers, she didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  “Right this second, a little lost, which is why I’m bringing it up. I enjoyed living with Brady. I don’t understand it, but I want to convince him to let me move back in. I need you to explain to me why that’s a bad idea.”

  Dr. Barnes reached over and hit a button on her phone. It’d been a while since Nina had said anything to warrant that.

  “Yes,” a woman said from the phone.

  “We’re going to need some lunch ordered in and some more coffee, Merry.”

  Nina had expected to hear her say something about needing to cancel an appointment. Her appointment was down to the last ten minutes, and they were just getting started. She wasn’t going to stand for a continuance to the next time.