by Isabo Kelly
It had taken him years, and there were times he still struggled with large crowds, and groups of people, but for now, he loved it when they all crashed at his place. It reminded him of those times when he was just a kid playing hockey. Because, really, wasn’t he just a big kid playing hockey now? He had the best job in the world. He played for a living. And he made a good living.
The New York Empires were in line for the Stanley Cup, and he was going to make sure they won it. However, challenging teammates to a drinking contest the night before a major event hadn’t been the smartest thing his teammates had ever done. Now they were all dragging ass. It was a good thing they had a couple of hours before they had to be on the ice. He just hoped that they didn’t embarrass themselves out there.
By the time he arrived at the rink, Reiner was ready to play some hockey. The fact he was going to be playing with kids didn’t detract from the adrenaline pumping through his veins at the thought of lacing on his skates and suiting up. Just being on the ice gave him that boost. Didn’t matter if he was playing with kids, in a house league, or with his teammates. Reiner never felt more alive than he did when he was on the ice.
For today, however they weren’t wearing their Empires uniforms. They’d be wearing their jerseys and black pants. The improvised uniforms reminded him of the ones he wore when he played roller hockey, but these prevented the cold from seeping in. Not that he felt the cold. He could skate in his jersey and jock strap, and he had once, because you don’t back down from a double dog dare! But today wasn’t about him. This game wasn’t even about the Empires. Today it was all about the kids.
Walking into the locker room, he smiled at the trash talking that was happening among his teammates. It didn’t matter the language, and there were many in the NHL, the trash talking always sounded the same. There were even enough Norse players that if he ever wanted to speak his native tongue he could usually find someone.
“Jahr, in here now!” Coach barked at him.
He dropped his bag on the bench and followed his coach into the room he’d commandeered for the game. Sandberg and Karpov were already waiting.
Shit. This wasn’t good. It wasn’t as horrible as if Emmerson had been there, but it still wasn’t good. He chanced a look back at his teammates and didn’t see any signs of the drinking party that had happened the night before on them.
“What’s up, Coach?” Karpov asked.
Coach handed each of them a piece of paper. Reiner looked at his, and saw a picture of a little boy, sitting in a wheelchair, clutching a hockey stick, and wearing his jersey. Underneath the picture was information about the child. He read his quickly. Karpov and Sandberg tilted their papers, and he saw similar images and info on theirs as well.
So they weren’t in trouble. It was about the kids.
“As you know today’s game is for the kids in the Special Olympics. These three love hockey, and you three are their favorite players. Your sole job today is to be the skates for the child on your paper.”
Reiner could do that. Hell, he looked forward to it.
With a brisk nod, coach dismissed them, and they joined their teammates back in the locker room. Reiner toed off his shoes and slid his feet into his skates. Lacing them up, he let his mind wander to information on the paper about his fan, Kenny.
From the grin and twinkle in the kid’s eye in the photo, the next couple of hours were going to be a lot of fun.
Chapter Two
Emma Chase looked around the room, satisfied at how the night was going. She’d pulled it off. With a deep breath, she finally allowed herself to relax. Swiping a glass of champagne from a passing server, she sipped the bubbly liquid and began to mingle. The game that morning with the kids and the Empires had been a huge success, and now many of the hockey players were filing in. She knew most were uncomfortable in the tuxedos, but man, did they look good. Her ogling was interrupted by a colleague tapping her on the shoulder.
“Emma? I have someone I want to introduce you to.”
Her friend Ruby Langley was gripping the arm of super-sexy hockey god Reiner Jahr. Damn it, Astrid, she swore in her mind. She knew exactly what Reiner did to Emma, and why she needed her here to be a buffer between them and let Emma embarrass herself in front of a lot of important people. The first time she’d met him, she’d been an exchange student to Norway, living in his bedroom. She’d stumbled out of it, her hair sticking up every which way, thick black eyeliner smudged on her face from the night before, and wearing holey pajama pants and T-shirt way too big for her frame. She’d yelped and ran back to her…his room.
Whenever he’d come home she’d managed to make an idiot herself, made all the more awkward due to the giant teenage crush she’d had on him.
From the moment the Empires had agreed to be a part of her event she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him and the fact they’d be working together. OK, not together together, but in close contact. She’d wanted to say something to him earlier at the rink, thank him for being Kenny’s legs. By the time she’d finished getting the kids returned to their parents and the myriad of other things she’d needed to do, he’d already left the arena. As much as she’d love to visit the locker room, she wasn’t quite ready to barge in on all the guys.
She never missed a chance to see him play hockey. She held season tickets to the Empires, not that he knew. But that was fine with her. He was beautiful to watch. No other player looked so smooth, like he’d been born on the ice, or even of the ice. He was like a Viking god. She chuckled to herself. What, he was the god of hockey? The thought nearly had her snorting out loud. Although it was easy to picture. The man was magic on the ice.
Watching him interact with Kenny and the other kids today had brought back the teenage crush she’d had on him. Well, she could admit to herself that it had never really gone away.
Now he was standing in front her. And her heart had decided it wanted to run the Kentucky Derby at being near him.
“Reiner, I want you to meet the woman who organized this event. Emma Chase.”
“Good to see you again, Emma,” he murmured. His accent was hardly there, not nearly as noticeable as his sister Astrid’s was. He was eying the glass of champagne in her hand like it was a king cobra about to strike him. Not that she blamed him. The last time she’d seen him, just before she’d started working for the Special Olympics, she’d spilled wine all over him, ruining what she was certain had been a very expensive suit.
Spotting a waiter, she waved him over and placed her glass on his tray. As soon as her hands were free he took them, raising one to his lips brushing a kiss across her knuckles.
“You, too.” Making banal small-talk was difficult with his light blue eyes meeting hers, and her hand engulfed in his larger one.
The rate her heart was beating, it wasn’t going just after the Kentucky Derby, but the Triple Crown. Damn it, Astrid, she swore again.
“You look…different.” There was a question in his voice. One she wasn’t surprised by. She looked nothing like she had that last disastrous time they’d met.
She’d out grown the dark black pixie cut she’d worn up through college and now embraced her natural curls and color, with natural looking highlights in her red hair. She’d also ditched the lip and eyebrow piercing. She’d kept the small stud in her nose, though, liking the tiny bit of glam. It was at the point where when she looked at pictures of that time, she didn’t recognize herself. She’d hidden behind her goth hair, piercings, and clothes that were three sizes too big.
Now, however, she embraced who she was and how she looked. She wasn’t model thin, as was all the rage, at least according to fashion experts. She was a throwback to the Marilyn Monroe era, with curves a man could hold onto if he wanted, and she loved it. Besides, if she had to choose between running and chocolate, chocolate would win any day of the week.
“Have you spoken to Astrid lately?” he asked.
“Yeah, I talked to her last week. She couldn’t make it. Somethi
ng held her up back home. She was supposed to be my date for tonight.”
“So you don’t have a date?” When she shook her head, he held his arm out. “Then allow me.”
She giggled as he whisked her away. Good crap, what the heck was that? She’d giggled. She wasn’t a giggler.
It was sweet of Reiner to offer to escort her around tonight. She knew he was only doing it to be nice to his sister’s friend, but to her, it was an exercise in restraint. The tingles shooting up her arm made her want to press her whole body to his and rub up against him like a cat in heat. She had it bad.
A woman would have to be dead not to be affected by him.
At six-foot three he wasn’t the tallest in the NHL, but nor was he the shortest. His face was all sharp planes and angles, combined with the pure blue of his eyes, and the twin dimples in his cheeks when he smiled. The square jaw made her want to run her fingertips against it to see if it was as hard as it looked. Of course that wasn’t the only thing she wanted to run her fingers across…
Oh boy. It made a girl wish she was home with her favorite toy. Imagining it was him. She’d better stop this, or she’d end up drooling on his shoes. How embarrassing.
Her gaze dropped as she took in his suit. It was so well-made, that she knew it must have been custom made. Nothing off the rack could fit him this well. She wished she could admire his ass without looking like she doing exactly that, but unless she wanted him to catch her drooling over him, she kept her eyes to the front. Why did he have to look so good?
She’d bought several copies of the ESPN Body Issue the year he’d been on the cover. Because hello, Reiner naked. How could she not?
Don’t sniff him, don’t sniff him, she chanted in her head. Too late. She nearly groaned. He smelled delicious.
Down girl, she warned her inner vamp. She was working, tonight was important. Too important to screw up because she had a major case of lust for her best friend’s older brother.
Especially when he was being nice enough to escort her around as a replacement for his sister.
Chapter Three
Reiner couldn’t stop staring. Holy shit, Emma had changed. The floor-length gown she wore skimmed her hips and hugged her ass in such a way that he’d glared at the man behind her who couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
He’d never known her hair was red. The soft red curls framed her face, giving her a more glamorous quality. He’d watched her change over the years. He very much preferred this Emma to the one who’d lived with his family. That Emma had acted like he didn’t exist, all sullen and full of teenage angst. At the time he’d loved the fact someone outside of this family wasn’t treating him like a hockey god. Being the youngest player to win a Stanley Cup in the NHL had brought all sorts of media attention. Attention he hadn’t been prepared for.
So when it had been his turn with the Cup, he’d headed home, taking it back to the small village where he’d donned his first pair of skates. That was the year Emma had been an exchange student. Whenever he’d seen her after she’d left Norway, she’d been with his little sister, Astrid, and caused something to happen to him, from spilling food and drinks all over him to walking in on him in the shower. Thank the gods she hadn’t known it was him or he’d been certain something horrid would have happened.
Looking at her now, he felt certain the girl who’d caused all of it was gone, and in her place was a woman he wanted to get to know more about. Not because she was his little sister’s best friend but because she was a damn sexy woman who was lighting the room up with her energy and passion. Her cheeky smile caught him off-guard. Did that mean there was no boyfriend in the picture? He was sure Astrid had mentioned Emma was dating someone. But if she wasn’t…
His cock stirred at the thought of getting some action. It had been so long since he’d been attracted to a woman, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had sex. OK, he could remember, he just didn’t want to.
It had been with a puck bunny, and she’d tried to tell him he didn’t need to wear a condom as she was on the pill and clean. It wasn’t the first time some chick had tried that with him. He hoped to the gods it would be the last. At that point he’d almost gotten up and left. But he’d needed the release, and been tired of using his hand. He should have left, as it had been a very unsatisfying interlude.
Since then, he’d taken a break from women and sex.
But now, watching the way the Emma’s dress hugged her figure as she walked to join her friend Ruby, he wanted. But he only wanted her.
The question was…did she want him?
“So you going to tap that?” Sandberg asked him.
He’d been so lost in his thoughts about Emma, he hadn’t heard Sandberg or Karpov come up on him. That was never a good thing. They were his best friends, and according to them, this meant they had the right and duty to give each other massive amounts of shit about everything. Especially women.
The fact they’d just caught him staring at Emma’s ass, meant he could only do one thing. Go with it.
“If the gods permit, yes, I’m going to have sex with Emma. Tonight,” he told them in a mixture of Norwegian and Finnish. A mixture only the three of them understood. No way did he want someone overhearing them and then telling the gossip rags about it. That’s the last thing he needed.
Kyle Sandberg and Alexei Karpov had joined the team at the same time he had. Karpov had been in the States for a year, and Kyle had had just moved to the U.S. like Reiner. As the only non-English-speaking players on the Empires farm team they’d bonded. The language hadn’t been much of a problem, at least for Reiner; one of his aunts was from Finland, and his cousins had spoken a mixture of Norwegian and Finnish, resulting in most of the family doing the same. It had just made sense to him when he’d met Karpov to do the same thing. Kyle had added the Swedish words, leaving them having conversations that no one could understand unless they spoke all three languages.
“Does she know that?” Karpov asked, his Finnish accent thick as the day he’d come to the U.S.
“Not yet, but she will,” he replied. Tossing back the rest of his beer, Reiner set it on a nearby table, preparing to go after Emma.
She looked over at him, and he caught the flare of attraction in her gaze. Emma smiled slowly. Then her gaze flicked to Sandberg and Karpov, and her eyes widened.
“Fuck, man, did you see that?” Sandberg whispered.
He had. It pissed him off. He’d shared women with both of the men at his side, and while he knew a lot of guys got off on it, he was happy to say he’d been there, done that. But with Emma, he found he didn’t want to share. And he definitely didn’t want her looking at his friends.
“Yeah, I did. But we all agreed…”
“We’re too selfish to share the woman in our bed.”
“Exactly.” They’d better remember that.
Emma sauntered back to them. Fuck, she was sexy. “Wow, Renier Jahr, Kyle Sandberg, and Alexei Karpov, the fearsome threesome, right in front of me. How did I get so lucky?”
Even after years in the States, he sometimes missed nuances in the English language. Now was not one of those times. Emma was teasing him.
He liked her teasing.
Reiner smiled and noticed her breathing increased. Good. She wasn’t unaffected.
“We are the lucky ones,” Sandberg said raising her hand to his lips.
If it had been anyone else Reiner would have growled and told him to back the fuck off. But they had an unwritten rule of no poaching. They already knew he wanted her, so he wasn’t worried. But it didn’t mean he liked seeing another man’s lips touching Emma. Even if Sandberg was his friend.
He bumped Sandberg out of the way, and placed his own lips to the center of her palm, his tongue lightly touching her skin before pulling away.
Her skin flushed, and he wanted to see that flush over her entire body. He had every intention of ending the night buried so deep inside of Miss Emma Chase that she’d wonder where she ended and he began.
Chapter Four
Emma ushered the last person out of the ballroom and heaved a giant sigh of relief. It was over. The day and night and been a huge success. Now she could take a break and breathe before she started working on the next event.
“You all done here?”
Slowly she turned to the voice behind her. Reiner was leaning against the bar, his bowtie undone and hanging around his neck, the top two buttons open on his shirt. His hands were shoved into his pants pockets, stretching the material across his package. Er, pelvis, I totally meant pelvis. Because she didn’t ogle men’s crotches. Ever.
Oh, man. She nearly pressed her hands to her cheeks, but instead forced her fingers to clench together.
Swallowing she answered him, “Yeah. The hotel and caterers will take care of clean-up.”
He straightened and started walking toward her.
Beneath her dress her nipples pebbled, and she clenched her thighs together.
Not even in her wildest teenage…and, OK, even her adult dreams, had she ever imagined that hockey god Reiner Jahr would ever look at her like that. Her sexual experience could be chalked up to some not bad, but mostly mediocre, partners.
Something she would bet her Empires season tickets Reiner wasn’t. Sometimes a woman could look at a man and just know that he was amazing in bed. Reiner would be a god in bed.
She was so out of her depth…and comfort zone.
She really liked her comfort zone when it came to men. Hence the term comfort zone. Oh Lord she was babbling in her head now. Again.
The only daring thing she’d ever done in her life was that year she’d been an exchange student. That had really only been to escape her parents’ divorce. Living halfway around the world meant she’d been able to escape all the drama of being put in the middle of two people she loved. Mentally shaking her head, she focused back on the here and now, the here and Reiner. Emma watched him stalk closer.