Dirty Score, A Rough Riders Hockey Novel

by Skye Jordan

  Shaking with fatigue, Mia floated slowly back to reality. Basking in the experience of finally completely giving herself over to a man she loved with everything she had. Everything she was.

  As the present seeped back into her brain, Rafe stroked rough fingertips along her spine. His heavy, quick breaths sounded in her ear. His heart pounded hard against hers.

  Then his breathless voice, thick with residual desire, murmured, “Fuck. I never knew…it could be like this…”

  His revelation choked a sound from her—part laugh, part sob.

  She’d never known she could love like this. This was what all her exes had been looking for. Waiting for. This was what she’d never been able to give.

  Only to finally find The One, knowing that keeping him meant alienating everyone truly important in her life. In Rafe’s life. In their life, together.

  10

  Sweat drenched Rafe’s body. His thighs ached. Lungs burned. But his goal was within sight. So close he could taste it. Taste the salty, coppery tang on his tongue.

  Score. Score. Score.

  Rafe swung into the turn at the corner of the rink with a Bruin headed on a trajectory to intercept. But as the other player rushed to meet Rafe, Rafe leaned back, slowing at the last second and collecting the puck to protect it. The Bruin’s skates cut across Rafe’s path, just inches from his blades. Inches that gave Rafe the space he needed to pass to Andre.

  Andre swooshed a circle around another Bruin and passed to Tate.

  And Tate hammered the puck deep into the net.

  Score.

  Adrenaline surged through Rafe, the game now three-two with the Rough Riders in the lead at the beginning of the third period.

  All five players punched a triumphant fist in the air and skated to each other for congratulatory hugs. After tapping gloves with their teammates on the bench and getting kudos from their coach, Tremblay traded Rafe, Tate, and Isaac out of the line.

  This was game four in the battle for the East Coast conference title. They had to win to play for The Cup.

  “You are killin’ it tonight,” Tate told him, following Rafe to the bench. “You’ve touched every fucking goal.”

  Two goals and one assist out of the three total. Yes, Rafe was on motherfucking fire. Again. Thanks to Mia.

  He couldn’t have killed the grin on his face even if he’d gotten jammed into the boards headfirst—like he had in the first period, which had earned Rafe eight stitches underneath one eye.

  Even with sweat stinging the cut, he turned his smile on Mia where she sat in the stands nearby. She was sitting with Joe, just three rows up from the ice tonight. Rafe loved knowing she was watching him kill it. Loved having her eyes on him.

  He picked up a bottle, squirted water into his mouth, and glanced at Tate. When Rafe found him talking to Hendrix, he cut another look toward Mia.

  She was already looking at him, and the second their gazes collided, all sorts of tugs and twists tortured his guts. Sitting on the edge of her seat, leaning forward, she had her elbows on her knees and her chin in her palm. And she was smiling. Right at him. The kind of smile that made his insides tighten and sing. And while her smile grew to show perfectly straight, white teeth—courtesy of Joe—Rafe was already wondering how and where he could maneuver a situation to get her alone tonight. He’d sure love to expend all his adrenaline on Mia.

  But if they won, everyone would be headed to owner’s home after the game to celebrate their victory.

  Cheers from the stands pulled Mia’s gaze back to the ice. Rafe glanced that direction and found Kilbourne fighting to get the puck around the goalie. When the puck started down the ice again, he returned his gaze to Mia, but she was talking to Joe.

  Her move to California snuck into his thoughts. Something he’d been trying to ward off because it messed with his head and his heart. He couldn’t ask her not to go. But if she moved to California, he knew the gains they’d made in their relationship would be lost.

  Then he thought of all the other things keeping them from giving this thing between them their all. Remembered Tate’s fury when he’d thought Rafe had slept with Mia. Heard Joe calling the three of them “his kids.” Then the past filtered in—all the tutoring Joe had gotten Rafe in school, the equipment he’d bought for Rafe, Tate’s special coaching Joe had paid to let Rafe join, the hockey camps he’d paid for Rafe to attend. Tate would know Rafe had lied to his face about it. Joe would hear about it. All the trust Tate had in him, all the pride Joe felt… It would all disintegrate when they found out he’d slept with Mia.

  Rafe took another drink of water and pushed all that from his mind. He had to focus through this third period. He’d talk with Mia about this later.

  He turned to Tate and asked, “Are Mia and Joe coming to the party tonight?”

  “You know Dad, never turn down a chance to bullshit with—”

  A Bruin slammed Andre into the half wall separating the bench from the rink. Sticks and limbs went flying. Rafe leaned back and covered his face with his forearm to protect his stitched eye, so he didn’t see whose punch missed Andre and hit Rafe in the shoulder.

  Anger roared through Rafe, and he pushed to his feet. “What the fuck?”

  Play had all but stopped while the Bruins’ defenseman bent Andre backward over the half wall. He had Andre’s jersey bunched in one hand, the other curled into a fist and hauled back. A few other players piled on the guys from behind and the momentum pushed Andre and the Bruin over the wall, still skirmishing. The Bruin pinned Andre to the ground and set up for that punch again.

  Rafe launched his own hand just in time to catch the Flier’s fist in his palm, inches from Andre’s belligerent expression, and twisted the guy’s wrist. Not enough to damage him, just enough to make a point.

  “Watch your back, fucker,” Rafe said, glaring the other guy down. “’Cause I’m bigger than him, I’m meaner than you, and I’m back on the ice in ninety seconds.”

  Tate hauled the Bruin off Andre by the shoulder pads just as the refs closed in. To avoid a penalty, Tate acted like he was helping the Bruin up. “There you go, buddy. Got your feet under you now?”

  The Bruin climbed back over the wall and glided to center ice.

  Rafe offered his hand to Andre. His teammate took it as he got to his feet.

  “Thanks,” Andre said with his thick Russian accent and that dorky smirk of his. “Now I not look like you when I go home.”

  Andre wind milled his legs over the half wall and hit the ice. Play continued, and Rafe relaxed again, a little rattled by his show of aggression. That wasn’t who he was. He handled his own fights on the ice, but he didn’t get involved in others’.

  “You are in fine form tonight, man.” Tate grinned from his seat beside Rafe on the bench, and the sight of his friend’s familiar ease loosened some of Rafe’s stress. But in the next moment, guilt wiped the ease away. A little distress leaked in too. Claiming Mia meant losing his lifelong friendship with Tate.

  “Did you clear the air with Mia last night?” he asked. He and Tate had both been busy with workouts and training since they’d arrived at the rink, and Rafe hadn’t gotten a chance to ask.

  “She was asleep when I got home,” Tate said. “I’ll talk to her tonight.”

  Rafe wasn’t surprised. He was pretty sure she’d been asleep by the time he’d pulled the covers over her before he’d left her last night.

  “What’d you do after Dad and I dropped you off?” Tate asked, that suspicious you-got-lucky-didn’t-you grin lifting his mouth. “Or should I ask who did you do?”

  Alarm stung Rafe’s gut. Luckily—or not, depending on how he looked at it—the refs called a penalty on the Rough Riders, which meant he and Tate were going back in for the penalty kill. While the four stripes talked over the punishment, Rafe stuck one end of his mouth guard between his teeth as he stood and adjusted a glove, ignoring Tate’s question. His assumption wasn’t out of left field. Before Mia, Rafe had a pattern of ending a game
night by picking up a hot puck bunny and expending his adrenaline horizontally.

  “Whoever she is, she really does it for you, man,” Tate said, standing next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “You ought to think about holding on to her through the playoffs and into the Cup if we get there, because she sure as shit does you like nobody’s done you in a while.”

  Rafe frowned at Tate. “What are you talking about?”

  “You. This.” Tate gestured the length of Rafe. “You saw her again, didn’t you? The same chick you saw the night before you shot your hat trick?”

  Rafe’s mouth dropped open to deny it, but he hesitated, wondering if he should just play it off as if he were seeing someone, just someone else.

  Tate took his silence as affirmation and laughed. “I knew it. You haven’t had this much Savage in you in months. She really clears your head. You were a mess in the last few games. And we’re going to need all the Savage you can pull together to get to the Cup.”

  Tate refocused on the ice and adjusted his helmet, and Rafe realized Tate knew him even better than he’d thought.

  “You’ve got her, use her. That is your gift,” Tate said, his cynical side coming out. His view of women had changed one hundred and eighty degrees since Lisa had screwed him over. “And hell, it’s only for another couple weeks. Even you could stick with a woman that long. Only a couple of weeks.”

  Rafe had no idea what to say to that.

  They slid onto the ice and set up for a face-off with Tate muttering, “Shit, bro, pay her if you need to. The way you play after you do her is totally worth it.” He grinned at Rafe. “Look at it as an investment.”

  “Shut up, Donovan.”

  Tate swung in an arc, bent his knees, and readied for the play, grinning at Rafe. “Just sayin’. Anything for the Cup, right?”

  For the Cup.

  Rafe really didn’t care about the Cup. He wasn’t like the other guys who’d coveted the Cup since they first stepped onto the ice as kids. But he sure didn’t like the way Tate was referring to Mia. And if Tate knew he was talking about his own sister, Rafe would be bleeding out on the ice right now.

  Tate’s perspective only clarified just how impossible it would be for him to accept Rafe and Mia together. But it also made him wonder if that was how Mia saw their relationship. Did she think that was the way Rafe saw her? Nothing more than another one of his hookups? Surely, she couldn’t really believe she was just another puck bunny to him.

  Could she?

  A fist of dread squeezed his gut.

  “Play desperate, boys.” Tremblay’s order from the bench pulled Rafe’s thoughts back to the moment, and he threw all his frustrated anger into the last minutes of the game.

  Mia knew both Rafe and Tate were vying for their chance to talk to her alone, so she made sure to keep someone close by at all times. She wasn’t ready to have a conversation with either of them. So she smiled and nodded as Nika, Andre’s adorable young wife, talked about her two-year-old, Dmitri, while her hand lay on her pregnant belly.

  “You won’t have to count me in the pool of people bothering you for jerseys,” she said, her Russian accent milder than her husband’s. “I’ll have baby weight to lose before I buy anything new.”

  “You look gorgeous,” Mia told her. “I’ll just add panels to the sides of the jersey to fit your belly, then take them out when you’re back to your normal size.”

  Andre came up beside his wife and slipped a hand around her waist. “Are you ready to go, kisa? I promise Dmitri I read to him before bed.”

  They said good-bye to Mia, and she hastily pivoted to join Eden as she ended a conversation with a couple of puck bunny dates accompanying other team members tonight.

  Eden sighed and met Mia’s gaze. “Oh, yay. Someone I can have an intelligent, meaningful conversation with. Faith told me about your move. I’m so excited for you, but I’m sad for us. We’ll miss you. Will you be able to get back here for some of the games and the holidays?”

  Another weight piled on the mountain of weights already on her heart. “Thank you. I’m not really sure. I don’t know what to expect at this job, but I hope so.”

  “Well, tell me all about it. I haven’t been a Wicked Dawn fan, but that’s going to change now that I know you’re working on the costumes.”

  Mia let her tension ebb as she told Eden about the job. And her own excitement for the future rose in tandem with the people she told, all of whom were overjoyed for the next step in her career. All except Tate and Rafe.

  The thought of Rafe tied her stomach right back into a knot. She cast a quick look at him where he sat lazily on the arm of a sofa, two young women chatting with him. Two beautiful women. Beautiful, young women whose body language expressed keen interest in Rafe.

  She forced her gaze and her mind back to Eden. “Tell me about the wedding plans. Have you and Beckett set a date? I’ll definitely put in for vacation so I won’t miss it.”

  “No date yet. We’re letting Lily settle into the idea of all of us living together for a while.”

  “I bet that was your idea, not Beckett’s. I hear he can’t tie the knot soon enough.”

  Eden grinned, and when she spoke again, she lowered her voice. “Let’s talk about what’s going on with you and this rumor about Rafe.”

  Her stomach chilled. “What rumor?”

  “What do you mean what rumor? The one that gave him that black eye. I’m glad his stitches ended up on the other side of his face tonight, but it does sort of make him look like an MMA master.”

  Mia laughed and glanced at him again. He was smiling at something the women were saying. “Probably one of the reasons he gets so many women.”

  “He does have quite the reputation of a playboy,” Eden said, following Mia’s gaze. “But in my experience, that doesn’t mean they aren’t looking for the one woman who can make them want to throw in that towel.” She turned her gaze back to Mia, wearing a big smile. “It also makes them pretty damned incredible in bed.”

  That made Mia laugh. And blush like she had a fever of one hundred and two. But she lied with “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Mia, it’s just me. I’m not going to say anything. And when you and Rafe are within sight of each other, the sexual tension is palpable.”

  That wasn’t good. Mia would have to make a concerted effort to shut that down. “I think you’re mistaking supreme frustration for sexual tension. Both Tate and Rafe have been testing my patience since I arrived. And I haven’t been a stellar example of someone taking the high road.”

  “Sweetie, I’m on the streets, dealing with all kinds of people all day. I know the difference. If you want to deny it, that’s fine, but you aren’t swaying me.”

  Mia looked down at her wine and sighed. “Doesn’t really matter either way. Neither California nor my new job will facilitate anything lasting. And I’ve had enough breakups for a lifetime.”

  Tate finally started toward her, and Mia groaned. “Here comes one of the problematic men in my life.”

  Eden glanced over her shoulder as Tate stopped beside her and grinned. “How’s motherhood treating you?”

  “Amazingly. Who wouldn’t love being a mother to Lily?”

  Mia knew for a fact Lily’s own mother didn’t want to have anything to do with the angelic little girl, something she’d never been able to understand.

  Tate laughed and wrapped an arm around Eden’s shoulders. “No one in their right mind, that’s for sure.” He lifted his gaze to Mia. “Can we talk a minute?”

  Eden reached out and gave Mia’s arm a squeeze and smiled sympathetically. “I’ll catch you later.”

  When Eden was out of earshot, Mia said, “I’m not in the mood to argue, Tate.”

  “Good. I’m not either.”

  But his tone told Mia it would be inevitable.

  “I’m really sorry I upset you at dinner,” he said. “And I hate this rift between us. I don’t want you leaving until we clear the air.”

  “That
would require you to accept my choices and turn off that judgmental attitude. Can you do that?”

  He rolled his eyes and huffed a breath.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Look, Tate, I’m twenty-eight years old. It’s my life, and I’m done taking direction from my brother. You’re going to have to accept it. With that stubborn streak of yours, I realize that may take some time—that’s up to you. But I won’t live with your thumb on top of me anymore. When you can deal with that, let me know.”

  She turned toward a terrace she’d been eying all night as an escape.

  “Mia…” he said, his voice filled with exasperation.

  Ignoring him, she passed onto the terrace and into the cool spring night. Mia needed the chill on her skin to ease her frustration.

  The home of the Rough Riders’ owner was in the hills of Washington, DC, and in the distance, the mall and all the national monuments lit up the night. This view always took her breath away and softened her rough edges.

  She took a few more sips of wine. When she finished this glass, she was going to head back to Tina’s for the night. The team’s family skate was tomorrow, and she had a few jerseys to finish sewing for the players’ wives and girlfriends.

  “Hey.”

  Rafe’s low voice sent a shiver down her spine. Excitement and affection collected at the center of her body, but also pain. The pain of knowing she would leave him soon.

  Mia fortified herself with another deep drink of her wine, then glanced over her shoulder. “Hey.”

  He darted a glance back into the house before stepping out onto the terrace with her. It sucked that they had to always be looking over their shoulders for Tate or Joe or someone else who might start a rumor. Or, in this case, deepen the rumor that already existed.

  At the railing, he faced her.

  “You played an awesome game tonight, Mr. Savage,” she told him. “How’s your eye?”

  His lips tipped up in a grin. “Which one?”