by Kate Meader
She shuddered. Make that shower a triple.
Pushing the locker room door ajar, she called out, “You guys decent?”
A rumble of male laughter answered, then Remy’s voice sounded above the noise. “That’s open to interpretation, but if you mean mostly covered up, then yeah.”
She walked in, prepared for Remy’s assurance to be a bunch of bull. In her years coaching the minors in Montreal, she’d seen a wealth of penis—long, short, fat, skinny, weirdly curved, and oddly shaded—so in-the-buff athletes no longer fazed her.
And would you lookie here? If it wasn’t the very pleasant sight of Cade Burnett, towel-free and ass-out. He turned slightly with a wicked grin, penis in profile. Not bad.
“Howdy, Isobel.”
“Hey, Alamo.” Reluctantly, she moved her gaze to points north. “Heard you fell on your pretty face during practice. You okay?”
“Yeah. St. James caught me with my helmet loose. Sometimes I forget he’s an asshole.”
She studied the growing bruise on his chin. “You’re all assholes, but you’re one of my favorite assholes.”
“Bet you say that to all the good-lookin’ Texans.”
Such an outrageous flirt. “I’m looking for Petrov.”
“In with the trainer,” Remy said, the words muffled as he pulled a sweatshirt over his head.
She turned to leave, but didn’t get far before she felt a hand touching her arm. Remy stood behind her, his expression sheepish.
“About this morning.”
Yes. This morning. She was currently staying in a guest room at Harper’s house, affectionately known as Chase Manor, in Lake Forest, a situation that was supposed to be only temporary. On her way to grab a cup of joe in the kitchen before the practice-that-never-was, she’d walked in on her sister and Remy in a pose she would need a lifetime supply of bleach to scrub from her retinas.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said.
He looked horrified. “No, you shouldn’t be sorry. Hell, that’s your home, and usually Harper’s over at mine. But I’d stopped by after the club last night, and well . . . you shouldn’t have to tiptoe around your own house. To be honest”—he lowered his voice—“I’d rather we were living together at my place, but Harper wants to wait until the season is over. Less media attention.”
“That’s probably a good idea. Don’t get me wrong, you guys are great together, but the next couple of months are going to need all our focus.”
He rubbed his chin. “I s’pose.” But he didn’t sound like he agreed. Was he looking for her permission to push Harper on this? Humans with penises, so needy.
“Harper’s crazy about you, DuPre. And I get to witness it in all its naked expression on our kitchen counters. Yay!”
Remy chuckled.
“We’re heading to the Empty Net tomorrow night,” Cade said as he rubbed a towel over his junk. “Gotta give Petrov a proper welcome. You in, Isobel?”
Fraternizing with the players deliberately and with Petrov specifically? Uh, no. Last night was an accident. Besides, she was fully aware of how in demand the players were by the opposite sex and just how willing they were to fulfill the supply side of the equation to any hockey groupie in range. A philanderer father and two cheating exes told her she did not need to witness that.
“Thanks, but I’m busy washing my hair.” And with that, she headed out, steeling herself for a stern talk with their new left-winger.
She entered the trainer’s room . . . and immediately wished she’d used the same MO as she had outside the locker room two minutes ago.
As in, should have knocked.
Sorry, Cade Burnett, your brief reign as King Perfect Butt is now over. A new ruler has ascended the throne.
Vadim Petrov took assology to a whole other level.
He lay stretched out, facedown, on the trainer’s table, a towel draped over his back, leaving his lower half—yes, ladies, the best half—exposed. Two perfect globes sat up like melons. If melons could, uh, sit up.
Melons? Oh for Gretzky’s sake, woman. Snap out of it.
Luckily, she had a few things going for her to aid in this snap-out effort.
1. She’d seen plenty of perfect hockey player ass. Dammit, she was a professional, and this was just another one.
2. Petrov’s ass was old news. The guy had recently displayed it shamelessly in ESPN’s The Body Issue, so the world and its Aunt Cecily knew every curve and contour.
3. Most important and most relevant to this situation, she’d actually touched/stroked/squeezed this particular ass years ago, and frankly, she wasn’t looking to repeat.
Kelly Townsend, the team’s head trainer, raised his chin and acknowledged her presence with a smile. Of all the Rebels’ backroom staff, she liked Kelly the best, probably because he gave off a distinctly nonthreatening vibe. In a boy band, he’d be the guy who brought flowers for your mom and didn’t do any weird crotch-grabbing grinds during the song’s instrumental bridge. A Brandon, not a Dylan.
“Kelly, how long do you need?”
“All done.” Kelly smiled again, then opened his mouth to say something else. Instead, he turned to his patient. “Adductor feeling better, Vadim?”
A grunt from the Russian acknowledged it was. So that’s why his towel was doing such a terrible job of covering up his ass. Isobel had thought it a bit much for a knee rubdown. With a nod, Kelly left the room.
Vadim sat up, unfairly pulling the towel over his groin so she missed the main attraction. Had he changed in the intervening years? If anything, he had to have grown bigger, which was terrifying, because the boy had rocked a manaconda at nineteen. Dicks didn’t shrink with time, did they?
Note to self: Google “penis size changes with age.” For science.
“We need to talk.” As he futzed with the towel’s perfect positioning—get over yourself, Petrov, I don’t care!—she took a moment to note where else he might have changed. Definitely more tattoos. Some she recognized from before: that colorful babushka on his right forearm, the jaguar ready to pounce from his shoulder, symbols that held significance for him covering practically every inch of steely flesh. A new-to-her tat over his rib cage caught her attention. A set of skates in flames, Russian script entwined around it.
Then there were the abs. Jesus, you could grate Parm on those puppies. Peering up, he caught her burning stare, and his reaction was predictable.
Look all you want, but this is not for you.
Understood. She wouldn’t break any mirrors, but standing before him in Nike’s spring collection ensemble, her dark brown hair in a ponytail, her face free of makeup, she looked nothing like the razor-thin models Vadim was regularly photographed with coming out of clubs.
There was no reason why that should have entered her head, except that once he had told her she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. Not that she needed his compliments. Eighteen-year-old girls desperate to have their cherry popped by gorgeous Russians are usually all in.
Now his expression made it clear she had no impact on him whatsoever, which was fine because she was here to do a job. A sexless, no-chemistry, so-what-if-you-took-my-virginity job.
She started with an easy one. “How are you feeling today?”
“Fine.”
“Oh, I thought maybe your knee was bothering you, and that was why you blew off practice.”
Cue the Russian ice stare of doom.
“With me,” she clarified.
“I don’t need it. I can work with the regular coaching staff.”
“We don’t have time for that. Thursday is the start of six days on the road and the coaches will be with the team. You’re on IR, so you’ll be staying here and working on your skills—or were you planning to run drills by yourself?”
He remained as silent as the grave, his big hands splayed on his towel-covered thighs. Everything about him strained taut. Muscles, body language, expression. But she didn’t trust it to remain that way. Vadim’s strength on the
ice was his speed. No one transitioned quicker than him, a sleek cat that could uncoil and strike at any moment, just like that jaguar on his shoulder. She expected that was how it was now. Even at rest he was dangerous.
Speaking as a fellow athlete might be a better approach. “I know you’re worried about getting back to full strength. I’ve been there—”
“And you had to give up.”
Wow, that stung. She widened her eyes, fighting the tears pricking at her eyelids.
Since her injury two years ago during the inaugural National Women’s Hockey League game, she’d lost all faith in her abilities. Sure, she had healed with a speed that amazed her doctors. They’d never seen anyone with a fractured skull recover so quickly. But they had been adamant about her competitive future—or lack thereof. A fall, a rough check against the boards, hell, a slip stepping out of the shower, and she might not wake up again.
Thirty-seven minutes. Her time on pro ice. Knowing you were all washed up by the age of twenty-five was sobering, to say the least.
Her father hadn’t taken it well. Whereas any other parent would be trying to hold his kid back off the ice after she’d taken a skate blade to the head, Clifford had dismissed the doctors’ concerns.
I played with a fractured femur once, Izzy. Every player knows what they can handle. Trust your heart as much as your body.
She’d tried, for him as much as for herself. Training with her team, the Buffalo Betties—who only allowed her to skate after she signed a waiver absolving them of all liability—she had suffered a hip injury two months in. Now it flared up when she pushed herself too hard, the pain a signal that she was no longer cut out for pro play.
Those who can’t, coach.
Giving up her dream was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. So nice of this Russian jerk to rub her face in it.
“Yes, I did have to give up. But I have plenty of experience teaching, and I’ve put together a plan to get you back on track.”
She unearthed her iPad from her messenger bag and leaned against the massage table while it came to life. Damn, he smelled good. Why did the jerk have to smell so good?
She opened up her spreadsheet, each hour she planned to spend with him linked to a core set of skills they would focus on. Quickly, she whipped through the daily tasks: strength training, skating skills, knee exercises.
“I worked with two guys in Montreal last year and turned their recovery from a projected eight weeks to five.”
“Linberg and Costigan,” he murmured, close to her ear.
She drew back, surprised that one, they were so heart-stoppingly close, and two, he knew the players’ names on the minor league team she had worked with.
“Right.” She cleared her throat because he was staring at her now, all blue-eyed ferocity, his stance aggressive even though he was seated and hadn’t moved a muscle.
“I will not need eight weeks, Isobel. Or five.”
“No.” She tore her gaze away and focused on the iPad. “I’m thinking more like two. Three max, if we work hard but are careful not to overdo it. My job is to get you back in the rink in time for the big push.” The Rebels were at 28–20 win-loss right now with five losses in overtime. This left twenty-nine games in the regular season. “We need you in there for the last twenty games, Vadim.”
Looking up again, she found his eyes magnetized to her, his focus burning holes into her soul. What was it about Russians that amplified the simplest look to the nth degree?
“The conventional wisdom is that you and your sisters are lucky to have done this well, considering.”
“Considering we’re women?”
“Considering you’re coming off fifteen years of bad results. This year should be your rebuild, yet you have decided to trade aggressively and bring in players you would not normally acquire. Veterans at the end of their careers. Injured men who may spend the season on the bench. You are gambling, Isobel.”
They were. At first she’d thought it was some cruel joke her father was playing on Harper. Her older sister was supposed to inherit the team, and while Isobel felt invested in her father’s legacy, she hadn’t expected this role. Joint owner, on the spot, where her decisions affected whether the team stayed in the family or was sold off.
Isobel wondered if her father had wanted to give her purpose after her failed career. He had been so disappointed that she’d had to resort to coaching, not pleased at all that she had found a job in the minors. Fucking Canada, Izzy? Even now, she felt guilty that she had enjoyed the time outside his Eye of Sauron–like focus. But he had the last laugh when he drew her back into his orbit.
The requirements of the will stipulated that she had to attend every home game. Fine for Harper, and even for Violet, who didn’t seem to mind uprooting her life in Reno. But for Isobel, something had to give. The tensions between coaching in Montreal and having to be on site for the Rebels in Chicago were too demanding. She had quit her coaching gig two months ago.
Part of it was to force Harper’s hand. Let me be a Rebels coach. Let’s make this history you’re always talking about. But she realized that the job wasn’t going to be handed to her.
She turned back to Vadim, his accusation that she was gambling still hanging between them.
“We want to make a big splash our first year out.” He didn’t need to know about the pressure they were under. All he needed to know was that she—and she alone—could get him back to the face-off circle.
“This is how I remember you. Striving to be the best. Living with no fear. Back then, nothing could get in your way. The Girl with the Blazing Skates.”
That silly nickname he had given her would have sounded almost forgiving if that jibe about nothing getting in her way hadn’t canceled it out. But he was right about one thing: there had been a time when fear was meaningless. She’d felt invulnerable. Unbreakable. And now? She was a frightened, scarred little girl begging the man who had made her a woman to give her a chance.
“It’s a lot to ask, I know. Especially if you’ve never been coached by a woman before.”
He appeared to consider what she said; the air between them thickened and charged. Maybe he had a point. Maybe their past history would impede the mission.
“Playing the woman card is not necessary, Isobel. I will submit to your will on the practice rink. You have two weeks to get me back on competitive ice.”
THREE
Vadim stared at the egg white omelet in front of him, the same breakfast he ate every day during the season. “Perhaps you could mix it up one of these days,” he said to the chef in Russian. “Add some cheese.”
The chef, Alexei, regarded him with disdain, which should have been difficult for a man wearing an apron with the words Squeeze Me, I’m Delicious! But with Alexei, disdain was his resting face.
Vadim should have fired him years ago. A grown man did not need a minder. He’d only kept him around because Alexei had been so upset after the death of Vadim’s father. The loyal retainer, assigned by the Petrov family to ensure Vadim’s safety after a botched kidnapping attempt when he was eleven years old, had expressed no interest in leaving. Threats to Vadim these days, except from predatory women, were few and far between, yet Alexei remained.
He supposed it was good to have someone to run errands, a male assistant who did not simper with puppy dog eyes. If Alexei wanted to move on to another position, he could. For now, Vadim paid him as much as he was worth. He lived nearby in a smaller property and did not spend every waking moment with Vadim. Sometimes he was gone for entire weekends.
Then there was his primary use: he made an excellent mediator between Vadim and Victoria Wallace. Using his sister as a buffer smacked of cruelty, and that was where Alexei came in: screening his calls because Vadim refused to speak to his mother.
“You are sick of my cooking?” Alexei asked, his spatula raised ominously over the frying pan.
“Some variety wouldn’t kill you.”
Alexei gave nothing away, but that
was par for the course. The two of them together were like Easter Island statues, yet Vadim suspected that after many years those strange monoliths understood one another.
“Something is bothering you,” Alexei said, his attention back to the stove as he cooked scrambled eggs—with yolks, of course—for himself. “Is it the Chase girl?”
Vadim snorted. The Chase girl. Alexei was never afraid to let his feelings about Isobel be known.
“It’s nothing.” Their first practice together was in an hour, and he was oddly nervous. Around Isobel! He found himself wanting to please her, which was ridiculous. She needed to impress him. Her future in coaching was on the line.
“You remember what happened last time?” Alexei asked. When Vadim didn’t answer, Alexei carried on with uncharacteristic passion. “She ruined your career.”
“And you accuse me of drama.”
He was waving the spatula now, little pieces of egg landing on the counter like ice chips flying during a vigorous skate. “She drew you into her web, and your path to the American professional league was closed off. That was her fault.”
Vadim had thought so once, but on reflection, he realized that Isobel was as much a pawn in all of this as Vadim was. Clifford Chase was protective, an alpha wolf shielding his cub. He had a vision for his daughter, and when he came across them that day, twined together in naked, postorgasmic abandon, he had seen what Isobel had not.
Vadim would have pursued this girl to the ends of the earth.
He wanted her beyond all reason, and he would have shocked and awed to make her his. A man like Clifford knew obsession when he saw it staring him in the face. With no sons, he had placed all his hopes and dreams in his daughter’s tentative career. Nothing would stand in the way of Isobel’s rise as the greatest female hockey player to grace a rink, especially not an infatuated Russian teenager.
Chase’s tactics, while not sporting, had been understandable in his mission to push his daughter to glory.
Ensure that Vadim’s visa was revoked.
Blackball him with the NHL commissioner.