Page 29 of Slapshot
“What do you mean?”
“My first kiss was Bobby Findlay. I found out later it was on a dare, and he had tried to swap with a kid who had to lick a toilet.”
Words were coming out of my mouth, and I wished they wouldn’t. But the memories that were screaming through my head on the drive home had decided this man should bear witness.
“The man I lost my virginity to won fifty dollars on a bet. The longest relationship I ever had was a secret because the guy didn’t want his friends knowing who he spent time with. You say you want to be friends, and so I’m asking you. What do you get out of it?”
He dragged a hand across his mouth, not quite covering his sneer as I stood my ground and dared him to tell me the truth.
There had to be something. The fact that he didn’t find me attractive wasn’t the wakeup call he thought it was and I’d grown tired of the back and forth. He would give me the truth whether he wanted to or not. No more head games.
“Fuck it,” he growled, grasping the back of my neck with one large hand and tugging hard. Our bodies crashed together, his mouth covering mine before I could voice a word of protest.
This… was unexpected. His tongue ran along the seam of my mouth, not so much asking as demanding to be let in. I surrendered before I knew what was happening, and could only feel as he licked into my mouth with wicked lashes that dampened my panties and weakened my knees. His arm wrapped around my waist, holding me tight against the erection that strained at his jeans.
Feeling overwhelmed by the experience ofhim, I dug my fingers into his chest, trying to ground myself in the rush of arousal that coursed through me.
At that moment, a vision of Georgia, the pretty sister, Mom’s favorite, popped in my head and gave me the strength to push away from the man who made me weak.
Breathing hard, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, keeping my eyes on his face so they didn’t drop to the biological response that every man had when they were close to getting some pussy.
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
He was breathing as hard as I was, eyes unfocused as he tried to translate the question I’d asked.
“Umm.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “At training camp? Three years ago. You asked us to run a drill all over again because you’d dropped your coffee and missed the shot.” His smile made a reappearance, as though it were a fond memory.
The hate and vitriol I’d caught from a couple of the players as they headed for the locker rooms had been a quick lesson in timing and priorities.
I shook my head, because regardless of how we remembered that particular day, the answer was wrong anyway.
“Five years ago.”
He cocked his head, clearly confused, and I huffed a mirthless laugh.
Forgettable.
Replaceable.
Nothing.
* * *
Five yearsago
When I grew up,I wanted to own a sports bar. I perched on a stool at the bar and ordered a soda while the Wildcats took on the Blizzards on the TV. The Wildcats were looking strong, but as the Blizzards set up for a power play, a closeup of the Wildcats goalie showed him chewing hard on his mouthguard with a hard look in his eye.
“Do you think they’ll make it?” I jumped at the male voice, so close to my ear, and swiveled around to face a pair of stunning olive eyes.
“Their goalie’s nervous,” I said, nodding at the screen as the wingers passed the puck between themselves.
It took the players two minutes before they scored in the five hole.
“Krishnoff is slowing down. I heard a rumor this is his last year,” the guy said, leaning his elbows against the bar a little closer than was polite. He was handsome, with dark hair and darker lashes framing those eyes. He was built like an athlete, and I wondered what sport he played. At a table in the corner, guys of a similar build were decked out in the black, orange, and white of Fox U. Not surprising. You couldn’t go anywhere in this college town without running into students from the academy.
A disturbance in the air made a chill run up the back of my neck, and the men seemed to feel it too as they turned toward the door and watched the new arrival.
Dressed in an outfit completely inappropriate both for the setting and the time of year, a redheaded bombshell strutted in, wearing four-inch stilettos that would have made me face-plant if I even looked at them wrong.
