Page 12 of Desperate Pucker
When I make it to him, my gaze catches on his hands. They’re as big as baseball gloves. I study his long, thick fingers and the tattoo of a skull within the silhouette of a falcon on the back of his left hand.
I’ve never been into tattoos before…but that’s kind of cool.
I swallow hard, suddenly feeling hot, despite the chill in the rink.
I shouldn’t be so thrown off. He’s almost six-foot-four and probably close to two hundred and twenty pounds. Of course he’d have huge hands.
But I’m not used to being around men as big as him. My whole life, I’ve been surrounded by figure skaters, and male figure skaters aren’t as tall or as big as hockey players. As a tall female figure skater, I was used to being the same height as them or just a couple inches shorter.
But I’m nowhere near Ryker’s size. He looks like he weighs close to a hundred pounds more than me.
I bet he could pick me up and toss me over his shoulder without breaking a sweat.
I swallow hard again, surprised at how much I like the thought of that.
Why are you imagining this guy picking you up? You don’t even like him.
My cheeks heat. My brain is being really weird for some reason.
I refocus and look at him. “You’re late.”
His grumpy glower etches deeper into his expression. “No, I’m not.”
I hold up my phone screen. “It’s 8:02.”
“I’m late by a couple of minutes.”
“When you train with me, I expect you to be on time or early. Never late.”
He narrows his gaze. “This is the only time we’re training together, so we won’t need to worry about that.”
Determination and irritation swoop through me.
“Let’s get started,” I say. “I wanna see your two-foot stop and then a one-foot stop.”
I catch the beginnings of an eyeroll just as he looks off to the side. He thinks this is going to be easy. Good. I’m so fucking eager to prove him wrong.
I watch as he takes off across the ice, speeds up, then does a two-foot stop, using both the inside and outside edges of his skates.
“Okay. Now do a one-foot stop.”
He takes off again, speeds up, then stops with the outside edge of his right skate blade. It’s pretty quick and clean.
“That’s your strong side, isn’t it?”
He nods.
“I want you to do a one-foot stop on your weak side.”
He frowns. That’s his injured ankle.
He takes off across the ice and speeds up. I notice he’s not going as fast this time, and when he uses his left skate to stop, he’s shaky.
His jaw is tight as he glances down at his left foot.
“Are you in pain?” I ask.
“It’s a little sore.”
