Page 17 of Hard Hitter
She laughed, and he registered the husky sound in his belly. “That is sometimes true. But I never saw a hockey game until I applied for this job. And I want you to explain the fighting to me. Why do you do it?”
That was the multimillion-dollar question, wasn’t it? He’dbeen asking himself that same thing lately. “There’s a code. Most of the time when I fight, it’s because someone broke that code or someone needs a refresher. I fight to protect my guys.”
Her hands wandered up the center of his back, her thumbs finding aches to smooth out that he didn’t even know he had. “Okay,” she said thoughtfully. “But then who protectsyou?”
His eyes closed. The question seemed impossibly complex at the moment, especially as her palms warmed him from the outside in. “I guess I do. I dunno.”
Maybe she picked up on the fact that he’d become too boneless to talk just then. Ari got quiet, too. He stopped tracking her exact movements. His hands unclenched, and his feet went slack.
All right. So this is what massage was supposed to feel like. His mind took him elsewhere. Behind closed eyelids he glimpsed fresh sheets of ice, and his teammates at practice. His subconscious ran a few drills—perfectly executed. Ari’s hands kept time with a rock ballad. Her pleasant lavender scent enveloped him, and he stopped listening to the sound of her breaths. They were just there, keeping rhythm in the background. Everything was fine.
Until she worked on his lower body.
At first he didn’t even notice the problem. Having allowed himself to feel some pleasure from the massage, he let his guard down. It was only when she asked him to turn over that he realized it wasn’t a good idea. His body had gotten a littletoocomfortable with the pair of warm hands on his naked thighs.
He was hard.
There were no end of petty humiliations this week.
“If you turn over I can work on your quads,” she reasoned, patting the back of his calf.
Nope. He could only imagine the tent he’d be raising in the towel then. “I have to run,” he said. “I appreciate it, but there are some calls I need to return.”
Ari’s expression went from serene to defeated in twoseconds flat. “And here I thought we were getting along so well.”
“We are.”Too well. “Really. I’ll show up tomorrow and everything.”
“Good man.” He received another one of her pats on the back. “Let me wash my hands and then the bathroom and shower are all yours. You don’t want massage oil all over your clothes.”
As soon as she disappeared, he hopped off the table and tied the towel around his waist as discreetly as possible.
Ari emerged from the bathroom drying her hands on another towel. “Take care of yourself,” she said. And even though he still wasn’t a big fan of her services, there was no doubt in his mind that she meant it.
FOUR
SATURDAY, MARCH 12TH
Ari watched the Detroit game from a seat behind the visitors’ bench. O’Doul was back in tonight, and she spent much of the game watching him.I need to know how he uses his core muscles during a game, she told herself. But if she was truthful, the more she knew of O’Doul, the more compelling he was to watch. On the ice he was flashy and confident. But up close in person he was one of the more cautious souls she’d ever met.
Maybe it was none of her business, but she wanted to know why.
Tonight he exhibited his usual defensive brilliance. Wherever the other team needed to go, there he was, skating backward, blocking every impulse with his muscular bulk and his fast feet. His stick was an extension of his body, always in the way of his opponent’s puck.
By the middle of the third period, there had been no fight. Yet. Ari hoped he could have a night off from brawling.
But with five minutes left on the clock, a Detroit player flattened Castro and was given two minutes for high sticking. It looked ugly as Castro went down, but he popped back up again and skated to the bench.
“Aw, hell,” the fan beside Ari said to his buddies. “Crazy rookie was looking for a fight right there. That’s what that was.”
Ari tensed. And sure enough, after the power play, O’Doul circled the youngster who’d drawn the penalty. He argued with him for a moment and pointed at the home team’s bench.
The kid’s response was to throw off his gloves. The second they landed, every Motown fan stood up at his seat.
O’Doul stared the kid down and shook his head. Then, with what looked like a sigh, he threw off his own gloves, too.
The fight lasted about five seconds. The kid got two swings in before O’Doul grabbed him by the jersey and punched him. Ari closed her eyes. The stadium made a noise of unhappiness. When she opened her eyes, the guy was lying on the ice holding his face, and O’Doul was shaking out his fist, looking sour.
After that, the Bruisers scored twice more, finishing the game five to two. Ari had mixed feelings that became even more mixed as she made her way through the locker room. Most of the team was either showering or celebrating. Someone blasted the team’s win song—“No Sleep Till Brooklyn” by the Beastie Boys—from a set of portable speakers. The new publicist, Tom, and a journalist were interviewing Beringer in a corner, but the room was in happy chaos.
