Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
AJ
“ Y ou sure you’re doing okay?” Frank asks after we wrap up our weekly check-in. Normally, I love that he’s the type of owner who’s around and available, but today, I’d really prefer he was sitting somewhere else counting his billions instead of asking me personal questions.
Sitting in McCabe’s kitchen early this morning, I thought I was doing okay, all things considered. But my body has gotten progressively more sore as the day has gone on and Frank obviously hasn’t missed how I’ve been shifting in my seat, trying to get comfortable.
“I’m fine. Just tired. I don’t even remember what time it was when we got back from the hospital last night?—”
“ We ?” Frank moves his bushy eyebrows up and down in a way that draws a laugh out of me. He probably thinks I’m seeing someone, and as much as I’d like an excuse to avoid all the men he tries to set me up with, I don’t want to risk stirring up any rumors.
“No, don’t get your hopes up. It’s not like that. McCabe gave me a ride home after Abby and I were cleared by the doctor.” At the beginning of our meeting, I’d given him the brief rundown of my experience with the fight and the hospital visit—which had led into a conversation about how this is exactly why McCabe was supposed to tell the fans that the fights needed to stay on the ice in the first place.
Would things have turned out differently if he’d reacted differently at the press conference? I don’t know. But when Frank showed me footage of last night’s fight, there was no denying that the Boston fans behind us were responsible for what happened. And they were both wearing McCabe jerseys.
“Speaking of, you’ll talk to him about that again, right? I need him to make a statement or something about what happened,” Frank says.
“I’ll talk to him. But you saw what happened last time. I don’t know what his deal is,” I admit. “His agent is making outrageous demands?—”
“Which we’re not agreeing to.”
“I know. And McCabe knows what our salary cap is. I don’t know why he’s getting greedy all of a sudden, but I wonder if his refusal to speak out about this at the press conference is because he’s pissed about the negotiations breaking down?” It’s incredibly frustrating that I can’t just talk to him about this directly, but management can only discuss contracts with the player’s agent, not the players themselves. “He’s acting like he has one foot out the door already.”
“Well, as long as he plays for us, he needs to act like a Rebel. I wish he’d said something before his daughter took a tumble and you got hurt, because now his statement will look reactive, like he only cares now because his daughter was involved.”
Frank’s right, but maybe emphasizing that bystanders were hurt will be even more effective?
“I’ll talk to him t—” There’s a split second where I realize I’m about to say tonight , and I consider being honest with Frank about the fact that I’m staying with McCabe. But as much as he’s like a father to me, there’s only one outcome that could result from telling him—he’d remind me how inappropriate the situation is, and that given my position and this award nomination, I’m already under a microscope. Both of which I already fully understand. Besides, tonight’s the last night I’m staying with him, because tomorrow we’re on the road. So there’s no reason to say anything. “—tomorrow before the flight.”
“Let me know what he says. And if you need to drop my name in there to get him to cooperate, you can.”
“I won’t. He’s going to do this because it’s the right thing to do, not because I had to bring in the big guns to get him to comply.”
“ You are the big guns, AJ,” Frank says with a laugh.
“Yeah, but you write their paychecks.”
He gives me a quick chuckle before he returns to that concerned look he had a few minutes ago. “And you’re sure you’re okay to travel with the team tomorrow? No one is going to question it if you stay home.”
I stand, hoping that I can relieve some of the pressure on my right hip and stop my back from knotting up. I wasn’t bruised when I looked this morning, but I’m afraid of what my body might look like now. Plus, I need this meeting to end because McCabe texted to tell me he was picking me up at six, and not to be late. The painkillers and my injury mean I can’t drive myself, but when I tried to tell him I’d just book myself a ride home, he was having none of it. Now, I’ve got less than five minutes to get down to the parking garage. Hopefully, everyone else has left for the day and no one sees me leaving in his car.
“I’ll be on the plane,” I tell him with a nod. “I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that,” Frank says, “and somehow, I still don’t believe you.”
“ I didn’t really picture you as such a good cook,” I tell McCabe as I blot some of the pasta sauce I can feel coating my lips with my napkin. I don’t normally eat this late, but McCabe whipped this up after Abby went to bed, and it smelled so good, I agreed to have some. The sandwich I’d had in the late afternoon before my meeting with Frank didn’t exactly feel like it was going to tide me over for the night.
His eyes flick up from his plate, and his lips quirk at one corner in that goddamn smirk that does things to me I wish it didn’t. “Oh yeah, so how did you picture me, then?”
“I guess I just assumed you probably ordered out more than you cooked.”
“You sound like you’ve given this some thought?” One eyebrow lifts, like he’s trying to get me to admit that I spend a lot of my time thinking about him. Which is not the case, at all.
Or at least, it wasn’t until the other day in my office. Now I feel like I keep reliving that moment over and over, and it’s doing funny things to my body, my mind, and my moral compass.
Unethical. That word bounces around in my head, even though I know there’s nothing in my contract about being involved with a player. It’s probably not something anyone would have thought necessary with a male GM. Though, let’s face it, that shouldn’t be off the table either.
Regardless of what my contract says, I’m still his boss. The power dynamic is still there, even more so due to the new contract we’re trying to work out. No one would look at what happened in that office and think it was okay. Not even me.
“The only time I spend thinking about you is when I’m trying to figure out why you’re so obstinate.”
“Ohhh, pulling out the big words now, aren’t we, Sunshine?”
My laugh escapes like a snort. “Sunshine? What the fuck, McCabe? I may not be as grumpy as you are, but no one has ever accused me of having a sunny disposition.” I’m far too much of a realist for that.
“Nah, I think it fits. You don’t know what this organization was like before you became GM.” He tears off a piece of his bread and uses it to mop up some of the pasta sauce on his mostly empty plate. “It’s like you brought the light with you.”
“That’s...” I lick my lips as I think about what he means, my chest warm and tingly. “...oddly sweet.”
He shrugs and reaches for his water glass. “Just telling it like it is.”
Releasing a breath, I try to change the subject. “In any event, back to you being obstinate?—”
He rolls his eyes. “Of course. You can’t just let me distract you with a compliment?”
“Not gonna happen, McCabe. You had the opportunity to say something at that press conference about the fans leaving the fighting to the professionals on the ice, and you didn’t. In fact, you said it was not your place to have an opinion on that. So now that I was injured and your daughter was almost hurt as well, what’s your plan?”
“Have someone ask me again after our next game.”
“After the way you responded last time?” I ask with an incredulous laugh. Like I’d trust him again. I’m not even sure I want him in front of the media after what happened in the pressroom a few days ago. But, as team captain, it’s kind of expected.
“Trust me,” he says, as if such a thing was possible. “Have someone ask me again.”
I press my lips together between my teeth, wondering if it’s worth the risk. The right statement from him could help, but if he goes off script again...“Not unless you get some coaching on what you’re going to say first.”
“I don’t need fucking coaching on what to say.” Letting out a huge sigh, he sits back in his seat.
I follow suit, but the second my shoulder blade makes contact with the back of the seat, I wince. I try to hide it, but he’s quick to ask what’s wrong.
“Just sore,” I say breezily.
“Are you bruised from the fall?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve looked at my back since getting dressed this morning.”
“You weren’t bruised then,” he confirms.
“I thought you said you were keeping your eyes closed?” He’d promised he wouldn’t look at me while he helped me get my dress on today. It had been easy for me to get into the short-sleeved dress; he’d just needed to zip up the back for me.
“I said I wouldn’t look while you were putting the dress on. I didn’t say I was going to zip it up with my eyes closed. Anyway, I didn’t see any bruises, but the dress was covering most of your back.” He stands, rounding the table toward my seat. “Let me check.”
“What?” I shrink back in my chair, which is foolish because the minute my full back hits that seat, I yelp in pain. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no need.” I keep my words breezy so he won’t notice how my entire body is heating up at the thought of his hands on me. I need to keep the boundaries between us clear—something he doesn’t seem to know how to do.
“I’m going to have to unzip your dress later on so you can change, anyway,” he says. “You’re done eating, so why not now?”
“Because...” I say, but I can’t think of any good reason except that I can tell there’s bruising and I don’t want him to see it. He already has some sort of a martyr complex about helping me recover since I saved Abby from injury. I don’t need that complex to get any stronger when he sees what shape my body’s in after that fall.
“Stand up, Alessandra, before I haul you out of that chair.” His words are low, but they’re not threatening. They’re a caress, a promise that he’ll get his way but he’ll be gentle in doing so.
“You wouldn’t.”
He puts his hand on the back of my seat, easily turning the chair so I’m facing him. “I would. So I highly suggest you stand on your own, or you’re going to end up over my shoulder.”
I’m so tempted to test him, to sit here stubbornly, just to see if he’d actually do it. But that feels like a line I’m not willing to cross, so instead, I stand.
“There, happy?” I huff.
He looks down at me, and there’s a heat in his eyes that shouldn’t be there. His voice is low and raspy as his breath coasts along the top of my head. “Good girl. See how easy it is to do what you’re told?”
I close my eyes, gulping as I tilt my head down, away from the sound of his sexy-as-hell voice. There’s no reason those words should have my underwear already damp, but that’s what’s happening. I should be telling him to check himself, but my body is having an entirely different response.
Stop it right fucking now, I tell myself, willing my good sense to return. Whatever it is he does to my senses, and the way my body responds to him...it needs to stop.
“Just unzip me, McCabe. I can look at my own back in the mirror in the bathroom. I don’t need your help,” I say, too quietly, and he looks at me like he knows I’m trying to hide from him even while we stand toe to toe.
He brings his knuckles under my chin, tilting my head back so he can see my face, and goosebumps erupt along my chest and down my arms. “What is it you don’t want me to see?”
Me, I want to scream. Because right now, with him staring down at me, this whole situation feels too raw, too vulnerable. Like not only will he be able to see how bruised and battered my body is, but maybe he’ll even be able to see that my heart is in the same condition.
“I’m your boss,” I say, because I feel like maybe we both need that reminder.
“Like I could forget,” he says, eyes searching mine. “But you’re also the woman who saved my daughter from getting injured, and I’m going to take care of you until you’re recovered.”
I exhale, relieved that’s all this is to him—he’s only taking care of me because he feels obligated, given that I protected Abby.
“You don’t need to do that. I’m fine .”
“Really? Then let’s see.” He rests his hands on my shoulders tenderly, like he knows I’m in pain and wants to make sure he doesn’t hurt me, then turns me so my back is to him.
I suck in a breath when his fingers skim the skin over my spine, and exhale slowly as he grips the fabric at the top of my dress with one hand, then slowly pulls the zipper down with the other.
When I feel the zipper pass my bra, I try to step away, knowing I can unzip it the rest of the way one-handed. But his palm snakes around to the front of my neck, pulling me back to him gently. This beast of a man is cradling my body in his—his rock-solid chest barely touching my shoulders, one arm wrapped around me and cupping my neck in his hand—and I can’t fucking breathe from how turned on I am.
I try to exhale to make room in my lungs for new air, but it comes out sounding a whole lot like a moan.
“You’re going to let me see what’s going on with your back.” His words are a low caress. “So are we doing this the easy way, or the hard way?”
While I know the easy way is to just let him look, my imagination is captivated and my body thrums at the idea of finding out what the hard way looks like. But my confidence fails me at that moment.
“Easy,” I squeak out.
His hips settle against my lower back as his hand trails around to the nape of my neck, then down the bare skin along my spine. Knuckles pressing against me, he slides his hand into the dress and holds the fabric together as his other hand tugs the zipper the rest of the way down in one fluid motion.
He dips his head so his lips are right next to my ear. “Good girl. Now show me where it hurts.”
My entire core clenches in need, my hips flexing back against him without my permission. What the hell was that?
I’ve never in my life wanted to be treated like someone’s fucking pet. Yet here this man is, his deep, gravelly voice melting me with his words of affirmation.
With my left hand, I slide the dress off my right shoulder, and he sucks in his breath so sharply it sounds like a gasp.
“What the fuck is this?” He pulls the dress farther down my arm to bare more of my back to him, and then traces his fingers ever-so-lightly across the tender flesh. I all but stop breathing, but it’s not because of the pain. It’s because of how this gruff man is so tender when he’s touching me.
“I’m fine,” I assure him.
“Like hell you are. I want this dress off so I can see what else is hurt.”
My shoulders shake with laughter. “Yeah, sure that’s why you want this dress off.”
“There is no question that in other circumstances, I’d want your dress off for other reasons. But right now, I honestly want to see how badly you’re hurt. Nothing more.”
The erection he’s pressing against the curve of my spine says otherwise.
“I’m not taking my dress off in the middle of your condo,” I say, nodding my chin toward the walls of windows at the corner of the room, which are uncovered. Outside, the light is fading fast as we approach sunset, and anyone in one of the surrounding buildings could see in here.
“Fine. My room, then.” With his hand on my lower back, he steers me toward the hallway to the bedrooms. “I’m just going to double check on Abby first.”
Earlier tonight, while I was across the hall feeding Tabitha and packing the suitcase he’d laid out for me on my bed in preparation for tomorrow’s trip, he put Abby down to sleep and made us dinner. After collecting my suitcase and bringing it over to his guest bedroom, he fed me.
I don’t know who this man is—I want to think that this caretaking side of him is only because he feels guilty and wants to make it up to me, but what if this is just who he is? And worse, what if I like this side of him a little too much?
“Fine,” I say with a sigh. He’s not letting this go without seeing what condition I’m in, and after that huge pasta dinner with the carb-loading hockey player, I’m getting tired. I just don’t feel like fighting him on this. I’ll show him my back and my hip, and then call it an early night by retreating to the guest bedroom.
That feels like a safe plan.