CHAPTER FIVE
KNOX
“Head down. Stick with your player. Where’s the puck? Can you even hit it today? Jesus Christ, Vandevere. One more pass like that and you can wear the fucking Chimera suit as team mascot for the next game,” Coach shouted across the ice.
He’d been bouncing and raring full of the sort of energy I envied when I turned up for training while I lacked several hours of sleep from kissing Felicity most of the night.
It didn’t help that I dragged my ass in the door ten minutes late, but hell, I had a good reason.
The hard gaze he fixed on every one of us told me this was a session no one would enjoy.
“Hey,” Ripley, our mascot wearing team member protested as I skated up, managing not to land on my ass as I plowed into his side instead.
I patted his shoulder. “It’s okay, Rip. No one’s taking the Chimera suit off you.”
He huffed. “Better not.” He hugged the stitched costume to his chest that consisted of a plush lion’s head, a stuffed goat’s body and a snake tail that originated somewhere out the back. I’d never looked too closely to check where that came from.
Our version of the traditional chimera had some extra bits like horns and a pair of oversized dragon wings in ice blue that looked cool as hell when Rip skated around the arena, shooting merch out of his t-shirt cannon on game day.
For now, the glossy quilted wings wilted at his sides as he stared at me, bereft.
“Don’t take my costume, man.” Rip sent me the puppy eyes, a master at the damn expression.
I shook my head while Coach glared at me, making my denial damn hard. “You’re safe. Promise.”
“He’d better be,” Coach barked, motioning me over. “Do you need laps like you’re back in junior high to make it stick?”
Guilt spread across my face like a fresh wave of acne. “Ahhh—”
Coach glared at me. “Fuck me. She’s back, isn’t she?”
I clenched my teeth, unable to vocalize the apology I needed to find in a damn hurry from the look on Coach’s face, and nodded. The admission seemed to be enough.
“Fine. Get your ass out there and score me three goals against Valentine. Three minutes of play gets you back in my good graces. Otherwise, you’re lapping the ice until I say stop. Got it?”
“Got it.” My voice worked this time, thank fuck, or I might as well start lapping the ice now. And I had a hell of a to do list before I hauled my backside home to collect Felicity before we headed out tonight.
Coach let me get a few paces before he called me back. “Vandevere!”
I blew out a measured breath, catching Shannon’s eye. ‘Don’t blow it,’ he mouthed, pulling his helmet down to cover his next comment.
Smart ass.
“Yeah, Coach?” I spun in a tight circle, turning my skates perpendicular to each other to stop.
“Make it three goals in less than three minutes. I’m not feeling particularly…patient today.”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes, sir.”
The ice flashed beneath my skates as I scooted around Hux and stole the puck from the Chimeras’ captain.
My focus hadn’t been brilliant after a sleepless night spent a dozen feet away from Felicity but then I’d spent those hours working out the best way to wake her.
I’d delivered on that front and left her dozy eyed as all fuck.
Walking away this morning was the hardest part.
At best, I caught a few scant hours. Less than her, though she had my condo to herself for the day.
Even knowing I’d claim her later tonight, those dark hours had been torture all the same. Every soft breath, every time she shifted in her sleep, I woke, reaching for her.
Hell, I didn't remember the last time a woman stayed overnight, and I sure as hell had never been this damn attentive. My back ached by the time the sun rose but I was already up by then, making green tea and chopping fresh mint leaves. I figured she’d find that right after I left.
She might have looked dozy but I knew this woman.
She couldn’t stay in bed once the sun was up.
The scent of Flick’s favorite tea haunted me still.
I took one hell of a punt, guessing at her preferences a decade too far in the past. A bet with myself that paid off less than an hour later when she arched for me when my tongue stroked her swollen pussy lips, her hair all sleep mussed and her eyes dozy as fuck, though some how she still looked twice as beautiful.
That image, plus leaving her in my bed with my shirt hitched around her waist displaying her creamy thighs I wanted to part and sink deep between, was worth every hour of disturbed sleep after midnight.
Right up until those aches came into play halfway through training and my mind decided to focus on the girl who I left in my bed instead of the teammate I was supposed to be running drills against.
“Wake up, sunshine.” Shannon Incarsen barged in on me from one side.
Hux came in on the other, double teaming me. “You gonna tell us who she is? Cause last night’s hay roll musta been some fucking good pussy.”
I glared at him. “Come on, man. You’re meant to be on my team.”
Hux snorted. “The only man on your team for this session is you, my friend. Get through that?” He pointed to the other end of the ice. “And you’re home free. But first, we need her name.”
That being Heath Valentine, the Chimera goalie who replaced Solace while he was out with a knee injury. His massive ass was parked in front of the goal I headed directly for.
“Yeah, yeah, like I’d be this fuckin’ dozy if I got any last night,” I grumped. “Move, old man.” Not that there was more than a few years between us, but I needed some trash talk to throw back at him, even if it was shitty.
I shoved Hux hard enough to throw his balance off but not badly enough to actually hurt the captain.
One of the advantages of being a two-way forward was that both my offence and defense games ran through my head at the same damn time.
The way players moved on the ice—my own team, our opponents—each movement catalogued in my head to form the strategies that laid out around us in split seconds.
That was why the Chimeras scouted me early, even if I didn't earn the contract I craved for a few more years. My place on the team took a little more time, but I got what I wanted in the end.
Maybe having Felicity walk back into my life last night was the happily ever after future that I’d been looking for, even if it wasn’t how I’d imagined.
Tonight, no one would be sleeping on the sofa, and she’d be in my arms. Sex or no sex, Flick was mine.
We simply needed to reestablish a few facts between us.
“Fuck that.” Shannon barged my shoulder, taking a swipe for the puck that he still controlled. “I say you were balls deep in her before the rest of us got home. Who is she? A Basilisk’s girl?”
I ignored him and eyed Valentine, lining up my approach. Shannon was part of my play, even if he didn’t know it just yet.
“Is she a puck bunny from the crowd?”
Damnit, that was a little too close. I knocked my stick against Shannon’s, but he anticipated the move and glided sideways smoothly with me locked against him in a one-on-one puck battle.
“She ain’t no fucking random,” I grunted, intent on claiming the puck. It was more about winning the mini game than avoiding the laps Coach seemed set on giving me, though I didn’t really want those either. The words slipped out.
“Ah, so she’s not just a girl you picked up from the parking lot then,” Shannon mused.
His barb hit way too close. I jammed my elbow beneath his glove, not caring if the move was legal or not. Shannon swore as I lifted the puck away from him, stuck my ass out so he couldn't work his way back in and slammed the puck into the air.
The damn thing sailed right past Valentine and pinged off the side of the goalpost. I groaned, then stopped as the little black disc dropped safely into the back of the net.
“Lucky fucker.” Valentine shook his head and held up a finger at Coach. “One.”
I didn’t need to turn around and face Coach to know he wouldn't be happy with an off the pipe shot. I might as well go for four goals right now and be done with it.
“Let’s go again.”
I nodded, buzzed by the chase and turned back to Shannon just as Hux skated up, one hand rubbing his shoulder.
“She’s my ex. High school sweetheart fairytale level shit.
Except she dumped me. No fucking idea why.
” But I’ll find out. Soon. I nodded to Hux.
“Sorry about the shoulder. You boys ready to do it all over again?”
The shock written across Shannon’s face was worth telling the secret. Almost.
But the goals—four in the end—didn’t save any of us from laps at the end of training.
If I’d thought I was sore after the game, my thighs fucking screamed post training today.
The locker room shower wasn’t anywhere close to hot enough to ease the muscle ache that refused to quit.
I was starting to wish I'd taken Hux up on his offer of an ice bath, but I was keen to check items off my mental list, get back to the condo and talk to Flick, make sure she was okay on her own. It wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go, after all.
All that aside, I left her with a little task today, and I wanted to check in on that before it got too late.
Not that she said as much; I’d semi checked in with her the night before, and she’d confirmed it this morning. When Garry-boy left her in the rain last night, he’d also kicked her out of the house.
Her home.
So my place was her home for the near future until she sorted herself out with something else, or not. And part of me was scared that she wouldn’t be where I asked her to stay when I got back.
“Vandevere,” Coach called my name in that same old-school voice that told me I was in shit before I tucked my towel around my waist.
Definitely should have gone for the ice bath.
“Yeah, Coach?” I plastered a smile that hated me across my face and dripped my way across the tiled floor to him. “I got you your goals.”