12. Liv
A message from Ash offering a ticket for tonight’s game came in at the perfect time. The mass spectrometer finally did its thing and all I had left was to record the day’s numbers. If I hurried, I’d make it on time.
When I presented my ID at will-call, the clerk paused, checking a note on the desk.
“I’ve got something else for you, hold on a sec.” They walked away for a moment and came back with a jersey and the envelope with my ticket.
Putting Ash’s jersey on almost felt like a declaration, but by him or me?
Either way hundreds of other people in the arena wore the same one, so it probably meant nothing.
The white fabric slipped easily over my head; the added layer of warmth would be nice once I found my seat, which the attendant told me would be on the front row, as close to the ice as you could get without being on it.
Armed with a hockey crash course Polly gave me, I had a better grasp on the game this time, though I lamented my lack of a book.
An audiobook might be my saving grace, though, since I’d ended up at the arena half an hour before the game began.
My mind drifted somewhere between the sultry tones of the audiobook narrator and blissful emptiness while I ate popcorn until movement on the ice caught my attention.
Players in Knights jerseys began trickling onto the ice, zooming around with their sticks held overhead.
Around me, the fans roared, and it was exhilarating and contagious, excitement pounding through the floor and into my bloodstream.
The team split up, running through various warmups, and I watched in awe at the dexterity with which the players handled their sticks, bouncing pucks back and forth on the sides of the blade.
A few of the players wove between the others, and one did a few jumps and spins as he sped through the milling players.
The moves were familiar, and a pang of pride I had no business feeling tugged in my chest. My eyes tracked every move he made until?—
“Ho. Lee. Shit.” Clapping my hands over my mouth, I gasped at having said it aloud. But a glance around told me I wasn’t the only one so affected by him. Hockey fans leaned forward or stood to get a better look.
Ash and a few others were doing some kind of obscene stretch involving getting on all fours and—and—my cheeks heated.
Was that legal ? Could they do… that... in public? Suddenly, the arena, which had been glacier-cold before, was a little too steamy.
When Ash stared right at me on a particularly low dip of his hips, I almost swallowed my tongue.
Even from a distance, the grin he flashed and the mischievous quirk of one dark brow had me so flustered I dropped my phone, and it skidded a few feet away.
A blond woman about my age handed it to me with a knowing smirk.
Oh hell, was I drooling? I wiped my face, and no drool, thankfully.
Unbidden, or okay, maybe a little bidden, images of Ash moving over me flooded my mind; the way he braced on his arms, keeping himself from crushing me, but letting enough weight hold me down to keep me grounded. And the way his hips pistoned… damn .
A gasping inhale told me I was holding my breath. “What the fuck?” I hissed, accidentally out loud. “That’s not fair.”
“Just imagine being on the receiving end of that.” The blond’s eyes glazed over.
“I’m trying to stop imagining it.”
* * *
If someone asked me after the game what happened, all I would remember was the Knights winning. I watched the entire game, but nothing stuck.
Actually, no, I watched Ash the entire game, even when he was in the box.
A switch flipped, and whatever was happening between us circled in my head. Before, I only had the mental image of the kiss, and it was in public, so we kept it pretty PG. But now the image of him on his knees flashed every time I closed my eyes.
If he affected me so strongly, was it really only a kiss?
A text came through as I waited for more people to clear out before I left the arena.
Ash
Come around to the side door.
As so frequently happened when Ash was involved, I didn’t think, I just went to find him.
When I found the door, he was waiting, leaning against the wall with his head tipped back against the concrete.
A moment of panic slithered through my mind on seeing him.
What was I supposed to do when he looked edible?
In his suit, with his hair slicked back and still damp from a shower, he looked like some off-duty secret agent waiting for a tryst with an opposing agent, or a billionaire CEO waiting on his fresh-faced assistant to bring the coffee order before he bent her over his desk and had his way with her.
Oh fuck, I read too many romance novels.
Then he looked up and every thought left my head followed closely by every ounce of feminism.
“Hnngh.” Hopefully, I played the sound off as a cough.
“You wore it.”
“Ha.” The sardonic sound snapped between us. “Just like all your other fans.”
“No one else is wearing one I’ve worn before.”
Oh. Oh . Maybe it was a declaration.
As I got nearer, he reached out and tugged me closer, only to spin me around to face away. A tingling sensation spread across my back, above my shoulder blades, it felt like he was… writing?
“I like seeing my name on you.” The whisper was dangerously close to my ear, coated with something close to possessiveness. Desire, maybe.
Or maybe desire was what I felt, curling low in my belly, something unfurling deep inside me, growing even hotter as he wrapped his arms around my waist and propped his chin in the dip of my collarbone.
He was made to fit against my body, the circle of his arms so… exquisite.
“Ash,” his name was more exhale than word.
Was he nuzzling my neck? The woodsy, smoky scent of his cologne engulfed me as he held tighter, and sparks trailed from my neck down, igniting a path through my entire body.
Every inch of me was on fire, and maybe I should’ve reached for a fire extinguisher, but I reached for Ash instead.
Turning in the circle of his arms was sweet agony; the length of him pressed against me turning me into a conflagration of messy need.
My hands threaded through the short, damp hair at the back of his neck as I pulled his face down to meet mine.
The first slow brush of our lips stoked the fire into an inferno as his arms twined tighter around me. When he kissed me before, it was all hard and aggressive, but now he let me lead, so I went softer, more teasing and lightness. A low groan sounded in his throat.
“Wilder.”
Reluctantly, I opened my eyes, my gaze meeting Ash’s to find him grinning like he’d read every lascivious thought I had.
“Wilder.”
Oh, shit, we had an audience.
“Press.”
“Shit,” Ash muttered. “Wait for me?”