Chapter 6 #2
Since he sounded so affronted—and since he was completely right—I began to nod as the laughter spilled out. “Deal,” I called, skating backward.
He raised his voice. “Picking you up at seven tomorrow night. Wear something comfortable.”
I was laughing too hard to do more than wave in acknowledgement.
“Three hundred and ninety-nine more!” Kardok called at the same time Joshua blew his whistle and called, “Again.”
I felt my heart lighten as I reached the blue line and turned. Kardok was right; it was going to take time and repetition, but I could do this. I would learn to trust him, learn to let go of the careful control I’d built my life on.
Still smiling, I pictured myself as an axe, took a deep breath, and threw myself down the ice toward the hot orc enforcer who’d just asked me on a real date.
Kardok
The axe made a thoroughly unsatisfying sort of twang as it hit the wooden target handle-first and rebounded into the sawdust below. I pressed my lips together to hide my response to Lila’s adorable noise of frustration.
“This is impossible,” she huffed. “I’m hitting the target.”
“You are,” I agreed, stepping up to take her place. I held my beer in my left hand and the axe in my right. “And honestly, that’s better than most beginners.” The backdrop on either side of the target bore the marks to prove my point.
I lifted my right hand over my head and casually threw my axe overhanded. It thwunked into the target and stuck, and I lifted my beer to my lips at the same time Lila stomped her foot in frustration.
“That’s easy for you to say—you can probably do this with your eyes closed!”
She was right; I’d been here plenty of times with my brother Brakkor or my teammates. As the pair of us strolled down the stall to pick up our weapons, I told her so.
“Dakvaar is ridiculously good at this, but you’d never know, because he doesn’t ever talk about personal stuff.”
“I’m not surprised.” Lila bent at the waist to scoop up her downed ax while I pulled mine from the target. “The guy has never, ever missed a shot on goal. Sometimes it’s blocked, sure, but he doesn’t miss.”
She’d…noticed that? I felt my lips curling as I watched her march back toward the throwing line. It wasn’t the first time Lila had surprised me with knowledge about the Teal Terrors or a particular player. Or me.
The knowledge she’d watched me play in the past filled me with that same sense of rightness I’d felt, knowing she’d been in the stands earlier this week.
I was feeling that way right now, having her at my side. I’d felt that way earlier when I’d picked her up from her apartment. She’d answered the door wearing a pair of jeans and a black silk blouse, and my mouth had started to water.
Who the fuck went axe-throwing in a silk blouse? My princess did.
Remembering how perfectly she’d fit in at the ballet, I’d expected at least a nose-wrinkle when we stepped into BadAxe, with the sawdust on the floor, the loud impacts and cheers, and the stench of spilled beer.
But Lila had stepped inside and looked around eagerly, as if she was excited to experience this new place.
I had to give her credit; she was a princess who didn’t turn her nose up at things below her.
Like me.
Last time I’d had the chance to kiss Lila, I’d been the one to back away, despite the scent of her arousal in the air. I’d been the one to tell myself that I didn’t deserve her.
Tonight?
I wasn’t so sure.
Sauntering over to her, I handed her my axe, sipping my beer as she hefted them both to get the feel, while glaring at the target. If sheer determination would embed the axe head in the target, she would succeed.
She took her stance—legs spread, double-handed hold on the handle—and let fly, shifting her weight at the last minute. The weapon’s rotation had slowed by the time it reached the center of the stall, and barely managed to rebound off the target.
With a little huff of frustration, Lila scooped up my axe and made the same mistake again. I watched her stomp through the sawdust to scoop up both weapons.
When she returned to the ready line, she plopped them down in front of me and picked up her beer with a scowl. “This is bullshit.”
I think it was the first time I’d ever heard her curse, and the laugh burst out of me before I could stop it.
When I calmed down, Lila was peering at me impishly over the rim of her beer, a small mustache of foam on her upper lip. “I’ve never heard you laugh like that before.”
I toasted her. “I’ve never heard you cuss like that before.”
I liked my princess when she was on the ice, gliding like an angel. I think I liked her even more surrounded by loud males, drinking beer, and grinning up at me.
She took a deep drink, then set the glass down as her tongue swiped over her upper lip. I watched the movement, suddenly jealous of that tongue.
I wanted to taste her.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and picked up one of the axes from in front of me. “What am I doing wrong?”
Focus. “Remember yesterday’s conversation about being the axe?”
Her nod was too serious. “Be the axe, got it.”
Gods below, I couldn’t stop smiling around this female, could I? “I meant, you have to commit. Commit to the throw, to the strength behind it.”
She wasn’t going to get it if I had to explain it. I plunked my beer down beside hers and stepped up behind her. Lila was so much smaller than me, but her body molded to mine as if we were meant for each other, her ass nestled between my thighs, my arms cupping her shoulders.
“Here,” I murmured, reaching around and taking her wrists in my hands. “Pull back over your head like this…”
I had to tip my own head out of the way in order for her to pull back as far as she needed. I guided her hands through the motions a few times, showing her how to swing forward.
“Good, now your legs…”
When I nudged them apart, I heard her sharp inhale and smelled the sweet, sudden burst of her arousal. I managed not to groan, but I couldn’t help the way I flexed my hips forward.
Could she feel how hard I was for her already? Fuck me.
“Your right leg needs to go forward.” My voice was hoarse, raspy with desire. “Shift your weight from the back foot to the forward one as you throw.” I moved her through the motions a few times.
“Commit,” Lila whispered.
I swallowed. “Yeah. This is the point”—I paused, her hands over her head, in the middle of helping her shift her weight forward—“that there’s no going back. You have to commit here, you have to know you’re going to release the axe, because if you don’t, you’re going to bury the thing in your knee.”
I felt her shudder as I held her hands in the air and wondered if she felt helpless. “That’s…alarming.”
“But that’s the point. You know the target’s there and there are no obstacles to prevent the axe from hitting it.
” I lowered my head slightly so my mouth was closer to her ear.
“Just like you know I’m always going to be there to catch you.
If you’ve committed when you’re here—” I squeezed her wrists, then let her go—“you have to release the axe, and it will hit the target.”
I saw her swallow, then nod, as I stepped back just slightly. I was as nervous as Lila was as she took a few practice swings, then took a deep breath and settled into position.
She swung perfectly. She shifted her weight perfectly. She committed.
The axe spun on its axis perfectly, and made a perfect fucking thwunk sound as the head embedded itself into the wood of the target, six inches from the center of the board.
“Aaahhh!” The noise Lila made when she pumped the air was pure victory, and I was already laughing as she turned to me, doing a happy little dance.
“Good work, Princess,” I managed, just before she threw herself at me.
She committed.
And as promised, I caught her.
I lifted her as if this had been part of the plan all along, and Lila’s legs went around my waist. Her mouth crashed down atop mine, and my hand palmed the back of her head, holding her in place as I finally—finally—got to taste her.
She tasted like hops and something sweeter underneath, like her desire and victory and adventure all at once.
My fingers threaded through that honey-gold hair the way I’d been thinking about for weeks, and she made a small noise against my mouth that did absolutely nothing to help me behave myself.
I kissed her the way I’d been wanting to since that first afternoon on the ice—not carefully, not tentatively, but like I meant it, like I’d decided something and wasn’t taking it back.
She kissed me back the same way.
I dragged my lips to the corner of her mouth, her jaw, that soft place just beneath her ear, and felt her shiver in my arms, her fingers tightening in my shirt. She smelled like her coconut lotion and something that was just her, and my Kteer went absolutely feral with satisfaction.
I let my tongue trace the line of her jaw, slow and deliberate, and the noise she made—breathless, involuntary, like she couldn’t help it—nearly finished me.
“Kardok—” she started.
“Yeah,” I said against her throat. “I know.”
I found her mouth again.