Coasting (Gold Hockey Book 8) Page 7

  And then out-stubborning her to stay around.

  Calle crossed over to them, and her expression would have given PR-Rebecca a run for her money in the stubborn department.

  Or maybe it was determined.

  Determined to prove to him—or herself—that nothing had changed between them and that she was fully capable of that.

  Well, he knew that. The that being her ability to be fully capable of doing her job. The other that—the nothing had changed one—wasn’t so easy to prove. Something had changed, had linked them together, and there was a reason chains weren’t easy to break. Links were strong, links tied, links—

  Calle shoved the tablet under his nose, thankfully cutting off his internal waxing poetic about links and chains.

  “Watch this,” she said and hit play.

  Coop watching himself on the television feed was still a trip, even after almost seven full seasons in the league. But there he was. He’d obtained his dream, was wearing the jersey of a professional team, and on TV.

  Craziness.

  But then his mind shifted out of the clouds and down to the screen. He watched the figure move, began to process what the teams were doing, what he had done, and he glanced up at Calle, mouth curved. “So, that’s what we’ve been working on, huh?”

  Her expression turned playful. “If by working on you mean by doing the exact opposite of what we’ve been practicing, then yes.”

  “Damn.” He grinned.

  Her eyes danced before growing earnest as she explained another place they could improve. “And see this here . . .”

  His smile faded as she talked, not liking that he hadn’t been able to do what she asked, that the things they’d worked on in practice hadn’t translated into the game. All that work for absolutely nothing. All of Calle’s work for nothing. Fuck. What was the point of practicing if he couldn’t bring it out in the games?

  “I know,” Blue said, pointing to the screen, when Calle paused the video. “It’s all going as planned, and then I turn the wrong way—”

  “And I slide up too high,” Coop interjected.

  “And then an odd-man rush the other way.”

  Fuck. He remembered the play now. The puck had popped out of the zone and the Duck’s center had grabbed it, hauling ass along with two of his teammates as they headed toward Brit in goal. Only Stefan had been back playing defense since Mike had overcommitted and ventured too low, and then with him and Blue bungling the offense in one heartbeat, the play’s tide had turned.

  Three on one was never good odds.

  But three on one in professional hockey was even worse.

  Even with Brit in net and Stefan, one of the best defensemen, back, the Ducks had still scored. Brit having made the first save but not having been able to make the second.

  She’d been pissed about that, about letting the Ducks get the go-ahead goal, but the team didn’t blame her, and Coop most certainly didn’t. At any given time, the puck had to get through the five of them on the ice before it got to Brit in net, and at that time, three out of the five of them had screwed the pooch, making her odds even worse.

  She couldn’t make the crazy, game-saving, stand-on-her-head stop every single time.

  Even though she expected herself to.

  Coop had overheard her talking to Frankie after the game, already planning an extra practice session to improve “her pathetic glove hand” the next game.

  Perfectionist.

  One of the best goalies he’d ever had the privilege of playing with.

  Calle tapped the tablet’s screen, and he watched the play unfold, watched the goal, and knew Brit wasn’t the only one who needed an extra practice session. He’d set something up, work on plugging that hole until he was perfect.

  “I don’t expect you guys to be perfect,” Calle said, directly contradicting his thoughts. “This is a new system, and there will be hiccups and setbacks as we move forward with it. But the more time and practice and game play with it, the less often we’ll see these errors. It’s just a matter of muscle memory.”

  He nodded, meeting Blue’s eyes over her shoulder. He knew his line mate was on the same page. More practice. More reps. Fewer imperfections. Fewer outright fuck-ups.

  “Thanks, Coach.”

  Calle may not expect perfection from them, but he did. And so, fine, maybe that wasn’t reasonable, and maybe Brit wasn’t the only obsessive perfectionist in the locker room. So, what if she had plenty of company? They all had to have some perfectionist in them, otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten as far as they had.

  She nodded and stood. “I’ll see you all on the bus.”

  Coop nodded, wanting to ask if the crackers and ginger ale had helped settle her stomach but knowing that he should just leave it alone. For all he knew, she’d tossed them in the trash and had gone about her game prep. So, instead of asking her about her nausea and the snack, he started to get dressed. By the time he grabbed his own snack and retrieved his shit from his car, there wouldn’t be much time before he had to head to the airport with the guys.

  The team tended to fly out right away after games, giving them as much time as possible to get to their destination and allowing for issues with delays or flight cancelations.

  The second wasn’t so common, as the team had their own plane, but sometimes the weather—especially in fog-prone San Francisco—made it tricky to fly out.

  So, a bus to the airport then a plane down to Anaheim . . . then a bus to the hotel.

  Then tomorrow a bus to the rink.

  Then a bus back to the airport.

  Pro at hockey. Pro at bus travel.

  Not that the buses the team had were anything like those he’d grown up using. These were luxurious with comfortable seats, plenty of legroom, and they even had seat belts.

  Cue sarcasm.

  But growing up in Atlanta didn’t exactly bring the word luxury to mind, or at least not his neighborhood. He’d grown up in a strictly middle-class area, and the hockey opportunities weren’t particularly plentiful, but he’d had natural talent and his parents had made it work.

  That had meant a lot of driving for them when he’d made a decent travel team, and plenty of him navigating the local transit systems with his huge equipment bag and sticks. Eventually, it had meant allowing him to move in with a family in Michigan so he could take advantage of the better hockey there and could grow as a player. They’d made trips up to watch him play, had scrimped and saved to buy him new skates when his feet grew out of them twice in one season, and they’d never failed to find a way to help him realize his dreams.

  Luckily, he’d been able to pay some of that back.

  He’d bought them a house last year, had paid off both of their cars—and the only reason he hadn’t bought them new ones was because they’d thrown such a conniption about the house that he’d refrained.

  He’d still paid for them to take a two-week vacation to an all-inclusive in Jamaica.

  They’d come back from fourteen days of sand and surf and free alcohol much more sanguine about the house.

  Still wouldn’t let him buy them new cars, though.

  Grinning, Coop shoved his feet into his shoes and tossed his suit jacket over one arm then gathered up his wallet, cell, and bag. He’d run to his car and get everything sorted. But as he moved to the door, he noticed that Calle hadn’t made it very far. She was talking to Brit near the exit and . . . she was looking noticeably pale.

  And sweaty.

  She swallowed hard, glanced toward the door, and he watched her spine stiffen, her jaw clench, and her shoulders come up.

  Did Brit not see that she was dying to get out of the room?

  Max came in then, still wearing his post-game workout gear, and Coop watched him stop by Calle and start jabbering.

  And all the while, Calle got paler.

  He closed the distance between them, saw she’d taken on an almost gray cast and her forehead was beaded with sweat. Max and Brit seemed oblivious. Fuck
. How was he the only one who noticed that Calle was breathing through her mouth and inching toward the door?

  There were only two feet between them when Max lifted his arm, pointing over Brit’s shoulder.

  Calle gagged.

  Which both Brit and Max missed, because they were looking in the direction he’d pointed, but which Coop definitely didn’t miss because he was focused on Calle.

  “See?” Max was saying, and when Coop got a whiff of the funk that was wafting from beneath Max’s armpit, he almost gagged himself.

  Fuck, that was awful.

  He nudged Max away—okay, he shoved Max—but the six-foot-two-hundred-pound-plus athlete could take it without a backward step. “Hit the showers, dude,” he snapped. “You’re stinking up the place.”

  Max smirked. “Don’t tell me you like the locker room as clean as you like your car.”

  Brit snorted.

  “It was one time,” Coop said, interjecting himself into the conversation and giving Calle a light nudge toward the hall, trying to encourage her to take the chance at escape while she had it.

  She understood the push and stepped out of the circle of conversation, slipping quietly into the hall as Max continued teasing him about his obsessively clean car.

  Brit joined in then turned the razzing to Max and his collection of toys.

  Which then turned to Brit and her taste in music, several of the guys joining in and lamenting about how awful it was when she got to choose the playlist in the locker room.

  “You guys know you love Lizzo,” Brit said as Stefan came up behind her and slipped his arm around her waist. She turned into the embrace. “You know the guys love Lizzo. And Britney. And Gaga. And the Backstreet Boys.”

  Coop shuddered—though he couldn’t say he hated when Juice came on. That shit was catchy.

  Stefan, good husband that he was, nodded and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

  Which then turned the teasing Stefan’s way, the guys dissecting the many ways he showed Brit way too much PDA in varying degrees of grossness.

  And that was Coop’s cue to get the fuck out.

  He melted into the hallway, intending to go out to the parking lot, but as he walked past the row of offices, he heard it.

  It being . . . the sound of vomiting.

  One guess whose office it was coming from.

  Eight

  Calle

  The knock at the door as she was quietly trying to lose her cookies was not welcome.

  Nor was said door cracking open and the soft voice saying, “It’s me.”

  Because, of course, Coop was there.

  She straightened from the trash can she had been losing Coop’s crackers and ginger ale into—courtesy of Max and Brit’s combined post-game funk—and smiled at the man infiltrating her space again.

  “Hey, Coach,” he said, eyes going behind him and then forward again. “I was hoping you could show me—”

  He slipped through the door and shut it behind him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked without preamble once it clicked closed.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “What do you think?”

  “I think you look like a corpse.”

  Since that was an adequate description of how she was feeling, Calle didn’t get offended. Instead, stomach settling, she set down the trash can and reached for the top drawer of her desk. If puking through the day was going to become a habit, she’d need to start keeping a toothbrush or mouthwash on hand. For now, she thought she had a pack of gum somewhere mixed in the clutter.

  “Well, I’ve felt better,” she muttered, knocking aside stacks of Post-Its, dislodging carefully stowed pens and pencils—

  “What are you looking for?”

  Not finding the gum, she sighed and shut the drawer. “My mouth feels like a dumpster,” she said. She had her toothbrush packed away. She would get it out, sneak into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and that would make everything better.

  See? Good plan.

  “Here.”

  Coop’s hand appeared in her line of sight.

  Not as close as Max’s had been, the big defensemen managed to create a funk that even their equipment manager’s vast skills at keeping the hockey smell at bay couldn’t manage. Still, Coop was close enough that she caught a whiff of his scent, of something spicy and masculine that definitely didn’t make her feel nauseated.

  Hell, it was about as far away from nauseated as she could get.

  Heat coiled in her belly, seeping out to fill her limbs, to snake down between her thighs, to make her knees—both damaged and whole—wobble just the tiniest bit.

  Her fingers trembled when she reached for the pack of mints he’d held out. “Thanks,” she murmured.

  “Any time.”

  She took one, popped it into her mouth, and started to hand the container back.

  He waved her away. “Keep them.”

  “Thanks,” she said again and picked up her water bottle, taking a long sip to clear away the final unpleasant taste of being sick.

  The edges of her favorite smile in the history of all smiles appeared, curving his mouth up, making his eyes sparkle with amusement. The effect was as physical as getting nailed into the boards during a battle.

  Breath-stealing and a punch to the gut at the same time.

  “I figure your need is greater than mine,” he teased.

  Her own lips curved up. “I think I spoke too soon about the nausea thing to Dr. Holdings.”

  “Unfortunately, I think you’re right.” He opened his mouth then just as quickly closed it again.

  “What?” she asked.

  “It’s not my place,” he said. “Hope the mints help.” He reached for the doorknob. “See you on the—”

  His words cut off.

  Probably because she’d touched his back.

  Probably because she had touched his back, intending to tell him . . . something that poofed away like so much smoke when her brain processed the spike of heat that coursed through the thin cotton of his button-down. He was scorching hot, and at the contact, a spark lit through her fingers, almost burning in its intensity and ramping up the yearning she’d felt over the last two seasons.

  She wanted to jump into that fire, to get burned to ash, to—

  Coop slowly turned around, and his dark eyes were molten, scalding her, stealing her breath, causing moisture to pool between her thighs.

  She swallowed hard, almost choking on the mint.

  His hand came up, cupped her cheek. “Careful,” he murmured.

  How in the hell could she be careful when he made her feel like this? How in the hell could she step back when all she wanted to do was move forward?

  There was a reason she’d slept with Jason almost three months before, and that was because she was lonely and empty and . . . had been craving Coop with an increasingly frightening need. But that need wasn’t going away like she’d hoped, and spending all this extra time with him wasn’t helping.

  Her muscles ached from resisting the urge to launch herself into his arms.

  She needed—

  His thumb, lightly calloused like her own, drifted along her cheek, and then his palm drifted down, sliding along her jaw, her throat, her arm, slipping around behind her back and pulling her flush against his front.

  Fuck, that was good.

  Her breasts brushed the hard lines of his chest, his stomach, and him being just a few inches taller than her meant that their mouths lined up perfectly.

  They were close enough that she could feel his breath against her lips, his scent was flooding her senses, but instead of making her nauseated, she felt intoxicated. “You’re like catnip,” she murmured, rubbing her face against his chest.

  Coop froze, and she realized what she’d said.

  How inane it must have sounded.

  She tried to back up, to pull out of his hold, but his arms just tightened, holding her against him. Hell, she had to be honest. She wasn’t trying very hard
to get away, inane statements or not. She felt too good being held in his arms.

  Still, she didn’t want to sound like an idiot.

  “I—I meant—I’m just tired—” A shake of her head. “Ignore me. Apparently, all this throwing up has made it so I can’t speak in normal sentences—”

  Her excuses cut off because Coop dropped his head, inhaling deeply. “Well, baby,” he murmured, hot breath ruffling her hair, making a shiver skate down her spine, “if I’m your catnip, then know I’ve been fantasizing about bottling the scent of you for months. It makes my mouth water and my cock get hard every time I smell it.”

  It wasn’t until her lungs burned and her head began to spin that she realized she’d sucked in a breath and held it. Her lips parted, the long-held air shuddered out and . . . she melted against Coop’s chest.

  Even though it was probably the stupidest thing she’d ever done.

  Even though she should back up and let him leave.

  Even though this had disaster written all over it.

  “Calle?”

  She’d dropped her forehead against his pecs again, had been inhaling his scent again, letting it wash over her and heat her from the inside out. “Hmm?”

  “I’m going to kiss you now.”

  Her head shot up.

  Her lungs stopped working.

  Her brain screamed no . . . okay, lie, it screamed yes.

  Her pussy demanded she drop her pants and bend over the desk so he could take her from behind.

  Her tongue . . . well, that fucker started a mutiny by practically shouting, right in Coop’s face, “No!”

  Her body joined in, lurching from the circle of his arms.

  Her eyes caught the flash of hurt sliding across his face.

  Her—

  “I—”

  He shook his head. “No explanation needed,” he said darkly. “I’m reading you loud and clear—”

  “No!” Another almost shout. Another ridiculous outburst. And look, she got it. She was acting like an insane person, melting in his hold one second, screaming at him the next. “I want to kiss you,” she said, probably stupidly, certainly imprudently given her job and the current state of her life. “I’ve been dreaming about what you’d taste like for months and . . .”