Desk Jockey Jam (16 page)

“Got it.”

“We’re going to move now. 
Keep your feet wide, keep your weight forward.”  Bree slid back as she said
that and Ant leaned forward and slid a foot out to the side, then another until
they were moving slowly together.  His balance was good, but his eyes were down
on his skates.  “Look at me not the floor.”  His head came up and his eyes
arrowed to hers.  She felt the intensity of the look all the way to her wheels. 
She had to cough first to get her throat to work.  “Don’t look at me like
that.”

He grinned.  “Like what? 
Like you’re the only thing holding me upright?”

“Like the cat that got the
cream.”

His grin got more shit
eating, if that was possible.  “That’d be you not me, Kitty.”

“Shut up and concentrate.”

“On you, no problem.”

“On what you’re doing, dickwad. 
I’m taking my hand away.”  She pulled her hand and he let go.  They kept moving,
Bree going backwards so she could watch him.  “Stay low.  Keep your knees bent.
Eyes up, watch where you’re going.”

He nodded and did as she
said.  He was doing well, all those hours on a skateboard and a surf board
embedded in his muscle memory for balance.  She skated over to the DJs
turntable and stuck one of the bout half time recordings on.  A compilation of
classic hits with rhythmic beats.  The familiar riff of AC/DC’s
Thunderstruck
started up.  She watched as Ant hit the tracks curved corner and stumbled, his
head going down, his arms shooting out for balance like he was on a wave.

“Forward and tuck,” she
shouted, skating across to him. 

He tucked immediately, but
his body weight pulled him forward and he went down on both knees.  She glided
to a stop in front of him.  He sat on his heels.  His eyes were down, he was
breathing heavily, and a trickle of sweat dribbled from his hairline towards
his brow.  “Okay, up you get.  You’re doing well.”

He lifted his head slowly
and Bree felt all the muscles in her legs tighten as his eyes worked their way
up her body.  “You needn’t bother.”

“I like looking at you.”

“It’s waste of your time.”

“I don’t think so.”

She shook her head.  “So
damn sure of yourself.  Why are you here?”

“You don’t prefer girls do
you?”

“What does it matter?”

He brought one foot up and
rested.  “It doesn’t.  I want to be around you anyway.” 

AC/DC bled into Queen’s
Another
One Bites The Dust
.  She should’ve helped him up.  But surely he didn’t
mean that.  She skated a few steps away from him.  He pushed up to stand, knees
bent, his hands on his thighs and weight forward.  He looked for her, then
straightened further and pushed off.  He was a moving a little too fast, she
shifted to get out of his path, but he reached out with one too long, muscular
arm, grabbed her and slammed into her, nearly lifting her off her feet,
miraculously not taking them both down.

“I like you, Bree.”

She shoved against him,
because he was a dirty, rotten liar and he liked anything with tits.  He let go
and she was free, but he lost his balance and crashed forward, falling to his
side.  He sat back with his legs outstretched in front of him and looked up at
her.  “You make me see things differently.  You make me want to be better.”

He had to be mocking her,
but he wasn’t smiling any more.  She skated around him, forcing him to turn his
head left then right to follow her.  “You want to be friends, even though there
can’t be anything romantic in it.”

“Yeah.”

She took a run at him and
jumped his legs.  He flinched as she went over the top of him.  “I don’t
believe you.”

“How can I prove it?”

She lined herself up to
jump him again.  “You can’t.  You’re a player.”

He said, “How does that
stop us being friends?” as she jumped his knees.  She circled him again, like a
shark thinking of swimmer for dinner.  “Being my friend entitles you to
ridicule me mercilessly about my real and imaginary failings.”

She skated a precise
figure eight.  “I’ve done that already.” 

“See you’ll fit right in.”

Freddy gave way to Jet’s
Are
You Gonna Be My Girl.
 Ant tried to get up and got no further than his
hands and knees.  She body checked his hip and shoved him over.  “You know I
came on to you.” 

He rolled to his butt and
leaned back on his hands, legs sprawled in front.  “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true.  I
like boys.”

“I know.” 

He was so smug.  He had no
idea how easy it would be to run over his hands and break his fingers.  He had
no idea how much she was fighting coming on to him again.  “How can you know? 
You thought I liked kissing girls.”

“I figured it out.”

“Don’t make me laugh.  You
asked Toni.”  Because that’s the only way he could know she was here too.  

Ant lay down full length
on the track, arms wide in a crucifix, a sacrificial shape.  “Yep.”

Bugger Toni.  It wasn’t
the usual thing for a jammer to gun for her own pivot but there was always a
first time. 

Bree skated around to
Ant’s feet.  He lifted his head to watch her.  “You did come on to me and you
liked it.”

She opened her legs around
his feet and skated up the outside of his body, till her wheels were level with
his ribs.  His hands came around to close over her boots, keeping her still. 
She looked down at him.  He was conceited and like the Scissor Sister’s were
singing, filthy gorgeous.  She could keep being angry with him, but what was
the point?  It was pretend anger like her pretend lesbianism.

“I did.”

“So what are we going to
do now?”

“I don’t know.”  She shook
her head.  “We’re still colleagues.”

He pushed her feet
backwards and she thumped down on her knees, straddling his hips, her hands
coming to his shoulders.  “That’s not a real barrier.  How do I know you’re not
pretending to like blokes?”

She pushed off his
shoulders so she was sitting upright.  “You want proof?”

“Something I can analyse.”

She leaned over him and
grabbed his chin.  Duffy started singing
Mercy. 
He wouldn’t be getting
any of that.  Over her head she heard the rip of velcro as he got rid of his
wrist guards.  Then his hands came down on her hips and he pressed her against
him.  He wasn’t looking for kindness.  “Don’t start something you don’t mean to
finish, Kitty.”

She traced a finger around
his lip and he exhaled with a grunt.  Then she sat back upright, her own breath
coming sharp and short, and ripped her wrist guards off.  She wanted to feel
him, have her hands in his hair, touch his bronzed skin and grip the muscled
strength in him.  He had one hand splayed across her backside, the other roamed
her hip, spreading heat, a firestorm in her limbs.

She could still stop
this.  She could be on her feet and half way across the room before he knew
she’d moved.  And he couldn’t chase her, but that’s what he’d already done. 
She’d tried to get rid of him, but he bounced back and now he was waiting to
see what she’d do next.  Waiting for her to make the decision. 

She was happy on her own. 
But she could love a man like that.  Who’d learned to respect.  Who knew when
to chase and when to wait; when to lead and when to follow.

She gave him one last
instruction; one he could work with.  “Analyse this.”  She took a fistful of
his hair and ran her nose along his jaw and up to his ear.  He did smell of the
sea.  She licked around the rind of it and his body jerked under her.  He
tasted of it too.  She was thirsty for more.  She nibbled along his bottom lip
and he thinned it by laughing, a depth of the ocean sound that came from his broad
chest.  The first fresh kiss was light, but his lips were so hot they must have
scalded her lungs, she was panting and he was pressing her harder to him.  He
tried to anchor her by bringing his knee up, but forgot he had skates on.  He
growled in frustration into her open mouth then used his hands as leverage and
flipped them, knocking the last remaining conscious breath out of her with a
gasp as she landed on her back.  Now he bore down on her, but not with near
enough pressure.  She squirmed to have him closer, crossed her arms behind his
head and pulled, then wrapped her legs around his hips, crossing her skates
over his butt to hold him.

He learned all about using
the toe stops on Damo’s skates to rock his body against hers.  “Fuck, I love
you like dick.”

His, she was going to like
his.  There was no way she wasn’t going to sample it and confirm that, but not
here.  She’d done a million mad and wonderful things on skates but never had
sex wearing them, though it was certainly possible, and
God
, if he kept
sucking her collar bone like that, it was probable.  It was also a very bad
idea, though now he had his hand under her shirt, hot fingertips on her
stomach, and she had hers under his, digging into the trench of his spine, she
couldn’t remember why, and gave in to the onslaught of feeling roaring through
her body with the pulse of Ant’s touch and the rhythmic thump of The Knack’s
My
Sharona.

When she was more than
ready to be skin to skin, to negotiate the distance between denim and skates,
he rolled them again, bringing her with him and tucking her hard into his side. 
He was breathing heavily and she rose and fell on his air intake.  He nuzzled
her forehead.  “That was some skating lesson, doll.”

She knew how very gone she
was when his deliberately provocative endearment didn’t make her want to
vomit.  “Don’t call me doll, babe.”  She’d been gone on him for weeks now, but
scared, so scared of him being another boof-head boy who’d break her heart by
serving up the same old macho bullshit every other man she’d ever liked had.  She
came up on her elbow so she could see his face.  The Kinks were singing
You
Really Got Me
.

He stroked her cheek with
the back of his hand.  “I’ll call you anything you want me to.”

“Did you mean what you
said about me making you want to be better?”

He shook his head.  “Nah,
that was just so I could get in your bite me pants.”

She socked him in the stomach
and he gagged, his torso lifting off the track before he collapsed back down. 
“God, Bree,” he choked out.  “I was joking.”

“I know you were.  If I’d
thought you weren’t I’d have really hurt you.”

He captured her hand as
though that would slow her down.  She had two knees, two elbows, a killer kick,
and she knew how to head-butt if it came to it.  But when he brought her palm
to his lips, every fight reflex in her body went on holiday.

“How did you get to be
such a fighter?”  He said it with a kind of wonder in his voice.

“I had a choice, be cute
and girly and patronised for the rest of my life or fight.  I chose to fight,
here and for what I want in my career.”  She watched his face carefully,
because he might not get this.  Might find it odd she didn’t want to be coddled
and protected.  “And I fight for what I want in my life too, even if it makes
me hard to love.”

He stroked a hand through
her hair, smoothing it back.  At some point it had come out of its ponytail and
was all over her shoulders.  He looked oddly fierce.  “Who said you were hard
to love?”

She shrugged.  “You want a
list?”  She wanted him to understand there were others who’d never bothered to
stand up to her, or for her, or put on skates when they knew they’d make a fool
of themselves.

“You’re not hard to love,
Bree.  You’re...” he faltered, closing his eyes as if centring himself.  When
he opened them again she was hit with the sensation of falling.  She clutched
him, wrapping her leg over his hip to save herself from bottoming out.  “You’re
fucking awesome.  You kill it at work and you’re so brave on the track it
scares me.  You deserve to be loved right.”

She swallowed hard.  “It’d
take a special bloke to be able to love me right.”

“Is the position open?”

“You thinking of applying?

“If you’ll have me?”

She looked away.  He was
too much.  He always had been, but like this, focussed on her with all his
smarts, he made her brain freeze up for fear of it not being real. 

“Don’t, Bree.  Don’t
complicate it.  I told you I’d settle for being your friend.  But if you won’t
have me there either, I’ll buy a pink shirt and a top hat and join your cheer
squad.”

She sat up and shook her
head.  She couldn’t look at him in case she teared up. 

He followed her to a
sitting position, took advantage of her confusion and wrapped her in his arms. 
“You can have Kitty Caruso and your corporate career.  Don’t give it up.  You
love it.  I hate you might get hurt, but it’s not about me.”

It was easier to talk
about being Kitty than to acknowledge how important this great hunk of
annoying, wonderful man who had her tucked into his chest had become.  “We’ve
lost our sponsor, so the Tricks will probably fold anyway.”