True Love and Other Disasters (12 page)

She was beautiful and he’d wanted her. He was honest with himself enough to admit that he still wanted her, and walking away had been one of the toughest things he’d ever done.

A whistle blew and Ty turned his attention to the game and the icing call. He took his captaincy of the Chinooks seriously. The twenty-four guys on the team looked to him. He was an example and a leader, both on and off the ice, and he didn’t even want to think of the guys’ reaction if they ever found out that Faith had given him that sucker bite on his neck. He hadn’t even known it was there until Sam had pointed it out during practice Sunday morning. He’d made up some bullshit lie about hooking up with a waitress in San Jose, for the love of Christ. Not that that had never happened before, just not when he’d been captain and had just lectured the guys about hooking up.

Walker Brookes skated to the face-off circle in the Chinooks defensive zone and waited for the puck to drop.

The guys had harassed him about getting drunk and picking up a waitress, but they’d believed him. Of course they’d believed him. It never would have even occurred to any of them to suspect the owner of the team had put her hot
mouth on his throat and left a mark. He was still having a hard time believing it himself.

Kissing the owner of the team could seriously impact his chances of winning the Stanley Cup, and he still couldn’t believe he’d been such a colossal dumb-ass over a woman. Especially over that woman. No matter how much he wanted to kiss her and touch her and let her kiss him.

The puck dropped and Walker fought it out until the puck shot behind him and into the waiting blade of the Sharks’ offense. San Jose moved the puck across ice, and Coach Nystrom signaled for Ty to change up on the fly. He stuck his rubber guard into his mouth and shoved his hands into his gloves.

Pavel Savage had been notorious for thinking with his dick and making mistakes. He’d ruined families and his chance to put his name on the cup.

Ty grabbed his stick and hopped over the boards. He kept his head up and skated to center ice as Walker took the bench. Ty was not his father. Kissing Mrs. Duffy had been a big fuckup, but a fuckup that would not happen again.

Nothing was going to come between him and his run at the cup. Not the other teams competing for the same prize. Not a defense that needed a little more size and speed, and especially not a former Playmate with big breasts and soft lips.

F
aith spent the morning before the PR meeting going through her closet and getting rid of clothes she figured she’d never wear again. She piled all her cashmere sweater sets and sedate suits in boxes and called Goodwill.

She was ready to explode, or collapse, or something, from aggravation and lack of sleep. Not only had the Chinooks lost last night in overtime, but she’d also had to hear her mother make love all night. To add insult to injury, Pebbles took up the whole dang bed. How could one small dog take up so much space? Every time she tried to move Pebbles, the dog seemed to gain ten extra pounds and become dead weight.

And why was she allowing it? she asked herself
as she got dressed for the PR and marketing meeting. Any of it? Her mother had apparently decided to move in without asking and was sneaking her boyfriend in at nights like she was sixteen. A dog Faith hated slept with her most nights and hogged the bed. She didn’t recognize her life anymore. It wasn’t the life she’d had in Vegas before Virgil or her life with him. She’d been cramming her head full of hockey and trying to learn as much as possible. She didn’t want to make a mistake and fail, but there was still so much she didn’t know. And to be honest, she wasn’t so sure she’d ever know more than she
didn’t
know.

The clothes she’d had shipped from California had arrived the day before, and she dressed for the meeting in a pair of jeans and a pink Ed Hardy T-shirt with a red heart and wings on it. She’d found a cute pair of shearling Uggs that laced to her knees and she stuffed the straight legs of her jeans inside. It was late April and still chilly and wet in the Emerald City.

The traffic to the Key Arena was heavy and it took her ten minutes longer than she’d expected.

“We think this one is fun,” Bo said as Faith took her seat beside Jules and pointed to one of the photos she’d taken with Ty. “It’s kind of playful yet has an edge to it.”

Faith looked at the photograph with her foot between Ty’s thighs. Her face was to the camera,
looking all happy and smiling while Ty looked up at her as if he was totally annoyed. Which he had been. The blue of his jersey made his eyes even more startling, and the tight set of his strong jaw brought out the thin white scar on his chin. He was gorgeous, everything good and yummy in one pissed-off package. He was every catch in a girl’s breath, every hitch in her heart, and every flutter in her stomach. He didn’t need a poster or billboard or silver screen to make him larger than life. All he had to do was breathe.

The last time she’d seen Ty had been on television when the San Jose crowd had booed him for goalie interference. He’d argued with the ref and hit his stick on the ice, but as he’d skated toward the penalty box, the crowd’s boos turned to cheers and a little smile twisted one corner of his mouth. Which, for Ty, represented full-blown rapture.

“I think the one on the left is better,” Jules pointed out. While Faith had dressed down for the meeting, Jules wore a bright orange dress shirt with black stripes. He kind of looked like a pumpkin. “Faith standing in front of Ty gives it more depth. And for billboards, you want something with a bit more dimension.” He shrugged. “And the Saint is never going to go for the other one.”

“How do you know which one Ty would prefer?” Faith asked. Had the two been bonding when she wasn’t around?

“Because it looks like you’ve got your foot on his nuts.”

Oh. That wasn’t good. Was it?

“Well, as a graphic artist with a bachelor’s degree in advertising,” Bo stressed as she pointed to her favorite, “I think this one tells a better story.”

Faith looked at her assistant and then at Bo. The two stared daggers at each other and Faith wondered what she’d missed.

Tim, the PR director, stepped forward. “I’m leaning toward the one with the more playful edge first. If it gets a good reaction, we’ll keep the momentum going and put the other one up in a month.”

Faith was not a graphic artist, nor did she have a degree in anything, but she agreed with Jules. “If we’re going to put these up back to back a few weeks apart, it makes sense to go with the picture of me standing in front and Ty behind me looking mad and belligerent.”

“I wasn’t mad,” Ty said as he walked in and the room felt suddenly smaller. He wore jeans and a black turtleneck with a Nike swoop on the throat. Unlike the rest of the guys on the team, who looked shaggy from their good-luck beards, Ty was still clean-shaven. His hair was wet, as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. She really hadn’t expected to see him. She’d been told the team was practicing, and she figured Ty would skip the meeting.

His electric-blue gaze met hers for several heart
beats before he moved to stand before the mock-ups. He folded his arms over his chest and stood with his feet a shoulders’ width apart. His shirt fit loosely about his wide back and was tucked into a pair of Levi’s so worn the back pockets softly cupped his muscular butt. He pointed to the photo with her foot between his thighs. “This looks like Mrs. Duffy has her stiletto on my nuts.”

Jules laughed and Faith bit her top lip to keep from laughing.

Bo pulled a rubber band from her stubby ponytail. “It tells a story.”

“Yeah,” Ty agreed. “The story of her foot crushing my nuts.”

Bo looked like she wanted to crush him with her clunky Doc Martens.

“Well, we certainly don’t want that to be the image we project,” Tim assured the Chinooks captain.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Faith said as Ty turned to face her. “I think there are probably more than a few women who’d like to see that image.” Her gaze landed on his flat stomach and the bulge behind the five buttons of his fly. She ran her gaze up the hard muscles of his chest, over the scar on his chin, to his blue eyes. She thought of last night’s game and his time in the sin bin. “More than a few men, too.”

“Yeah,” Jules jumped in, “but that isn’t the point of this campaign. It’s to create an image of conflict, but we don’t want it to look like Faith is busting the Saint’s balls.”

“Thank you, Jules.”

“You’re welcome, Saint.”

Faith ducked her head and hid her smile. Men were so weird about their balls.

“It’s too sensuous and playful to convey that,” Bo argued as she gathered up her short auburn hair and stuck it back in the ponytail. And while Bo and Jules argued about the photo and Ty’s balls, his gaze locked with hers. Fine lines creased the corners of his beautiful eyes and she thought he just might crack a full-blown smile.

Of course, he didn’t, but that didn’t keep something hot and
sensuous
from sliding down her spine and spreading across her skin. “I guess I don’t want to bust the Saint’s balls. At least not today,” she said. “I need him to win me the cup.”

First his sac and now his balls. He was really going to have to stop having these conversations with Faith. Especially with other people in the room. In some sort of sick, twisted way, it turned him on.

“I think we’ll go with this one first,” Tim said, pointing to the poster of Faith standing in front of Ty. “We’ll use the locker-room shot at another
time. Or choose something else from that shoot,” he added, sounding suddenly exhausted as he headed for the door. “I need some Tylenol.”

“Tim, wait,” Bo called after him as she followed him out the door. “You didn’t hear my ideas for the captions.”

“I feel sorry for that guy,” Jules said as he stood.

“I like her.”

“She’s like an aggressive Chihuahua who thinks she’s a pit bull.”

“I think that’s what I like about her.” Faith stood and Ty lowered his gaze from her lips to the pink long-sleeved T-shirt with a heart and angel wings covering her breasts. Gone were her black pants or loose beige skirts. She wore a pair of jeans that hugged her waist and thighs, and had on a pair of furry Pocahontas boots. Without her loose, dark clothes, she looked younger. Softer and definitely less uptight.

“She’s bitchy.”

Faith grabbed a big leather purse with a gold chain strap. “She’s spunky. Kind of marches to her own beat.”

“Your mom marches to her own beat, but I don’t see you embracing her
spunk
iness.”

“My mother’s not spunky. She’s got problems.” Faith cast a glance at Ty before she headed toward the door. “The biggest being that she acts like she’s sixteen.”

“Mrs. Duffy,” Ty called out to her. “Can you stay a minute?” He needed to settle things between them.

“Sure,” she said over her shoulder as she stopped just inside the door. “I’ll be right with you.” As she spoke to her assistant, Ty’s gaze lowered from her blonde hair and back to the metal buttons closing the back pockets of her jeans. Kissing her had been a massive screwup. He could pretend it hadn’t happen, but Ty liked to confront potential situations before they became real big problems.

Faith turned and left the door slightly open. “Is this about the other night?” she asked as she moved toward him.

“Yes.”

“Good. Then you know about it.”

Of course he knew about it. He’d been there while she’d sucked on his neck.

“I’ve been so disturbed by it all week,” Faith continued.

Ty rested his behind on the edge of the table and folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“At first I was horrified.” She shook her head and her hair fell from behind one ear. “I was just so…so grossed out.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “All I could do was just stand there.”

Grossed out?
She hadn’t acted grossed out as
she’d kissed him like it was her job and she was working on a big, fat bonus. Irritation pulled at his brows. “You did more than just stand there.”

“I might have said something. I don’t know; I was in shock.” She looked down at the toes of her boots and her hair fell over her cheeks and hid her face. “It’s forever etched in my brain.”

His too. That was the problem.

“God, I just want to take an ice pick and dig it out.”

His irritation turned to anger and settled in his belly right next to the aching part of him that liked the way her butt looked in those jeans. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you gave me a sucker bite and begged me to touch you all over.”

“What?” She looked up. “What are you talking about?”

He pulled one side of his turtleneck down and exposed the little purple mark she’d left on his neck. “This.” His hands fell to his sides and gripped the table. “I didn’t even notice it until the next morning when Sam pointed it out at light practice.”

She plopped her purse down on a nearby chair and stepped forward. The cool tips of her fingers brushed his neck as she pulled the side of his turtleneck back down. The cool touch spread heat down his chest and straight to his groin. “That’s hardly noticeable.”

“It’s faded since Sunday.” He looked up into her face and his gaze lowered to her mouth just inches from his. “I had to make up a story about a waitress.”

Her eyes looked into his. “Did they believe you?”

The last time she’d been this close, her mouth had been on his neck and she’d bitten his earlobe. “
Touch me
,” she’d whispered, and God, he’d wanted to touch her and more. “Yeah. They did.”

“Sorry.” She frowned and stepped back. Her cheeks turned pink and she shrugged. “I guess I was caught up in the moment and got carried away.”

“Even though you were disgusted, horrified, and grossed out?”

“What? Oh. I wasn’t talking about
that
.” She gestured to his neck. “I was talking about walking into my apartment and finding your father on top of my mother. Naked. Having sex.” She pointed to the ground. “On the floor in front of the fire.”

Now it was his turn to ask, “What?”

“Your father and my mother…and I walked in on them.”

“Wait.” He held up one hand. “My father knows your mother?”

“Obviously.”

He thought of the woman he’d met the night of the photo shoot. She hadn’t been bad looking, just overblown and a bit tacky. Exactly his father’s
type. “And you walked in on them having sex?”

“Yes, and it was disgusting. They were…” She lifted her palm as if she could stop the painful memory. “Doggy. I think.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I wish!”

Even though his father dating her mother could only end in complete disaster, Faith looked so distressed, he had to laugh.

“Oh.” She pointed at him. Her short nails were painted a light pink. “You think that’s funny? The man who never laughs?”

“I laugh.”

She turned her slim finger toward her chest. “At me!”

“Well, you’re so freaked out, it’s funny.” She also looked a little indignant and cute and sexy, standing there in her pink shirt and boots.

“If you’d seen what I saw, you’d be freaked too.”

“Believe me. I have seen it.” Pavel had never purposely flaunted his sexual exploits, but he’d never been all that discreet. “The first time was when I was about seven.” He’d walked into the living room and seen his father having sex on his mother’s antique credenza. His mother hadn’t been home at the time.

Her pink lips parted and she gasped. “I was five! And she’s sneaking him in at night and he leaves before I get up in the morning. He’s like a
ghost. If they weren’t so loud, I wouldn’t know he was there.”

Ah. That explained his father’s sudden disappearances and sudden reappearances. Ty hadn’t seen much of the old man, and figured it had to have something to do with a woman.

“And they kick Pebbles out and make her sleep with me.”

“Pebbles?”

“My mother’s dog.” She pushed her hair behind her ears and dropped her arms to her sides. “Pebbles hates me and the feeling is mutual. She snaps and snarls at me all the time. Except when she needs something. Like a place to sleep.”

He tilted his head to one side and looked at her. “Why don’t you kick her out?”

“I tried,” she said through a sigh. “But she looks at me with those beady little eyes and I just can’t be that mean. Now every time Pebbles jumps in bed with me, I know that Pavel’s in the other room getting naked with my mom.” She made a face and shook her head. “I probably wouldn’t be so disturbed if it wasn’t my mother moaning and carrying on like someone is killing her.”