had been playing in the NHL for ten years and had seen more than his share of action on and off the ice. A few years back, he’d been involved with a little figure skater. She must not have minded the impaler.
She had been Yugoslavian, though.
“You guys be careful,” Ty felt compelled to say. As the captain, he had to look out for his guys. “You don’t want to get busted with an underage rink rat. And don’t come to practice with your ass dragging because you drank too much and hooked up with someone you met in a bar. In fact, those late-night hookups can really take it out of you. Maybe it’s best to save your energy for the game.”
They all just laughed as they walked away. Two waitresses cleared the table and wiped it down for Ty and the five remaining guys. He ordered another Guinness and kicked back as Sam and Blake got into the age-old argument over the best game ever played in NHL history.
“1971,” Sam insisted. “Game Two of the first-round playoffs between Boston and Montreal.”
“U.S. kicking some Soviet ass in the 1980 Olym pics,” argued Blake, the all-American boy from Wisconsin.
“Actually,” Jules said as he approached the table, “it was 1994. New York and New Jersey. Last game in the Eastern Cup finals. Messier’s shorthanded goal with less than two minutes on the clock was the best moment in NHL history.”
Ty looked up. “1996,” he said. “Game Four of the conference quarter finals between Pittsburgh and Washington. That game went into four overtimes, with the Pens finally winning after a hundred and forty minutes of brutal hockey.” He slid his gaze to the woman walking up behind Jules. A pair of black wool pants hugged her butt and fell loosely down her long legs to her red pumps. Tiny pearl buttons closed the black fuzzy sweater covering her large breasts, and her gold hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore huge diamonds in her ears and her lips were painted a deep red. She looked gorgeous and classy. Nothing like a stripper. So, why did he have a vision of her ripping the front of her sweater apart and tossing it to him? It was those damn pictures of her naked.
Ty stood. “Hello, Mrs. Duffy.”
“Hello, Mr. Savage,” she said above the noise and music in the pub. Her gaze rested on him for several moments before she turned her attention to the other men rising to their feet. “Hello, gentlemen. Do you mind if we join you?”
Ty simply shrugged as he took his seat once more. The other five guys tripped all over themselves to assure her they’d love to have her take a seat, which Ty knew for a fact was complete bullshit.
“What did you do with yourself all day, Mrs. Duffy?” Blake asked in an effort to engage the owner.
“Well, I hit downtown San Jose and ran up my credit cards.” She took a seat next to Ty and reached for the menu. “I shopped till I dropped. I found the most wonderful sweater at BCBG. It’s fuchsia.” Two slim fingers, with those shiny red nails, slid down the menu. “And the coolest leather coat at Gucci. It’s scarlet. Normally I would never wear such bright colors. They’re just too bold and scream ‘look at me.’ Like waving and jumping up and down in a crowd to get attention.” Her fingers stopped near the bottom of the menu. “And I haven’t bought leather…well, except shoes and bags, in years. But…” She shrugged. “I’ve decided to live dangerously. Which would explain the sheer madness of the thigh-high boots and the matching lambskin hobo. The last thing I need is another hobo.” She looked up at the men staring back at her with varying degrees of stunned faces.
“I’ll have the grilled salmon and a Guinness,” she told the waitress who’d approached during her babbling onslaught. Ty didn’t know if she was nervous or drunk or both.
Jules ordered a steak and a Harp’s from his seat across the table. “The poor bellman had to cart all that stuff up to your room.”
“I tipped him well.” She handed the menu to the waitress. “But it wasn’t until I spread everything out in the room that I realized that there might not be enough space in the jet’s cargo hold for all my bags.”
“Oh. Ah,” Johan Karlsson managed to utter.
She looked at them all, green eyes shining, and flashed a beautiful smile with her straight white teeth and full red lips. Ty could almost hear their collective gulps. “You-all don’t mind if we leave some of your equipment behind. Do you?”
“Like what?” Sam asked as he raised his beer. “We don’t travel with unnecessary baggage.” He took a drink, then added, “Unless you count Jules over there. Pound for pound, he takes up a lot of wasted space.”
“Pound for pound,” Jules jumped in, “your ego takes up a lot of wasted space.”
Faith tilted her head and seemed to consider it. “No, I need Jules. But you-all don’t need that many sticks.” She looked at each of them in turn. “I figure one apiece is good. Am I right?”
There was a collected inhalation of horrified breath. Everyone knew that a man’s stick was sacred, honed for hours until the curve was just right. Not even for a former Playmate of the Year who just happened to be the owner of the team would these players willingly leave them behind. Pads and helmets? Yeah. Their sticks, no way.
The hockey players at the table cast uncertain glances at Ty as if they expected the captain to step in and do something. Like maybe give her a glove rub.
Faith laughed. “I was just kidding, you guys.” She waved away their concerns, flashing the huge rock she still wore on her left finger. “If there isn’t enough room, I’ll have the hotel ship everything.”
Ty almost smiled. No one could bullshit and get the uninitiated going like a hockey player. As a bullshitter, Mrs. Duffy wasn’t great, but she wasn’t bad for a rookie.
“Jules and I watched the Sharks practice,” she said as her beer arrived. “We were up in the skybox with binoculars. It was all very undercover hush-hush secret-agent stuff.” She took a drink and licked the foam off her top lip. “They seem to have a lot of speed, but I’m not convinced they can shoot the puck as well as we can.”
Ty felt his brows rise up his forehead.
“I think we have them beat on offense,” she added as she leaned back and folded her arms beneath her breasts. “We’re better delivering tape to tape and capitalizing on turnovers.”
Sam looked at Ty as if an alien had just landed at their table. A sexy-as-hell alien who talked about hockey and sounded like maybe she knew what she was talking about. Just a few weeks ago, she’d wanted to sign Terrible Ted. He wondered if she even had a clue what she’d just said.
“Ah, yeah,” Sam managed. “We were just talking about how we need to beat them offensively and hammer their goalie.”
Above the smell of food and beer, Ty caught the scent of her perfume. He recognized it from the other night at the photo shoot.
“I don’t know a lot about their goalie.” She raised one hand and toyed with the top button of her sweater. “But I’ve read that he isn’t consistent.”
“Don’t believe what you read,” Ty told her. She looked across her shoulder at him and her green eyes stared into his. “That’s where a lot of people make mistakes.”
“Believing what they read?”
“Yeah.”
“I read that you’re persona non grata in Canada. Is that true?”
“Pretty much.”
“I also read that you think the Stanley Cup will come down to who wants it more.”
“Where did you read that?”
“
“I don’t remember saying that.”
“I’m paraphrasing.” She lowered her voice a fraction and added, “You actually said it will come down to who has the biggest sac.”
That sounded more like him. “Which is different from wanting it enough.” He took a drink of his beer then set it back on the table. He didn’t want to talk about his sac. Not with her. Not when his sac had noticed the way she smelled and the way her breasts filled out that sweater.
“How is it different?”
He looked into her big green eyes surrounded by thick black lashes. “It just is.” Her cheeks were smooth, perfect. He lowered his gaze to her full mouth and chin down to the hollow of her delicate throat just above the top button on her sweater. He wanted to do things to her. Hot, sweaty things that would make their skin stick together. Wild things that would get him into a lot of trouble.
“How’s it different?” she pushed.
