kissed like that. Like an all-consuming desperation that was so hot, it made his gut clench.
“Some of you guys come out a bit,” the photographer said. “That’s good.”
Pavel was on a kick about Ty meeting Valerie, but Ty had no interest in meeting his father’s latest. Especially when chances were good that he’d have a different girlfriend in a month or two. Especially if it meant hanging out with the woman across the ice who was having a great old time laughing and giggling and turning a bunch of hockey players into slobbering idiots.
He’d rather be fed his lunch by a 250-pound enforcer with something to prove. He might walk away from that encounter bruised and bloody, but a few cuts and a black eye was a hell of a lot better than another set of painful blue balls.
“Oysters are a natural aphrodisiac of the gods.” Valerie reached for an oyster from the iced plate in the middle of the table and slurped it down. “You should have at least one, Faith. It wouldn’t hurt. Might even help.”
“No thanks, Mom. More bread?” She picked up the white plate and held it across the table. Could her mother be any more embarrassing? Sadly, the answer was yes.
“No, thank you.”
“Pavel?” Within the booth of the Brooklyn Seafood Steak and Oyster House in downtown Seattle, Faith’s stomach rolled as she held the small plate for her mother’s boyfriend.
“No. Thank you,” he answered as he held a rough shell to his mouth. He tipped it up and an oyster slid into his mouth and down his throat.
Faith turned her face away and swallowed hard.
“More than your eyes look a little green,” Ty said next to her ear.
She set the plate on the table, which was covered in white linen. “I hate oysters.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because my mother wanted to come.” It had been Valerie’s big idea that they should all go out to dinner together, and Faith had reluctantly agreed. If she’d known she’d have to watch her mother and Pavel slurp down oysters, she would have stayed at home with her feet up. Even if it meant spending time with the evil Pebbles.
“I notice you’re not eating any,” she pointed out to Ty.
“I don’t eat anything that looks like that.” One corner of his mouth lifted in an actual smile. He lowered his voice and said next to her ear, “At least not in public.”
“Was that some sort of inappropriate sexist comment?”
His eyes met hers. “That depends. Were you offended?”
“I probably should be.”
He let his gaze slowly lower from her face, down her bare throat to the top button of her pink shirtdress. “But you’re not—eh?”
“No. You seem to bring out inappropriate behavior in me.” She licked her lips and shook her head. “We should stick to safe subjects.”
“Too late.” He raised his gaze to hers. “I’m having some inappropriate thoughts.”
“You are?”
“Oh yeah.”
“What?”
“Kissing your mouth like I did a few weeks ago and working my way south.”
He was thinking all that? She squeezed her legs together against the tight ache pooling between her thighs.
“What are you talking about?” her mother wanted to know.
“The weather.” Faith looked across the table as the waiter cleared the oyster plate. “I just asked Ty how he likes Seattle.”
He reached for his glass of wine, and the sleeve of his dark-blue dress shirt brushed her bare arm. “It’s not that much different from Vancouver.” He took a drink, then set the glass back on the table. “Scheduling a round of golf is dicey.”
“I don’t play golf, but the summer is much drier,” she answered, trying like hell to ignore the flush of lust warming up her skin. “Jules told me that there’s a Chinooks celebrity golf tournament some time this summer. The money goes to help injured players, like Mark Bressler.”
“That was tragic.” Pavel shook his head. “Such a loss to the team. Losing a captain is like cutting out the heart of the team.”
Ty’s jaw tightened. “Captains are traded all the time, Dad. It’s not like when you played.”
An almost imperceptible tension settled over the booth. “That’s true,” Pavel conceded. “Now there is no loyalty.”
The salad course arrived and Faith waited until fresh pepper was ground on everyone’s salad before she said, “Well, I know that everyone in the Chinooks organization is thrilled to have Ty. If that upsets our neighbors to the North…” She shrugged and tried to take her mind off the man sitting next to her. “They’ll get over it. I mean, they got over the defection of Jim Carrey.” She reached for her linen napkin on her lap. “Although Canada should probably give us a big, fat thanks for taking Jim off their hands. Did you see
“
“It sucked.”
He shook his head. “No more than
“It might be a toss-up.”
“I like Jim Carrey,” her mother confessed. “He was on that
“I used to love
“Oh,
“He drove too fast.”
“You’ve been married three times?” Ty asked as he spread his napkin across the lap of his dark wool pants. The back of his hand brushed Faith’s hip and she would have scooted over if there’d been room.
Valerie paused with a bite of salad halfway to her lips. She looked at Faith and then at her boyfriend. “Five times, but only because I was young and vulnerable.”
It had been seven times, but who was counting. Obviously, not Valerie. “Are you going to join us in the skybox tomorrow night for the game against Detroit?” Faith asked to change the subject.
“I would love to. Thank you, Faith.” Pavel ate a few bites and said, “The Chinooks are going in as underdogs, but sometimes that is the best position to be in. If our guys can get them to draw penalties, I think there’s a very good chance we’ll advance to the final round. Which I predict will be against Pittsburgh.”
“I don’t know, Dad.” Ty grabbed his fork and planted his free hand on the seat beside Faith’s thigh. “Pittsburgh’s playing without two of their power forwards.”
Father and son talked and argued about everything from power plays to penalty killers. Well into the main course, they talked about the best games ever played and Pavel’s glory days. Several times during their conversations, Ty’s hand accidentally brushed her hip. His touch spread fuzzy tingles to the back of her knee and tightened the hot, liquid knot in the pit of her stomach.
“Once I fired that puck into traffic, I lost sight of it,” Pavel said as he cut into his steak. “I didn’t know I’d scored until I heard it hit the back pipe.”
“I wish I could have seen you play. I bet you were something,” Valerie gushed and took a bite of chicken.
“My mom used to love to watch my dad play.” Ty raised his wine to his lips and his free hand slid to the top of Faith’s thigh. “She used to buy me a hot dog, and we’d sit in the middle row behind the goal because she thought those were the best seats. The old Montreal Forum had the best hot dogs.”
Faith’s eyes widened and she gasped at the heat of his palm spread across her lap. This time his touch was no
