Page 2 of Fire on the Ice

There are dozens of people between me and her, but I’m not going to let that stop me. I put a hand to Giorgio’s firm chest and give him a push. He backs up with a laugh, and some sweet mumbled nothings in Italian. If Maisy’s not looking for a repeat of the last SIGs, Giorgio’s are some pants I wouldn’t mind getting into.

But the way she hasn’t broken our stare, the way she’s sitting still like a queen waiting for her subject to crawl to her—and fuck is that tempting, but it would embarrass Maisy too much, so I’ll stay on my feet. Still, I’ll allow myself to be reeled in by her look. It’s a crooked, come-hither finger in eye-fucking form, and my blood is flowing already. To my tits, my clit, and my pussy. My body is ready.

Swear to god if she doesn’t take me back to her suite, I’m leaving with someone else and fucking their brains out, even if I’m thinking of lovely Maisy Harper when I do. Giorgio probably wouldn’t be all that insulted if I called out her name instead of his. If he even understood. His English isn’t top notch, but who needs English when your tongue can work around the lush syllables of Italian? If he can do that with words, I’d love to see what he could do to my lady parts. I’ll take a man proficient in cunnilingus over English any day.

But for now, I’ve got my sights set on Maisy.

I stalk through all the athletes in their track suits and their street clothes, moving people when I need to. If they’re smart or if they’ve ever seen me on the track, they won’t get in my way. Short track speed skating is like roller derby on ice, and I’m not shy of using those skills off the rink, either—especially because there’s no worry here about getting disqualified. In my not-so-humble opinion, it’s a criminally underrated sport. Fast-paced with crashes and drama, it’s abbreviated NASCAR on skates, and what is not to love about that? Nothing, which is part of the reason I angle for so much press attention. More people should love short track. Hell, all people should love short track.

Finally I’ve made it across the bar and find myself so close to Maisy that I catch a whiff of her scent over the new construction odors and human smells of so many bodies in a close space. Satsuma. Sweet little oranges. It’s not perfume, because it’s a thin blanket over her whole body. I’ve tasted it on the insides of her elbows, the bottom of her ribcage, the swell of her hipbone, the inside of her knee, and in that sweet crease between thigh and labia. Never ceases to make my mouth water, and it’s watering for her. I want to sink my teeth into that slim, strong body and suck so hard on her smooth skin I leave marks on the few places her sequined and rhinestoned costumes will cover.

I reach out for her denim-clad knees, take them in my hands, and use the joints to unhook her crossed legs and spread them so I can make my way between her thighs. I know she’s strong, but they feel like twigs compared to my own tree trunks. A little fragile, but that makes it all the hotter when she takes control. It’s not about physically overpowering me. It’s about my worship of her.

Sliding my hands up her thighs, I reach her hips and squeeze, pressing my pelvis against hers, and then I do the same with my mouth. Meeting her lips, I can’t help how my grip migrates up to her waist, her biceps, her neck, and into her raven-black hair, which is smooth and shiny in a shampoo-model way. Who did she sell her soul to for this hair? It was a bargain.

Maisy seems to forget herself for a second because she kisses me back. Her legs wrap around my waist, and her slim arms come around my ribcage, making me groan into her mouth because we’re even closer now. She responds with a swirl of her tongue that makes my knees weak, but as soon as it begins it’s over.

When she separates us, I know why. It’s because a cheer has gone up, and most if not the entire room is staring at us. I hadn’t heard the roar of the crowd because of the hot buzz going through my head of having Maisy in my arms, in my mouth, being able to breathe in the scent of her. And now that I can hear it . . . it’s not that the stares and the whispers don’t bother me. They do. But my response to that shit has always been a rather firm fuck you, and doing whatever caused the scandal twice as passionately, with twice as many people, for twice as long. That is not Maisy’s style.

Four fucking years it’s been since the last time I saw her, and I curse every time I cracked open my email to get in touch with her and didn’t. Who am I kidding? She probably wouldn’t have gotten back to me because that’s not what we do. Or everything would’ve gone to shit and now I’d be making out with Giorgio instead of her, while watching her maybe flirt in her subtle way with some other woman. Except I doubt she’d be in a bar to do it. Better this way. And in the meantime, I haven’t had to worry about who I’ve fucked and dated or how. Maisy . . . she’s the monogamous type, and that was something she’d demanded during our last whirlwind . . . courtship’s not the right word, but indulgence might be.

We’d both been raw from the loss of victories we’d practically been able to taste—barely out of medal contention, no flowers or podiums for us—so we drowned ourselves in gin cocktails and each other. That’s how we’d met. Sitting in a bar not all that different from this one, and after having three or four too many, making out in the bar, in the streets of Sapporo, in the SIG village, and finishing up with a night of debauchery in my room.

We could’ve woken up apologetic and regretful, heads full of hammers and mouths full of cotton. She could’ve snuck out never for me to see again, but no. We’d showered together and spent the remaining three days before the closing ceremony having all the sex we could. She only asked one thing: that I fuck only her until we left. Which was easy enough.

We gorged ourselves on hedonism, and between that and finally getting to see some of the other events and enjoy the local food, I didn’t have time to screw anyone else. Nor did I really have the urge to. I mean, sure, other people turned my head because it’s three thousand athletes in a very small space, not to mention the locals and the staff, and the . . . yeah, basically everyone. Some good eye candy, and pickings for a bedmate or three. But I never wanted them as much as I wanted more of Maisy. It was an easy choice.

If she’s going to let me make it again, I will. I’ve already walled off other possibilities, unless she gives her permission, or if she, holy dear god, wanted someone to join us for a night? But I doubt it. Maisy may be a wild child in bed, but she’s picky about whom she allows to see her that way. And she picked me. Perhaps because she knows I won’t—can’t—judge. Iwouldn’tjudge her, but I bet that’s something she worries about. I don’t know why exactly Maisy’s such a prude about this, but she is. I’ll bet she’s worrying now, because we had a pretty serious lip-lock in front of a shit ton of people. I don’t even really know if she’s out. Mostly she seems to have convinced people she skates and doesn’t exist otherwise, so maybe they don’t think she has sex, never mind considering with whom she might have it.

Her wide-set narrow eyes have gone rounder as she looks around, and a flush is high on her cheeks. And here I was trying not to embarrass her. It’s not something I’m super good at, given that it’s not something I think about a whole lot. Anymore, anyway, having adopted the suck-it approach. But I should, because Maisy’s not like me and I don’t want her to feel bad. Maybe more, I don’t want her not to want me.

I can fix this, sort of, so I do, in the best way I know how. Say low in her ear, “I’ll text you my room, meet me there in an hour? I’m going to make a scene now, so you probably want to sneak out.”

There’s a crisp nod which I can tell because of the wisps of hair that brush against my face. She hasn’t shellacked them down with her body weight’s worth of hair spray the way she does for competitions, so they’re soft.

Then I’m drawing away from her and turning to the crowd, most of whom are still looking at us. Can’t blame them, I’d sure as hell like video footage of that myself because I bet it was hot as hell. That not being an option, I would like a repeat. And another, and another. One way to help get that is to draw attention to myself and away from Maisy. So I plaster that ne’er-do-well look on my face, and raise my voice. “Who’s next? Line forms here!”

And hot damn if Giorgio’s not the first one planting himself in front of me with that charming-ass grin. Yes, I kiss him, tugging his mouth down to mine, but there’s no tongue, only a good-natured, pleasurable meeting of mouths, and it’s the same for body after body. It does give me a thrill when I see Maisy sliding out the front door, and she looks over her shoulder, mouthing “later.”

You bet your ass later.

Chapter Two

Maisy

Blaze goddamn Bellamy. Actually, her name is Bernadette. Which is the most ill-fitting thing I’ve ever heard. Bernadette is someone’s grandma, or maybe a waitress in a backwater diner. She’s far more a Blaze than a Bernadette or even a Bernie. She’s certainly set me aflame.

When’s the last time I made out in a bar? Not since the last time I was with Blaze in Sapporo, that’s when. That kind of public display is not something I do. I don’t think I saw my parents ever hold hands or kiss in public . . . maybe not even in our home? When I’m away from them and training, I loosen up a bit, but I never make out with someone in abar.And yet when it comes to her . . . That’s okay. I’ll have her my way shortly.

It’s been fifty-five minutes since I left her kissing other people at the village bar. How many people could Blaze kiss in fifty-five minutes? Is she still kissing them or has she allotted some travel time to get back to her room?

I want to be bothered by it—the sight of her lips on other people’s—but I’m not. Not turned on by it really, because voyeurism and sharing have never been my kinks, but it was a gesture. She was trying to make things better because she knew I’d be uncomfortable about what had transpired. She was right, and I won’t be angry at her for handling it the way she did. Got the job done, for sure. Also, it’s Blaze being Blaze. Her body is her currency and she uses it to trade for what she wants. As a fellow athlete, I get it. It’s what we have to offer the world.

It’s not the way I choose to trade mine, and my first reaction to her stunts is always teenage wrinkled-nose disgust. Like, ew, who does that? But my grandma told me once that the first thing that comes into your head is what you’ve been taught, it’s what comes next that’s what you believe. My grandma was a pretty smart lady, and I like to think—despite raising my dad who didnotinherit her wisdom—she knew what she was talking about.

The thing is, we all get conditioned. We all have knee-jerk responses. One of mine is to judge other women—and harshly—for how they choose to use their bodies. More grown-up Maisy, the one who isn’t afraid to wear aFEMINISTshirt to practice and thinks slut-shaming is some misogynistic hooey—that’s who I choose to believe I am for real, and that’s the one I listen to as I head over to the suite Blaze texted me.

It’s not easy to ignore the voices in my head, the ones telling me I shouldn’t call attention to myself, that I shouldn’t even be seen with a girl like Blaze, never mind be involved with her. I shouldn’t appear to have a private life at all, and if I have to, couldn’t it be with some nice, respectable man instead of a flashy lesbian lover? Too bad and oh well. I shove the echoes down, put my head down into the wind, and walk.

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