Page 3 of On the Brink of Passion

Then he’s threading his fingers together behind his head and crossing his ankles. Makes me want to throw something heavy at his irritatingly pleasant face, or gut him with my toe pick. I jab a finger at him and scowl when I realize his eyes are closed. He’s keeping me from even bringing the full force of my wrath down upon his head. “Don’t get comfortable. Daphne’s going to be getting you out of my hair any second.”

Right on cue, my cell rings. I jab my finger at him once more for good measure, and because it makes me feel better even if he can’t see me. “See? This is her, and you better get ready to go because I’m sure she’s calling with a new room assignment for you.”

I turn away and stalk toward the bathroom, because it’s as far away from him as I can get. Slamming the door, I turn on the shower, partly so Beckett won’t hear what I’m saying, also because I find the white nose soothing. And I need some goddamn soothing at the moment.

“Daphne. Thank god. What’s Beckett’s new room assignment? He’s all acting like he owns the place already, so the sooner I get him out of here the better.” I should be annoyed he didn’t take his boots off before he swung them up on the bed, but I didn’t comment because that’s one less thing he has to do before he gets the hell out of here.

She makes a clucking noise that does not bode well, and I brace myself for the verdict. “So, here’s the thing . . .”

Beckett

I expected Jubilee to pace, because she does that a lot, but instead she walks into the bathroom, slams the door as well as she can given how cheap and flimsy they are, and proceeds to crank on the shower. While I completely agree she could use a good cooldown, I doubt she’s actually hopping into the shower. Instead, I hear her voice rise, and I can tell she’s yelling at Daphne, even if I can’t understand the words being said.

At some point, between the travel fatigue and the bizarrely soothing combination of the white noise of the shower spray and poor Daphne getting chewed out, I must fall asleep, because I get yanked out of a very pleasant dream of the kind of fun I’d like to have with the Swiss Alpine skiing team by someone grabbing my feet and shoving them off the bed, nearly making the rest of my body follow. “Hey!”

“Were you raised in a barn? Get your boots off the bed.”

Now she cares about my shoes on the bed? After I’ve sat up and rubbed my eyes, I open them to a crossed-arm Jubilee standing in front of me. She’s got on her usual off-ice uniform of yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt, and her hair’s up in this ponytail that’s so tight and high, I’m surprised she can still move her face.

“So what’s the verdict? Where am I headed to? The boiler room? Equipment storage? Broom closet?”

Jubilee uncrosses her arms, narrows her eyes and her mouth tightens just enough for me to know that she’s using every bit of her willpower to not bite my head off. While some people might twitch and be apologetic, Jubilee is not other people. The only sign I get that she’s disconcerted at all is that her thumb won’t stop rubbing her phone.

“Unfortunately, the village is overfull as it is. There’s no place for you to go.”

What? But before I can interrupt, she continues in that strung-taut voice that might break if it got plucked in a perfect way. “If someone from Team USA needs to go home for whatever reason”—and we all know those reasons are never good, so neither of us will wish for that—“you may be able to move, but at this point, we’re stuck together. So I suggest you take your shoes off before you lie down again. Also, if you’re going to snore like that this entire month, please stop and get me some ear plugs, because you sound like a chainsaw. Not a new one either. Don’t move my things, don’t touch my things, don’t comment on my things. Don’t hog the shower, don’t touch the thermostat, don’t hide food because we’ll get pests. Don’t talk to me unless you have to, and don’t bring anyone back here. I need privacy.”

Way to roll out the welcome mat, Jubilee.So much for Southern hospitality. I don’t really have a problem with any of that, because I’m not exactly thrilled to be bunking down with her either, except the last bit. I have been waiting months for this. I am going to have sex. A lot of it. She can set our schedules and I’ll stick to them because she knows what she’s doing, but she isnotgoing to make me be celibate. I don’t mind abstaining when we’re back home because there’s the possibility of a relationship—do not want—but here, where everyone knows the score?

“You can’t forbid me from bringing someone back here.”

“I just did.”

“Jubilee—”

She shakes her head so hard her hair whips around her face. “No. I will not be coming home to you . . . doing whatever it is you plan to do with whomever you plan to do it with. I find a sock or a note on the door, I’m coming in, and pitching a fit until your . . . companion leaves. Got it?”

I wish the extra desk was sitting in front of me instead of being across the room. I’d really like something to flip or bang my head on right about now. Speaking of banging, though . . .

“No. I do not agree to those terms. I have been working my ass off for you for the past two years. Do you know when the last time I had a girlfriend was?”

Her arms are back across her chest but she doesn’t interrupt me. Also, I don’t really want to answer that question. Sure it’s been my choice to keep things the way they are, but two years is a long time and I don’t like it. Not to mention I’ve pretty well settled on being single until my competitive career is over, so I can’t entirely foist that on Jubilee. But what I can blame her for is me not getting in some meaningless, stress-busting, mind-clearing sex while I can with women who aren’t going to expect anything more because we’ve got the same M.O.

“The only times I get laid are when we go to competitions. I show up at practice, I show up at performances, I am crazy charming during all the press you insist on. I show up at every goddamn thing you want me to do and I’m at the top of my game, but you’re not going to tell me I can’t have a sex life.”

Her head tilts ever so slightly, her dark ponytail falling over her shoulder. “Been wanting to get that off your chest for a while now, huh?”

This woman is maddening. No wonder she couldn’t keep a partner before I showed up. I mean, sure, some of them were just flat out not of her caliber, because not many people are. But some of it is her ice princess attitude. I don’t so much mind the possessive part, especially when we’re skating against our old partners. That actually makes me feel good in a way. Wanted. But she’s also as controlling as Sabrina ever was, and no one else would tolerate that. Except I guess for Todd Everhardt, and good luck to that poor bastard.

The only reason I’m still here with Jubilee is that she’s the best. We’re well-suited on the ice. After an uncertain couple of years, we’ve proved to be each other’s tickets to this year’s SIGs, and if we’re lucky, to Trondheim in four more years. Bottom line, I don’t care at all if she likes me or not, or whatever else I have to put up with, we have to win. The sacrifices I’ve made at least make sense because they’ve led to Denver. But being a poster boy for abstinence? This is too far.

“No. I don’t care the rest of the time, because we have our arrangement. We both work ourselves to the bone to get this right, to get those gold medals around our necks, to win. But in the hours we’re not training, I don’t belong to you. You may have bought and paid for our coaching, but control over my dick is not part of the package. I don’t give a crap how many people you fuck or when or how or if you want to take a vow of celibacy to appease the gods of the rink or some shit. As long as it doesn’t interfere with how you perform, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you do at all.”

“Okay, then.”

For a second, I think there’s a flash of . . . hurt? that flits across Jubilee’s face, but that must be a hallucination, because the woman is a machine. Never seen her cry no matter how hard the fall, never seen her smile no matter how hilarious the joke I told—and my jokes are frigging hilarious—never seen her feel anything at all except driven. I take that back. There was just one time, but we don’t talk about that, because I think if I ever mentioned it she’d manage to slit my throat and make it look like a freak side-by-side camel spin accident.

The thought makes me rub a finger over the scar I’ve had since I was a kid. The one that runs through my eyebrow and, if my partner had been much closer, could’ve cost me my sight in that eye. That’s . . . not as funny as some of the other ways she could hypothetically murder me.

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