Page 3 of Slapped Into Love

ChapterTwo

Tamara

“Sorry,”I mumbled, glaring at the last guy on Earth I’d expected to see again. I didn’t bother to try to sound like I really meant it. Because I didn’t. Not really. I might have felt slightly bad about hitting him except that I was sure he barely felt it through his helmet. And he’d earned it with the sexist comment he’d made, even if he hadn’t known that I was going to overhear what he’d said. At least I could take comfort in the knowledge that I’d been right to bail on him after our one-night stand, even though I’d been second-guessing myself ever since because it’d been so fucking goodbetweenus.

If I hadn’t been so tired, I probably would have been able to resist the urge to hit him. But after a long trip to Norway for the ISU Speed Skating World Cup and an expected sixteen hours of travel time to get home that somehow turned into thirty-one because of delayed flights at both of my layovers in Copenhagen and Heathrow, I wasn’t in the mood to take crap from anybody. Not even if it was a guy who knew my body intimately and was sexy enough to look hot when he was dressed in full hockey gear and wearing a helmet with a partialvisor.

Skating away from him, I joined their coach at center ice. He nodded at me, seemingly unconcerned that I’d just hit one of his players on the back of his helmet. Then again, this was hockey so I was sure he’d seen worse during a practicebefore.

The guys who were doing laps around the ice skated over to us. “Since there seems to be some skepticism about my ability to teach you guys anything about skating, how about we settle this on the ice?” I let my gaze skim over the team before it landed on Ryan. “You up for thechallenge?”

The confident grin he flashed me was incredibly annoying, but it also sent goosebumps up my arms that had nothing to do with the temperature of the rink. “Sure. I’m up for whatever you want to throwmyway.”

The guy he’d been mouthing off to when I’d skated onto the ice whacked him in the shin with his stick, and I offered him a grateful smile before turning my attention back to the mouthy, sexy player who deserved to be taken down a peg. I was just the woman to doittoo.

Skating closer to the boards, I stopped at the nearest blue line and pointed at the spot next to me. “C’mon, then. One lap around the rink’s perimeter. First one of us to cross the bluelinewins.”

He didn’t hesitate to take me up on the challenge, handing his stick, gloves, and helmet off to the teammate standing closest to him. His dark hair was sweaty and sticking up in places, but it didn’t take away from his good looks. Not with the way his hazel eyes gleamed and the cocky tilt to his full lips surrounded by a closely trimmed mustache and beard. My heart started to beat faster, and it had nothing to do with the race we were about to begin. No, it was due to my reaction to him—a completely unwanted one since all indications pointed towards him being totally wrong for me no matter how good he was in bed. I dealt with enough cocky bastards professionally. I didn’t need to add one to mypersonallife.

“Ready?” he asked when he situated himself nexttome.

“You’d better believe it,” I quipped, dragging my gaze away from his and focusing on the team’s coach. “Can you do the countdown for us and judge who wins? Not that there’ll be much doubt since I plan to beat him by a big enough margin that it’ll be obvious to everyone which one of us is faster—and better equipped to run power skating drills fortheteam.”

“I sure can,” the coachchuckled.

“Too bad I don’t have my phone with me. I could take a photo to commemorate the day a woman made Ryan eat his words after he made an ass out of himself,” one of the players added, winkingatme.

Based on the low growl in his throat and the glare he gave the guy; Ryan didn’t appreciate what his teammate had to say as much as I had. Then he bent his legs, positioning his skates so he could push off quickly, and nodded at his coach to let him know he wasready.

Crouching low, I nodded as well and then aimed all of my focus forward. I shut off all thoughts except for the skate ahead of me, tensing as I heard the coach call out, “Three.”

I took a deepbreath. “Two.”

Andanother. “One.”

I burst forward on a sharp exhale as soon as heyelled, “Go!”

Legs pumping as hard as I could go, arms swinging in unison, I powered ahead. Ryan was in my peripheral vision past the red line at center ice, crossing over the other blue line, and circling around it again. If it’d been a short sprint, he might have been able to beat me. But he started to edge back the tiniest bit as we crossed the center line again. And as we round the curve behind the net, I pushed myself even harder to reach the place where we’d started so I’d get there well ahead of him. I dug deep on the last few strides, and it was worth it because I crossed the blue line a couple of seconds aheadofRyan.

“Miss Antonov wins!” the coach yelled. “And that’s why I hired her, boys. There’s a lot that you can learn from her, so head to the center of the ice and get ready to skate yourassesoff.”

“It’s Tamara, please,” I panted. “Miss Antonov makes me want to look over my shoulder formymom.”

“Shit, you’re fast,” Ryanhuffed.

“And I’ve got the gold medals to show for it.” I winked at him before turning to face the rest of the team. “Now that I’ve given all of you a demonstration of how fast I can skate, how about you do the same for me? Line up at the blue line”—I jerked a thumb over my shoulder—“show me whatyou’vegot.”

When he didn’t move, I turned to Ryan and lifted an eyebrow. “You’d better get moving before your teammates leave you intheirsnow.”

“But I already showed you how fast I am on myskates.”

“Fast?” the teammate who had Ryan’s equipment laughed. He kicked the gloves towards us before skating over and handing the stick and helmet to Ryan. “Did you miss the part where she kickedyourass?”

I beamed a smile his way, nodding. “Exactly.”

“She beat me, but not by that much,” Ryan grumbled, earning him a glare from me that had him backpedaling. “I’m not saying you didn’t win. You did. I’m justsayingthat—”

I held up my hand, and his friend jabbed him in the side with an elbow. “Dude, shut up. You’re just making itworse.”

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