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She puts the clothes on the slatted bench and unbuttons her blouse, her fingers deft but slow. My eyes are glued to the movements. She pulls the silk fabric from her waistband and unfastens the rest, then her blouse gapes open.
And I’m almost in pain.
I inhale raggedly. “I’ll meet you rinkside. I’ve got our skates there.”
Because if I don’t leave now the locker room sex is going to be happening.
* * *
MACKENZIE
I can’t believe I agreed to this. I teeter on the skates Eli bought me, trying not to fall before I get on the ice.
“If I end up in the hospital, I expect you to sit by my bed looking guilty,” I tell him.
He smiles and holds out his hand.
Before my blades even hit the ice I get a flashback. Me at nine or ten years old, sitting on the bleachers with a book and a packet of chips, my legs swinging as Isabella and Mom skated like demons, gliding gracefully across the ice, Isabella jumping and twirling and smiling.
By that point we’d learned that ice and I didn’t mix. But I was still too young to be left at home when it was time for practice. Brad and Johnny were young enough to go to the daycare in the big sports arena, but I’d long since outgrown that.
Nobody skates as beautifully as Mom. Isabella came in a close second, but Mom was always more comfortable on the ice than she was on the ground.
She’d call me her little changeling. Tease me that I was probably swapped at birth.
For a while I’d scrutinize every competition that Isabella competed at, watching the girls who were my age, trying to see if there was any family resemblance.
“You need to move,” Eli says. I blink and see him standing there patiently, his hand still wrapped around mine.
“This is only going to end one way,” I mutter. “Badly.”
Gingerly, I put one skate on the ice, telling myself that the faster I do this and fall over the quicker we can leave and have some passionate sex.
He’ll owe me a massage or two, as well. I smile at the thought of that.
The other skate hits the slippery surface. My heart races. The smile melts from my face.
“You’re on the ice,” he murmurs. “And you’re upright.”
“For now.”
“Trust me,” he says again.
“I do. It’s me I don’t trust.” My free hand wraps around the wooden board on the edge of the rink. I’m shaking.
“Look at me please,” he says, his voice soft.
I do. He’s gazing right into my eyes and it gives me a little jolt. He smiles and nods. “That’s it. Now let go of the board.”
“I’ll fall.”
“I won’t let you.”
I take a deep breath and do as I’m told. As soon as I’ve prized my hand away from the wood he takes it in his other hand. “Okay?”
Not really, but I nod anyway.
“I hate being bad at things,” I mutter.
