Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) Page 4

  Seeing him again had unsealed channels she’d believed blocked off if not forgotten, but she hadn’t expected his presence in her life after so many years. A presence she had gone out of her way to request. And in those channels flowed the truth: her love of the sport was not the incentive for monitoring his career, though he and hockey were inextricably linked. It was that every day, she conceded to the piece of her heart he’d never relinquished. She thought of him, and dreamed.

  She gulped the wine, letting the boozy warmth infuse her limbs, her brain. Anything to get him out, though if eight years hadn’t been enough, one night stood no chance.

  ***

  Aleksandr

  Sasha and two of his teammates walked into Teasers, the bouncer having waved them through without charging the cover. It was funny how things worked in this country, how the people who could most afford things often got them free, while those with the least money were expected to pay regardless of their ability to do so.

  Tyler had suggested going to one of those seedy places where the girls danced nude. That didn’t surprise Sasha, as Tyler had no class. Sasha had been with enough women that nowadays he liked a little something left to the imagination, and some random coke whore thrusting her diseased pussy in his face failed to impress. So jaded already at twenty-five.

  They sat at a small, round table by the main stage. A waitress appeared immediately, her eagerness no doubt spurred by the expectation of a large tip and something more, though Washington State’s ban on the sale of alcohol in strip clubs allowed her to serve only soda or energy drinks. Her tight, black T-shirt clung to her ample breasts, and black boy-shorts hugged a hot little ass. Yes, she might get something more after all, and he whispered as much to her. The waitresses were safer. He distrusted women who took their clothes off for a living.

  A woman—and that was being generous—emerged from behind the glittery curtain. He suspected she’d auditioned with a fake ID, because no way in hell was she eighteen. She launched into her routine, peeled off the hooker dress she’d bought at some sex shop, and revealed small breasts with lime-green pasties over the nipples to match her G-string. He felt like a dirty old man watching her hang upside down from the pole, her face passive, disinterested. Trying to get through the night. Probably a runaway. His skin crawled.

  Tyler stood at the foot of the stage, waving a fifty. She dropped onto her six-inch heels, squatted with her back to him, and plucked it from him with her ass cheeks, then tucked it into her waistband. He ran his hand up her leg.

  “Hey, man, no touching,” a bouncer said.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  Fucking hell.

  “Look who I’m with!”

  “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. No. Touching. I have to tell you again, you’re outta here.”

  Not a hockey fan. A lot of those in Seattle.

  “She tips you out, right? You really want to throw this away?” He flapped the bill in the bouncer’s face.

  “That’s it, motherfucker. Get your ass out of here.” The bouncer, who had a good fifty pounds on Tyler, grabbed his arm.

  Sasha jumped up from the table. “Wait, wait.” He set a hand on the bouncer’s shoulder. “Let’s calm down—”

  “Who are you telling to calm down? And get your hands off me!” The bouncer released Tyler and shoved Sasha, who stumbled back against the table, his height for once a disadvantage.

  He curled his fingers into a fist. Adrenaline was running the show now, and he did not bother to think about the consequences before he drove that fist into the bouncer’s gut. Other men rushed over to restrain him and Tyler until the cops arrived.

  Perfect.

  At the station, they booked him despite his being able to post immediate bail. Mug shot, fingerprints, and a full body search, which did not humiliate so much as infuriate him. Probably some asshole wanting a peek. Seven inches, mudak. Suck on that.

  Hours later, once the booking process had ended and the sun was on the verge of rising, he posted bail and walked out of the county jail. His phone was already ringing. He’d get a disciplinary lineup scratch for breaking the midnight curfew, but he ignored it. He had to get back across town to his car.

  “Need a lift?”

  The cocktail waitress. He smiled. “Yeah, I do. My car is at the club.”

  “Follow me.”

  ***

  She slid her mouth up and down his shaft and stopped to run her tongue around the tip. Then she wriggled out of her shorts and panties and straddled him despite the confines of her Chevy Cavalier. Even with the passenger seat pushed all the way back, his long legs once again proved incompatible with compact cars. No way in hell were they having sex in his Mercedes, though.

  She leaned in for a kiss. He seized her upper arm, and she flinched. “If you use your mouth, you use it to suck my dick. But you do not kiss me. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, her eyes wide. He let go, and she rubbed her arm. “What do you have against kissing?”

  “Nothing.” He closed his eyes for a moment. Could feel Stephanie’s silken, downward-turned Natalie Portman lips on his. “Forget it.” He dug a condom out of his pocket, tore open the wrapper, and rolled it down his cock. He shifted so he could slide into her, his hands on her hips as she bounced. He laid his head against the headrest.

  If he kept them closed, he could almost pretend.

  ***

  Stephanie

  Two Hockey Players Arrested in Altercation at Strip Club: Tyler Long and Aleksandr Volynsky of the Seattle Earthquakes were arrested last night at a local strip club, according to police reports. Andrew Gagne was also present but not arrested. Police say Long and Volynsky provoked a physical confrontation with one of the club’s bouncers, Michael Johnson, when Long allegedly violated the club’s no-touching rule. Both men posted bail and were released. Assault charges were later dropped at Johnson’s request.

  “It’s over now, the charges were dropped, and they’ve paid for it—literally,” the Earthquakes’ general manager, Pat Mason, said. “Coach has decided both Volynsky and Long will be scratched for the next game. The commissioner has fined both players but will not be pursuing hearings and/or suspensions.”

  “God.” Stephanie rubbed her temples. She had her work cut out for her with the poster boy for everything wrong with professional sports. She picked up her phone.

  Stephanie: Coworkers are doing karaoke after work. Gonna tag along. Meet up later?

  Joe: Nah, lots to do. Have fun. Shawn going?

  Stephanie: No, he never goes if I do. I ruin his fun :)

  Joe: Ha ha, good. See ya later.

  ***

  The group arrived at the Den, a sports-and-karaoke bar with a small stage and a DJ in the back room. The bar was charming in its squalor, the cocktails cheap and stiff, and the staff sociable. After flipping through the karaoke binders and putting in their requests, Stephanie and King County Today’s receptionist, Rhonda, ordered burgers and fries. They ate their delicious dive-bar meal as one by one, karaoke singers vacillating between amazing and horrible warbled from the room behind them. There was already an hour-long rotation wait.

  “Heard things didn’t go so well.”

  “Hence the booze.” She clinked her glass with Rhonda’s.

  By the third drink, aware of her tongue’s increasing clumsiness and the slur on the last word of each sentence, she’d told Rhonda the entire wretched story. Rhonda offered a sympathetic nod or tsk in all the right places, until a hush descended on the bar as an extraordinary baritone crooned “Into My Arms” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

  “What in the world is that?”

  “We should find out.” Stephanie slid off the barstool. She and Rhonda edged their way through the crowd and into the back, standing room only. “Oh. My. God.”

  “Isn’t that Volynsky?”

  Half the crowd was recording video that guaranteed thousands of YouTube views. Wolf-whistles and shouts of “Sasha!” attended t
he caramel voice—rich, smooth, with a hint of darkness—flowing from his lips. Born to perform, as an athlete or otherwise. Soaking in his audience’s adulation. In his superiority. Despite the pop-music confines, he could not help but assert his obvious classical training.

  Despite the women vying for his attention at the front of the stage, his gaze homed in on her with a laser’s exactitude, rooting her to the floor. And from then on, he did not look anywhere else until the song ended, as if he knew she could not have left if she’d wanted to.

  Mic drop. He raised his arms, flashed victory signs, and hopped off the stage to raucous applause. He’d have to ruin the moment, the pompous ass.

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “You okay to go by yourself? Let me call you a cab.”

  “I’ll be fine. I can call Joe if I need to.”

  “All right. Be safe.”

  “I will.” They hugged. “See you on Monday.”

  She weaved her way through the throng, trying to keep her head down but needing visual confirmation she and Aleksandr were not about to cross paths.

  And smacked into a solid, T-shirt-clad chest. She reluctantly lifted her chin.

  “Fancy meeting you here.” Intoxication had thickened his accent.

  “I’m on my way out. Nice job getting arrested, by the way. Good-bye.”

  “Wait. Don’t go yet.” He grasped her arm and refused to let go despite her attempt to dig her heels into the floor. The obsequious clearing of a path for him nauseated her. If there was one thing she couldn’t abide, it was a spoiled brat. He led her to a corner in the back room. “I apologize.”

  “How noble of you.” Stephanie tried to wriggle away. She was close enough to feel the hard contours of his muscles, the heat radiating off him.

  “Do you have any idea what it’s like, seeing you again after all these years?”

  She had been trying to drink it away all week. “Aleksandr, my job is on the line because of you. I need a story or I’m done. And you know what? I don’t even care anymore. My fiancé wants to move back East anyway.”

  The pained expression again, more naked now that the barriers had fallen. “I tried to forget about you after we lost touch. I wanted to. But I just…couldn’t.”

  “I know,” Stephanie murmured, wishing she didn’t.

  “Then why did you stop emailing me?”

  “People drift apart,” she lied. “You were playing pro at eighteen. You have everything. What did you need me for?”

  “No one else knows me as anyone but this. Everyone I meet wants bragging rights or my money. Except you.”

  “People suck, Aleksandr, but you can’t go through life not trusting anyone. Do you want to be alone forever?”

  “Of course not. And maybe that’s why I ended up here. To find you again.”

  Her breath stuck in her throat. “Aleksandr, I can’t. Please.”

  “Are you happy?”

  “What kind of a question is that? Of course I’m happy.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re lying.”

  “I don’t have to prove anything to you.” Stephanie spun away from him, but he closed his fingers around her wrist like an iron cuff and tugged. She stumbled into him. He tilted her chin, his soporific eyes begging her to share the moment with him, to understand. To remember, as if she’d ever forgotten.

  “I saw you when you came in. I sang for you.”

  “Aleksandr, please. You’re just drunk.”

  His hot, vodka-laced breath caressed her mouth. The room blurred, spun a little. She staggered back, but he caught her again and pulled her close. How foolish to think time alone could have extinguished what had been her responsibility to snuff out. Embers that, left to smolder as they had, could set the whole forest aflame.

  “Do not,” she ordered.

  He wouldn’t listen, of course. His youthful insouciance was part of his allure, and she loathed herself for falling for the bad-boy act. The version of him she’d loved had been sweet, kind, the boy she’d envisioned marrying someday.

  Aleksandr, one hand still touching her face, lowered his head. “Or what?” He brushed his lips over hers, the kiss flirting between them with each breath, each heartbeat. His lips commanded hers to open, and she invited in his tongue. Her arms too disobeyed her, and she cradled his head as he slipped his arms around her waist, coiling her fingers in his hair. So many years had passed and yet their two broken halves, the edges still sharp, fused in an instant. She had stitched herself back together after they’d said good-bye; she had functioned as a living thing ever since, if only externally, but still she grieved.

  And now, the spark of life.

  “Get off me,” she said without conviction.

  He backed her into the corner and shielded her with his body. Devoured her again. She wilted, succumbing as he surged over her, through her, like a great, dark river. He paused for a startled breath before sealing their mouths together again.

  She pulled back. “I said—”

  “Shh.” His tongue once again found no opposition. He cupped her face as if she were porcelain, yet each kiss was cracking her veneer. He had been the center of her universe once, and she the catalyst of their decay.

  Stephanie dropped her hands, traitorous appendages that they were, to her sides and shoved him away. Tears stung her eyes but not from guilt. “I have to go.”

  “Stephanie—”

  “This did not happen. Do you understand me? It never happened.”

  “I’m not the one with a fiancé.”

  She flipped him the finger, then stormed out of the bar. How dare he throw that in her face? She wasn’t the one who had instigated the…

  Thinking the word made her complicit. And she couldn’t tell Joe. It would eat away at her, but she deserved the punishment. For lying all these years.

  Puck bunny.

  ***

  Aleksandr

  Sasha gazed with disdain at the vodka in his glass. He didn’t want to wash away the taste of her.

  “Hey, man, you okay?” Jacob sidled up to him, dark beer sloshing over the pint glass and onto his hand. He sucked it off. Jacob White, second-line center. Should have been a career AHL-er, now one of the many unworthy beneficiaries of expansion.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “Who was the girl?”

  “Someone I used to know.” Sasha stared straight ahead, into the main bar. Wanting to go wherever she was.

  “Don’t blame you for not talking about it. The media is all over your ass.” Jacob gave a sympathetic chuckle. “I wouldn’t want to be you right now.”

  Even I don’t want to be me right now. “I need a fucking cigarette.” Sasha set his glass on someone else’s table and elbowed through the crowd to the front entrance.

  No sign of Stephanie, who had dissolved into the drizzle like a phantom. He started to pull his phone from his pocket but let go, lit a cigarette, and walked home.

  ***

  Stephanie

  Joe was at the kitchen table, tapping away on his MacBook. Stephanie craved nothing more than to slink past him and crawl into bed, but there was no way to avoid at least a cursory conversation. She tugged off her shoes and dropped her bag onto the counter. She hoped he was too busy to do more than acknowledge her.

  “How was happy hour?”

  “Fine.”

  Joe frowned but kept typing. “You look a little rough. Everything okay?”

  “Yes. I’m just tired. And I drank too much.”

  “Don’t stress over that guy. Even if you get fired, it’s not the end of the world.”

  Goose pimples pebbled her arms. They could work through it if she confessed. A meaningless kiss. A drunken indiscretion. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

  Joe furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong, Steph?”

  “Nothing.”

  He shrugged and returned to his computer, granting her the mercy of not pushing the issue any further.

  Chapter Five />
  “Volynsky likes the good stuff! He splits the defensemen with a toe drag and goes top-shelf on the Blackhawks’ netminder. If you had any remaining doubts Aleksandr Volynsky is the best in the league, doubt no more.”

  Christ. Of all the things Joe could watch. He didn’t care about hockey, so he must have turned it on for her benefit. The irony.

  Stephanie slumped on the couch with a cup of coffee. The hangover had stopped curb-stomping her skull and dwindled in aggression to a minor thumping.

  “What’s going on, Steph? And don’t tell me ‘nothing.’ I’ve known you too long.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  “Well we’re going to, because you’ve been acting weird since you got home last night.” Joe took the mug from her and set it on the coffee table so he could hold her hands. “You know you can tell me anything. Whatever it is, I’ll understand.”

  Stephanie combed her fingers through her hair. “No, you won’t.”

  “You don’t have a choice, so try me.”

  She scanned the room, searching for an escape route. An excuse. Anything. She trembled with the adrenaline surging through her veins. “Sometimes people find themselves in situations they never expected to be in. And they don’t see what’s coming.”

  “Did someone hurt you?” He cracked his knuckles. A dark thought flitted through her mind: Paint herself as Aleksandr’s victim. Let Joe have his macho fantasy.

  It sickened her more than telling him the truth.

  “No. I’m fine. Physically. You’re the one I’m worried about.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Last night at the bar, Aleksandr showed up.”

  “Volynsky?”