Ryan

By the time Tamara finished running us through drills, I was dripping with sweat and beyond exhausted. She’d worked us hard in a short amount of time, focusing on getting us to skate with more knee bend and developing more power by pushing to the side.

“The things I’m working on with you may seem like small changes, but I get that they’re also difficult adjustments to make since you’ve been skating one way for your entire lives and now I’m trying to make you do it differently. With how comfortable you all are on the ice, I know it’s almost like telling you to walk differently.”

“It really is,” Alec agreed, earning him a smile from her that had me glaring at him. If it’d been Jason, I wouldn’t have cared as much since he was happy with Cee-Cee. But Alec was as single as I was and if anyone as going to be in Tamara’s good graces, I wanted it to be me.

“With you running the drills, I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” I assured her.

“Uh huh,” she hummed, giving me a doubtful look before smiling at the rest of the team. “That’s all for now, guys. As long as your coach doesn’t need you for anything else, you’re free to go and I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

Coach gestured at the door leading to the locker rooms, and my teammates took that as their cue that practice was done. While they headed to the bench to grab their equipment, I skated towards Tamara. Coach shook his head as he passed me and mumbled, “Good luck with that. You dug yourself a deep hole there, Forrester.”

He was right, but in my defense we mouthed off to each other on the ice all the time. We didn’t mean anything bad with the jabs we took at each other; not really. And I’d intended for mine to be aimed at my rookie teammate. Not Tamara. I just needed to make her understand that.

“Look, Tamara—”

“Do you call your coach by his first name?” she asked, cutting me off.

“Sometimes.”

“Just because you’ve seen me naked doesn’t mean it’s okay…” She paused and looked at me with confusion clear in her wide brown eyes. “Wait. You do?”

“Yeah.” I glided a couple of inches closer to her. “I’m not calling you Tamara as a sign of disrespect.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked with a hint of challenge in her tone.

Coach had definitely been right to offer me luck. I was starting to wonder if the hole I’d managed to dig for myself was too deep for me to get my way back out of it. It figured my fucking mouth would screw over my chances with the woman who’d killed my ability to get a boner for anyone else.

I was willing to admit that I’d been an idiot who hadn’t bothered to look much beyond a woman’s appearance when it came to who I slept with. I hadn’t been interested in anything more than a night or two of fun, and they never bothered to get to know me beyond the fact that I was a pro hockey player, so it seemed like a fair trade. But after seeing for myself how having Cee-Cee in his life had made Jason both a happier man and a better hockey player and the way I couldn’t get Tamara out of my head, I’d started to rethink my view on relationships. Only it hadn’t done me much good when I’d had no idea how to find Tamara since I hadn’t even known her last name.

If only I’d pulled my head out of my ass back in Anaheim and treated her like more than a one-night stand. She was worth way more than a night or two of my time, and that was before I knew she was an accomplished athlete in her own right. A hot as hell one who was as comfortable on the ice as I was. And she wasn’t willing to take shit from anyone, including me. For a guy who was used to women agreeing with just about anything and everything I said, no matter how ridiculous, it was a nice change of pace. Except for the part where she was pissed at me and didn’t care that I knew it.

“Yes, I’m positive.” Her stance relaxed a little. “It fits you perfectly. A beautiful name for a gorgeous woman.”

“Really? Do you really think I’m going to fall for your lines again?” she sputtered, shaking her head. “I’m your power skating coach; not some woman you’re trying to pick up in a club. Again.”

“Shit,” I muttered to myself as she skated away. She was already through the door leading to the visitor’s locker room before I started to follow. I cursed myself for being too slow. And for managing to fuck up with her yet again.

Chasing her into the locker room she was using would be an even dumber move, so I grabbed my stuff off the bench and headed into mine instead. After I set my stick against the wall, I shoved my helmet and gloves onto the top shelf, snagged a cold bottle of water off the table in the middle of room, and dropped down onto the bench. I stared down at my skates for a moment before I bent over to unlace them.

“How’d it go?” Jason asked quietly from his spot next to me. Not that it did any good because the guys were worse than a bunch of bored high school students when it came to gossip.

“How did what go?” Alec asked from my other side, his gaze shifting between Jason and me as he undid his shin guards. “Wait. Are you really going to try to go there with her even after the shit she heard you say?”

“Are we even allowed to go there? I mean, technically she’s one of our coaches. There’s got to be a rule against it, right? Not that she isn’t worth breaking a few rules. She’s hot as fuck,” one of the forwards chimed in from the other side of the locker room.

“Shut the fuck up about her,” I growled.

“Shit. She’s not another one of those chicks that you guys don’t even want us to look at, is she? Like Alec was with that PT who ended up getting engaged to his brother?” our starting goalie asked.

“Or her best friend, the hot redhead Campbell’s dating?” the backup goalie added.

“Wait. We can call dibs on chicks?” one of the rookies asked.

“The only thing you can call dibs on is your jock strap, at least until after you’ve paid your dues just like the rest of us had to do,” Alec answered before he turned his attention back to me again. “But the question remains, are you claiming her?”

Considering how pissed I’d been when Tamara had given him even a hint of her approval, the answer was obvious. “Yeah, I am.”

“Dude, you don’t have a chance in hell with her,” he chuckled. “But at least you don’t have to worry about one of us stealing her away from you. We’ll be too busy watching you go down in flames to hit on her ourselves.”

“Fuck off,” I muttered as I stripped out of the rest of my gear and headed for the showers. I cleaned up and got dressed in less time than usual for me since the guys kept on giving me a hard time about Tamara. Nothing they said crossed the line since it was all aimed at making fun of me and how she wasn’t going to look at me as anything more than another skater on the ice while she ran us through drills. Little did they know I’d been inside her and planned to remind her how good it’d been between us before.

As I was putting on my jacket, Jason came up next to me and grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t let them get in your head.”

“What if they’re right?”

He squeezed his hand tight before dropping it. “It’s not like you to be uncertain around women. You’re usually so confident, you’re basically cocky.”

“Yeah, well, being cocky is only going to do more harm than good when it comes to Tamara,” I sighed.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Now’s not the time for it. Not if you want to get the girl. Learn from me and all the months I missed with Cee-Cee, man. Go after her. Now,” Jason urged.

I hadn’t missed as much time with Tamara as Jason had with Cee-Cee, but it’d been enough for me to know good advice when I heard it. “Fuck,” I groaned. “You’re right.”

I raced out of the locker room and pounded on the door down the hall. When she didn’t answer, I pushed the door open and groaned when I saw that the lights were all off. Turning swiftly, I raced down the corridor to the exit that led to the secured parking lot for the players in back of the arena. I was just in time to see an unfamiliar car drive past with Tamara behind the wheel. “That woman is too damn good at disappearing acts. It looks like I’m going to need to get faster off the ice as well as on it if I want to catch up to her.”