Ryker Read online

  It takes me only one long-legged step until I'm on him. He sees me...eyes confused for a moment and then round with fear as I lower my shoulder and plow into him.

  Then everything speeds up.

  I drive into him with every bit of my Brick Wall reputation, right over the top of the bar stools that are behind him and down onto the hardwood floor. One of the stools topples over and hits me in the temple. I feel a warm trickle of blood that slides down and along my jaw and that actually titillates me. It induces blood lust.

  Claude lets out a grunt of pain as his lungs deflate from the force of the tackle and my weight coming down on top of him. But it's not enough pain.

  I get in one, two, three quick punches--right hand to left cheekbone--and I actually laugh with evil malice when his skin splits open on the third strike. I raise my fist for another, wanting to see blood splatter, but then I'm being pulled backward with a solid arm locked around my throat.

  Suddenly I hear the noise all around me again, mostly Alex growling in my ear, "You need to calm the fuck down."

  Mikkel helps Claude from the floor while Sam grabs a rag from the bartender and presses it to the cut on his face. Claude glares at me. "What the fuck, Evans?"

  I raise a hand and point a shaky finger at him. It's shaky because I'm still consumed by rage and it hasn't been properly expelled, and the only thing holding me back is the throat-lock Alex has on me.

  "You do not talk about her that way," I say in a guttural voice. My words come out measured...laced with the promise of retaliation. I don't need to say her name. We all know who's the subject of the conversation.

  "What's it to you?" he sneers, leaning forward, but I know he feels brave because Alex is holding me back.

  "She's our boss, you asshole. She signs your paychecks. Do you think that's acceptable what you just said?"

  "I'm just having some fun," he mutters like a petulant child. "Christ...don't get so bent out of shape."

  And that right there sets me off again. I pull away from Alex's grasp so quickly he can't react. I break his grip and lunge at Claude, grabbing him by the throat. He gives a terrified squeak as I pull him toward me.

  When we're almost nose to nose, I do nothing more than murmur these words to him: "You talk like that about her again, you better hope there's an ambulance nearby, because you will need it."

  He just glares at me, trying to show me he's not intimidated. But I can feel the nervous swallow he's pushing down his throat underneath my palm. I don't wait for an answer that he understands me. I don't force him to give it, because I know he won't. He may have just had his ass handed to him, but it doesn't mean that he's cowed in any way. I know young fucks like him and they think they know everything. You add on fame and fortune because he's a professional hockey player, that makes him feel invincible. I can see it in his eyes...even at this moment. He thinks he's better than Gray. He thinks he's so valuable to this team that she'll bend to him and not the other way around.

  I can see in his eyes that he is going to be trouble down the road.

  A hand touches my shoulder. "Let's go," Alex says calmly.

  I release Claude and turn away from him. I give him my back and almost hope he leaps at my blind side. I've still got a lot of ass whooping left inside of me, but he does nothing.

  Silently, Alex and I head through the lobby and into the elevators. He follows me to my room and walks right in behind me.

  "You need to have that cut sealed," he says as I throw the room key down on the bedside table.

  I reach my hand up and it comes away wet with blood. I don't respond to Alex but walk into the bathroom and grab a hand towel, pressing it to my temple. I don't even bother to look at it in the mirror.

  When I walk out, I find Alex sitting on my bed with a grave look on his face. I find that in the few moments that it's taken to leave the bar downstairs and get up to my room, I've calmed considerably. I also know I overreacted and probably wouldn't have done so had I not been inebriated.

  "Thanks for pulling me off him," I mutter as I walk over to the honor bar. I reach in and grab a Perrier, taking a moment to drop the towel onto my shoulder while I crack it open.

  Alex's eyes slide to the cut on my face. "It's bleeding again. You probably need some butterflies on it."

  I shrug and press the towel back on the cut. "If it doesn't stop in a bit I'll call Terry."

  Our head trainer. He'll be able to patch it up in no time and he won't ask questions.

  "Want to tell me what that was down there?" Alex asks quietly.

  While I'm not as close to him as I am to Zack, he and Garrett have become good friends over the months. Alex is also our team's captain, so I know this is of concern to him. This is his first year with the "C" on his uniform, but he earned it and was the logical vote by the team once Luca Bressard, our former captain, retired.

  "Lost my temper. Let that little fucker get the better of me," I reply guardedly as I lumber over and sink down into an armchair that sits in the corner.

  "You overreacted," Alex observes. "Players talk shit about GMs and coaches all the time."

  I suck in a deep breath through my nose, let it slide out slowly through my lips. I pull the towel away, gingerly touching the wound. Just a tiny bit of blood comes away, so I press it back on. "I agree we express our frustrations about management, but Christ, Alex...you heard him. He was talking about rape."

  "He never said those words," Alex says with a hard edge to his voice.

  "That's what he meant," I grumble.

  "You don't know that. What he said was crude and way out of line, but he was drunk. You should have let me as the captain handle it or gone to Coach Pretore."

  "Fine, whatever," I growl. I know he's right, but damn it all to hell...I feel fucking fantastic for clocking the shit out of him.

  "If Claude reports this, you could be in trouble. Technically, he could bring criminal charges against you."

  "Yeah...don't really care, Alex," I say as I push up from my chair. "Thanks for your concern, but I think it's time for you to go."

  I walk over to the door and pull it open. Alex stares at me a moment, and with a sigh stands from his perch on the mattress. He scrubs one hand through his hair and scratches at the back of his head as he walks toward me. Just before he steps past me into the hallway, he turns and says, "Listen...sorry I came down hard on you. I just don't want to see you get off track. You're killing it in the net and this team needs you to stay focused."

  "I get it," I say tersely.

  "Do you?" he asks seriously. "Because I get what you were doing. You're defending a new set of principles that management has put into play, and those principles are not popular with the team as a whole. You're going to alienate yourself from everyone."

  "Are you telling me you're aligned with Claude's way of thinking?" I ask with narrowed eyes. Because if that's the case, I've just lost every bit of respect for him as a captain.

  "Of course not, you douche," Alex snarls at me. "Claude can't see past the fact that Gray is a woman. That's his only problem with her, and it's not a problem that I have at all. She's got the qualifications. I am not, however, convinced about her making contract-signing decisions based on some mathematical formulas. You have to look at more than that."

  "It's more than just a mathematical formula," I defend.

  "We'll see," Alex says quietly. "But I am willing to give her a fair shot to prove this works."

  I nod at Alex in understanding and I really can't hold fault with his thinking. That's fair and I get his point about Claude. That guy is a sexist, chauvinistic asshole who isn't smart enough to comprehend what Gray is trying to accomplish.

  Still, I know I'll have to keep my eye on him. Alex is right. He was drunk and spouting off.

  But I also know that the things that Claude said about Gray came from a very dark place inside of him, and there was a layer of truth and deep-seated belief. I don't trust that son of a bitch and I would not put it past him to do so
mething crazy.

  Chapter 8

  Gray

  I don't wait for Ryker outside of the studio this time because I don't want to appear anxious. In fact, I'm not anxious. I've spent the last day and a half telling myself over and over again that this is just a general manager having coffee with her starting goalie. We can talk about hockey and I even brought a little folder that has some charts I printed out that shows a progression of his save percentages by month and how they compare to the other goalies in the league. While I can't figure out why, for some reason his save percentage always peaks in March of every year. Fascinating--probably irrelevant--but at least it gives us something to talk about.

  When Ryker walks into the studio, the first thing I notice is that he's without a gym bag this time. He's wearing a pair of black track pants with a silver stripe down each powerful leg and a black nylon pullover with the Cold Fury logo. As my eyes travel upward, I can't help the tiny little gasp that comes out of my mouth when I look at his face.

  He has two butterfly bandages over his right temple and a massive bruise surrounding it. The bruise then travels downward and curls around his cheekbone to come to rest halfway underneath his right eye. I take an involuntary step toward him, but he gives me a tiny shake of his head.

  Message received. It's not the time to talk about it.

  So I call the class to order and I take them through the workout. Melissa isn't here today, so I don't have to waste any potential brain cells worrying over Ryker being interested in her. Not that that matters to me, because it doesn't. It's just...I don't want him to be distracted while he's working out.

  Yeah...I want him to be focused, because this will help his skills and flexibility, and I'm trying to build a championship team. That's all there is to it.

  I keep a slight eye on Ryker in the mirror and he performs all of the poses like he's a natural. Yes, he's a big guy, but he has a graceful way about him. A calm surety in his movements. He's one of the most confident men I've ever met and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that's one of the reasons I'm so attracted to--I mean fascinated by him.

  Class goes by all too quickly and it only takes a few moments for everyone to get packed up and hand out goodbyes. Ryker waits for me, casually leaning up against the wall. He's put on his shoes and pulled the windbreaker over his head. We had a slight dip in the temperature today and he dressed accordingly.

  I did not because I was rushing around trying to get out the door, so I don't have anything but a light cotton sweater that I slip on. It exposes one shoulder and won't do much to protect me from the cold, but it's just a quick jog to my car. It's a bit unnerving as he watches me put on my socks and tennis shoes, finally hoist myself up from the floor, and walk toward him.

  My eyes go straight to the wound on his face. "What happened?"

  "Tripped and fell," he says with a grin, but I can tell he's lying.

  "Tripped and fell?"

  "On a banana peel."

  "Those make you slip, not trip."

  "It was a big banana peel," he says with his lips quirked in amusement and his gray eyes light and sparkling.

  "So you're not going to tell me?" I ask with a pointed look.

  "It's nothing," he assures me as he turns toward the door, expecting me to follow him.

  Indicating the conversation is over.

  "Has a team doctor looked at it?" I press him as I follow behind, through the studio door and out into the parking lot.

  "Terry has."

  Stubborn man. Tight-lipped man. I try one more time. "Does it hurt?"

  "Only when I'm forced to talk about it," he says, and I want to stomp my foot with frustration. Instead, I almost run into his back when he comes to a stop beside a black BMW 745i and opens the passenger door. He looks at me pointedly and motions his hand toward the seat.

  My eyebrows go skyward. "This is your car?"

  "No, Big Bang," he says sarcastically but with a twinkle in his eyes. "I walk around parking lots and open random car doors for the fun of it."

  "The Big Bang is a fascinating theory," I say. "It's supported by solid data. Hubble's work proved that galaxies are indeed drifting farther apart, which lends credence to the idea of cosmic expansion after a finite beginning to space. Although it's very removed from my doctoral studies, and you have to practically be an expert on general relativity to truly understand the principle, I suppose you sort of see me perhaps creating a cosmic expansion of our hockey universe. It's a very clever play on words to give me that nickname."

  Ryker just stares at me, eyes crinkled with amusement. "I have no clue what in the hell you're talking about. I call you Big Bang after the TV show The Big Bang Theory."

  His eyes widen expectantly while he waits for me to get it.

  I don't.

  "The Big Bang Theory on CBS?" he asks as if I didn't hear him the first time.

  "I don't know what that means."

  Ryker now throws his head back and laughs. A deep-chested laugh. A sexy laugh. When he looks back down at me, shaking his head with amusement, he puts a large hand on my shoulder and pushes me toward the open car door. "It's a TV show about these really brilliant scientists. Geniuses like you. So absorbed in their work they don't understand pop culture unless it's about superheroes and comic books. The fact you don't recognize it as pop culture just couldn't make this any more hilarious."

  I kind of hear what he says. I try to make sense of it, but frankly...I'm sort of concentrating on the feel of his hand against the bare skin of my shoulder, because he chose to touch me at the spot where my sweater hangs off me and there's only the spaghetti thin strap of my top peeking through.

  I want to be offended over his nickname and the fact he's laughing at me because I don't know some stupid TV show, but I can't really do that either because the touch of just his hand on my shoulder is mind-boggling. I'm a woman of sharp focus, superior retention abilities, and quick thinking. One of the reasons for my success is because I'm unflappable. Things roll right off me and I'm always able to stay in tune with the crux of any matter.

  But one simple touch of Ryker's skin on mine, and I become a bumbling idiot. I willingly let him push me down into the black leather front seat of his car, and I let him continue to chuckle over my nerdiness.

  It's only after he withdraws his hand and shuts the door on me that I start to regain some mental clarity. What in the hell am I doing in his car? We agreed to go get a coffee. We should have just driven our own separate cars and met there. This feels too much like a--

  Nope. Not even going to think that word.

  Ryker gets in on the driver's side, looks over at me, and chuckles again. Without him rendering me the village idiot by his touch, I cross my arms over my chest and say, "It's not that funny."

  He turns the car on and we both reach for our seat belts. "I'm sorry. No more laughing. I promise."

  As he pulls out of the parking spot, I make my token protest. "We should have driven separate cars."

  "And yet I feel like we should ride together. It's just more time where we can talk, right? Much better idea."

  Hmmm. That makes sense. I guess.

  "How did your interview go on Monday?" Ryker asks. "Sports Elite, right?"

  "How did you know about that?" I ask, astonished.

  "Your dad came down to the locker room as we were getting ready for the game Monday night to wish us luck. Said that you couldn't make it because of the interview. He's really proud of you."

  I smile and dip my head. God, but I love my father. The most wonderful and influential man I will ever have the privilege of knowing. He single-handedly raised me after my mother died when I was four, and even though he was running a professional hockey team--based first out of Hartford, Connecticut, and then Raleigh after the team moved--I never suffered for it. I was always his main priority in life, as I am today. I know that would be true even if I was a high school dropout who bagged groceries for a living. To me, and I'm sure to him, it's just a bonus that I fo
llowed in his footsteps and want to be involved in his hockey dynasty.

  And because thinking of my father makes me gooey, it loosens my tongue a bit. "The interview went fine. The reporter shadowed me all day and then we had about a forty-five-minute Q&A. His questions were thought provoking, but I have no clue how he'll spin the article."

  "Who was the reporter?"

  "Chad Sykes."

  "He's a decent guy. Interviewed me a few times. He'll be fair, but he'll offer both sides to the debate that's waging over your appointment."

  "I wouldn't expect otherwise," I tell him truthfully.

  We talk some more about the interview while Ryker drives us to the closest coffee shop. He handles his car with the same assurance that I've seen him exhibit in the few times I've dealt with him. During our contract negotiations, he was as cool as a cucumber. He knew he was being released from the Eagles because of what happened between him and Sutter, and his options were limited, yet he didn't jump at my first offer. Or my second or third. He sent his agent back and forth with me to iron out a deal that forced me to pay a little more than I wanted, but on the flip side, I only cut a two-year deal with him. I needed to be prepared to unload him if my metrics were wrong.

  Ryker actually takes us to a local pastry shop that also serves coffee and tea. After we place our orders, he pulls his wallet out and hands some cash to the woman behind the register. I immediately knock his hand back and hand her my credit card.

  "I'm paying," I tell him with a no-nonsense look. "This is a business meeting and I can write this off."

  "It's my bonus, remember?" he says with a grin.

  "Well, I did say I'd buy you a cup of coffee. Not a chocolate croissant and a blueberry muffin," I tell him as I eye the tray that she hands to Ryker.

  "I'm hungry," he says simply as he takes the tray and seeks out a table while I sign the credit card receipt.

  Once we're seated in a back corner, Ryker digs into his breakfast and I sip my own coffee. There's a few other patrons in the shop, but for the most part we're being ignored.

  "Want a bite?" Ryker asks as he holds the chocolate croissant out to me.

  I groan. "I wish. Stuff like that goes straight to my hips."

  "You're full of it, Big Bang," he says with a grin, and pushes the croissant closer to me. He gives it a slight wave and the smell of chocolate wafts my way. "Just a little taste."