All You Need

  I also knew that getting angry didn’t serve any purpose off the ice.

  Whole different story during the game.

  So at least I had that going for me.

  The bus pulled up to the hotel.

  Coach stood at the front of the bus before the driver opened the door. “You can pick up your phones when you get your room assignments, ladies.”

  I didn’t pay attention to the people in the lobby until Kaz moved to stand beside me.

  “Got yourself a fan club.”

  “What?”

  He angled his head to the left. “Over there.”

  I looked. AXL spelled out in huge glittery letters. The last sign read, “You’re a player—act like one! #noshame #cantcheatifyourenottieddown #practicesexualdiversitywithme”

  “I’m not really seeing that.”

  “Forgiveness is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Kaz laughed.

  I grabbed my key and my cell—dead, of course—and avoided eye contact with the sign holders when I passed by to the elevators.

  In the room, after I plugged my phone in, I immediately placed a room service order for poached salmon, a double order of rice, steamed broccoli and sparkling water. Then I showered and dressed in workout clothes, and my food arrived. As I sat on my bed, in my room, eating alone, in silence, I wondered if this was how the next eight months would go. I loved hockey, the games, the practices, but this . . . not so much.

  After I finished eating, I stared at Annika’s number for several long moments before I called her.

  She answered before the second ring. “Axl?”

  “Did I wake you?”

  “No. I hoped you’d call.”

  “Need the sound of my voice to lull you to sleep?”

  “Yes. Please start explaining all the different penalties in a regulation hockey game, the exceptions and the rare exclusions, because I guarantee that will have me sawing logs like a lumberjack.”

  I laughed.

  “So. I watched the game tonight.”

  “And?”

  “And you won. What else matters?”

  “How did we look?”

  She sighed. “Dude. You look amazing skating around out there. You know that it gets me hot.”

  “You never told me that before.”

  “Yes, I did,” she retorted. “Many times. Like when I relayed my fantasy about you skating around without a shirt on?”

  “Can you blame me for blocking that out?”

  “See? Even when I pay you a compliment, you don’t believe it.” Another heavy sigh. “So, how did you get to be such a stud on blades?”

  “My mother was trying to piss my father off.” Right after I said that, I wondered if I was more exhausted than I imagined, because I never talked about this.

  Annika was quiet for a moment. “I don’t want this to sound accusatory. You always say I don’t trust you. But there’s so much I don’t know about you, Axl, that I wish you trusted me enough to tell me.” She paused and added, “If you don’t want to, that’s cool too, no pressure. I just wanted to mention it.”

  “It would be new territory for me. Talking about my family.”

  “Not to put you on the spot, but where do you see this going with us? Because if you truly want to build on the publicity stunt and turn it into something real, this is the kind of thing we’d share. And you already know some of this stuff about me. I realize it is not a competition, but if it was? I’d totally be kicking your ass in the family-confession section of the relationship.”

  She’d just said the perfect thing. “Annika.”

  “What?”

  “I . . .”

  “Why are you so hesitant?”

  “I’m trying to come up with a way to say I’m so fucking crazy about you without scaring you off.”

  “You’re not scaring me off.”

  “Remember you said that.” I took a deep breath. “So . . . where to start. My parents never married. My mother is this serious architect and somehow she ended up in a romance—affair, whatever—with my father, who was a football—soccer—player. She got pregnant and after she had me they couldn’t make it work, because my father never stopped fucking around.”

  “Whoa. Back up. Your father is a professional soccer player . . . where?”

  “He played in Milan. He’s retired now and lives in Italy.”

  “Axl. Your dad is, like . . . famous, isn’t he?”

  I closed my eyes and stretched my arms above my head. “Yes. He’s probably the most famous player in Sweden. He won two World Cups playing for Milan and he won an Olympic gold medal.”

  “Holy shit. I’m totally Googling him.”

  I laughed. “What’s his last name?”

  “It’s not Hammerquist, is it?”

  “No. This is where all the pawn stuff started. My mother refused to give me his name. I hardly ever saw him until he retired. Even then . . . not that much.”

  “Makes sense now why you were sympathetic about the situation with Lucy,” she murmured.

  “So my mother decided when I was three to put me in figure skating lessons. I could only imagine that she did it thinking it’d somehow embarrass my father if I did well at it. But there were two problems with that line of thinking. First, I didn’t have his last name. Second, figure skaters and hockey players practice on the same rink at that age.”

  Annika laughed. “You saw the sticks and realized you could be knocking people down and hitting a puck? From there I’m sure you were all . . . Sign. Me. Up.”

  “Yes. Except my mother would only let me join hockey if I continued to take figure skating lessons. So I did both for several years.”

  ‘That’s why you’re such a fantastic skater.”

  “Honestly? Yes.”

  “Did you compete as a figure skater?”

  “Some.”

  “This is the lagom thing, isn’t it? Just be honest. You have a shit ton of trophies.”

  “Yes, I have a shit ton of trophies.”

  “Do you have any of those onesie leotard things? Because those are smoking hot, especially if they’re cut to your navel.”

  “Even if I did have one, do you think I’d admit it? No freakin’ way.”

  She blew a raspberry at me.

  I laughed.

  “At least tell me one of the songs you skated to.”

  “‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ by—”

  “Grieg. I love that song. It’s epic. What about modern songs? Like—”

  “You suggest an ABBA tune and I’m hanging up,” I warned.

  “Dude. Don’t get so defensive. I love ABBA. I was going to say The Hives.”

  “I prefer Swedish thrash metal, but they frowned on that in competition.”

  “Where are your trophies now?”

  “Storage.”

  “So, your parents . . . are they super proud that you’re a pro hockey player?”

  I felt my cheeks heat. “No. They’re embarrassed that I make my living being a brute. Soccer is refined. So is being an architect.”

  “No wonder you don’t talk about them. They sort of sound like douche canoes.”

  I chuckled. “What is a douche canoe?”

  “Worse than an asshat, but not as bad as a twat waffle.”

  “You have a way with words, Annika. Talking to you . . . soothes me, if that makes sense.”

  “It does.”

  “But it revs me up too.”

  “You’ve done that with great success. In a storage closet and you didn’t even use your hands, remember?”

  “Vividly.” I groaned. “Was that two months ago?”

  “Feels like it. But it was just two nights ago.”

  I yawned.

  She said, “I heard that.”

  “Sorry. I’m wiped out.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m just really glad you called. I miss you. I like talking to you, Axl. Especially when there are no interruptions.??
?

  “I like that too. But next time I see you? No talking. No interruptions. And most important. No clothes.”

  “When did you say you’d be back?”

  “Tomorrow. Good night, Annika.”

  Twenty

  ___

  ANNIKA

  I opted to work from home on Monday. One of the perks of being the boss.

  Not that I was truly working.

  I had hit the gym for the third day in a row. After showering, I slipped on my favorite baggy fleece sweatpants, a U of M T-shirt and a flannel shirt I’d stolen from Walker. When I had no intention of leaving my house, comfort always won over style.

  In an effort to stay offline, I queued up the first season of a TV show I’d wanted to watch but hadn’t gotten around to. Nothing like binge-watching TV for total distraction. It also kept me from checking the time on my phone every couple of minutes.

  Since Friday night, I’d listened to the phone calls from Brady, Lennox, Dallas, Ash, Nolan. Nothing from Jensen or Jaxson, but like Axl, they were in travel mode. Likewise for Walker and Trinity. We all knew they’d sneak off and get married and make the announcement after the fact.

  The only call I returned was to Dallas, warning her not to breathe a word of our crashing the party in disguises. She argued vehemently about my decision not to make a public statement. She thought the public would find the wig and clandestine meeting in the closet funny and romantic. Maybe people would, but Axl and I needed to talk things through first.

  I’d just finished the fourth episode of the show—too bad life’s problems weren’t as easily solved within a forty-eight-minute time frame—when the doorbell rang.

  My pulse spiked and I forced myself not to run. If I checked the peephole and it wasn’t Axl on the other side, I would . . .

  “Annika. Let me in.”

  I entered the alarm code, and the locks disengaged. I barely had the door open before Axl was through it, slamming it shut and pushing me up against the wall.

  His hands framed my face. “Have you been all right?”

  “I’m glad you’re here.” I wreathed my arms around his neck and locked my eyes with his.“We’ve spent so much time together over the past month that I miss you when you’re not around to drive me crazy—”

  Axl covered my lips with his. He fed me long, sweet, slow kisses while his thumbs gently stroked my cheekbones.

  When he finally relinquished my mouth, he left me breathless, mindless and completely turned on. “So, what now?”

  “We could talk.” Axl kissed the corner of my lips. Then my jaw. Then the spot below it on my neck. “We probably need to talk. But all I can think about is taking you to bed and not talking about anything.”

  A wave of desire washed over me.

  “Does that head-to-toe body shiver mean yes?” he murmured.

  “Yes.”

  I felt his exhale—as if he’d been holding his breath—drift across the side of my jaw.

  Then his mouth was on mine again. This kiss turned a little more intense as he loomed over me.

  My fingers twisted in his hair as his hands journeyed down, stopping to mold his big hands around the weight of my breasts.

  Everywhere he touched me, I ached for more.

  But he wasn’t in a hurry.

  Why wasn’t he in a hurry?

  I wanted to strip him, taste him, feel his every rippling muscle tightening against mine as we moved together in a tangle of arms and legs.

  His lips journeyed up to my ear. “You and me.” He tugged on my earlobe with his teeth. “Naked. Now.”

  I shivered at the rasping command in his tone. “Yes.”

  “For the next two days, I will be all over you.” He paused and repeated, “All over you,” just in case I hadn’t understood the first time.

  “As much as you want.”

  “Annika.” Axl trapped my face in his hands and tilted my head back so he could stare into my face.

  For just a moment, I let myself get lost in the depths of his glacial blue eyes. Had I ever imagined this hue to be as icy and remote as the water surrounding some far-off fjord? Because right now all I saw was fiery blue—the very hottest and most dangerous part of a flame.

  “We’ll have time to talk later, but I need you to know this right now. This is not casual.”

  With that, my massive crush on him veered from like into something more.

  “Meaning . . . I shouldn’t frantically start shortening my naked-in-bed-with-Axl wish list because I’ve only got two days to get through it?”

  He blinked at me. “How long is the list?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s from here to Stockholm long.”

  His mouth crashed down on mine as he picked me up and crushed me to his chest. In the next moment we were moving toward my bedroom.

  Not that he knew where it was.

  He hadn’t taken off his coat.

  Or his snow boots.

  I ripped his winter cap off his head and ruffled my fingers through his thick mane.

  And the way he kissed me . . . it was like he wasn’t thinking of anything else. As if kissing me required all his concentration.

  We kept kissing until we literally hit the brick wall at the end of the hallway.

  I said, “Oops, we passed my bedroom.”

  Axl set me down.

  I took his hand and we backtracked.

  My loft apartment was open concept, high ceilings with metal rafters, exposed brick, lots of windows. My bedroom, decorated