Power Play (Center Ice Book 2) (16 page)

c

m

Fiona’s email response is short and to the point:

I’m far from perfect. I betrayed your trust. I only hope I’ve made it worthwhile.

I have an interview with Ryan at Insight Media this afternoon.

But it still can’t replace what it cost me.

Hope you’re well.

I can see the expression on her face already—the stern one that tries to invoke shades of her mother. Mouth twisted down, eyes tight. It’s how she looks when she lacks confidence in the coldness she’s trying to project. When she really just wants to melt.

I wish she would melt.

Why can’t I shake her? I’d love nothing more than to move on, after what she did. But it’s stirred something in me, too. A feeling almost like redemption.

Well, I’m not sure I’m ready to be redeemed. But I think I’m ready to try.

*

“Mr. Wright. I’m so glad you decided to visit me.”

I glance around Lucinda Novak’s office. She’s got an impressive array of degrees hung up on the wall, as well as numerous photographs of her with various past and present Eagles players. She’s a slight Hispanic woman with a gentle smile, but in the photographs, she’s beaming, larger than her frame beside these hulking athletes.

“Please. Just Marcus is fine.” I walk over to a photo of her with Karl Laagersen, one of the most famous Eagles players ever, who retired two years ago. League Hall of Famer, in the top five of highest goal scorers ever, and third for points in a single season. “You worked with Laagersen?”

“Of course I did. Karl’s incredibly talented, of course, and he has great instincts, but everyone can use help learning to focus and overcome their monkey mind.”

“Monkey mind?” I echo, turning back toward her.

“That’s right.” She gestures toward a chair. “Would you like to have a seat?”

“Sure.” I sit down on a couch, and she sits across from me. I feel a little too much like I’ve been called to the principal’s office.

“I find it easier to think of the brain as a big piece of equipment, with many parts. There’s the limbic system—that’s the reptile brain. It handles our instincts, our basic needs, and so on. It works just fine on its own. But for higher thought processes, we’ve got the executive function system to handle those things that we constantly think.”

“Okay.” I nod. “I think I follow.”

“Now, most of the time, we might be thinking of dozens of things all at once. What we want to eat for dinner, whether we need to go to the restroom, that thing our partner said on the way out the door that wasn’t all that nice, the stress of a phone call we need to make later . . . that’s the monkey mind. Bouncing around to a billion different targets. With all that noise, the instincts have trouble getting through.”

I blush. I might have been thinking of Fiona for a second there. Nothing special—just this way she’d sigh in her sleep. It was so vulnerable, so . . . acquiescent. Like she was letting go of control and enjoying letting sleep carry her off.

“Now, I see in your medical file that you’ve taken medication for ADHD since you were an adolescent. So I’m sure you know something about just how frantic your monkey mind can get when you aren’t medicated.”

I swallow, and nod. “Most days, I feel like my meds aren’t even doing anything. But then I forget to take them for a day, and
wham
. It’s like I’m all over the place.”

“Right. But even with your medication bringing you closer into focus—there are thoughts that aren’t random static noise bouncing around too, aren’t there?”

“Yeah.” I stare down the patterned rug beneath us. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“They hit a little closer to home, don’t they?”

I swallow again. “Yes.”

“Marcus.” She gently guides my attention back to her face. “I need you to listen to me.”

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“There are two ways that we can do this. You can choose to talk to me about them, or not. If you don’t want to let me in, then I can help you—well, I can help you put them on a leash, maybe. Give you a general strategy for keeping them in line.”

“And will that help?” I ask.

“It’ll help a little. Give you some basics, sure. Like learning how to skate, learning all the rules of hockey. But if you want to learn the in-depth plays and tactics, if you want to address each one in turn . . . you’re going to have to open up to me.”

“Open up.” I frown. “Sure.”

“You’re going to have to tell me what’s really bothering you. What’s distracting you. Because no matter how sad it’s making you, how haunted you might feel—this is your life, now, in this moment. This is the
after
. Are you going to let it affect your future as well as your past?”

My future.

I guess I never think about my future—not really. Before Fiona, I was all set to coast. Victoria gave me what I needed to keep my kinky tendencies in check, even though there was no actual sex involved. And I’d already landed a spot on a professional hockey league—I was set. Right? I had the sweet penthouse condo on the Potomac and the loving family and everything I needed to make the here and now comfortable enough. Effortless enough.

But I was never thinking about what was coming next.

And I was
always
thinking about what I’d left behind.

“Okay.” I shake my head. “So you may have a point.”

Lucinda smiles broadly. “Let’s talk about it.”

*

f

I finally went to talk to the team psychologist.

You were right. (Bet you get sick of hearing that, huh?)

Hope the interview went well.

I clutch the phone to my chest. No, dammit, Fi, don’t get your hopes up. This doesn’t fix anything. Yes, it’s great Marcus is getting the help he needs, but he’s never going to forgive you for what you did.

I swap over to the next email—the one welcoming me to the Astro Media team.
While you’re finishing your last semester of college, we’ll expect two stories from you at your own pace, then we’ll talk full-time schedule after graduation.

Marcus was wrong. The world is zero-sum. I traded away my happiness with him for the elation of landing the job I wanted, on my own terms, away from Mum’s demands.

I swap back to Marcus’s email and hit Reply.

I got the job at Astro.

I hate what I lost to get it.

Miss you.

I hit Send. Then close my laptop, as quick as I can, before I have a chance to lose my nerve.

Mariko sent me a text earlier, inviting me to some lame New Year’s Eve dinner with some of the other people from the paper who are sticking around town as well as her District of Sports friends. I answer her that I’ll be there and head to my closet to find something to wear.

Of course the leather bustier I’d bought to surprise Marcus with is right at the front of my closet. I shove it out of the way and pick the plainest green dress I own.

*

“Brigid Callahan’s daughter, huh?” Mariko’s editor from District of Sports, Josh or Jeff or Jesse or something, looks me over with a vulgar leer. “You a ball-buster like your mom?”

I bare my teeth at him. “Oh, no. I’m way worse.”

He straightens his shoulders, like some preening bird puffing its feathers, and takes a sip of his beer. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

Is this seriously what passes for flirtation these days? I roll my eyes and start to turn away, but then Mariko and her date, Pedro, sidle up to us. Great. Now I’m trapped.

“Fiona just landed a job at Astro Media,” Mariko says, in that ultra-loud way that tells me she’s trying to smooth things over for me and I don’t dare fuck this up. I shoot her a glare. “I can’t wait for her piece to come out. It’s fucking amazing.”

“Astro Media? Damn, that’s pretty hot,” Josh-Jeff admits. “What’s the piece about?”

I clear my throat and look him dead in the eye. “BDSM culture.”

He chokes on his drink; Pedro and Mariko giggle. Josh-Jeff arches one brow and leans closer to me. “You like getting tied up and whipped, little girl?”

“Yeah, because women can’t ever be dominant.”

“No, it’s actually true.” Josh-Jeff’s eyes gleam as he draws the attention of the assembled crowd. Oh, god, one of those guys. He’s just dying for a chance to show off. “Look at the entire romance genre, those Grey movies, everything like that. Women say they want to be in charge, that they’re independent, and so on . . . But really, every woman just wants a man to dominate her. The most common sexual fantasy there is.”

And you really believe that every woman is exactly the same and wants the exact same thing,” I say, deadpan.

Josh-Jeff grins. Like he thinks he’s got me pegged. It’s taking all my restraint not to throw my dirty martini in his face. “Women like to talk a good game about liberation and all that jazz . . . but you all want the same thing.” He leans toward me. “Maybe I could show you sometime.”

I flash him my coldest, cruelest smile. “I could break you, little boy. I could tie you up and make you beg and plead for mercy.”

Josh-Jeff’s smile fades.

“But you are so far beneath me, you don’t even deserve to be a smudge on my shiny black boots.”

Pedro and Mariko start laughing again. Josh-Jeff’s expression turns angry, vicious. “You cunt—”

“Sorry, Mari, I’ve got somewhere to be.” I slap a twenty on the bar counter. “Have fun with your little boys.”

I storm out of the bar, tugging on my trench coat as I go. And despite all common sense begging me not to, I check my email on my phone.

One new email from Marcus Wright.

I want to forgive you.

I miss you, too.

I don’t know what to do.

Do you forgive me?

And in a flash, the perfect plan clicks into place.

I pull open a new search and look for the number and address for Club Brimstone.

C

M

Another New Year’s Eve alone. Sergei and Jael are having a private romantic dinner at Pluribus; Brian’s out with friends who are visiting from college; and Fiona . . . I don’t even want to know what she’s up to. Whatever it is, I hope it’s making her happy. Happy in all the ways that I can’t.

I try to think what I was doing last year. Probably getting tied up and beaten senseless by Victoria. I sigh, thinking about calling Club Brimstone and begging them to take me in again, but what’s the point? Lucinda says I shouldn’t treat my kink as a punishment. That it should be a source of pleasure for me, a cause for celebration. To turn it into atonement for my sins is to make it something dirty and shameful. I should be proud of who I am and what I like. Not burdened by the trouble it’s caused in the past.

All well and good for her to say, but there’s a woman in a wheelchair because of me.

I take a slow sip of bourbon and watch a glass-roofed party barge glide along the river. So many people, all with their own kinks and shames and buried secrets and regrets. Lucinda stressed that I shouldn’t feel alone in my grief. That everyone has a mistake, but I’ve paid for it far better than most—arranging for Rajani’s care, learning how to never do such harm again. That I can wear my grief but not become it.

I’m trying. But now I have another regret stalking me—the wonderful chance I had with Fiona that I’ve blown by not telling her the truth.

Sure, we’re still emailing back and forth. I want to be worth another chance with her. I want to forgive her for hurting me, too. With her article, she absolved me of far more guilt in a few thousand words than I’ve been able to absolve myself of in two years.

Then my phone rings.

It’s a DC number, but not one I have plugged into my contacts. I frown. Occasionally we’ll get some crazy fans calling, but really? On New Year’s Eve? Surely even stalkers have better things to do. I take another gulp and answer. “Hello?”

“Hey, Marcus. This is Victoria, um, from Club Brimstone? You know . . .”

“Yeah.” I smirk. “I know.”

“So, uhhh . . .” I can almost see her playing with her hair. Poor thing. She is just not meant to be a dominatrix outside of the dungeon. “So we’ve got this new girl here I think you might want to work with . . . Would you, umm . . .”

Then there’s a muffled sound, like she’s got her hand over the receiver while she talks to someone else. A faint, lilting voice answers her, and my heart does a little flip. Fuck. For a second there, it sounded like Fiona.

Stupid hopes. Stupid boner. Stupid Marcus.

“I thought that perhaps she might be more accommodating to your, um, needs.” I can hear Victoria forcing a smile through the phone. “For total domination.”

I stare down at the glass in my hand, then back out at the Potomac. “I dunno. I thought you guys didn’t want my business anymore.”

“Well, we’d be willing to make an exception for you! Just this once.” She swallows. “
Please
, Marcus. Unless you have better plans tonight, I just really think . . .”

I laugh, bitter. “Better plans. Uh-huh. I tell you what.”

“Yeah?” she says, eagerly.

“This all sounds shady as shit, but because you’re so determined, I’ll head down there and see what it is you’re up to. Deal?”

“Yes!” She laughs. “That’s great. See you soon!”

Shady as shit, and more than a little suspicious. Who had she been talking to? Again, I let myself dare to think it was Fiona. But that’s not her style at all. I know she knows about Club Brimstone—she mentioned it, though not by name, in her essay—but I can’t even begin to imagine her fitting in with the seasoned, strong-armed dommes that work there.

Not that she doesn’t do a great job. Just that there’s the faintest hint of naivete to her that only turns me on all the more.

Turned.
Turned
me on, I remind myself. No longer. She and I both fucked that right up.

But I’m too curious. And, yes, a little too hopeful.

I have to find out what’s going on.

*

Club Brimstone is pretty dead. I guess most of their clientele have better things to do on New Year’s Eve than get spanked and whipped, or at least, better people to do it with than by-the-hour dominatrices. Not sure what it says about me that I’m here, but I accept it, whatever it is.

Carmilla raises a hand toward me from the bar, then plucks up the office phone. “Something while you wait?”

“I’m good.” I lean against the bar, itchy with restless energy. No matter what happens tonight, I’m going to hit up free skate tomorrow before our matinee game against the Seattle Bombers. “Just want to know what’s going on.”

Victoria rushes out from the back room, wearing a spangly sequined party dress. Her blonde hair, usually pulled back in a severe bun, is set in gentle waves around her face; she looks tanned and sunny and content, not at all the stern taskmistress I’m used to. “Hey. Good. Glad you came.” She fiddles with the earring she was in the process of hooking into her lobe. “I’ve gotta run, but I promise this girl will take good care of you, okay?”

“Right,” I say, dubious.

Victoria plants a quick kiss on my temple. “You’re a good guy, Marcus.” She smiles. “I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.”

I work my jaw back and forth and say nothing.

“She’ll meet you in the Taj Mahal room. Head on in and get ready. Happy New Year!”

“Yeah. Happy New Year,” I mutter back to her, then fire off a sloppy salute toward Carmilla before heading down the hall.

I peel off my clothes—just boring sweats and a long-sleeved Eagles tee—and hop into the shower to rinse off and let my muscles loosen up. I’m trying not to think too hard about who or what is awaiting me on the other side of the door. Victoria’s obviously up to something—for a domme, she has a terrible poker face—but the possibilities are too tantalizing, and I don’t want to feel let down when they inevitably don’t come true.

I towel off, drop the towel in the laundry bin, and crouch down on my usual mat. And wait.

And wait.

Okay. Now I’m well and truly feeling like an idiot. A naked, tipsy idiot, crouched on a sealed tile floor that gets sprayed down with bleach every night. I’ll just get dressed and get the fuck out of here, maybe go hit a night club and drink myself silly until midnight—

The door flies open with a bang. “Sit your ass right back down and don’t you dare turn around.”