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  “No,” he said, finally checking his ego. The anger drained out of him fast.

  God, he’d been a total dickbag, taking out his frustration on this woman. Assuming she was there for his pleasure, then huffing and puffing like an ornery kid when he found out she wasn’t.

  When did he become such a low-class asshole?

  “So I’m not keeping you from ballet?” she asked.

  “No ma’am.” He offered what he hoped was an apologetic smile, but she wasn’t having it.

  “Then I suggest you drop the attitude so we can get to work. Your coaches aren’t paying me to stand around and look pretty, and I doubt that’s what you’re getting paid for, either.”

  “I…” He clamped his mouth shut. Did she just call me pretty?

  Her tone would’ve made him bristle—should have made him bristle—but he was too damn intrigued to admit just how much she pissed him off. It was a dangerous combination, but at this point, what the fuck did he have to lose?

  Besides, for some supremely fucked-up reason he couldn’t even begin to guess at, he wanted to prove himself to her. He wanted her to know he was serious, professional. Talented. Not a dickbag.

  “Are we all on the same page now?” McKellen asked, shooting another warning glare at Walker.

  “We’re good,” Walker said.

  After what felt like an eternity, McKellen nodded, then skated back to the bench to talk with the coach.

  Walker shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He couldn’t afford to piss them off. He needed to get his shit together—physically and mentally.

  “Olympics, huh?” He turned to face Evangeline, struck again by those fiery amber eyes. “That’s pretty fucking badass, Evangeline.”

  “Eva,” she said. “And you bet your ass it is.” Her tone had thawed a fraction, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips.

  Walker returned it with a cocky grin of his own. Neither of them looked away, the silence building between them like a dare.

  “So. You ready?” She arched a perfectly-shaped brow—a challenge he was finally ready to accept.

  “Think you can teach this old dog a few new tricks?”

  “Depends,” she said coolly. Without warning, she shot backward, skates swizzling against the ice, propelling her lithe body across the rink and leaving his ass in the dust as she taunted him one last time. “Think you can keep up, old dog?”

  Chapter Four

  Despite the icy air and the nerves in her belly, Eva’s blood was on fire.

  Infuriating. Cocky. Unappreciative. Entitled. Capital-R Rude.

  In the span of five minutes, Walker Dunn had earned every one of those qualifiers ten times over. But holy hell, what the man lacked in manners, he more than made up for in other ways.

  Ways that pushed Eva’s sex-starved imagination into overdrive, her thighs clenching beneath the spandex even as she rocketed herself backward, far away from his intimidating presence.

  Eva prided herself on her professionalism. On her ability to remain cool and detached in the face of even the most demanding clients. And on a personal level, while she considered herself fairly open-minded when it came to sex, hockey boys were what she liked to a call her hard limit.

  No way. No how. Never again.

  Despite the ample opportunity her on-ice career had afforded her, she’d kept that vow for years. But from the moment she’d seen Walker up close, all swagger and snarl, something inside her cracked loose, exposing a soft spot that was supposed to have stayed walled up for eternity.

  She’d beat him to the edge of the rink, and now he skated toward her, hard and powerful, his steel-gray eyes locked on hers like a weapon. God, it had been way too long since she’d been with a man, and her mind wandered into a dangerous fantasyland, serving up red-hot images of Walker pinning her against the boards, his mouth claiming hers in a vicious kiss. She wondered what he smelled like up close, in the warm curve where his neck met his shoulder. She wondered what his mouth tasted like, how his two-day stubble would feel scratching against her face. Her neck. Her thighs. She wondered what it might feel like to slide underneath him, pinned down by those powerful, muscular arms as he growled hot and low in her ear.

  The thought nearly undid her.

  Never again, never again, never again…

  Eva repeated the mantra until she got it under control, reminding herself that all that fantasizing was just the animal part of her brain, reacting to the stimulus of his raw, masculine sex appeal. The rational part of her brain knew damn well that Walker Dunn was just another hockey boy looking to score, and right now, that rational brain needed just one thing:

  To kick his egotistical ass all the way back down the rink. Show him who was boss, establish those boundaries she kept talking about, and squash that sex-starved little cavewoman inside her before she got herself into a situation she couldn’t get out of.

  Walker finally approached, and Eva shot him an icy glare. “Nice of you to show up,” she said. “I thought maybe you’d decided to call a cab.”

  He skated right up close, pointed a finger at her chest. “You don’t pay fair, princess.”

  His tone was laced with annoyance, but there was a playful spark in his eyes that did something to her insides.

  Steeling herself against his obvious charms, Eva skated a backward circle around him, forcing him to turn to keep his eyes on her. “Do the guys on the other teams play fair?” she asked. “Do they print out a list of all their moves ahead of time, let you peek at the playbook so you know exactly what to expect?”

  When he didn’t respond, she continued. “You need to be ready for anything, forty-six. So if you can’t read their minds, read their body language. And then—”

  “Hey, thanks for the 101, but I’m pretty sure I remember how to play hockey.”

  “And then,” she continued, refusing to be interrupted, “make sure you’re faster than them. Always.”

  “I am fast.”

  Eva stopped moving long enough to catch his gaze and hold it. “So why am I here?”

  “You’re here because my coach and trainer like screwing with me. I don’t need lessons on how to play.”

  Eva considered his words, and more importantly, all the things he wasn’t saying. His trainer had told her how he’d been riding the bench since his accident, unable to fully recover, even with the team’s best doctors, state-of-the art equipment, and intensive personal training. She understood that it had to be hard for him, knowing he might never play again. Might never have a chance to follow his passion. On some level, she could relate to that.

  But he was also acting like a spoiled child. Didn’t really surprise her, but it was starting to piss her off.

  Time to make her point, fast and hard.

  “You’re right,” she said evenly, “You don’t need lessons on how to play. But you do need to get those drill times back up. I can help with that, if you let me.”

  He crossed his bulky arms over his chest and glared at her. “How?”

  “It’s all a matter of physics.” She thumbed toward the other end of the ice. “Show me what you’ve got, forty-six.”

  “You mean you don’t already know? I thought you were the expert here.”

  “I need to see what I’m dealing with so I can determine the best course of action.”

  “But you—”

  “Chop chop, forty-six. There and back, as fast as you can. On my mark, okay?”

  With a great, overdramatic sigh, Walker finally relented. He crouched into position, ready to launch himself across the rink.

  His body was rigid, his jaw clenched, all six-feet-five-inches of him poised to attack that distance, chew it up like his life depended on it. Eva could see half-dozen mistakes in his stance alone—the way he leaned forward, banking on confidence and strength over agility and efficiency.

  “You ready?” she asked, finger hovering over the stopwatch button.

  “Are you?” Wasting no more time, Walker took off down the ice.<
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  He didn’t glide so much as stomp, his strides strong but lumbering. There was no doubt he was a powerhouse—despite his bulk, the weight of the gear, and his injury, Walker was still pretty damn fast on those blades. But he was straining, pushing hard to prove a point. If he exerted this much energy during an actual game, he wouldn’t last five minutes.

  Walker banked at the end of the rink and boomeranged around the net, charging toward her once again. Keeping her eyes locked on his legs, Eva catalogued his movements, noticed where his right leg dragged, how hard he favored the bad knee. It threw off his balance, messed with his momentum, and severely limited his ability to do what needed to be done.

  Worse, he was in pain—a lot more than he was admitting. One look at his clenched jaw and furrowed brow told her that.

  A pinprick of guilt poked her chest, but she dismissed it. Walker Dunn was a grown man who should know his own limitations. If he was serious about getting back into the game, he needed to be honest about those limitations so they could work through them together.

  Eva stopped the timer.

  Walker threw a cocky grin her way as he slid to a stop, spraying her skates with ice. The attitude was authentic, but the grin was forced; angry blotches of red covered his face, his chest heaving with the effort.

  But damn, those smoky gray eyes wouldn’t let her off the hook for anything. They sparkled beneath his dark, sweat-drenched hair, flashing with challenge.

  “Fast enough for you?” he asked.

  “Not bad,” she said, trying to dodge his penetrating gaze… and then trying not to think about the word penetrating while standing so close to him.

  Is it hot in here? I think it’s hot in here…

  Eva unzipped the top half of her fleece.

  “Not bad?” He leaned forward and raised a brow that would’ve set her panties on fire, had she been wearing any. A drop of sweat fell from his hair and slid down his cheek, tracing a path through the stubble along his jaw. In a low growl, he said, “I suppose you could do better, princess?”

  Eva backed away, putting some much-needed space between them. “I’m not the one trying to get back on the roster.”

  “In other words, you’re all talk.”

  He was baiting her. She knew it, felt that hook sliding into her like a caught fish.

  Yet she took it. Every inch of it.

  Dammit.

  Before Eva’s beloved father passed away several years ago, he’d always said that she’d inherited her competitive nature from him; that it was the best part of her. Her unwillingness to back down from a challenge had made her a force on the U.S. Olympics Team, earning medals and sponsorships, helping her achieve nearly impossible dreams. But her mother had always said it’d made her obstinate and stubborn, impossible to deal with, and—on Mom’s particularly smug days—unlikely to ever find a man.

  They were both a little bit right, and in the years since she’d left the competition, Eva had done her level best to keep her ego in check, showing her coaching clients just enough of her skills to understand that they’d be getting their money’s worth from her, but never pushing it. Never making them feel small just to prove how damn good she really was.

  But all of that carefully honed self-restraint flew right out the window when Walker Dunn smirked at her.

  “I wanna see your so-called physics in action,” he said. “Otherwise I’m not buying your story. And if I’m not buying it, you can bet your ass McKellen isn’t buying it.”

  Eva tried not to roll her eyes. McKellen was buying it—they’d already agreed on payment, regardless of how the session turned out today. But that didn’t mean Eva could let Walker get away with this.

  Something inside her clicked and sparked, an old feeling she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed. Eva hadn’t skated competitively in years, but the fire was there again in an instant, as if it had never left. The heat started deep in her belly, quickly spreading outward into her limbs until she was nearly engulfed, consumed by the need to prove herself. To shut him up, shut him down, and wipe that infuriating smile off his way-too-handsome-to-be-legal face.

  “You need a demonstration, forty-six? You got it.” She skated backward toward the other end of the rink. “I’ll start down at the goal line. You start here. When you see me take off from that spot, you come at me. Hard and fast as you can.”

  “And then?” He was still flashing that infuriating smile.

  “Try to catch me. Knock me on my ass.”

  “That all?” Walker laughed, shaking his head. “Sorry, princess. Not happening.”

  “Of course it isn’t. You won’t even get close.” Eva didn’t wait for another response—she was already speeding down to the goal line. She stopped in front of the net and turned to face him, her body warm, blood buzzing with adrenaline.

  Let’s do this…

  She pushed off from her toe pick and rocketed down the ice, Walker coming straight at her, picking up more speed, more power with every stroke. The icy air whipped her cheeks, making her eyes water, turning her surroundings into a blur. If the two stayed on their current course, they’d collide in t-minus five, four, three…

  Walker was holding back, just like she knew he would. Even as he zoomed toward her, he held out his arms, already preparing to cushion her fall. She let him think he was about to do just that. Then, in the span of a heartbeat, Eva shifted her weight away from him, bending like a ribbon in the wind, no bones, no lines, just pure energy.

  Tension crackled in the air as two powerful bodies whooshed past each other, skates cutting across the ice. Eva picked up speed, pumping her legs as she skated hard for the goal line, then whipped back around to face Walker for round two.

  He was a beast, grinding harder now, no more holding back. McKellen and Gallagher whooped from the bench, egging Walker on.

  Again, Eva waited until she and Walker were nearly on top of each other, then twisted away just as Walker grabbed at empty air between them. They bounced back around their opposite nets for another go, and although Walker was really pushing himself, he missed her yet again. After the fourth go-round, Eva waved her hands to signal the game was over.

  Walker bent over on the ice, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. He was still panting when Eva skated over to him, cutting her blades at the last second, spraying him with ice.

  Ha! You should see my triple/triple!

  Walker raised his eyes, glaring at her from beneath his thick, black lashes. “Point…” he panted. “Point taken.”

  Eva fought to keep the smug smile from her face as Walker, for the first time since their meeting, was shocked into silence.

  That playful spark in his eyes was gone now, shoved aside by anger and frustration. But looking past all that red-hot rage, Eva saw something else in his eyes: Respect.

  And there, just beyond the respect, was the molten core of something else. Something that Eva felt, too. Something that—if left unchecked—would destroy her.

  Walker Dunn was completely, unapologetically turned on.

  Chapter Five

  “Nice work, Miss Bradshaw.” Doug McKellen held out a thick manila envelope. “Been a long time since anyone could wipe that smirk off his face.”

  Eva sat down on one of the benches behind the safety glass and returned his smile, pocketing the envelope without counting the cash inside. She could tell by its bulk that it was probably more than what they’d agreed on over the phone—more than she’d ever made in a one-on-one session.

  “So what do you think?” McKellen asked. “What’s our plan of attack here?”

  Eva blew out a breath, trying to release some of the adrenaline that still coursed through her body. Out on the rink, Walker was talking with his head coach, nodding at something the coach was saying. They didn’t seem to be arguing, but tension was rolling off Walker’s body in waves.

  All told, she and Walker had worked together for more than ninety minutes, zooming back and forth across the rink, running throu
gh extensive drills and exercises designed to push him to the limit of his capabilities and give her a more complete picture of the issues. To her surprise, after their initial confrontation, he’d done as she’d asked for the rest of the session without complaint. But she could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Whether it was the pain in his knee or the blow to his ego, something was holding him back, putting up an invisible wall between them that would severely limit her ability to help him, no matter how much he was willing to push through the pain.

  “Walker’s a hockey player, through and through,” Eva finally said, slipping her feet out of the ice skates. “He was trained to go after the puck, to knock down anyone in his way, to hustle for the net—that’s it. No finesse. He skates like a gorilla on a rampage, and he’s wasting a lot of energy doing it.”

  “That gorilla on a rampage leads the league in assists,” McKellen said.

  “That was before the injury,” she said. “Frankly, lots of hockey players skate like that, and they get by just fine. But for Walker, it’s different now. That knee is holding him back. Aside from total recovery, his best shot at getting back into the game is to become a more efficient skater, develop some techniques that would allow him to conserve energy while skating faster and smarter, and hopefully strengthening his knee in the process.”

  “So in your opinion, if we can teach him these techniques, there’s a chance he’ll improve?”

  “A chance? Sure. I mean, I’m not a doctor. But I can tell you right now he’d shave some serious time off those drills.”

  “But…?” McKellen pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I can hear it in your voice, Miss Bradshaw. Spit it out.”

  Eva hesitated, not sure how much more candid she should be. The man did just hand over a sizable lump of cash, and Eva didn’t want to sound smug. She’d used up all that negative energy on the ice, and she’d intended to leave it there.

  But he’d paid her to do a job, and she wasn’t about to mislead him just for the sake of being nice.

  “My honest assessment?” Eva fished through her gear bag for a soft cloth and began wiping down the blades of her skates. “Your man is all attitude, Mr. McKellen. I don’t know if it’s the injury or if he’s always been like that, but it’s holding him back.”