Page 7 of Desire or Defense

“Hey!” I yell, skating over just as the dark-haired kid jumps on top of Freckles and starts punching him over and over. I grab him by the shoulder pads and haul him off of Freckles. “What the hell, kid?! You can’t just go around thrashing your opponents in the neck!”

My voice is booming, louder than I realized. Downsby stares at me, he’s all dark hair and equally dark eyes. Eyes so cold and hateful… and he spits… actually spits. I think he was trying to spit in my face, but since I’m so much taller, it lands on my jersey. Disgusting.

Before I can berate him… again… I see his cold eyes go wide with horror as he eyes something behind me. I turn to see a… nurse? Walking, no stomping, toward me. She’s wearing tennis shoes and she is fuming mad. As she comes closer, I notice her eyes are dark and furious like the boy whose jersey is still clutched in my fist. The blonde woman slips and lands on her butt, the boys behind me snicker until she stands back up and her angry eyes whip in their direction.

I’m so stunned by the whole situation I’m just staring at her when she finally slips, slides, and stomps her way to me. Once she’s right in front of me, she juts one curvy hip out and rests a balled up fist on it. I was wrong, her eyes aren’t furious, they’re blazing. Blondie is pissed. At me.

“Who do you think you are? And why are you speaking to the kids like that?”

I huff out a surprised laugh. “Kids?” Surely we’re not talking about the same group of disrespectful ragamuffins.

She takes another step forward and slaps my hand where it’s still gripping the boy’s jersey. “I don’t know who kicked your puppy, sir. But yelling at these boys is highly inappropriate!”

A few of the boys behind me sniff, I glance over my shoulder and see Freckles and one of his henchmen fake crying.

“You can’t be serious.” I point a finger at Downsby. “Your kid high-sticked the mouthy one in the throat. The freaking throat, lady!” My voice comes out unintentionally loud again, but she doesn’t back down.

Instead, she moves so close, I can smell her hair. It smells like a candy shop… more specifically, bubble gum. The sweet scent is a complete contrast to her pissed-off glare. She takes her index finger and stabs it into my chest, I notice she flinches slightly, like the impact hurts her finger.

She’s little, probably ten inches shorter than me even without my skates on, but there’s fire in those dark brown eyes, something that tells me she’s tougher than she looks. That she could kick my butt if she really wanted to. Something that makes me a little scared but yet makes my blood run a little hotter.

“You will treat these kids with kindness and respect. I don’t care if you’re some kind of hockey, Ice Capades, skating expert. Or whatever.” She waves one hand around when she says whatever.

My lips twitch at her words, and the fact she clearly has no idea who I am. And something tells me that even if she were aware she was in the presence of a famous professional athlete, she couldn’t care less.

CHAPTER 4

ANDIE

I don’t care how gorgeous, or broad, or chiseled, or… wait, where was I going with this?

Oh, right. I don’t care who this big oaf is! He won’t be yelling at Noah if I have anything to say about it. Or any of these cute little boys, for that matter. They’d be so mad if they knew I thought of them as cute little boys when they clearly think they’re so much older than they are.

The man stares at me and has the audacity to smirk, which just makes me madder. A flash goes off and I look over to see a professional cameraman taking photos of the obnoxiously hot man. Is he a model or something? Believable. But why’s he filling in for the assistant coach?

The big man opens his mouth to speak before something crosses over his face, an expression of fear, or something similar. Before I can fully analyze the look, he glides toward me in a rush and picks me up effortlessly around the waist.

I’m about to tell him a thing or two about touching someone without their consent, when two boys crash into each other right where we were just standing. The giant sets me down, his hands moving up to my shoulders to steady me before releasing me and skating backward a few feet.

The way he moves on the ice is a thing of beauty, almost as impressive as his face. Okay, so he’s not just a model. Actually, when I really look at him, his face isn’t model handsome. His face is mostly covered by his thick, dark beard, but the sharp angles are still noticeable. His features are handsome, but not perfect. His mouth is a little too wide, his nose a bit crooked like he broke it and it wasn’t set right, and there’s a scar across one eyebrow. No, he’s not handsome in the typical sense of the word, but in a way all his own.

“Ma’am, you really need to get off the ice. You need skates and a helmet, at least, to be out here,” His voice is getting louder and more annoyed with every word, but that deep, rumbly baritone makes me feel like I’m standing in the hot sun instead of the middle of an ice rink.

Internally, I shake his voice from my thoughts, and place my hands on my hips again for good measure. Looking as serious as I can to compensate for our size difference. “I can't speak to you through the plexiglass.”

He uses his gloved hand to gesture toward the bleachers on the other side of the glass. “You have to go back to the parent viewing area.” He’s completely serious. Like a bunch of kids could hurt me.

I scoff and narrow my eyes at him. His arm flies up toward my head, causing me to flinch. I notice a heavy, black puck hits his gloved hand and ricochets off before tumbling to the ice, leaving me stunned.

“You’re not even wearing a helmet, you’re going to get a concussion at this rate,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut in annoyance and shaking his head. He looks, and sounds, very put out.

I’m still in awe of his reflexes, glancing between him and the puck that almost just rearranged my face. He groans heavily, and his eyes shift from greenish-brown to a cooler color. I can tell in that moment that he’s lost all patience with me.

He removes his gloves, throwing them to the ground, skates toward me, then bends at the waist and hauls me up and over his shoulder.

I gasp and wriggle, trying to free myself from his firm grip. “Hey! You brute! Put me down!”

He ignores me, skating toward the door that leads to the parent area. “I tried asking you nicely,” he says cooly.