Chapter 2

“I was drinking that!” Carolyn complained as Edie grabbed her arm in a vice like grip and dragged her, jogging after her, towards the women’s bathrooms. “Have you never heard that it’s not good to leave your drink unattended?” her friend added in a high pitched whine that Edie was all too aware had more to do with Spidey Muscles than it had to do with the Pomegranate Martini she’d just been forced to leave behind. 

Edie shoved the door open, almost sending a toga clad guest head over heels, and headed straight for the complimentary toiletries in a decorative basket on the counter in the middle of four of those fancy glass bowl sinks. Grabbing a pocket sized bottle of mouthwash, she upended the mint flavored liquid into her mouth and tipped her head back, swishing the strong stuff around until she could no longer taste his tequila flavored lips.

“You know tequila would kill whatever germs you think you have in there,” Carolyn muttered from where she was leaning against the counter, her arms crossed and her bottom lip jutting out in a classic pouting frown. 

“No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Edie spit out the Scope, clinging to the edge of the sink with her eyes squeezed shut. “Fuck no!” she added for good measure, pounding her fist on the tiled surface. 

“Umm, you gonna tell me what you’re flipping out about or are you gonna just have a little melt down, cuz I have to pee,” Carolyn yawned and then teetered drunkenly towards one of the stalls. 

“I just kissed Jonathan Toews,” Edie hissed, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand, and still the tingling sensation that his kiss had left behind refused to leave her lips. 

“The Jonathan Toews?” Carolyn whispered back, looking way too happy about what Edie had just told her, which only served to make Edie roll her eyes and shake her head. 

“He’s the antichrist!” Edie growled back, glancing warily towards the women still waiting in line for one of the stalls, knowing that if a local heard what she was saying that she might just find herself locked in one of the stalls, or worse, dragged out by her hair. “Well, no, Kane is the antichrist but he’s a close fucking…oh my god.” Edie covered her mouth with her hand and shut her eyes again. “Oh…oh that so explains…oh my god Carly…Spidey…that’s Kane.” 

“Oh my god,” Carolyn clapped her hands and laughed, a high trill that sounded more like birdsong than a sound a human should be able to make. “Patrick Kane bought me drinks.” 

“Carly!” Edie snapped her hands in front of her friend’s face. “That is not a good thing. They’re Hawks. We hate Hawks,” she added in a whisper, sending another cautious glance towards toga girl who was still glaring at her for opening the door into her ass. 

“Oh please. You are not a professional hockey player, no matter how good you do in the office pool, you are still not an actual member of the Canucks,” Carolyn reminded her using her best teacher tutting voice. “You can’t actually hate someone for playing for another team and besides, you cheered for him when he played for us in the Gold Medal game, right?” 

“Yesss,” Edie sighed. She had to admit that she’d been very impressed with Toews’ play during the Olympics, but that didn’t change the fact that he was Captain of the team that had kicked her beloved ‘Nucks out of the playoffs, two years running.  “I know that but….”

“Well they do say opposites attract,” Carolyn pointed out as she headed back towards the bathroom stall. Edie stared daggers at her back. 

“Carly, this is serious!” Edie stamped her foot and curled her hands into fists. “He’s the captain of the enemy! The Hawks are the evil empire.” 

“No, Eden, he’s just a young, single, hot millionaire who happens to play hockey in another city. What’s a little tonsil hockey between young available professionals?” Edie shook her head, wishing she had gone on this sales trip with one of her workmates that understood her passion for hockey better than fun but flighty Carolyn, even if the clients had a hard time saying no when the two of them arrived together. 

“You don’t get it,” Edie began, making a face at the whiny sound of her own voice. 

“You know what I get?” Carolyn stumbled back out of the stall, turning around to have Edie pull the zipper on the cat suit up. “I get that you haven’t had a good shag in months and you’ve just snubbed the first nice, good looking guy that has the guts to come on to you.” When put like that, it made Edie’s skin crawl.  Still, she reminded herself, he is captain of the Borg and…. 

“Did you see that girl slap Toews?” Edie ducked her head down so that she was mostly hidden behind her friend and cursed. 

“Edie…you didn’t.”  Edie didn’t need to answer. The guilt on her face was clear as Carolyn looked over her shoulder and shook her head. “Well if he doesn’t have you arrested for assault, I say he isn’t James Bond, he’s freaking Prince Charming.”

“It’s not that funny,” Jon sighs, refusing to even look over at his teammate who’s forehead is currently resting on his forearms as he laughs uproariously. 

“Oh no, it’s totally funny. No, no it’s fucking hilarious. I can’t wait to tell the rest of the guys,” Kane snorts, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Captain Serious, shot down in flames!” 

“I just took her by surprise,” Jon insists, rubbing at his cheek, which is still stinging from the open handed slap she’d laid on him. He’d expected a reaction, just not that reaction, exactly. Downing a shot of tequila, he tried to ignore the fact that Pat was texting everyone they knew and that the next time he walked into the dressing room he’d be the butt of every joke, at least until something unfortunate happened to someone else.

It was stupid. He’d known the girl for all of five minutes, and yet he felt crushed by her rejection. There was something about her….

“Oh god Tazer, better duck. The she bitch is back.” Jon didn’t turn. He didn’t want to see her green eyes or her full lips. He just wanted to pretend that he’d never met her, that they’d never kissed. He wanted to pretend the whole thing was some kind of bad dream. 

“Don’t you have a bridge to protect somewhere, Troll?” he tried not to grin, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek, but he had to admit it was good to hear a woman put his cocky teammate in his place once in a while. He tapped the lip of the shot glass and watched as the bartender filled it to the brim with liquid amber. Still resisting the urge to turn and meet the gaze he could feel boring into him, he tipped the whiskey into his mouth and closed his eyes as it burned the back of his throat. 

“Is he right? Do I need to duck?” he asked quietly, tapping the lip of the glass again. 

“No,” she replied quietly from somewhere right behind his shoulder, “and I’m sorry about that by the way. I may have…I did overreact…apparently.” He tried not to but he couldn’t help smiling. This apology thing obviously wasn’t coming easily to her. “Did I hurt you …badly?” He could tell just by her tone that she was still hoping that she had done some kind of damage. Of course she had, but most of it was emotional. Not that he was going to admit to that.

“I’ve been hit by some pretty big guys. I think I’ll live,” he replied dryly, up ending the shot glass and wincing as the firewater hit his throat. The bartender went to refill the glass but he held his hand over it and shook his head. His head was already swimming and the alcohol wasn’t helping. “So is that it? Are you done trying to humiliate me?” he asked, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as she slid onto the bar stool beside him. He heard Kane’s muffled sniggering from the other side of him, but he didn’t care. He should probably just ignore her and hope she would go away but he just couldn’t. 

“Is that what I was doing?” There it was again, that playful, even sarcastic lilt to her voice. His hand curled around the glass hard enough to make his knuckles turn white. 

“You know you were. You knew who I was. You just played along until you could get your jab in. So now I guess you’ll go back home and yuck it up with your friends, or have you already tweeted that?” He looked over at her and either she was actually shocked or she was a really good actress. He was willing to bet on the latter. 

“And here I was thinking that he was the one with the ego,” she snapped, glancing at Kane who was back to flirting with her Tiger friend. “Maybe if I paid any attention to you when you play in Vancouver I would recognize you but you never really do much  there because our boys keep you pretty contained, so no, I actually didn’t recognize you Mister Superstar,” she snarled and then turned around and slid off of the stool. It must have been reflex but his hand was around her wrist before she could take another step and then they were both looking down at where they were joined, and then slowly, slowly their gazes met and to his surprise, she slowly smiled. 

“Can we just..., can we start again?” he asked, half expecting her to laugh in his face. He tried to steeled himself for it but instead of her half smile turning into something reminiscent of the Joker, she gave a sort of shrug. “Do you wanna get out of here? Go for a walk?” he added quickly so she wouldn’t think he was being, well, Kane. 

With a quick glance towards her friend, who was playfully paying at Pat’s flexed biceps, she nodded and Jon slipped his hand down, lacing his fingers with hers’ and led her away from the bar.

The first thing he wanted to do was tell her that he wasn’t one of those guys. She looked up into his shy, boyish smile as he slid his coat over her shoulders and raised an eyebrow. The funny thing was, she believed him but there was no need to let him off that easy. 

“I think it was the mask,” he told her by way of an excuse, “I think I got a little too into character.” 

“So what you’re trying to do say is not you don’t normally run around kissing random girls?” she asked, not mentioning that he was still holding her hand as they walked down Chicago’s famous Magnificent Mile. 

“No,” he answered quickly and insistently, his dark eyes round and pleading as he looked down at her.  “But you were the prettiest girl in the room, so, can you blame me?” 

“Now I know you’re bullshitting me,” she smirked up at him, expecting to see that sly, flirtatious smile he’d been wearing out on the dance floor. Instead he shook his head vehemently. 

“I’m not like that. Not ever.” 

“You’re all like that, all professional athletes are exactly like that,” she told him firmly, though she was wearing a smile as she did. He shook his head but she noticed that he wouldn’t meet her gaze either. “Oh c’mon, all those girls in your jersey, begging for it, you’re trying to tell me you don’t take them up on it once in a while?” She bumped him with her hip to reinforce that she was kind of kidding, but as they walked past a particularly brightly lit store front she got to watch his smooth cheeks turn a bright shade of pink. Damn, it just wasn’t fair how college boy cute he looked when he did that. “Okay, say you don’t,” she glanced around at the faces on the sidewalk, some in costume, some not, many of them recognizing the kid that had brought The Cup back to Chicago, but none of them stopped them as they continued to walk. “Are you still going to tell me that you’re really single?” They’d walked past his Mercedes in the parking lot of the Hotel. She’d recognized the model number and knew that his car had cost him more than she was going to make this year and then some. She wasn’t sure just how much his NHL contract was but she had a fair idea. He was twenty two and a millionaire, good looking and famous. There was no way on earth he wasn’t taken. 

“I am,” he shrugged, stopping to pull her into a covered doorway, into the shadows and away from the crowds on the sidewalk. “I told you. I’m not good at this…stuff,” he added with a crooked smile that said ‘please believe me’. It was hard not to. He looked so fucking earnest with his closely cropped hair, baby smooth cheeks that looked like they might see a razor once a week and his slightly crooked front teeth. “I’m not saying I wasn’t trying to pick you up,” he added more quietly, his dark eyes doing that mesmerizing thing as his gaze held hers’. 

“And I’m not saying I wasn’t letting you,” she replied, thinking about his mouth and the way he was looking at her and wondering if he was going to kiss her. He looked like he was thinking about it. She didn’t want to crave his kiss, but she did. 

“Aaargh, not here,” he hissed, sending a frustrated glance towards the teeming mass of humanity filling the sidewalk. Giving her hand a squeeze, he turned and led her back out onto the sidewalk, towing her like a tent trailer behind him. 

A few blocks later they were standing on North Lake Shore drive, inches from the water and all of the blood in his body was heading south, fast. He wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to stay on his feet. He was definitely light headed and any prospect for improvement was quickly disappearing as her breasts pressed against his chest and her tongue slid and snaked itself around his. 

There were people around, not many, but some. Enough that he was sure this would get out that he’d hear about it or read about it somewhere; Jonathan Toews, the young captain of the Hawks seen necking like a schoolboy down on the lakeshore. It wasn’t good. It was something he’d been warned about, they’d all been warned about, especially since those pictures of Kaner’s night out in Vancouver had gotten splashed all over the net. 

This wasn’t his thing. He didn’t do stuff like this and yet he didn’t want to stop. 

He threaded his fingers through her thick, dark hair and pulled, tipping her head and baring her long, pale neck. When it came to this kind of thing, his tastes generally ran in the direction of what a lot of the guys called vanilla. He never really went beyond the basic kiss and cuddle and the few relationships he’d had that had actually got to the point of becoming sexual, had never strayed beyond the basic missionary position. He bit into the thin flesh just below her ear and heard her gasp and he liked it. He didn’t know what made him do it, but he wanted to do it more and he definitely wanted her to make more sounds like that. 

“I know I said I don’t do stuff like this,” he began breathlessly, sliding his hands up her neck until he was cupping her face like a goblet, “but would you…I mean, do you want to…?” Shit! This kind of crap came so easily to the other guys and yet here he was, blushing and stammering like a junior high kid, like a fucking virgin. 

“Yes,” she replied immediately, her eyes bright in the moonlight, sparing him the pain of having to actually say the words. 

“Yeah?” Jesus Christ he sounded like a boy scout with a boner. She grinned up at him and nodded and he had to restrain himself from hugging her like she’d just given him a fucking birthday present. “My place isn’t far.”