Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) (6 page)

***

Joe glanced up from his MacBook and did a double take. “Are you playing hockey again? I’d like you to have teeth for our wedding.”

“I’ve had a very strange night.” Stephanie tossed the bag and stick into the hall closet. “Emphasis on ‘very.’”

“Should I ask?”

“Let’s leave it at that.”

“You’re being weird again.”

“Long day. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.” Stephanie flipped on the bedroom light, entered the en suite, and locked the door. She needed Joe to leave her alone for a little while. She dropped her clothes into a pile on the floor and started the water. Not hot enough to scald away her skin’s desire for Aleksandr’s touch and the shame that accompanied it. Her fiancé was two rooms away, and she was fantasizing about another man.

She was only with Joe because she thought she’d never see Alex again.

The stark realization hit her like a head-on collision. Eight years. He still wanted her.
Her
, when he could have anyone.

She smiled. Oh, the things Alex would do to her if she let him. Stephanie leaned against the wall, facing the spray, and slipped a finger between her legs. Water splashed against her belly.

She had never fantasized about Joe.

She rubbed faster, the warm, luscious pressure building to a crescendo. She hunched forward as the orgasm blasted through her, and she tried to stifle the succession of moans the shower surely wasn’t loud enough to muffle.

Guilt regained its foothold. Four months. The venue and officiant already reserved. A dress already purchased. Flowers and cake ordered. Photographer and videographer booked. She was going to marry Joe because not marrying him would disappoint too many people.

Except the one who mattered most. The one she had never stopped loving.

Stephanie shut off the water, wrapped herself in a towel, and sat on the toilet lid. Her heart was trying to punch out of her chest, and nausea churned her stomach.
Slow, deep breaths.
She hung her head between her knees. “Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered.

She put on a nightshirt and climbed into bed. Joe came in a couple hours later. She pretended to be asleep, but when his persistent prodding made it clear he knew she was faking, she rolled onto her back and let him do his thing. Joe was an oblivious lover who tended to forget, especially once he’d gotten off, she couldn’t orgasm by penetration alone. Satisfied, he fell into a deep, snoring sleep.

She stared into the darkness of the ceiling, wondered what Aleksandr was doing and decided she was better off not knowing. She had no right to be jealous, engaged to one man and leading on another. No right at all.

She wished she hadn’t asked for the story. Hadn’t laid eyes on Alex again.

Hadn’t tasted what could have been hers all along.

***

As Joe showered, Stephanie pressed Call and with a thousand wings flapping in her stomach waited for Aleksandr to answer. She gnawed on a fingernail.

“Hello?” His soft yet full-bodied voice, his Russian accent, awakened memories of him lying beside her, describing all the things they would do together someday.

“Aleksandr. Hi. Where do you run?”

A moment’s hesitation. “You’re coming?”

“I’d like to.”

“Seward Park. I’ll meet you at the entrance in half an hour.”

“See you then.” Now to get out without a barrage of questions.
She wiggled into a fresh pair of underwear, a sports bra, run capris, and a long-sleeved crewneck.

“Working out early today, huh?” Joe asked as she was tying her sneakers. He dropped his damp towel on the bed, and she wrinkled her nose.

She darted into the bathroom to scrub some deodorant under her arms. “Yeah.”

“Awfully eager. You’re not a morning person.”

“I have to go. I’ll see you after work, okay?” She gave him a perfunctory peck on the cheek before grabbing her keys and phone. She couldn’t stand the thought of kissing those wet, malleable lips. Like jamming her mouth into a spoiled melon.

Stephanie drove to Lake Washington Boulevard as the sun was waking, the world painted into life with strokes of gray light. In the near-empty lot, she parked beside Aleksandr’s Mercedes. He was standing at the entrance, wearing black running shorts over black leggings, Adidas sneakers, and a long-sleeved, blue Under Armour shirt. She stared at the outline of his chest beneath the fabric.

He kissed her on each cheek, his face prickly with stubble. “Good morning,” he said with a smile that brightened the dreary morning. They walked into the park and warmed up: five minutes of walking, five one-hundred-meter strides, and several dynamic stretches. When they were ready to run, Aleksandr chose the paved path looping two and a half miles around the peninsula, with the lake beside them and majestic Mount Rainier ruling the distant Cascades. Woodpeckers drummed messages in the poplars. Diving ducks and swan-necked Western Grebes floated on the water, while gulls wheeled and gathered on shore in search of dead fish, crying to each other with low
wow
s
and
kak-kak-kak
s.

Rubber pounded the asphalt. Stephanie stole several glances, straying again to the contours of his pecs, of his biceps. She listened to the pattern of his breathing, watched white puffs condense with each exhale. His strides were long and easy. She hadn’t gone on a real run in years, and her lungs were feeling the burn. She let him pull ahead enough that she could watch the joggle of his high-carriage ass. There was a word for that kind of ass.
Callipygous
.
Having shapely buttocks.

God help her.

“This is nice,” she said. “Peaceful.”

“I tried Green Lake, but it gets crowded. Myrtle Edwards is closer to me but again, people.”

They reached the end of the park loop and headed back. Less than half an hour had passed. “I thought you ran for an hour.”

“I do. I usually go all the way to Colman Park and back, but I don’t think you’re going to make it.” He laughed. “Did you see the forest trails we passed? We can go for a walk. It’ll be a nice cooldown, and it’s easier to talk when you’re not wheezing.”

She punched his shoulder. They relaxed into a stroll as they entered the old-growth forest, the trail denoted with granite markers. Aleksandr paused to lift his shirt and wipe the sweat from his face, offering a glimpse of his six-pack, of the black hair sprinkled on his flat belly. Something was pinging deep inside her like notes from a piano. She imagined roaming her hands over his stomach’s concave edges, to the place where his V-cut dipped beneath his shorts. Her thighs tingled.

Douglas firs towering over two hundred feet above them dominated the forest, their perfume sweet and resinous. More woodpecker tapping. Aleksandr placed a finger to his lips and slid his gaze toward a stand of trees a few yards away.

“What?”

He stood behind her and, after taking her head in his hands, rotated her body toward whatever had stolen his attention.

“What am I looking at?”

“It’s a bald eagle,” he whispered in her ear, too close. His lips grazed her skin. She shivered, squinted at the trees, and saw a white head against a tree trunk.

“Oh, wow. I’ve never seen one in the wild before.”

His arms were around her waist, his body hot against her back. He rested his chin on top of her head. “One of the most interesting things about you is your need to please other people. Unfortunately, what makes other people happy usually isn’t what makes
you
happy.”

“Aleksandr.” She faced him, her legs going boneless at the look in his feline eyes. Now she understood he had never, not on those countless nights with countless women, all those warm and welcoming ports in his loneliest hours, stopped loving her. “I don’t have a choice.”

“We always have a choice. If we’re brave enough to make it.” He wound his fingers through her hair. Stephanie, willing her rebellious body not to react, parted her mouth against his and laid her palms on his chest. He tipped his head.

The woodpecker knocked out a pattern in time with her heartbeat. His mouth ensnared hers, the glissade of his tongue teasing hers with each sensual movement, weaving, savoring. She breathed him in, the taste and scent of mouthwash and toothpaste and lip balm. The smell of autumn in his hair and on his skin, of wood fires and leaves, of crisp air laden with precipitation. The lightweight, synthetic fibers of his running clothes could not conceal his body’s response to her. His sigh infused her with longing. She ached deep inside, in the place where he was hard against her.

He backed her against a thick Douglas fir, cradled the back of her head, and buried his fingers in her hair.

“There’s no one here,” he said. He consumed her with another kiss. He was hot and rigid against her belly. “And he never has to know.”

“What are you asking me, Aleksandr?” 

“I want you. I want to make love to you.”

Make love. Not fuck or even have sex. He knew how to fuck. Did he know how to make love?
“You know I can’t.”

Why can’t I?
To want him like this hurt more than the day she’d thought she’d never see him again.

“Then why did you come here? Why did you let me…ugh.” He raked his hands through his hair and walked toward the main path. “How can you still do this to me?”

“Alex.”

He stopped. His spine stiffened. “I didn’t say you could call me that.”

She strode up behind him. “ʻSasha’ is what your friends and family call you. ‘Aleksandr’ is the famous hockey player I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should’ve kept it that way,” he muttered.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Stop it and turn around.” She yanked on his hand until he faced her. He crossed his arms and looked everywhere—the treetops, the sky, the lake, everywhere but at her, like a petulant child. The image, the bullshit designed to shelter an insecure boy, melted away. “I never,
ever
meant to hurt you. And I don’t mean to hurt you now.”

He shook his head. Curled his lip. Then stalked away and, growling in frustration, smashed his fist into a tree trunk.

“Alex!”

He laid his forearm against the trunk and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. “It’s fine,” came his muffled voice, despite the flayed and bleeding skin on his knuckles. “It’s not broken. I know…when something is broken.”

A light rain had begun rustling the foliage. Dark droplets spattered his shirt, glittered in his hair. Stephanie set her hand on his back. “Turn around. Talk to me.”

He twisted around and stared at his hand as if surprised by what he’d done. He picked at the shreds of skin over his raw knuckles.

“Don’t do that. You’ll get it infected.”

“Please,” he murmured. He closed his eyes as rain pattered his face. “Just let me go.”

“I can’t.” Truth, for the first time since he’d reentered her life. “And you can’t let me go, and I don’t know what to do.”

He let out a long, shuddering breath. “I always loved you more than you loved me.”

Her eyes simmered with tears as she flicked away bits of bark from his cheeks and brow. “How could you think that?”

“What am I supposed to think? I’m the one who’s…I can’t.” He gripped her shoulders and moved her away. “I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Alex, wait!”

He broke into a run and within moments had vanished. By the time she reached the parking lot, the Mercedes was gone.

***

“No. I’m sorry, Stephanie.”

She pounded the end of her pen on her yellow legal pad. “Alex, do you remember what I told you? I’m about to lose my job, and I’ll be moving to the East Coast if that happens.” She’d play that card if she had to. Manipulate his emotions, though she felt like shit for doing so when she’d been keeping secrets. Especially after yesterday.

A loud, exasperated sigh. Silence. Then, “What is in this for me? You get a story, you keep your job, you live happily ever after.”

“People get to know the real you. See behind the façade the media has constructed.”

“Maybe I constructed it. I keep people out for a reason.”

Please don’t let me be the reason.
“Alex, I want what’s best for both of us, and I think we can help each other.”

Another sigh. “All right. Come to my place tomorrow night. Seven thirty. I’ll be done working out by then. I’m not promising you anything, but we’ll talk.”

“The Earthquakes are going on a road trip next week, and by then I’ll be—”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hung up.

Chapter Six

Wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts, Alex opened the door. He glistened with perspiration; fresh sweat and pheromones enticed Stephanie’s senses. She tracked a droplet as it rolled from his neck and between his pecs, down his shredded abs. She bet he didn’t look much different after sex.

Seriously, stop it.

Cyrillic script, Стефания, was tattooed on his left shoulder.
People
had posed him so it wasn’t visible.

“You do this on purpose, don’t you?”

He raised his thick, black eyebrows and smirked. “See something you like?”

God, yes. Even
People
couldn’t do him justice. But she said nothing.

Alex rolled his shoulders. “I was running a little late. Sorry. Come in.”

Probably had to get rid of someone
.
A twinge of jealousy shot through her like a muscle cramp, but she deserved the pain. “It’s fine. If you want to shower, I can come back—”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be…in and out.” He winked, and Stephanie sat on the black leather couch lest she yield to the urge to follow. She heard the shower running and failed to banish images of what the rest of him must look like all grown up. Especially wet.

Alex returned wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt, his sexy-as-hell pompadour styled with precision and his earrings back in place. He made some black tea, offered her a cup, and sat in an adjacent chair matching the couch.

“Before I start recording, you should know I told my fiancé we kissed at the bar.”

“And?” He cocked an eyebrow. She couldn’t tell whether he was impatient or amused.

“‘And’? Seriously?”

“Do you want an apology? Did you tell him about the park too?”

She glared at him. “My God, you are a piece of work. What happened to you?”

“Life happened. I’m twenty-five, Stephanie. Not that sorry seventeen-year-old kid crying over his girlfriend.”

She tamped down the compulsion to bite her nails.
I loved that sorry seventeen-year-old kid.
“I didn’t know you could sing.” Hooray for non sequiturs.

He dismissed it with a wave. “My mother is a music teacher. She taught me how to sing and play piano. I don’t do it much anymore.”

“You never told me that.”

“I didn’t tell you a lot of things.”

She cleared her throat. It would’ve hurt less if he’d knifed her in the heart.
Same here.
“Can you talk more about your parents?”

Some of the tension left his shoulders, and he sat back. “I played youth league as soon as I was old enough. We weren’t poor, but they gave up a lot of time and money for me. I’m their only child. You people will have a field day with this, but I didn’t think I was emotionally mature enough for the NHL at eighteen.” He sneered and crossed his arms. “You probably think I’m not mature enough now. But here we are.”

You people.
That was it, then. He saw her as the enemy. Another local media hack. “I’m not going to write that. I do want us to develop a rapport, though. It’s not my job to make you look bad, despite what other journalists might do.”

“Very big of you.” He narrowed his eyes and offered a tight-lipped smile.

“Does it bother you when people focus on how attractive you are rather than on what you’ve accomplished as a hockey player?”

He leaned forward, one elbow propped on his knee, and rested his chin in his hand. The smirk appeared again. “How attractive
am
I, Stefania?”

“Are you going to start taking this seriously, or do you not give a shit about my career?”

“Of course it bothers me.” He scowled. “Do you want people to remember you for your stories or for your tits?”

She matched his stare. “Really not appropriate.”

“I didn’t win the Stanley Cup because I’m nice to look at. Why do people think you can be only one thing? Smart or athletic. Beautiful or smart. It’s easier to judge a person if you can put them into one box, isn’t it? So what’s your angle, Stephanie? Were you assigned to me, or did you ask for the story?”

“I…asked.”

“Yeah?” With a hostile smile, he folded his hands. Enjoying the game. “Why? To get in my pants like everyone else? It’s so easy for you. The one woman who could have me any time you want, and you keep rejecting me. Poor, pathetic Aleksandr, following you around like a stray—”

“You son of a bitch,” she spat. She curled her fingers over her knees to keep from hitting him.

“Your job wasn’t on the line before you asked for this. Maybe you can’t help yourself. I know that fiancé of yours isn’t cutting it.” He licked his lips and continued in his honeyed voice, “Maybe what you really need is a bad boy. One who can give you a proper fuck…”

Stephanie crossed her legs. He must have learned the art of proper fucking soon after entering the NHL, given his string of forsaken lovers across the country and into Canada.

“…now that we’re all grown up.”

“Enough, Alex. The sooner we finish this, the better off we’ll both be.” She opened the voice memo app and hit Record, then set her phone on the table. “What are your goals in helping the Seattle Earthquakes turn things around, and do you think it’s unfair for one player to shoulder that burden, no matter how talented he may be?”

He sat back and gave her a smug smile. “Of course it’s unfair. Jesus Christ couldn’t save this team. You know what someone should do? Interview the commissioner. There’s your big story.”

“You’re not afraid of repercussions from being so honest?”

“What are they going to do? I sell tickets, and that is the
only
thing Toronto cares about.” He clasped his hands behind his head. Stephanie tried to ignore his biceps flexing, the way his shirt clung to his chest. “That might sound arrogant, but it’s true and they know it. My trade was a salary dump. You don’t trade your captain, one of the top five players in the world, unless you can’t afford him anymore. Now they want me to save a team that shouldn’t exist. Whose fault is that?”

“A lot of journalists would take this and run with it, but I won’t. Everyone will turn against you. As much as you probably deserve it.”

“I appreciate your concern.” He offered a tiny, contemptuous smile.

“God, you just keep doing this.” Stephanie left the couch and stood before one of the massive windows.

“Doing what?”

“Fucking with me.”

He was behind her, a winger in a goalie’s body, towering over her. Cornering her. She tensed and, as he trailed his fingertips down her arm, hoped he didn’t notice the tremor shivering through her. “Oh Stefania, we’ve barely scratched the surface of how I can—” his breath on the back of her neck, tickling the hairs there, “—fuck with you.”

Her cheeks were burning. “Joe is willing to look past what happened.”

“Joe. So that’s his name.”

His flat tone indicated he was not impressed. Stephanie faced him, though his melancholy made it difficult to hold his gaze. He let her slip out from between him and the window.

“Are you staying with him because he’s safe? Was I right?”

She gripped the edge of the breakfast bar. She couldn’t live with herself if she conceded she’d settled. “Alex, please. I…” She loved Joe. She must, or she had been lying to both of them the past five years.

His hands on her waist; her pulse beat in her throat like a trapped hummingbird. “What are you afraid of?” he whispered.

The words refused to come out, though she worked her mouth to form them. She needed to get Alex out of her system once and for all. Lay to rest whatever she had inflicted on him and he on her. But fear—of the bright and fiery pain of loving him, of the admission she had all along—reined her in before he carried her away. He was right. She craved safety, even if she did not love it. “I won’t have a job when you leave for your road trip. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be here after that.”

“You’re selling yourself short with them. Being fired could be your opportunity for bigger things. I’m too easy a subject.” Alex kissed her forehead, and her lips quivered. “Either way, you’re going to be fine.”

A knot of emotions tumbled around in her brain. Her unjustifiable anger at Joe for being average, living up to his name. Her fury at Alex for causing this chaos in the first place. Most of all, hatred for denying herself, for fearing uncertainty so much she would let herself walk away again. Unable to speak, she snatched her phone and marched to the door.

“Stay for a drink. Please.”

“Why? You said I break your heart every time you see me. And after what happened in the park—”

“I can live with a broken heart. I can’t live with not seeing you. I did for too long.”

Her knees trembled. She gnawed on a fingernail.

“Sit.” A calculating smile spanned his lips. “What would you like to drink?”

“Whatever you’re having is fine.”

“Brave woman.”

Stephanie claimed the armchair he had previously occupied. He placed a Long Island Iced Tea before her on the coffee table and sat on the couch. “You can sit over here, you know. I only bite if you ask.”

With a tense laugh, she shifted to the couch, leaving a full cushion between them. She smoothed her black, cotton trousers. Her dried-out tongue appreciated the drink.

“So what happens after you get married? Will I ever see you again?”

“Of course you will. Hopefully—if you give me this interview—I’ll be covering the Earthquakes more often—ˮ

“I mean like this. Alone.”

“I shouldn’t even be here. Things tend to happen when we’re alone.” Stephanie fiddled with the engagement ring. “You’re not the boy I knew, Alex.”

He clasped the glass between his palms and rotated it back and forth. “And I’m not what
they
think I am.”

She took a deep gulp of the cocktail. Alex slid across the cushion, his large and powerful body breaching her personal space in an instant. The warm, woody musk of his cologne tantalized her with the notion she would not regret kissing his neck. She shied away a little because she feared his closeness, the desire to know what six feet five inches and two hundred twenty pounds would feel like on top of her, might encourage her to act. Another gulp. She’d be drunk in no time.

“So let’s cut the bullshit and get to the real reason you’re here. You want more than a story.”

“And we were doing so well, you narcissistic pig.” Stephanie grabbed her bag from the coffee table. “I’m not one of your fucking conquests. I’m leaving.”

With a supercilious smile, Alex swilled the cocktail. “Bye, then.”

“You think I won’t? Wipe that smirk off your face. I don’t have to be grateful for your attention. You have no intention of giving me the interview.”

“Do you think I blew up at you the other day because this is a fucking joke to me? Sit your ass down.”

“Do not
ever
tell me what to do.” She stalked across the room, her cheeks hot, and her hands shaking with adrenaline. When he grabbed her upper arms, she stilled. Fight was supplanting the instinct for flight as anger and lust battled inside her.

“Jesus Christ, Stephanie. I’m not your father.”

“Seriously, get off me.”

Alex backed away, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Stephanie, don’t go. I…don’t know why I act like that.”

“Call me tomorrow if you want to be an adult and help me do my job. Otherwise, I need to figure out what comes next. Good-bye.” She slammed the door and stalked to the elevator.

Downstairs, she took a deep breath to gather her thoughts before starting the car. Or trying to. The engine clicked but refused to turn over, each tick mocking her like a tiny snicker. “Shit!” She banged her forehead on the steering wheel, then dug her phone out of her bag and dialed. “Alex. Do you have jumper cables?”

“Car trouble?”

“The engine won’t start. Do you? Or can you drive me home? It’s late, and I don’t want to wait for a tow.”

Silence. She could almost see his smirk through the phone. “No on both accounts. But I have a guest bedroom. Unless you’d rather sleep in the parking lot.”

“Seriously?”

“You want me to drive to your place and back? That’s an hour and a half on a good day.”

“Ugh. Fine.” She hung up. A cab would be too expensive, and even if there had been a hotel nearby, she couldn’t afford it.

Stephanie knocked on his door so softly she hoped he wouldn’t hear. She’d be better off in the parking lot. No temptation. Alex was stubborn but not stupid. He wouldn’t invest so much effort into winning her back if she hadn’t encouraged him. The obdurate past would not allow them to go on with life. She should pray for another trade or that she could somehow break his spell; living in the same city under current circumstances depended on it.