Hot Ticket (15 page)

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” Tierney replied.

He leaned over the concierge desk. For a brief, panic-filled moment, Tierney thought he was going to kiss her here, now, in public. “Last night was
amazing
,” he murmured.

Tierney cleared her throat nervously. “It always is,” she answered, trying to look as if she were speaking to him in a professional capacity.

“Looks like we’re here for at least another night.”

“Yes, I know.” Tierney’s eyes took a slow, appreciative tour of his body. “I get off at three, you know,” she said boldly.

David looked uneasy. “Oh.”

Oh?

“Look, if you don’t want to,” Tierney said under her breath, wounded by his lukewarm response, “it’s okay. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”

“No, no, it’s not that at all.” David looked sheepish. “It’s just . . . you know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“I’m kinda worried about jinxing the next game, you know?” he whispered. “I mean—you and I usually spend one night together, right? If we break with tradition, who knows what could happen?”

“Yeah, an asteroid might hit the earth.” She stared at him incredulously. “You really believe all this stuff, don’t you? That waking up at exactly the same time every morning you have a game means you’ll win.”

“Of course I believe it. Because it’s true.”

“Well, then, I guess I’ll see you next year.”

She stared hard at the computer screen in front of her, wishing he would just go away. A few seconds later, his hand touched hers. “You say you get off at three?” he murmured.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you come to my room then.”

“Are you sure?” Tierney asked, still staring at the screen. “I don’t want to risk throwing the planets out of alignment.”

“No. Come.
Please
,” he added suggestively. Then he leaned closer to her. “Who knows, two nights in a row might bring me twice the luck.”

Tierney finally looked at him and smiled. “Okay. Now I really should get back to work.”

As if on cue, a slim, blond, perfectly made-up young woman with fire in her eyes came barreling toward Tierney, trailing a pudgy but handsome man in her wake. Tierney gripped the lip of the concierge desk. She could already tell this wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“Do you know who I am?!” the woman shrieked. Before Tierney could answer, the woman continued, “I’m Mindy Mykofsky, and
I’m supposed to be getting married tomorrow
!” She was howling so loudly people in the lobby were turning to look at her.
“I want you to call the mayor and tell him he has to do something
right now
to transport all our relatives and friends who are stranded at the airport here! Do you understand me?”

The man with her, whom Tierney assumed was the groom-to-be, put a tentative hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Now, Pookins—”

“Don’t ‘Pookins’ me!” Mindy snarled, knocking her beloved’s hand away. “Whose bright idea was it to get married in Chicago in January, huh?” She glared at Tierney. “Call the mayor. Now.”

“May I suggest another course of action?” Tierney replied calmly. “I—”

“Do it!” Mindy screamed in Tierney’s face.

“Hey!” David cut in angrily. “Don’t talk to her like that.”

Mindy’s mouth fell open. “Who the hell are you?” she snapped.

“Let’s call the manager and see if he has any ideas,” Tierney trilled, glaring at David.

“That sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it, Wuzzums?” cooed the beleaguered groom-to-be.

“I guess,” Mindy muttered, glaring at Tierney as her fiancé put an arm around her shoulder.

“I’m calling the manager right now,” said Tierney, making a show of picking up the phone. “Why don’t you folks have a seat over there?” She pointed to the leather couches arranged in the lounge area. The couple obliged.

“Poor bastard,” David muttered when they were out of earshot. “Mark my words: in a year, he’ll go out for a quart of milk and never come back.”

“Please don’t ever do that again,” said Tierney, hanging up the phone.

“Do what?”

“Interfere with my job.”

David looked scalded. “I was just trying to help. She was treating you like garbage!”

“I can handle it.” Tierney blew out a breath. “Don’t get me
wrong: I appreciate it. But it makes me look bad, and it could get me in trouble.”

“Sorry.” David watched her with admiration. “How do you deal with these lunatics? If it were me, I’d wind up butt ending them with my stick.”

Tierney laughed. “They’re not all like that. And she does have a right to be upset. Plus, these are extenuating circumstances.”

“You’re right.”

“You can go now,” Tierney whispered as Willy Nugent strode into the lobby, making a beeline toward the distressed couple.

“So, this afternoon?” David double-checked as he began walking away.

“I’ll be there.”

Saturday, 3:06
P
.
M
.

By the time three o’clock rolled around, Tierney half regretted arranging to see David again. All she wanted to do was fall face first onto a big, fluffy bed and collapse. But the allure of more time with him outweighed her exhaustion. Filling in the newly refreshed Marius on where things stood, she took leave of the concierge desk, opting to take the stairs up to David’s floor rather than the elevator. There was less chance of running into any other staff that way.

She knocked quietly at the door, cringing when he bellowed, “It’s open!” in a voice loud enough for people two states over to hear. She found him stretched out on the bed in sweatpants and a long-sleeve T-shirt, channel surfing at a frenetic pace. He looked happy to see her.

“You look beat,” he observed.

“I am. It’s mayhem down there.”

“The snow doesn’t show any sign of letting up. At least that’s what one of your local weathercasters said.”

“How will that affect your playing schedule?” Tierney asked, kicking off her pumps. Her feet were killing her. In fact, her whole body ached. Stress, she supposed.

David shrugged. “We’ll just make up the games somewhere else in the season schedule.”

“Ah.” Her eyes were drawn to the crumpled candy wrappers on the bed. “Raided the minibar, I see.”

“That’s what it’s there for.” David crawled across the bed to her, kneeling behind her as he began massaging her shoulders. “Someone needs to relax.”

Tierney’s head slowly dropped forward as she closed her eyes. “That feels great.”

“Wait just a few more minutes, and I’ll make you feel even better,” David promised, nipping the back of her neck.

Tierney shuddered.

“I have a surprise for you,” David continued, his fingers digging deep into her muscles. “A fun surprise.”

“Really?” Tierney was intrigued. “Can I have it now? I love surprises.”

“Okay.”

He clambered off the bed and went to the closet, smiling proudly as he pulled out a maid’s uniform—the kind Graciela would wear.

“I thought—since we’re breaking our usual rules anyway—that we could play a sexy little game,” David said seductively. “Maybe I’m the lord of the manor, and you—”

“Are you out of your mind?” Tierney blurted. “That’s not sexy!”

David’s face fell. “What?”

“A French maid’s uniform is sexy.
That
is not a French maid’s uniform. That’s a ‘Hello, My Name Is Rosa and the Management Pays Me Below Minimum Wage’ uniform.”

David looked at the maid’s uniform in his hand. “We could
pretend
it’s a French maid’s uniform,” he pouted.

“I don’t think so.” Tierney gestured down at her own clothing, hiking up her skirt a bit to flash him some thigh. “Look, I’m in my suit,” she enticed. “We like that, right?”

“We do,” David admitted.

Maybe it was the mini-massage, but Tierney’s weariness had evaporated, replaced by an overwhelming friskiness she knew only David could satisfy. Pushing him backward toward the bed, she threw him down and straddled him, pinning his hands above his head. Then she sunk her teeth into his neck.

“How’s this for different?” she growled.

“Uh, pretty damn good.”

She transferred her lips to his, pressing hard, making her need known. A rush of dizziness overtook her, the delicious, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs kind associated with stomach-plummeting amusement park rides. It was David: only he had this effect on her, and in all the years they’d been trysting, she wasn’t sure why. Was it his perfect body? The deep, sensual timbre of his voice? The fearlessness of what he did for a living? Perhaps it was the knowledge that their time together was finite and, therefore, all the more precious. All she knew was that no man had ever made her feel this way.

The room began spinning faster as bodies tumbled and clothing flew. Tierney freely plundered, her hands and mouth taking possession of David’s body in a frenzy of desire. Whimpers turned to moans and moans to outright screams of delight as they took turns pleasuring each other. Tierney felt dazed, almost incoherent as their bodies came together again and again, their mutual thirst unquenchable.
I will never get enough of him,
Tierney thought greedily as he took her one final time.
Never.
Others might be cursing the weather, but not Tierney, not here, not now. She was grateful for the storm.

Saturday, 4:37
P
.
M
.

“David?”

Tierney lay curled in his arms beneath the covers. They were both exhausted, drifting in and out of sleep. Between the afternoon sex and working a different shift, Tierney’s sense of time was off. It felt like the middle of the night, even though it wasn’t.

“Mmm?” David drew her closer, planting a sleepy kiss on her forehead.

“Is the reason you have your own room because you’re so weird?”

David cracked open one eye and looked at her. “What do you mean, ‘weird’?”

“It’s just dawned on me that the other guys on the Herd share rooms. But you get your own.”

David sighed, opening the other eye. “Well, I’m very particular about things.”

Tierney’s fingers, which had been lightly caressing the line of brown hair beneath his belly button, stopped moving. “Like your wake-up call?” she asked cautiously.

“That, and some other things. Certain rituals and routines are important to me.”

“Like what?”

“Like I have to shower at exactly 7:18 in the morning, and I have to open and close the shower curtain seven times before stepping into the tub. Stuff like that.”

“Why seven times?”

“Because it takes seven games to win a playoff series,” he answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Tierney lifted her head to look at him. “Do you have OCD?”

“
No.
I told you when we first met: I’m a goalie.”

“So, what you’re saying is, you drive your teammates nuts and no one wants to room with you.”

“All goalies are nuts,” David replied defensively. “I told you
that when we first met, too.” He tickled her lightly. “You’re full of questions today.”

“Sorry. I know it’s kind of breaking the rules.”

David sighed. “The rules have already been broken because of the storm.”

“True.”

David’s eyes danced with mischief. “Guess that means I can ask
you
some questions, then.”

Tierney hesitated. “If you want.”

“Yeah?” David sounded intrigued.

“Sure,” Tierney answered, getting nervous.

“Okay, then.” David paused for what felt like an interminable amount of time. “Where are you originally from?”

Tierney tensed. “What makes you think I’m not from Chicago?”

“I play with guys from all over the country and all over the world, Tierney. You are
not
from Chicago.”

“But what makes you so sure?”

“I can hear it in your voice. You don’t have a Chicago accent.”

“Can’t you think of a better question than ‘Where are you originally from?’ ” Tierney shot back with a bored yawn, trying to deflect his interest.

David was beginning to look annoyed. “Cough it up, Tierney. Where are you from?”

“Nebraska,” she mumbled into the pillow.

David’s head shot up.
“Nebraska?”

“Yes, Nebraska,” Tierney repeated, fearful his disbelief would inevitably give way to disinterest, and their annual playdate would be cancelled. “You got a problem with cornhuskers?”

“No.” David lay back down, contemplating the ceiling. “I never would have guessed you were from Nebraska.”

“Why? Because I’m not wearing overalls and baling hay?”

“A little defensive, are we?”

“Maybe,” Tierney sniffed. “Where are
you
from?”

“Saskatchewan. And no, I’ve never seen a moose.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that!”

“Good, because I’m the one asking the questions here, remember?” His gaze turned curious. “How did you wind up in Chicago?”

“I followed my boyfriend here. He was studying at Northwestern.” She squirmed a little. “I saw it as my ticket out of Nebraska, so I took it.”

“What happened to your boyfriend?”

“He hated it here and went back to Nebraska after one semester. I stayed.”

David nodded. “Interesting.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah.”

Relaxing a bit, Tierney began stroking his cheek. Maybe the fact she was from Nebraska didn’t collide with the worldly urban persona she’d created for herself. Actually, it was kind of nice talking to him like this. David’s eyes lazed shut, his body sinking further into relaxation.

“Final question, Mr. Hewson. Better make it a good one.”

“Do you have a boyfriend now?”

Tierney blinked. This was the last thing she imagined him asking. She was expecting something more along the lines of “Do you have brothers and sisters?” or “Do you like your job?”—something innocuous and not so deeply personal.

“That question
is
breaking the rules in a major way, don’t you think?”

David gave a small shrug as he opened his eyes. “Maybe. But it’s my final question, and you have to answer it.”

“No, I don’t have a boyfriend,” Tierney revealed. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

David laced his fingers behind his head, looking at her with interest. “Are we sure we want to go down this road?”