He shrugged. “I told you I wasn’t going to play fair.”
She leaned back and kissed him. She’d waited a long time for this moment, and she poured her heart into it. Their mouths met, open and wet. She slanted her head to one side and licked the tip of his tongue. Her hands slid along his shoulders, up his neck, and into his damp hair.
Lust tugged at John’s groin, and he pulled away from Georgeanne’s sweet kiss. “Stop,” he groaned, and bending his knees, he shoved a hand inside his shorts and adjusted himself. His hard plastic cup pinched his testicles like a nutcracker, and he sucked in his breath to keep from swearing in front of Georgeanne. “My jock is getting real snug.”
“Take it off.”
“It’s about four layers down, and there’s something I have to do before I start peeling to my skin.” He straightened and read disappointment in her tilty green eyes.
“What could be more important than peeling down to your skin?”
“Nothing.” She wanted him, and the fact that she did filled him with macho, chest-pounding pleasure. He loved her in a way he’d never loved anyone else. He loved her as a friend, as a woman he respected, and as a lover he wanted every minute of every day. And she loved him. He didn’t know why she loved him. He was an ornery hockey player who swore too much, but he wasn’t about to question his good fortune.
Now he wanted nothing more than to take her home and strip her naked, but he had one last piece of unfinished business first. He took her hand and pulled her with him out of the room and down the hallway. “I just need to clear something up before I can leave.”
Her steps slowed. “Virgil?”
“Yep.” Worry puckered the skin between her brows, and he stopped and put his hands on her shoulders. “Are you afraid of him?”
She shook her head. “He’s going to make you choose, isn’t he? He’s going to tell you to choose me or your team.”
A tr
ainer walked past him on the way to the dressing room, and John moved closer to Georgeanne to allow the man by.
“Congratulations, Wall,” he said.
John nodded. “Thanks.”
Georgeanne tangled her fingers in the front of his T-shirt. “I don’t want you to choose.”
He returned his attention to Georgeanne and kissed the worry from her brow. “There was never a choice. I never would have chosen a hockey team over you.”
“Then Virgil will fire you, won’t he?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Virgil can’t fire me, honey. He can trade me to a team below five hundred if he wants to, or worse, I could find myself wearing a duck on my sweater. But only if I don’t beat him to it.”
“Huh?”
He squeezed her hand. “Come on. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can go home.” Last week he’d given his agent the green light to contact Pat Quinn, the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks. Vancouver was a two-hour drive from Seattle and needed a first-line center. John needed to control his future.
With Georgeanne by his side, he walked into Virgil’s office. “I thought I’d find you here,” he said.
Virgil looked up from the fax on his desk. “You’ve been busy. I see your agent has contacted Quinn. Have you seen the offer?”
“Yep.” John closed the door behind him and wrapped his arm around Georgeanne’s waist. “Three players and two draft picks.”
“You’re thirty-five. I’m surprised he offered so much.”
John didn’t think he was surprised at all. It was the usual trade for a team’s captain or any franchise players. “I’m the best,” he stated.
“I wished you’d talked to me first.”
“Why? The last time we talked, you told me to choose Georgeanne or my team. But you know what? I didn’t even have to think about it.”
Virgil looked at Georgeanne and then returned his gaze to John. “That was quite a show you just put on a few minutes ago.”
John pulled Georgeanne tight against his side. “I don’t do anything half-assed.”