Kissing the owner of the team could seriously impact his chances of winning the Stanley Cup, and he still couldn’t believe he’d been such a colossal dumb-ass over a woman. Especially over that woman. No matter how much he wanted to kiss her and touch her and let her kiss him.
The puck dropped and Walker fought it out until the puck shot behind him and into the waiting blade of the Sharks’ offense. San Jose moved the puck across ice, and Coach Nystrom signaled for Ty to change up on the fly. He stuck his rubber guard into his mouth and shoved his hands into his gloves.
Pavel Savage had been notorious for thinking with his dick and making mistakes. He’d ruined families and his chance to put his name on the cup.
Ty grabbed his stick and hopped over the boards. He kept his head up and skated to center ice as Walker took the bench. Ty was not his father. Kissing Mrs. Duffy had been a big fuckup, but a fuckup that would not happen again.
Nothing was going to come between him and his run at the cup. Not the other teams competing for the same prize. Not a defense that needed a little more size and speed, and especially not a former Playmate with big breasts and soft lips.
Chapter 11
Faith spent the morning before the PR meeting going through her closet and getting rid of clothes she figured she’d never wear again. She piled all her cashmere sweater sets and sedate suits in boxes and called Goodwill.
She was ready to explode, or collapse, or something, from aggravation and lack of sleep. Not only had the Chinooks lost last night in overtime, but she’d also had to hear her mother make love all night. To add insult to injury, Pebbles took up the whole dang bed. How could one small dog take up so much space? Every time she tried to move Pebbles, the dog seemed to gain ten extra pounds and become dead weight.
And why was she allowing it? she asked herself as she got dressed for the PR and marketing meeting. Any of it? Her mother had apparently decided to move in without asking and was sneaking her boyfriend in at nights like she was sixteen. A dog Faith hated slept with her most nights and hogged the bed. She didn’t recognize her life anymore. It wasn’t the life she’d had in Vegas before Virgil or her life with him. She’d been cramming her head full of hockey and trying to learn as much as possible. She didn’t want to make a mistake and fail, but there was still so much she didn’t know. And to be honest, she wasn’t so sure she’d ever know more than she didn’t know.
The clothes she’d had shipped from California had arrived the day before, and she dressed for the meeting in a pair of jeans and a pink Ed Hardy T-shirt with a red heart and wings on it. She’d found a cute pair of shearling Uggs that laced to her knees and she stuffed the straight legs of her jeans inside. It was late April and still chilly and wet in the Emerald City.
The traffic to the Key Arena was heavy and it took her ten minutes longer than she’d expected.
“We think this one is fun,” Bo said as Faith took her seat beside Jules and pointed to one of the photos she’d taken with Ty. “It’s kind of playful yet has an edge to it.”
Faith looked at the photograph with her foot between Ty’s thighs. Her face was to the camera,
looking all happy and smiling while Ty looked up at her as if he was totally annoyed. Which he had been. The blue of his jersey made his eyes even more startling, and the tight set of his strong jaw brought out the thin white scar on his chin. He was gorgeous, everything good and yummy in one pissed-off package. He was every catch in a girl’s breath, every hitch in her heart, and every flutter in her stomach. He didn’t need a poster or billboard or silver screen to make him larger than life. All he had to do was breathe.
The last time she’d seen Ty had been on television when the San Jose crowd had booed him for goalie interference. He’d argued with the ref and hit his stick on the ice, but as he’d skated toward the penalty box, the crowd’s boos turned to cheers and a little smile twisted one corner of his mouth. Which, for Ty, represented full-blown rapture.
“I think the one on the left is better,” Jules pointed out. While Faith had dressed down for the meeting, Jules wore a bright orange dress shirt with black stripes. He kind of looked like a pumpkin. “Faith standing in front of Ty gives it more depth. And for billboards, you want something with a bit more dimension.” He shrugged. “And the Saint is never going to go for the other one.”
“How do you know which one Ty would prefer?” Faith asked. Had the two been bonding when she wasn’t around?
“Because it looks like you’ve got your foot on his nuts.”
Oh. That wasn’t good. Was it?
“Well, as a graphic artist with a bachelor’s degree in advertising,” Bo stressed as she pointed to her favorite, “I think this one tells a better story.”
Faith looked at her assistant and then at Bo. The two stared daggers at each other and Faith wondered what she’d missed.
Tim, the PR director, stepped forward. “I’m leaning toward the one with the more playful edge first. If it gets a good reaction, we’ll keep the momentum going and put the other one up in a month.”
Faith was not a graphic artist, nor did she have a degree in anything, but she agreed with Jules. “If we’re going to put these up back to back a few weeks apart, it makes sense to go with the picture of me standing in front and Ty behind me looking mad and belligerent.”
“I wasn’t mad,” Ty said as he walked in and the room felt suddenly smaller. He wore jeans and a black turtleneck with a Nike swoop on the throat. Unlike the rest of the guys on the team, who looked shaggy from their good-luck beards, Ty was still clean-shaven. His hair was wet, as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. She really hadn’t expected to see him. She’d been told the team was practicing, and she figured Ty would skip the meeting.
His electric-blue gaze met hers for several heart beats before he moved to stand before the mock-ups. He folded his arms over his chest and stood with his feet a shoulders’ width apart. His shirt fit loosely about his wide back and was tucked into a pair of Levi’s so worn the back pockets softly cupped his muscular butt. He pointed to the photo with her foot between his thighs. “This looks like Mrs. Duffy has her stiletto on my nuts.”
Jules laughed and Faith bit her top lip to keep from laughing.
Bo pulled a rubber band from her stubby ponytail. “It tells a story.”
“Yeah,” Ty agreed. “The story of her foot crushing my nuts.”
Bo looked like she wanted to crush him with her clunky Doc Martens.
“Well, we certainly don’t want that to be the image we project,” Tim assured the Chinooks captain.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Faith said as Ty turned to face her. “I think there are probably more than a few women who’d like to see that image.” Her gaze landed on his flat stomach and the bulge behind the five buttons of his fly. She ran her gaze up the hard muscles of his chest, over the scar on his chin, to his blue eyes. She thought of last night’s game and his time in the sin bin. “More than a few men, too.”
“Yeah,” Jules jumped in, “but that isn’t the point of this campaign. It’s to create an image of conflict, but we don’t want it to look like Faith is busting the Saint’s balls.”
“Thank you, Jules.”
“You’re welcome, Saint.”
Faith ducked her head and hid her smile. Men were so weird about their balls.
“It’s too sensuous and playful to convey that,” Bo argued as she gathered up her short auburn hair and stuck it back in the ponytail. And while Bo and Jules argued about the photo and Ty’s balls, his gaze locked with hers. Fine lines creased the corners of his beautiful eyes and she thought he just might crack a full-blown smile.
Of course, he didn’t, but that didn’t keep something hot and sensuous from sliding down her spine and spreading across her skin. “I guess I don’t want to bust the Saint’s balls. At least not today,” she said. “I need him to win me the cup.”