Page 7 of Desperate Pucker (Denver Bashers #6)

Ryker

“Damn, man. Your muscles are insanely tight. What the hell did you do?”

My physiotherapist, Eric, digs into the muscle just above my left knee.

I grit my teeth at the sharp pain.

“Don’t tense up,” he says. “You gotta breathe, remember?”

I take a breath in, then out. Slowly, the muscle starts to loosen.

“I had a training session with my skating coach,” I say, wincing.

“She must have kicked the crap out of you.” Eric chuckles before digging his fingers into the muscle and massaging harder.

“She definitely did,” I mutter.

It’s been three days since Maddy trained me, and my knee and ankle are still sore. I had to ask Eric to squeeze me in for a last-minute massage today.

“The new skating coach is kicking your ass, huh?” Xander laughs from a table across from me while his physio works him over.

“Yeah,” I say, unable to hide the bite in my tone.

“What’s up with you two? Ingrid says you don’t get along,” Del says from the table next to Xander.

I exhale sharply as Eric strips the muscles in my quads. “Personality differences,” I mutter.

The last thing I wanna do is bitch to my teammates about how much Maddy annoys me. They’ll think I’m being a huge baby. But I’m not going to lie and say we get along, so I keep my answer as short as possible.

“Why don’t you like her? Maddy’s cool as hell,” Xander says.

I glare at him and Del. “Do you always gossip when you’re in here?”

Xander grins proudly. “Yup.”

“I’m never coming in again while you’re here,” I say.

Xander just laughs and flips over so his physio can work on his hamstrings. Del rolls his eyes at me.

“Thanks for making time for me today,” I say to Eric. “I know it messes with your schedule when I ask to see you on short notice.”

“It’s no problem. It’s my job to keep you up and running.”

He focuses on the lower part of my quad, right above my knee. “Good thing we made this a full-body session. You needed it.”

I reach my arm up and stretch out on the massage table.

“I need to come see you guys more often,” Camden Connors, the team’s young defenseman, says. He’s lying on the table next to me.

“You come to us every day now that you’re training with Madeline,” his physio says while working out a knot in his back.

I glance over at Camden. “You’re working with her too?”

“Yeah. She’s awesome. I’ve only had three sessions with her, but I can already see a difference in my skating. I’m way faster and my balance is better.”

“Weren’t you a figure skater before you played hockey? Maybe that’s why,” I say.

He shakes his head. “Nah, it’s all Madeline. I fell into some pretty bad habits while playing. My skating got pretty sloppy. But she’s fixing me right up.”

He leans up and glances past me to the open door of the training room. “Isn’t that right?”

I turn my head and see Maddy standing in the open doorway, her gray-blue eyes wide as saucers.

Her gaze falls to the white towel covering my dick and upper thighs. I’m naked otherwise.

That smug, satisfied feeling that I felt on New Year’s Eve, when she gawked at my chest, surges through me once more.

“See something you like?” I say to her.

She blinks and shakes her head, then looks back at my face. “No.”

The skin on her cheeks and chest is pink.

I quirk an eyebrow, relishing just how thrown off she is at the sight of me. “You sure about that?”

She makes a disgusted noise. “I wasn’t expecting to see you practically naked.”

“Well, get used to it, ice princess. Things are a little different in hockey than in figure skating.”

I’m usually naked whenever my physio works on me during a full-body session. It makes for a more effective massage since they can get deeper into the muscle. I’ve done this for so long that it doesn’t feel weird.

“If you can’t handle being in here, you should leave,” I say. “You might get an eyeful of something you don’t wanna see, and I can already tell you’re uncomfortable.”

She glares at me. “I’m fine.” She looks over at Camden and holds up a Bashers baseball hat. “You left this at the rink after our session.”

“Oh, damn. Didn’t even notice. Thanks.” He grins at her and sits up. He’s just wearing boxer briefs since his physio was focusing on his back this session.

She hands it to him.

“You call her ice princess?” Camden says, a dopey grin on his face as he looks between the two of us.

“Yeah. She loves it.”

“I hate it,” she spits out.

Camden laughs. So does Xander.

She turns to me. “Still sore from the one skating lesson I gave you?”

There’s a satisfied lilt to her voice that I can’t stand.

“Only a little,” I mutter.

Eric laughs and looks at her. “You should have heard him when I was working on his hamstrings. He was whimpering like a baby.”

A giddy smile pulls at Maddy’s lush mouth. I try to ignore how pretty she looks when she does that.

I frown at Eric. “Shut up.”

He just laughs, then pats my quad. “You’re good to go.” He walks off, and I sit up.

Maddy crosses her arms and aims that smug smile at me. “If you need more time to recover before our next session, I understand. You’re not as young as Camden. You don’t bounce back as quickly.”

Camden grins like a puppy dog that’s been given a treat. He hops off the massage table and gives her a soft pat on the shoulder. “Aww thanks, Coach,” he says before putting his Bashers hat on and walking off.

Annoyance amps up inside of me. “I don’t need any extra time. I bounce back just fine.”

“Whatever you say. But hey, I can have a wheelchair waiting for you next time, just in case you’re really sore. Or a walker. I could ask my great-grandma if you can borrow hers. She’d be happy to loan it out.”

I grit my teeth, pissed off at how smug she is to see me in pain. Xander and Del finish up their sessions and quietly shuffle out of the room along with their physios, clearly uncomfortable with the way Maddy and I are snapping at each other.

I shift my weight on the table, and my towel slides down an inch. Her eyes widen as she glances down at my lap. I’m still covered up, but if the towel moves anymore, I’ll be showing Maddy all of my goods.

An idea pops into my head.

I stand up, holding the towel in front of me. “I don’t need a walker or a wheelchair, princess.”

Those big eyes go wide again. A smug, satisfied feeling flickers in my chest. She can’t stand me, but she also can’t help but stare at me when I’m barely covered up. And I like it. I like making her so flustered after she’s spent so much time giving me shit.

A hard swallow moves along the length of her delicate throat. “Y-You need a bigger towel,” she says, the bite in her tone fading.

“A way, way bigger towel.”

She glowers at me.

I should stop. She’s clearly thrown off, but I’m a petty bastard. I want to see her squirm. It feels really damn good after how she handed me my ass at skating practice and made fun of me for it.

“No, you…”

She trails off when I turn around, giving her a full-on view of my naked ass while I grab a fresh towel from the shelf behind me.

I take my time unfolding it and shaking it out before wrapping it around me. When I turn around, Maddy’s cheeks are fire engine red, and her mouth is hanging open.

“Were you saying something?” I taunt.

She stammers.

“Oh, sorry. Did I distract you?”

She clamps her mouth shut, and her lips resume that annoyed pout while she stares daggers at me. I walk past her toward the door.

“Can’t wait for our next training session, princess.”