Page 13 of Sinful Mafia Santa

“I’d ask you to buy me a replacement pair, if you weren’t flat broke.”

I chuckle as she shoves her foot into one white boot. She works the laces like a professional skater, automatically pulling them tight for extra ankle support.

“Honestly?” she asks, when both skates are on. “You’re not coming out with me?”

The old woman clatters a chair into place at one of the tables. “I think our clock just started ticking,” I say, pulling Aeryn to her feet. “Leave your coat.” Despite the snow that’s falling in earnest, it’s a relatively warm night—just a couple of degrees below freezing, if I had to take a guess.

Aeryn eyes me steadily as she unknots her belt. For one idiotic second, I imagine her naked beneath the coat. I picture her peaches-and-cream shoulders, scattered with freckles I once traced in the dark. I wait for the dark flash of her nipples against her high tits.

Her sleek black turtleneck mocks me as she settles her coat on the bench.

“Last chance,” she says, holding out one hand.

“Go,” I say. “Let’s see what you can do.”

She can skate. She learned on the same backyard pond Logan did, hitting the ice as soon as she could walk. I’ve heard all the stories—how her brothers pushed her back and forth as their puck. How she stole Logan’s stick one day and refused to give it back until he stood in as goalie. How she challenged her oldest brother to a cross-rink race—and won.

Now she takes a few strokes to find her balance on the rented blades. They probably haven’t been sharpened since they were delivered from the factory. For just a moment, I picture arena lights glinting off the sharpest metal in the world. I see a pool of scarlet spreading on the ice, melting it, freezing on it. Istart to call Aeryn’s name, to beg her to come back, but I bite my tongue just in time.

Her hair streams in the breeze of her speed. Her skirt ripples around her, fluttering against her thighs. She moves faster as she crosses center-ice, gliding farther on each stroke. Her arms rise up in perfect curves and she launches into a flawless double toe loop.

She’s stunning out there, an obsidian bird set free. She laughs as she lands a second jump, then she really starts to skate for speed. Even with snow falling, even with the ice chopped up by the night’s last skaters, the surface has to be smoother than the pond she learned on. She swoops in an exaggerated oval, keeping her balance on the corners by trailing her fingers beside her gliding skate. Racing to the center of the ice, she spins, her fists pulled into her chest, faster, tighter.

I want to be out there with her. I want to chase her. I want to catch her, to fold my arms around her, to feel her heart beating and her lungs gasping as I tug her close to my chest.

I want to fuck her blind.

I haven’t been on the ice since the night Logan died.

Not when I walked away from the Aces. Not when I came back to buy the team. Not for money, not for fun, not for anything I value in this life.

The old woman starts to clang the chains by the warming hut, clattering them against the metal door. Aeryn looks up like a doe caught in a blizzard. Even across the rink, I can see her impulse to ignore the alarm, to keep on skating.

But she tucks her chin toward her chest. She pumps her arms by her sides and skates over to me to clamber off the ice.

Her hair is wild. Her eyes gleam in the shadows. Her smile is bright enough to reach the moon.

“Okay, Rider,” she says. “What do we do now?”

5

AERYN

Brushing my teeth on Sunday morning and glaring at myself in a steamed hotel mirror, I try to forget the way Gage stared at me—like he was looking at a ghost.

No. Not a ghost. A zombie. Something from his past that refuses to die, no matter how many times he tries to break free.

Okay, Rider. What do we do now?

It’s my own goddamn fault I spent last night alone. I asked a question, when I should have made a statement. I gave a feckin’ option, when I should have taken exactly what I wanted.

Gage wanted me. I felt that in his hands when he helped me across the street, and I saw it in his face when my time was up on the ice. I heard it in his voice, when he said, “Now, you get into the car with Curtis, and he’ll take you back to the Waldorf.I’lltake a cab back to Brooklyn.”

And stupid me, I went along with his eejit plan—because I’m going back to Chicago on Tuesday morning, because I was afraid of how much I wanted him to touch me, because Loganwould have hated everything I’ve done in the past forty-eight hours.

So, Sunday morning with my hair dried and my makeup perfect, with my Tori Burch skirt and top pulled on like a feckin’ uniform, I take out my phone and study my plan for the day. I gave up my reservations at Gotham Tavern for last night’s stupid mistake. I call to see if they have a last-minute opening for tonight, and the host laughs so hard he starts to choke.

Fuck him. Fuck all of them.