And then the reason they’d lost in game seven.
Shit, he really hated thinking about this. He’d come out here to not think about this, about how the one thing that had helped him escape when he didn’t know what to do—and Lord knew he never knew what to do—was evaporating, and there was nothing he could do to fix it.
The word retirement was being bandied about in a way it never had been before. If no one in the NHL was going to absolve him, he was screwed. And now Mel was barging in, telling him he was failing this too.
That temper he tried to ignore, joke his way out of, stirred, and he didn’t have any reserves left to swallow it down.
“Get dressed.”
Mel’s sharp order cut through the crap in his brain, but it didn’t make him feel any better. “Like what you see?”
“Oh, yes, I can hardly keep my hands to myself,” she said. She was mocking him, and maybe if he’d had more sleep, he’d have the wherewithal not to care, but it pissed him the hell off when he was so close to seeing the end of something he loved.
And she just kept talking.
“Your world must be so nice, Dan. Walk around with more money than you know what to do with, think every woman should fall at your feet. You screwed up, but no one gives a real shit about it, because it’s a damn game.” She gave his bare chest a poke at the word game, and it was just about the last straw.
He grasped her wrist before she could keep poking or pushing him or whatever the hell it was she was aiming for. But it didn’t help the frustrated, edgy feeling in his bloodstream. Her wrist was somehow dainty and soft, small compared to his big hand encircling it.
He stared at it, and when he glanced up, found she was staring at it too. And damn if that lick of attraction didn’t twist and twirl with anger and frustration, creating a potent desire that had absolutely no place here.
So, he focused on her furious gaze. “You’re in a pissy mood this morning, and I hate to break it to you, but so am I. So let’s agree to step back before we both say a whole bunch of things we don’t really mean.”
She tried to wriggle her hand free, but he held firm.
“I’m pretty sure I’d mean every last one of them,” she said.
“Not going to be satisfied until you have a good fight, huh?”
Finally, she wrenched her hand from his. “I’m not going to be satisfied until you give me an inch.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he had quite a few inches he wouldn’t mind giving her, but she kept on.
“Not being ready when I get here is insulting, Dan. Especially, especially, after…last night.” Some of that anger disappeared or lowered into a hurt he didn’t know what to do with. That was the kind of hurt he skated his ass away from.
“You know I’d rather be at my own damn ranch,” she continued. “And I can’t be. The least you could do is make my time here worthwhile.”
Since that made him feel about two inches tall, and since he was tired of her ability to do that—because, sweet damn, the past two years had done plenty to make him feel like that—he forced a smile. Probably more of a nasty smirk.
“Define worthwhile, partner.”
“I know this is all a big joke to you—a fun lark while you wait for other people to get your real life back on track—but you could pretend to care every once in a while.”
It struck a nerve, an exposed one. Struck it hard enough he didn’t have the reserves to laugh it off or pretend it didn’t exist. Not care? He always cared too damn much, so damn much he couldn’t handle it, couldn’t deal with the things he couldn’t fix, so he escaped.
Only there was nowhere left to escape to, so he went on the offensive instead. “Watch it, Mel. I may be trying to be a nice guy these days, but it’s not my first instinct by a long shot.”
“Oh, yeah, and what are you going to do to me, Mr. Not-So-Nice-Guy?”
He didn’t take a second to think about it, just went with what had been his instinct since she’d blushed on his porch a few days ago. Gave into the lust mixing in with all those unpleasant feelings.
He crushed his mouth to hers. Not gently, like he’d wanted to do last night. Last night, he’d wanted to comfort her somehow. Offer some kind of commiseration, and while he realized a kiss wasn’t the best way to do that, it had been the only thing he could think of.
This was not a comforting, commiserating kiss. This was “I will show you what’s what.” She was apparently finding out what’s what, because she kissed him back. Actually, it was more passive than that. She allowed him to kiss her, to scrape his teeth across her bottom lip, to cage her against the counter.
But passive wasn’t what Dan wanted from Mel, and in the end, that’s what had him stepping back.
He hated himself in that moment. She looked like she wanted to give up, give in, but not to him—to the overwhelming demands that seemed to be dragging her down. She looked like she wanted to dissolve, disappear, never return.