So Over You (Chicago Rebels #2)(11)

Kelly Townsend, the team’s head trainer, raised his chin and acknowledged her presence with a smile. Of all the Rebels’ backroom staff, she liked Kelly the best, probably because he gave off a distinctly nonthreatening vibe. In a boy band, he’d be the guy who brought flowers for your mom and didn’t do any weird crotch-grabbing grinds during the song’s instrumental bridge. A Brandon, not a Dylan.

“Kelly, how long do you need?”

“All done.” Kelly smiled again, then opened his mouth to say something else. Instead, he turned to his patient. “Adductor feeling better, Vadim?”

A grunt from the Russian acknowledged it was. So that’s why his towel was doing such a terrible job of covering up his ass. Isobel had thought it a bit much for a knee rubdown. With a nod, Kelly left the room.

Vadim sat up, unfairly pulling the towel over his groin so she missed the main attraction. Had he changed in the intervening years? If anything, he had to have grown bigger, which was terrifying, because the boy had rocked a manaconda at nineteen. Dicks didn’t shrink with time, did they?

Note to self: Google “penis size changes with age.” For science.

“We need to talk.” As he futzed with the towel’s perfect positioning—get over yourself, Petrov, I don’t care!—she took a moment to note where else he might have changed. Definitely more tattoos. Some she recognized from before: that colorful babushka on his right forearm, the jaguar ready to pounce from his shoulder, symbols that held significance for him covering practically every inch of steely flesh. A new-to-her tat over his rib cage caught her attention. A set of skates in flames, Russian script entwined around it.

Then there were the abs. Jesus, you could grate Parm on those puppies. Peering up, he caught her burning stare, and his reaction was predictable.

Look all you want, but this is not for you.

Understood. She wouldn’t break any mirrors, but standing before him in Nike’s spring collection ensemble, her dark brown hair in a ponytail, her face free of makeup, she looked nothing like the razor-thin models Vadim was regularly photographed with coming out of clubs.

There was no reason why that should have entered her head, except that once he had told her she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. Not that she needed his compliments. Eighteen-year-old girls desperate to have their cherry popped by gorgeous Russians are usually all in.

Now his expression made it clear she had no impact on him whatsoever, which was fine because she was here to do a job. A sexless, no-chemistry, so-what-if-you-took-my-virginity job.

She started with an easy one. “How are you feeling today?”

“Fine.”

“Oh, I thought maybe your knee was bothering you, and that was why you blew off practice.”

Cue the Russian ice stare of doom.

“With me,” she clarified.

“I don’t need it. I can work with the regular coaching staff.”

“We don’t have time for that. Thursday is the start of six days on the road and the coaches will be with the team. You’re on IR, so you’ll be staying here and working on your skills—or were you planning to run drills by yourself?”

He remained as silent as the grave, his big hands splayed on his towel-covered thighs. Everything about him strained taut. Muscles, body language, expression. But she didn’t trust it to remain that way. Vadim’s strength on the ice was his speed. No one transitioned quicker than him, a sleek cat that could uncoil and strike at any moment, just like that jaguar on his shoulder. She expected that was how it was now. Even at rest he was dangerous.

Speaking as a fellow athlete might be a better approach. “I know you’re worried about getting back to full strength. I’ve been there—”

“And you had to give up.”

Wow, that stung. She widened her eyes, fighting the tears pricking at her eyelids.

Since her injury two years ago during the inaugural National Women’s Hockey League game, she’d lost all faith in her abilities. Sure, she had healed with a speed that amazed her doctors. They’d never seen anyone with a fractured skull recover so quickly. But they had been adamant about her competitive future—or lack thereof. A fall, a rough check against the boards, hell, a slip stepping out of the shower, and she might not wake up again.

Thirty-seven minutes. Her time on pro ice. Knowing you were all washed up by the age of twenty-five was sobering, to say the least.

Her father hadn’t taken it well. Whereas any other parent would be trying to hold his kid back off the ice after she’d taken a skate blade to the head, Clifford had dismissed the doctors’ concerns.

I played with a fractured femur once, Izzy. Every player knows what they can handle. Trust your heart as much as your body.

She’d tried, for him as much as for herself. Training with her team, the Buffalo Betties—who only allowed her to skate after she signed a waiver absolving them of all liability—she had suffered a hip injury two months in. Now it flared up when she pushed herself too hard, the pain a signal that she was no longer cut out for pro play.

Those who can’t, coach.

Giving up her dream was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. So nice of this Russian jerk to rub her face in it.

“Yes, I did have to give up. But I have plenty of experience teaching, and I’ve put together a plan to get you back on track.”