So Over You (Chicago Rebels #2)(9)

His cell phone buzzed with a message from Mia.

Are you off IR yet?

Injury reserve. He ignored his sister’s text. A mistake, as silence brought a torrent of questions.

Are you getting enough sleep?

Is the pain in your knee sharp or more like an ache?

Did you hook up with that blonde at the club last night? Or the skanky redhead? The TMZ footage was kind of grainy.

Chyort! His thumbs hovered over his phone in threat, though apparently not enough of one to make the messages stop.

Looks like they have cooties. All of them.

Then: Czar of Pleasure. LOL.

He groaned at the silly nickname. A woman had told a story to the gutter press about his prowess between the sheets, and a legend was born. He didn’t recall this woman—if he had slept with a tenth of the women who claimed to have slept with him, he would probably be on his syphilitic deathbed—but he accepted the name because, why not?

“You’re in demand, Petrov,” Remy said with a grin as the texts continued to vomit onto his screen.

“My sister. She’s a pain in my ass.”

Remy looked sympathetic. “Got four of ’em myself. Worst affliction known to man.”

Vadim wouldn’t phrase it quite so dramatically. “She is young, and we don’t know each other well. A recent connection.” Not for the first time, the reason behind this sent his blood into a boil.

Remy rubbed the unshaven scruff on his chin. “Sounds complicated. I’m here to be your priest, should you need it.”

Leon Shay, a left-winger like Vadim, strode out of the shower and into the locker room as naked as a babe. Not that Vadim minded—at this point, he’d seen more naked men than women—but there was something about the way Shay swaggered about with his swinging dick that bothered him. Territory marking, undoubtedly, given that Vadim was faster and had been brought in to shore up the left side. There was room for them both, but the better Vadim played, the less ice time Shay would get.

Which is probably why this ass placed a foot up on the bench with his cock at Vadim’s eye level. On a derisive sniff, he swiped at his legs with a towel.

Catching Vadim’s eye, Remy quirked his lips, affirming this was not Vadim’s imagination. A minute later, Remy headed into the shower while Vadim answered his sister’s text: I am in practice. So should you be.

“Gotta be careful around him,” Shay said, pulling deodorant out of his gym bag.

Vadim arced his gaze over the locker room and, realizing that there was no one else here, peered up at Shay.

“Careful?”

“He’s banging Harper Chase, so he may as well be spying on the team.”

Ah. Looked like he had discovered the team’s malcontent. Every locker room suffered one. Vadim waited for more on this rather entertaining brand of paranoia.

“Women running a hockey team.” Shay shook his head at what he evidently thought was a great personal insult. “Just be careful what you say, because there’s a direct line from here to Chase Manor.”

Vadim found this both highly amusing and likely beneficial for future gamesmanship.

“If you refrain from treasonous statements, then you have nothing to worry about.”

Shay stopped in the act of pulling his briefs on. “That’s not how it works outside of Russia, Petrov. Here in the good ole US of A, we like to think our speech is not regulated or restricted in any way. And you know what else? Fuck me if Isobel Chase isn’t angling for a coaching spot. Putting a fox in the henhouse, that’s what that is.”

“Are you saying this locker room is like a henhouse? Filled with hens?”

“It’s a metaphor, Petrov. A metaphor for trouble.”

Vadim pretended to consider this lesson in the English idiom. “Da. Trouble.”

The team whiner regarded Vadim with suspicion, trying to determine if he was being made fun of. Vadim kept his expression perfectly vacant, not unlike a pose for one of his underwear photo shoots.

Encouraged by the silence, Shay continued his grumbling. “Women thinking they can run and coach men’s hockey. And now a fag for a GM—”

He cut off as Cade Burnett strode into the locker room, wearing a towel and a wide grin. Vadim liked the cheerful Texan, who was having a good season.

“Petrov, trainer’s ready for you,” Burnett said.

About time. Vadim could have insisted his knee injury required he go first for the postpractice rubdown, but unlike these soft Americans, he was fine with waiting. Even if the stiffness in his knee would produce the kind of pain he’d need his best poker face to endure.

As for what else he might need a poker face, Vadim knew he’d have to watch Leon Shay carefully. Inside, his blood boiled at the notion this man thought Isobel could not coach men’s hockey. She was a champion! So perhaps Vadim had hinted as much to Isobel herself last night, but her gender was not why he had a problem with her as a coach. With their complicated history, the present would become only more tangled if they were to spend time together.

His life was already far too knotty to indulge her ambition.

He stood, relieved that his knee elected not to betray him at this moment.

Shay pointed at him. “Just remember what I said, Petrov. Watch who you talk to.”

Yes, Shay. Yes, I will.



Isobel headed toward the locker room at the Rebels’ practice facility, determined to have it out with the uncooperative Mr. Petrov. Turning a corner, she bumped into a tower of unyielding muscle, fronted by a snarl that had her almost recoiling. But that had nothing on how Isobel’s name on Leon Shay’s lips skeeved her the hell out.