Chapter 1: Whiskey and Wicked Memories
The ice was a crisp, blinding white under the arena lights, but Channah Bloom only had eyes for number eighteen. Her knuckles were pale around the cold weight of the whiskey glass, the slow melt of a single ice cube the only thing marking time. Around her, the VIP lounge buzzed with a low, moneyed hum—the clink of crystal, the laugh of a network exec, a cloud of Tom Ford Oud Wood. She didn’t hear any of it.
Her pulse was a frantic, stupid bird trapped in her throat.
Ryan Korsakov moved with a lazy, brutal grace, taking a wrist shot that rang off the crossbar with a sound like a gunshot. Even from up here, through the antiseptic scent of the chilled air, she could swear she caught the ghost of his sweat, the memory of his skin. It was twenty-five years old, that scent, and it was fresher to her than the perfume of the woman beside her.
She took a sharp sip, the bourbon burning a clean line down to her stomach. It didn’t calm a thing.
“Doctor Bloom? Your eight-thirty slot tomorrow just cancelled. A migraine.”
Channah blinked, dragging her gaze from the rink. Her assistant, Lila, was a blur of concerned efficiency on the phone screen. “Reschedule her,” Channah said, her voice smoother than she felt. “And clear my eleven.”
“You have the Douglas consult at eleven.”
“Clear it. Something’s come up.” She ended the call before Lila could ask.
Something had come up. He was gliding toward the bench, glugging from a water bottle, his dark hair damp at the temples. At forty-nine, he was all hard lines and seasoned power, the boyish leanness of college fortified into something immovable. A defenseman. A wall.
She’d begged for that once. Not politely. Not with words a good girl uses.
“Stop being so fucking gentle, Ryan. I don’t want gentle. I want you to pin me down and make me take it. Make me.”
Her own words, hissed into the dark of a dorm room, the springs of his narrow mattress digging into her back. He’d frozen above her, his breath hot on her cheek. “Channah…”
“Do it. Or I’ll find someone who will.”
A lie. There had never been anyone else, not really. Not for that. Not for the thing she’d only ever had the courage to ask from him. He’d done it. His hands, rough from stick tape, had closed around her wrists, binding them to the mattress above her head. The surrender had been so complete it felt like flying.
Then he’d reached for the condom.
And she’d stopped him. “No. Not that. I want… I want to feel you. All of you. Nothing between us.”
He’d refused. Called her crazy. Called her reckless. They’d fought, a whispered, furious battle that ended with him storming out. It was their last real night. The thread had snapped.
The memory was a live wire in her gut. Tonight wasn’t about nostalgia. It was about completion.
The final buzzer sounded, a distant roar rising from the crowd. Ryan’s team had lost, 3-2. She saw him slam his stick against the boards in frustration, a quick, violent jerk of motion. Perfect. He’d be raw. Edgy. Primed.
She waited. She finished her whiskey, the ice cube now a lonely sliver in the bottom. She watched the executives leave, the celebrities with their security details. The lounge emptied, the silence swelling to fill the space. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
Then, the door to the private corridor opened.
He emerged alone, dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, a duffel slung over one broad shoulder. His face was etched with the deep fatigue of defeat, the shadow of a beard stark against his pale skin. He was heading for the exit, his mind clearly already on the team bus, the airport, the next city.
“The backcheck was lazy in the second period. Left your goalie hanging.”
Her voice cut through the quiet, calm and clinical. Her therapist voice, sheathed in velvet.
Ryan stopped. Turned. His eyes—a frigid, arctic blue—found her. For a second, there was nothing. Just the blank scan of a man being approached by a stranger. Then, a flicker. A slow, dawning avalanche of recognition that started in his eyes and moved down his entire body, tightening his shoulders, his jaw.
“Channah.”
Her name. A statement. A curse.
“Ryan.” She didn’t stand. She let him look. The emerald silk of her blouse, the first two buttons undone. The way her skirt hugged her hips. The deliberate, unchanged flame of her hair, the full bangs she knew framed her eyes. She saw his gaze drop, take inventory, stumble. A tiny fracture in his professional armor.
“What are you doing here?” He didn’t move closer.
“I was in the city. Saw you were playing.” A lie so thin it was transparent. “You look tired.”
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. It’s a tired kind of night.” He shifted his duffel. The old charm was there, buried under layers of grit and loss. “You look… exactly the same.”
“I’m not.” She stood now, smooth, picking up her clutch. “Neither are you. But some things don’t change.” She took three steps, closing the distance. The air between them crackled, charged with two and a half decades of unfinished business. She caught his scent then—sweat, soap, and pure, adrenalized male. It unspooled something deep and dark within her. “You still owe me something.”
His eyes narrowed. “Owe you?”
She tilted her head up, holding his glacial stare. “You didn’t finish. That night. You left.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He looked around, but they were utterly alone. The cleaning staff wouldn’t come for another hour. “That was a lifetime ago. We were kids. It was a stupid fight.”
“It wasn’t stupid to me.” Her voice dropped, losing the clinical edge, becoming something intimate and dangerous. “I’ve had a lifetime of gentle, Ryan. Of considerate. Of safe. I’ve spent twenty-five years listening to people’s careful, sanitized problems. I want the mess. I want the one thing I never got. From you.”
He was staring at her like she’d grown a second head. But his breathing had changed. She could see the rapid rise and fall of his chest under the pristine white dress shirt.
“You’re talking crazy again.”
“Maybe. Are you going to walk away again?”
Silence. The hum of the arena’s ventilation system was the only sound. She saw the war in his eyes: responsibility, reason, the weight of his public life, all battling with the raw, primal flicker she’d just ignited.
He took a sudden, final step forward, erasing the space between them. His hand came up, not to touch her, but to grip the edge of the leather sofa behind her, caging her in. His face was inches from hers.
“What exactly do you want, Channah?” His voice was a low, graveled threat.
“I want you to take me to your hotel. I want you to fuck me like you meant it that night. No more gentle. No more safe.” She let her gaze drift down to his mouth, then back up. “And we won’t need a condom.”
He flinched as if struck. “You have no idea what you’re asking.”
“I’m not asking.” Her hand came up, her fingers brushing the formidable line of his pectoral through the fine cotton of his shirt. She felt the hard jump of his heart beneath her touch. “I’m telling you what’s going to happen. Unless you’re scared.”
His control snapped.
A rough, guttural sound escaped his throat. His free hand tangled in her hair, at the nape of her neck, not pulling, just possessing. His mouth crashed down on hers. It wasn’t a kiss; it was a claiming. All heat and hunger and twenty-five years of pent-up frustration. She opened for him immediately, her tongue meeting his, the taste of him—whiskey and defeat and pure Ryan—exploding across her senses. She bit his lower lip, hard enough to sting, and he groaned, his grip tightening.
He broke the kiss, his breath ragged. “My hotel. Now.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He just took her hand, his grip vise-like, and pulled her toward the private exit, his duffel forgotten on the floor. The corridors were a blur of concrete and muted lights, his strides so long she almost had to run to keep up. He didn’t speak. The silent, purposeful fury of his movement was more electrifying than any words.
A service elevator. The golden glow of a taxi. The dizzying lights of the city streaking past the window. In the backseat, his hand was on her thigh, high up under her skirt, his fingers digging into the soft skin of her inner thigh. He stared straight ahead, his profile a stone carving, but his touch was wildfire. She pressed her knees together, trapping his hand, and a sharp, aching throb pulsed between her legs.
The hotel was a sleek tower of glass. He marched her through the lobby, past the startled concierge, into another elevator. He fobbed a key, pressed the button for the penthouse suite. The doors closed.
And he was on her.
He spun her, pressing her back against the mirrored wall of the elevator. His hips pinned hers, the hard, thick ridge of his erection straining against his slacks, a blatant pressure against her belly. His mouth found her throat, sucking, biting, marking. She gasped, her head falling back with a thud against the glass.
“You still want it rough?” he snarled against her skin, his hands dragging the silk of her blouse apart. Buttons pinged against the walls and floor.
“Yes.”
“You still want it raw?”
“God, yes.”
The elevator dinged. The doors opened directly into a darkened foyer. He didn’t turn on the lights. Moonlight from the wall of windows washed the spacious living area in silver and shadow. He pushed her inside, kicking the door shut behind them.
In the middle of the vast, carpeted room, he stopped. He was breathing hard, his shirt torn open where her blouse had given way, his eyes wild in the half-light.
“Last chance to be smart, Channah.”
She answered by reaching for the zip of her skirt. She let it fall to the floor, followed by her soaked underwear. She stood before him in just her torn blouse and heels. The cool city air washed over her bare skin. “No more chances.”
He closed the distance in two strides. He didn’t kiss her. He wrapped a hand in her hair and tilted her head back, forcing her to look at him. The last veneer of civilization was gone from his face. What was left was pure, unadulterated hunger.
“On your knees.”
Her stomach somersaulted. She went down, the plush carpet coarse against her shins. Her hands went to his belt, her fingers fumbling with the buckle. He didn’t help. He just watched, his chest heaving. She got the belt open, the button, the zipper. She pulled his slacks and briefs down just enough to free him.
He was thick, heavy, fully erect, the tip already glistening. The sight of him, after all this time, so familiar and so devastatingly new, stole her breath. She leaned forward, taking him into her mouth. She tasted salt and skin and him. She swirled her tongue around the head, then took him deeper, savoring the feel of him hitting the back of her throat. His groan was a raw, shattered thing above her. His hands fisted in her hair, not guiding, just holding on.
“Enough,” he rasped, pulling her up by her arms. He was trembling. “I’m not finishing like that.”
He pushed her backward onto the huge, low sectional sofa. Her back hit the soft leather. He followed her down, his weight crushing, glorious. He shoved her thighs apart with a rough knee, settling between them. The blunt, hot head of his cock pressed against her entrance. She was dripping, aching, more than ready.
He looked down at her, his face suspended above hers in the moonlight. For a heartbeat, they were frozen—the therapist and the athlete, the girl and the boy, the decades of what-if collapsing into this single, irrevocable point.
“Tell me,” he demanded, his voice shredded.
“Fuck me, Ryan. No condom. Fill me up. I want to feel all of it.”
A broken sound escaped him. He drove into her, one deep, brutal, perfect thrust, sheathing himself to the hilt.
The sensation was catastrophic. The shocking, intimate burn of stretch, the overwhelming fullness, the sheer, filthy reality of skin on skin with nothing between. It was everything she’d fantasized about, a hundred times more intense. A choked cry ripped from her throat.
He didn’t pause. He set a relentless, punishing rhythm, each thrust jolting her up the leather cushions. It was not love-making. It was an exorcism. A collision. His mouth was everywhere—her breasts, her neck, her shoulders, biting and sucking. One of his hands slid under her hip, yanking her up to meet every savage plunge, the other braced beside her head.
The coiled tension of a lifetime was unraveling from her core. Her orgasm built, not as a slow wave, but as a detonation, sparked by the raw friction and the illicit, profound intimacy of his bare skin inside her. She came with a sharp, guttural scream, her body clamping around him in violent, pulsating waves.
It triggered his own release. With a final, deep grind, he buried himself as far as he could go. His body went rigid above her, a strangled roar tearing from his chest. She felt the hot, wet surge of him pulsing deep inside her, the vivid, physical truth of his climax. He collapsed onto her, his sweat-slicked skin hot against hers, his breath sawing in her ear.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing merging in the dark. The city glittered, silent and indifferent, beyond the windows.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. A hot trickle followed, a stark reminder on her inner thigh. He rolled onto his back beside her, one arm thrown over his eyes.
The silence stretched, vast and suddenly fragile.
Channah lay still, feeling the pleasant, deep ache in her muscles, the cool air on her heated skin. The burning desire was spent, the fantasy made flesh. And in its wake, a cold, sharp clarity was dawning. She had gotten what she wanted.
Now, she had no idea what came next.
Ryan’s voice, hoarse and quiet, broke the stillness. “What now, Channah?”
She didn’t have an answer. She just stared at the distant, blinking lights of a plane crossing the night sky, feeling the slow, irrevocable seep of him inside her, and wondering if she had just solved a twenty-five-year-old problem.
Or if she had just created a brand new one.