I stopped, my breath catching as her eyes roamed over me. I’d purposefully not fully dried off, so my skin still glistened with moisture, my hair wet, the waistband of my workout pants damp. The only thing I regretted was that the icy finish to my shower had left my hand-axe in a rather unbecoming state. Ah well. She was intimately aware of how pleasing its size and girth were to her, and this temporary shrinkage was thankfully hidden by my baggy clothing.
“We can wait until tomorrow if you’re too tired from practice. Or hungry. You’ve got to be starving.” She bent down to retrieve the fallen paper and I eyed her ass, thinking that I was indeed hungry—for lunch and for her.
“I am not too tired,” I lied. “Perhaps we can have lunch afterward, though.”
She stood upright and faced me, her eyes narrowed at my suggestion.
I held up my hands, palms forward. “I promise you that I am only proposing we eat lunch. Although my heart and mind crave more from you, I am afraid my body will not be able to perform to the level I wish without several hours of rest.”
At least. There was a good chance my body wouldn’t be able to adequately perform at all today. Or maybe even tomorrow. How did these human hockey players manage? I was an orc and I could hardly walk after one day of practice.
She giggled then slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh.”
“You should laugh,” I told her. “It is a terrible situation. You could be naked in front of me right now and I might fall asleep on top of you before I could even get these pants off.”
She laughed outright at that.
“Your virtue is safe from me—at least for a few hours,” I promised.
“Well then, let’s get to work so we can eat and you can get to bed before you keel over. I promise to take it easy on you.”
I placed my hand over my heart. “I appreciate your mercy,miskal-temek.”
“I’m not about to ask what that means. It’s probably Orcish for female torturer or something.”
It meant “beloved shrew,” but given our last argument, I wasn’t about to translate for her.
“Let’s start with some stretching.” She waved me over to two mats, sitting on one and waving for me to do the same by her side. Once I was on the mat, she stretched her legs straight in front of her, then bent at the hips and easily wrapped her fingers around the top of her toes.
I tried to copy her movement and managed to place my palms on my knees.
“That’s…uh, that’s good,” she said.
It was most definitelynotgood. “My legs are too long,” I informed her. “That is why I cannot reach my toes.”
She snort-laughed. “Your legs aren’tthatlong. You just need to work on your flexibility. All of you, not just you in particular.”
“Orcs are not very bendy. We are more likes oaks than reeds,” I explained.
“Lots of humans aren’t bendy either, but they can improve with work. Don’t worry, I’ll have you touching your toes in no time. Maybe even doing this.” She pulled her lower legs in toward her hips then lifted them up to tuck her feet behind her head.
I stared in shock. “The only way an orc does that is if his legs have been broken off at the hips.”
She unfolded her legs. “Okay, maybe not that. I was just showing off a little.”
“I like that you are strong and fast and…bendy.” The last word came out as a throaty growl and her eyes met mine. I saw the flash of desire in them, and heard the stutter in her breath. For a moment we were frozen, bewitched by the attraction we felt for each other. Then Willa blinked and the spell broke.
“We’ll do more stretching in tomorrow’s team workout.” She jumped to her feet and snatched the paper off the floor. “Goalies need great reflexes, which you already have. What you don’t have is the flexibility and balance you need to excel. Andwhile I’ve seen your jaw-dropping six-pack, you’ll still be doing workouts that focus on your core strength.”
She liked my stomach. The thought brought a very smug smile to my face.
“We’ve already been working on the medicine ball throws as a team, so I narrowed your individual exercises down to more goalie-specific ones. First up are some butterfly progression drills including slides and lateral pushes. These simulate what you’ll be doing on the ice and will help you improve your reaction time and increase hip mobility.”
The shrew led me through a series of slow up-and-down drills, telling me to concentrate on my form. After a few sets, we moved on to exercises where I would slide alternating legs to the side and down as if I were blocking a puck.
“Let’s begin with three sets of thirty repetitions for each exercise. Then I want you to do ten box jumps before doing another three sets of thirty again. I’ll text the workout routine to you so you’ll have it on your phone.”
I eyed the paper, thankful that she wasn’t asking me to do the full workout today.
