"Fuck you!" she declares, and the words arrive not as an insult but as a victory cry, bright and breathless and carrying the specific joy of a competitor who found a way to inflict damage despite losing the war.
I glare up at her through watering eyes, my hands cupped over the region of impact in the universal posture of masculine crisis management.
"Fuck. I most certainly would, Sage." The words grind through teeth clenched against the pulsing agony radiating from my groin. "But since you're trying to ruin my cock, I have to hold off for my own healing sanity. Can't perform with an agonizing dick."
She groans, the sound carrying the specific exasperation of a woman who has just received a sexual retort to a hostile expletive and finds the pattern both infuriating and predictable.
"For a fucking nerd, you have the most spontaneous responses to me."
I sit back on my heels, one hand still maintaining protective custody of the injured zone, the pain beginning its slow, reluctant retreat from critical to merely excruciating. My glassesare fogged from the heat differential between my face and the arena air, creating a soft-focus effect that would be romantic if the context were anything other than testicular trauma sustained during a gambling dispute.
I shrug.
"Maybe you're the only one who makes me feel like responding."
The honesty in the statement surprises us both. I did not plan it. Did not run it through the editorial filter that normally catches vulnerable admissions before they reach my vocal cords and converts them into sarcasm or silence. The words just arrived, unvetted, carrying a sincerity that sits exposed between us on the ice like a puck neither of us expected to be in play.
She huffs.
"Yeah, on the rare occasion. And then you go giving me the silent treatment."
I say nothing.
She jabs a finger in my direction, the gesture carrying the prosecutorial force of a lawyer presenting Exhibit A to a jury.
"SEE! Fucking annoying!"
My smirk returns, tugged free by her indignation despite the persistent throb in my lower anatomy. My gaze, cleared somewhat by the fogging lenses, drifts from her face to the t-shirt plastered against her frame.
The fabric has been through ninety-plus minutes of training-level exertion, absorbing enough moisture to transform from an opaque shield into a translucent declaration of the anatomy beneath it. The material clings to the curve of her shoulders, the line of her collarbone, the flat plane of her sternum, and the two points where her nipples press against the damp cotton with an visibility that my brain registers as information and my body registers as an emergency.
She is not wearing a bra.
This observation arrives in my awareness with the force of a headline printed in seventy-two-point font across the front page of every neural publication my brain distributes.
I arch an eyebrow.
"Did you wear a bra, or...?"
She glances down at herself. Processes the visual data. Returns her gaze to mine with an expression that combines embarrassment, defiance, and a refusal to apologize for the state of her undergarments that is so characteristically Sage I almost laugh.
She crosses her arms over her chest, which does nothing to resolve the situation and, if anything, compresses the relevant anatomy into even more prominent visibility above the barrier of her forearms.
"I did not. So what?" Her chin lifts with the combative elevation of a woman who has been challenged on a wardrobe choice and will die on this hill. "You're not sucking them."
"Don't promise me with a good time, Sage."
The blush detonates across her face with the speed and violence of a chemical reaction that was waiting for a catalyst. Her cheeks ignite. Her neck flushes. The visible skin above her collar transforms into a landscape of pink that travels toward her ears and probably continues to destinations my current vantage point does not permit me to confirm.
She grits her teeth.
"You're only being a cocky fucker because you won."
I push myself off the ice with a hiss that I cannot suppress, the movement sending a fresh pulse of discomfort through the region she targeted with surgical accuracy. Standing upright requires a negotiation between my legs and my pride, both of which have sustained damage and are filing competing requests for sympathy.
"I may have won, yes." I adjust the goalie pads, wincing as the motion engages muscles adjacent to the impact zone. "But your form was good as fuck."
The compliment lands on her face before her defenses can intercept it, and for a single, unguarded moment, I see something beneath the bluster. Surprise. The genuine, reflexive surprise of a person who is not accustomed to receiving praise for her athletic ability from someone who is not her father.
