She answers the door in the same black suit she had on earlier, except the jacket is off, leaving her in a silky light-purple tank that shows off the small muscles in her arms and her thin figure.
“Don’t dress up for me or anything.” She sips her wine and looks me up and down.
“You lock us up in the house.” I’m not ashamed of my track pants and T-shirt with slides. If she allowed me to take her on a real date, it would be different, but she’s only into booty calls—for the time being.
“You don’t care to impress me?” She walks into her kitchen, and I follow.
Our homes couldn’t be more different. Hers is white and bright. Not a lot of knickknacks, art that probably costs more than my entire house. Everything is modern. My house is mostly dark paint colors and rich woods. I’m not into the knickknack thing either, but I do have a crap ton of sports memorabilia.
I stop in her kitchen when I spot the white take-out cartons. “You ordered Chinese?”
“Do you not like Chinese food?” She sits down with a bottle of wine next to her and opens a container, pulling out a set of chopsticks.
I shake my head and look at her. “What’s going on here?”
“What is your problem?” She digs her chopsticks into a dish and pulls out a bunch of noodles.
“We don’t do food, we do sex.” I cross my arms.
She finishes chewing. I wait, because as much as I’d be cool with changing up our relationship from fuck buddies to something more, Jana has always been the one with her foot on the brakes.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” She points at the set of chopsticks across the table from her. I sit in the seat next to her instead. She groans. “Seriously?”
“I’ve had a hell of a day. I don’t want egg rolls and lo mein. I want you naked, coming around my cock and screaming my name.” I lean back in the chair and raise an eyebrow at her.
“Those aren’t on the menu tonight.”
“I thought those were the only things on the menu. Is there a secret menu I don’t know about?”
She giggles and continues to grab food with her chopsticks. “Our relationship has changed now.”
I perk up, straightening in my chair. Has she finally come to her senses? I hate myself for the small seed of hope I feel sprouting in my chest. “Good. Then let’s ditch the Chinese food and I’ll take you to dinner. I’ll have to run home to—”
“No.” She’s quick to interrupt. “We’re not moving forward, Kane. We’re going backward.”
Don’t I feel like a schmuck. Seriously, how stupid was I not to figure this out sooner? That tiny seed in my chest withers and dies and falls like a boulder to the bottom of my stomach.
“The menu is now empty, I assume?” I manage to keep my voice even.
She places her chopsticks down and picks up her wine. “We don’t have a choice. We’re owner and coach now. A sexual relationship will only complicate things.”
I stare at her for a beat, waiting for another excuse. She’s been the owner’s daughter the whole time I’ve been fucking her, and everyone knew Jana was going to take over some day. But I stop myself because I wasn’t the coach. I was just a player.
“So what you’re saying is that you can’t control yourself around me?”
She giggles and sips her wine again. “I’m saying it’s not ethical and if lines get blurred…”
“As in you realize I’m good for more than just orgasms?”
She gets that look on her face she always does when I make comments about only wanting me for the pleasure I give her. “Yes, which we both don’t want.”
“Says you. Don’t go speaking for me.”
That look in her eyes deepens. “I don’t want a relationship. We’ve been over this.”
Technically we haven’t. I mean, yeah, she’s made that much clear, but I never pressured her to tell me why. “Remind me again why that is?”
She brings one leg up to rest her foot on the edge of the chair. “I’m not meant to be in a relationship. Relationships are supposed to lead somewhere. I like my life plain and simple.”
“Too bad you can’t pleasure yourself, huh? Then you wouldn’t need me or any other man at all.”
“Stop it, Kane.”
I hold my hands up, knowing if I push her too far, she’ll close off completely. “Fine. So we’re going to have a platonic, professional relationship from here on out, be cordial to one another?”
She shrugs. “It’s the only way it can be.”
“It’s admirable that you can just shut it off like that.” I pick up my own pair of chopsticks and dig into the chicken dish. As long as I’m here, I might as well eat.
“There’s nothing to shut off. It was just sex. We can both find other partners to satisfy those needs.”
The thought of Jana with another man makes me want to growl like a grizzly, but instead I chuckle and eat a piece of broccoli while looking at her.
She can fool herself, but I’m not gonna sit here and lie and say I could be as compatible with another woman as I am with her. From the first time we slept together, we just fit. I had high hopes that it might turn into something more, but she’s hell-bent on maintaining her single status. I’ve tried to break down her wall, brick by brick, but she just puts them all back up. The woman is impossible. And now she has the excuse of the change in our professional relationship.
Then again, maybe she’s right. Maybe I shouldn’t be fucking the owner during my first year of coaching. Still, the idea leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I lay my chopsticks on the napkin next to my plate and slide out of my chair. “Your wish, as always, Jana, is my command. See you at the office.” I wink and walk out of the kitchen.
“Kane, stop being so dramatic,” she says to my back.
But I continue toward the door. The fact that she doesn’t follow me tells me everything I need to know. No matter how hard I try, Jana might never break. I’m wasting my time.
The door shuts behind me, and I climb into my truck and drive away without putting up much of an argument, just like she wants me to.
Paisley’s been my best friend since childhood, but unfortunately, she’s also dating the Fury’s best defenseman, Maksim Petrov. She’s the only one I’ve confided in about my relationship with Kane.
“Anything I say falls under patient-doctor privilege, right?” I sit in her office on the couch where a lot of the team’s athletes come to talk to her about managing the pressures of competition.
“You mean the confidentiality clause? Well, you aren’t paying me and we’re best friends, but you know I don’t tell anyone what we talk about.” She hands me a cup of tea and sits in the chair next to me.
“Maksim?” I worry my bottom lip.
“Jana. I’m your best friend. You know you can trust me, so stop stalling and tell me what the hell is going on.”
I called her in a panic this morning. After Kane left last night, I kept replaying the situation over and over in my head. Why he thought we’d continue on as normal when obviously our roles of owner and coach mean we have to end whatever it was we were doing. He’s so presumptuous it’s annoying.