Play for Keeps Read online

  He captured her protest with a long, sweet kiss. Her teeth ached with the sweetness. Her toes curled in her shoes—no easy feat in a pair of extra-pointy Louboutins. She slid her hand under his jacket and clutched the front of his shirt. She didn’t have to worry about wrinkles now. She wanted to muss him. Muss him badly. Muss him so hard, he’d be a marked man. He must have picked up on the tenor of her thoughts, or perhaps she’d pulled a handful of chest hair, but either way, Ty angled his head and added a smidge more pressure to the kiss. Parting her lips, she encouraged him to take what they both wanted.

  She slipped her tongue out to meet his, and he groaned deep in his throat. The car lurched and surged as Manny urged them toward their destination. Ty’s hand slid down her side, his thumb grazing the side of her breast in the time-honored tradition learned by teenage boys everywhere.

  “Nice move,” she panted when they broke for air.

  He stared deep into her eyes. “I have more.”

  Wiping a smear of lipstick from his mouth with the pad of her thumb, she held his gaze and gave his ethics a nice, hard prod. “You’ve got an hour or two before you have to be at the airport. Come up to my room.” A slow smile overtook her as she fell back on her usual blunt-force seduction gambit. “I’m sure we can find a way to pass the time.”

  He gave his head a gratifyingly slow shake. “You’re the devil.”

  “I don’t have a blue dress on,” she pointed out.

  “If you had a dress on, Manny’d be giving me hell right now, because I’d be in it too.”

  “So sure of yourself,” she chided.

  “You’re the one trying to tempt me to come up to your room.” He kissed her again, a lingering kiss packed with promise but lacking the sharp licks of heat she craved.

  Before she could bend him to her will, he broke away, his breath coming fast and shallow as he pressed his forehead to hers. “I won’t. And I hope to God I don’t have to tell you it’s not you, it’s totally me. I don’t want to be that guy, Millie.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ve resisted this…us in my head for so long. I’m not sure I can resist the reality of us, you know…”

  “In the flesh?” she offered with a helpful smile.

  He groaned and flung himself back into his seat, draping his forearm over his eyes. “You are the devil.”

  Millie gave a quiet laugh. “I’m not sure the ‘in the flesh’ thing is a good idea anyhow. You’re used to women a few boy bands younger than me.”

  “Don’t.” He jerked his head sharply. “Don’t say that kind of thing.”

  “Truth.”

  “You’re beautiful, Millie. Desirable. I desire you,” he added for emphasis.

  “Thank you.” She gave him a smile that edged toward wicked. “I desire you too.”

  “Your confidence is one of the sexiest things about you.”

  She inclined her head, pleased to have evolved to a point where others recognized and appreciated her independence. “Thank you again.” A flush warmed her cheeks, then burst into flame the second she told herself she was too old to blush when a man paid her a compliment.

  “One of the many things about you that I find irresistible,” he murmured. To her delight and mortification, he ran a knuckle over the curve of her cheek.

  “And I find your moral fiber very attractive, even if I am cussing you in my head right now,” she said in a husky tone.

  “The Merryton Hotel,” Manny announced. Without another word, he darted into the drop-off lane and jerked to a stop. He popped the trunk and threw open his door. A uniformed bellman reached for the back door, and Millie jerked upright.

  Fear, unwelcome and irrational, gripped her as she eyed Ty. He was leaving. Getting on a plane and heading to the other side of the country for six long weeks. Desperate to hang on to the quasi-intimacy of the past week, she searched his face, eagerly cataloging each feature as she drank in the overall effect. “I don’t want you to go yet.”

  He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “The last thing I want to do is leave now, but I can’t stay here. This past week has been heaven and hell.”

  She gave a mirthless laugh. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed her knuckles as Manny tapped on the lid of the trunk to spur things along. “I’ll call you. I’ll wanna get the scoop on the Wolcott water polo team’s plans for making a splash this season.”

  This time, she blushed deeply, but more with pleasure than embarrassment. Swallowing a sigh, she accepted the doorman’s gloved hand and swung her legs from the car. “You have to admit, that was a good headline.”

  “Damn straight it was.”

  They shared a long look. “Safe travels, Ty.”

  “See you soon, Millie.”

  * * *

  Unwinding the towel she’d wrapped around her hair, Millie tossed the heap of wet terry cloth onto the lip of the tub. She padded into the bedroom wearing nothing but boy-cut panties and a pair of rainbow-striped, fuzzy socks Kate said were supposed to be infused with shea butter.

  The socks were nice but not exactly the kind of infusion a girl thinks about when she’s been burning through the double-A batteries a lot faster than she’d like. Reaching into her bag, she extracted a washed-thin Warrior tank top three sizes too big and slipped the soft cotton over her head.

  Pulling her phone off the charger, she checked to see what she’d missed in the forty minutes since she plugged the darn thing in. A dozen or more media outlet apps boasted alert notifications, but she only clicked on the icon for National Sports Network headlines. A quick glance at NSN showed nothing to send her rushing to check the other sites. The scandal of the week had pretty much petered out. Greg Chambers hadn’t managed to bait Ty into a fight, so the gist of the interview had been boiled down to a few sound bites and a still of Ty smiling broadly and looking far too fit and handsome to be anyone’s cuckold.

  She found a couple of emails in her inbox, the most important one a sale notification from ShoeIn. A text from Avery confirmed the date and time for Kate’s post-honeymoon debriefing at Calhoun’s Bar and Grill the following week. And one missed call from Tyrell Ransom.

  Her thumb tapped the callback option before she even had a chance to check the clock. Three minutes after eleven. He’d be boarding soon. One little phone call should be safe enough.

  “Hello.”

  His voice was warm and deep and put her in the mood for Barry White music and lamps draped with gauzy scarves. “Plan on visiting any brothels while you’re in the great state of Nevada?”

  He laughed. A full, rumbling laugh that did little to dispel the red-wallpapered room she’d conjured in her head. “You never know. If the casinos don’t have any good headliners…”

  She could see the whole setup perfectly. Of course, her version was highly romanticized and most likely television inspired. Reality was no doubt a fairly businesslike concern, but this was her trip down the rabbit hole. If she wanted piles of pillows, sheets made of satin, and heavy velvet drapes on the four-poster bed she had him tied to in her head, who could tell her no?

  “Boarding soon?”

  “Let’s get back to the brothel thing,” he teased.

  “Not the kind of headline I want to spin. Besides, it’s been done. Promise me you won’t do anything reckless.”

  Ty sobered instantly. “My dad is flying out, remember? I’ll probably be playing thirty-six holes of golf each day and listening to the old man heckle me about my slice.”

  Dropping onto the bed, she leaned back against the headboard and pulled her knees up under her shirt. “Shift your weight before you start your downswing.”

  “You golf?”

  “Some,” she replied, relishing his pleased surprise.

  “What’s your handicap?”

  “The shoes,�
� she said without hesitation. He laughed again, and she beamed, delighted to have found their easy rhythm once again. “Pick up any good trinkets in the gift shops?”

  “I’ve been hanging out in the Captain’s Club.”

  “Free drinks?”

  “Coffee.”

  She nodded. “Good boy.”

  “I’m no boy.”

  “Man,” she corrected, allowing a sly smile to color the words. “Big, strong, handsome man.”

  “Much better.”

  “So your dad will be keeping an eye on you. That makes me feel much better.”

  “Were you really worried?”

  Millie caught a hint of injury in his question and hurried to correct course. “Well, not really, but I wanted to make you feel all badass and loose cannon, because I know guys like to think they are.”

  His chuckle told her she’d hit the right note. “Yes, well, I think I perfected my badass loose cannon act last week.”

  They lapsed into silence but not the uncomfortable kind. This was easy. Companionable. The quiet was unusual for Millie but not unwelcome. She spent so many hours of the day pitching and talking and promoting, she sometimes found it hard to switch off the ticker in her head. But Ty made the quiet she’d dedicated her life to filling seem almost natural. Almost but not entirely. Nature abhorred a vacuum and all that.

  Plucking at the hem of her tank, she asked the question that had niggled at her all day. “Are things really going to be this easy with Mari?”

  There was a beat of hesitation so brief, she wasn’t sure anyone else would have noticed, but she did. Her job hinged on her ability to pick up on cues, verbal and nonverbal. Millie only wished she could see him. Pauses were so much more eloquent when one could see the body language accompanying them.

  “She’s the one who wants this,” he reminded her.

  “You don’t?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he corrected with heartening speed. “I’ll admit I wouldn’t be zipping out to Reno for the quick fix if this hadn’t happened, but I think we both knew we weren’t going to last much longer.”

  Genuinely curious, Millie felt compelled to pry. After all, the man had left his taste in her mouth, then kicked her to the curb. Almost literally. She figured she was entitled to a little nonprofessionally motivated probing if she wasn’t going to get the kind of probing that made spending a night in a hotel room so much more enjoyable. “Why do you think?”

  His laugh rang hollow, even over the phone. “Oh, I don’t know…a lack of any common ground, maybe?”

  “You had to have something in common at one time. You married her.”

  Ty paused, then said, “I’d like to exercise my rights under the Fifth Amendment.”

  “Ah.” She grinned, pleased by the surprising candor of his nonanswer. “Combustible, huh?” She waited a beat. “Did I put enough emphasis on the bust part? I hate when I fall…flat.”

  This time, his chuckle was for real. “You crack me up.”

  Sinking into the pillows, she stared at the muted television without really seeing the screen. “How’d you meet her? Your typical sideline romance? You made up a play, and she let you touch her pom-poms?”

  “Actually, we met in class.”

  The answer would have shocked her right out of her smarty-pants, if she had been wearing any pants. “Class?”

  “Yes. When I wasn’t busy populating the world with illegitimate children or buying another set of ten-carat studs for my ears, I was in class.”

  “And here I thought I had you pigeonholed. Go ahead, shatter more of my illusions.”

  “When I went back to Eastern to work with Coach Washington, I decided to finish my undergrad degree.”

  “Because you went into the NBA early.”

  “Not that early compared to some, but I did need to complete my senior year.”

  “I think it’s great you did. Let me guess, kinesiology major?”

  “Funny,” he deadpanned.

  The entire athletic department knew Millie loved making jabs at the jocks and their preferred fields of study, but she was no longer surprised when football players told her about their biochemistry classes. Acknowledging the scope of study the degree entailed didn’t stop her from making fun of those who chose the major, but it did change the tenor of her teasing.

  “When I left school, it might have been something along those lines,” Ty admitted, jerking her from her ruminations. “But when I finished, I ended up with a degree in psychology.”

  “Huh.”

  “Then I went on to do some postgraduate work in psychology. Emphasis in sports psychology, of course,” he added with a self-deprecating chuckle.

  “Brains, beauty, and brawn,” she murmured. “I guess you had to screw up somewhere.”

  “I’m not particularly lucky in love.” The gruff admission sent a shiver racing through her. “But thanks for saying I’m pretty. I feel so much better now.”

  “You met in class,” she prompted.

  “I was doing a little time as a teaching assistant. Psych 101. She was making up a couple of missed general studies courses before graduation.” The words were cut off by a too-perky-for-the-hour voice making a flight announcement. “The professor and the coed. A tale as old as time,” he said brusquely. “I have to go. We’re boarding.”

  Reluctant to give in to the demands of the airlines, she blurted out the one thought running through her brain like a hamster on a wheel. “This isn’t at all how I envisioned tonight.”

  She heard his breath hitch. “I think we can save some conversations for another night.”

  A hot blush scalded her cheeks and set the tips of her ears aflame. Between the tomato face, the decidedly unsexy nightwear, and her now air-dried and uncombed hair, she was damn glad he hadn’t thought to try a video chat. “No.”

  “Yes,” he countered. The background noise became more pronounced, and she figured he’d left the VIP lounge. His breathing became choppy. “Good night, Millie. Think about me.”

  She closed her eyes and tried not to groan. Those huffy, little puffs in her ear were doing something to her. Something she hadn’t packed the equipment to handle, even though she knew his sense of honor wouldn’t allow anything to happen between them. Yet. Damn wishful thinking. “A pretty good bet.”

  “I’ll be thinking about you too. Probably too much.”

  “Good night, Ty.”

  “Sweet dreams.”

  She ended the call and, out of habit, double-checked to make sure the screen showed they had disconnected. Tossing the phone aside, she reached for the remote and zapped the television as well. Flopping back on the bed, she stared at the ceiling, waiting for her body to give her the go/no-go. Of course, her engines were revving. Sliding her hand under the thin cotton of her shirt, she closed her eyes and pictured Ty sprawled in his seat, ready for takeoff. If she was going to have the kinds of sweet dreams she wanted to have, she’d have to make them happen on her own.

  Chapter 6

  The first week, he only called her three times. Proof of his near-Herculean strength of will. Each of those occasions, he was careful to make contact during business hours and to have a media-related question ready as an excuse. Even if the ploy was one so lame a child could see through it. He also timed the calls to be sure they didn’t last any longer than ten minutes, though he really wanted to talk to her for hours.

  At the end of the third call, she said simply, “You don’t need to make up excuses to call me, Ty. If you want to talk, we can talk.”

  Her candor was both a comfort and catalyst. Before he could stop himself, he was calling her daily. Sometimes more. He hoped his father’s arrival the following week would prove to be a distraction, but he wasn’t counting on it curbing the urge altogether. The casual intimacy of their conversations on the plane and over the phone was a re
velation. Though Millie’s questions weren’t particularly probing, he’d given her more information than he’d given anyone. He’d never had anything like this openness with Mari, even when things were fresh and new. When his marriage started to flounder, he’d tried to recapture the closeness they’d shared only to discover he and Mari had never had a tight connection.

  Talking to Millie made him realize he’d never really had a confidante. Oh, he was close with his father, and they had a good, solid relationship, but delving deep wasn’t their forte. He was lonely. And like a bad tooth or a partially healed bruise, he couldn’t help pushing on the sensitive spot. Acknowledging his loneliness left a dull ache in his gut only the sound of Millie’s voice seemed to soothe.

  Feeling something, even the sharp sting of regret, was better than the numbness he’d been living with for too long.

  He wanted someone in his life. Not an arm charm or a warm body in his bed, but someone who wouldn’t hesitate to call him on his bullshit. A woman he could talk to without having to parse his words. Someone to guard his back and maybe set a few picks for him in life. A partner. Millie.

  He wanted Millie.

  The second week he was in Reno, he played a lot of golf. Staying active kept him off the phone, but working up a sweat didn’t stop him from thinking about Millie. Incessantly. And oddly enough, those thoughts weren’t entirely salacious. Mostly but not entirely.

  After long days on the course, his father crashed early, leaving Ty with too much alone time after business hours. Every night, he played a little game with himself. How long could he go before he cracked and placed the call? Some nights, his will was pathetically weak. Others, he held strong.

  The first time he delayed his gratification as late as eight o’clock, he’d caught her in bed. Stupid time difference. The mental image he conjured played havoc with his swing for the next few days, but the husky welcome in her voice was consolation enough. They talked about everything and nothing. What she had for lunch. His dad’s outlandish golf pants. Whether he could blame his sad performance on the back nine on his custom Pings or if he needed to man up and admit he sucked at the game.