Out of Her League

by Lori Handeland

  “You guys are hot,” Mrs. Vaughn said. “But you don’t have a fever.”

  “How do you know that without a thermometer?” Joe asked.

  “I’ve done this so many times, I can tell by a lip test if their temperature’s over a hundred or under.”

  “We’re not sick. Just tired. Can Toni take us home? Can she, huh?”

  “No. I’ll take you.”

  Oops. Not part of the plan. Toni intervened. “I can take them. I know how much you like fireworks.” She nudged the boys.

  “Yeah, Mom, they’re your favorite thing. Like raindrops and rosies and whistles and kittens.”

  “The Sound of Music,” Joe muttered.

  Mrs. Vaughn and Toni gaped at him. “How did you know that?”

  He shrugged and looked away as if embarrassed. “It’s a good movie.”

  Mrs. Vaughn met Toni’s gaze, and they shared a grin. Dad was doing okay, even without her help. The image of big, tough-guy Scalotta merrily watching The Sound of Music was adorable. But back to business.

  “Really, Coach,” Toni said. “I don’t mind. I’ll take them to your house and put them to bed. If you’d drop off Dad afterward, everyone will be happy.”

  “Everyone except me. I don’t want them riding in that red death trap.”

  “Hey!” Joe’s protest nearly drowned beneath the pop of the first firework going off. As the shower of color split the night, the crowd let out a cheer.

  Mrs. Vaughn stood, and Toni started talking before she could say no and ruin everything. “I’ve got my own car now. A very safe and very boring four-door Chevy.” She grabbed the twins and backed away. “See you at home! Don’t rush. We’ll be fine.”

  Toni ran before either parent could say anything else, dragging the twins alongside her. When they reached the parking lot, she risked a glance back. “Look,” she whispered, and the boys turned.

  Her dad and their mom walked toward the quilt, hand in hand.

  “Jordan fades back,” Benji said, as he did just that.

  “He flies. He shoots.” Danny made motions with an imaginary basketball. “Swish.”

  “Three points,” Toni said. “And that, boys, is the game.”

  *

  Chapter Sixteen

  “She’s a good driver,” Joe assured Evie as they settled onto the quilt.

  Evie nodded, her unease fading as the fireworks display heated up. “It’s just not like them to be tired. “

  “Ever?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You do know who I’m talking about, don’t you? Benji and Danny—the brothers of perpetual motion?”

  “Ah, them. Yes, I’m familiar with the order. They’ve taken vows of arguing, wrestling and—”

  “Sleeping only when threatened.”

  “Then I’d grab this break and run with it,” Joe said.

  So Evie lay back and gave herself over to the wonder and beauty of the light show in the sky. Joe joined her. She tried not to be uncomfortable with him stretched out at her side, hip close, hand brushing hers, then twining fingers with fingers.

  “Oh, my favorite,” she said as a gold spider, the ends tipped with blue stars, erupted high above. “I like the worms.”

  “Worms?”

  “Wait. You’ll see.”

  They continued to watch in friendly silence until a particular burst of fireworks lit the darkness and several squiggles of color twirled down, accompanied by a cartoon-like sound that indicated speed.

  “There,” he said, with suitable awe in his voice. “Isn’t that great?”

  “Silly.”

  “So?”

  He squeezed her hand and tilted his head toward hers. She could hear the steady, comforting sound of his breath near her ear. The ground at her back was cool, her body warm from the nearness of his. Her kids were safe, and somewhere else for the time being. The fireworks kept up a steady flare of light and sound. Who could ask for anything more?

  The finale was loud, long and impressive. As the acrid scent of gunpowder drifted along the night breeze and a final boom signified The End, whistles and cheers erupted from the crowd.

  “Wasn’t that wonderful?” she asked.

  “Only one thing could make it better.”

  She turned her head, and their noses bumped. The tension that had been building between them since he’d dragged her off to dance bubbled up again, stronger than before, and Evie held her breath as she waited for his kiss. On a sigh of surrender, her eyes drifted closed.

  “Ice cream.” He sat up.

  Evie’s eyes popped open. Maybe she had imagined the heat, and the want, and the need. She sat up, too.

  “You like spumoni?” he asked.

  “Love it.”

  “Let’s get some.”

  She laughed. “In this town? After ten p.m.? You’re dreaming.”

  “I know the exact place.” He stood and held out a hand. “You game?”

  She put her palm against his. “You bet.”

  The place turned out to be his house, his kitchen and his freezer. Evie sat at the table and ate ice cream across from Joe, for all the world as though they were a married couple and this was their house, with the kids all tucked snug in their beds upstairs.

  But the kids weren’t theirs, and the kids weren’t here. She and Joe were alone, and the thoughts that kept wandering through her mind were not those of a woman long married to this man. They were the thoughts of a woman fascinated and aroused by the mystery of him.

  “Gotta go.” Evie stood.

  Her chair banged over backward, the sound echoing in the room. Joe looked as frozen as the ice cream in front of him. His eyes were cool and blue, but the heat beneath the ice made Evie’s skin moist, sensitive, on fire.

  Deliberately, he put his spoon into the bowl, pushed back his chair and stood. He didn’t come any closer, but she felt crowded just the same. Trapped in his house, pinned by those eyes, captured by what was between her and him, now and from the very beginning.

  She had no excuses left. No children who would bust in. No game to coach. No class to teach. No one who needed her attention—except him.

  She could tell herself they had nothing in common. Their goals were so far apart as to be in a different stratosphere. Their futures were divergent; their hopes and dreams at odds. But her body didn’t care about any of those things. Her body only cared that his was near, and that the time for fulfillment was now.

  Still she hesitated, uncertain, afraid.

  Then his hoarse whisper washed over her. “Don’t go. Stay with me. Be with me.”

  She shivered and took a single step forward. That was all he needed to gather her in his arms and kiss her as only he could. He tasted like cherries on snow. She drowned in him, his scent, his heat—his need as overwhelming as her own.

  They had done no more than kiss and dance, yet his body was familiar, his touch an old friend. In his arms she would always be safe. She’d been alone so long—a lifetime, it seemed—but she hadn’t known how lonely she was. Touching Joe showed her life would never be the same without him.

  He flicked the lights, plunging the room into darkness. She sighed with relief from the glare of the light, the heat of the bulb, in a kitchen now cool with silvered moonlight.

  She’d wanted to touch his chest since the night she’d seen him in this kitchen, wearing nothing but black pants. She tugged his shirt free of his shorts and spread her palms across hard planes of flesh and soft twirls of hair.

  His moan filled her mouth, igniting her. His lips traced her jaw; his teeth scraped her neck. Hands shadowed the path of hers, touching her belly, fluttering across her ribs, thumb tracing the line of her bra.

  The world dipped and swirled as he picked her up. Her fingers clasped his shoulders. He stared into her face. Even in the darkness his eyes shone blue, his face appeared intense; yet his mouth looked full and vulnerable, still wet from hers.

  “Do you want this?” he asked, and though his voice was rough with arousal, his w
ords were soft with uncertainty.

  The voice of reason, to which she’d always listened, chattered away in a distant corner of her mind, telling her to run, hide, go home and save herself from disaster. She was asking for trouble such as she had never imagined if she allowed this man to touch her. He was the enemy of her dream—a man just like Ray.

  But he wasn’t like Ray—or, at least, not anymore. Why did she have to think so much, anyway? Joe Scalotta made her feel like a woman, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like anything other than a mom, a teacher or a coach.

  The long, contemplative silence hung over them saying more than words ever could. He shifted as if to put her down, and the panic that filled her at the thought of leaving without finishing what had simmered between them for weeks revealed a decision made long ago.

  She put her palms on his rough cheeks and yanked his mouth back to hers, kissing him with an abandon she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Then she traced her lips to his ear, licked the lobe, blew on the moist heat and whispered, “I want this. I want you.”

  He didn’t waste any more time with talk—she liked that in a man—but strode from the room and up the staircase. She might be short, but she wasn’t that light, yet he carried her up the stairs like an oversize Rhett Butler.

  Evie stifled a giggle at that image. She doubted Joe would find it funny. He’d no doubt think Rhett a wimp for not dumping Scarlett on her pretty, Southern behind. Evie thought that herself, but she’d always liked the staircase scene. Especially the part where Scarlet woke up the next morning with a great big smile on her face.

  A sigh escaped her lips, and she let her head sag to his shoulder, where it fit perfectly into the crook of his neck. She held on to his broad shoulders, enjoying the play of the well-defined muscles beneath her hands.

  He stepped into his bedroom and kicked shut the door. The slam reverberated down her spine. He let her legs go, and she slid down his body, cloth against cloth, flesh against flesh, until they stood together, hips aligned to thighs. Then she put her lips upon his.

  The darkness made her bold, reminded her of secret sinful fantasies she’d enjoyed many a long, lonely night. His clothes disappeared with a few tugs, and she learned the contours of his body with a scandalous exploration of fingertips, lips and tongue.

  From the first, his body had fascinated her—big and hard, smooth and rough. She could not find a spare ounce of flesh anywhere—and she looked everywhere.

  He quivered beneath her touch. She closed her palm along his length, and he went rigid, grabbed her wrist and growled, “Enough.”

  With a quickness that belied his size, he flipped her onto the bed and covered her fully clothed body with his own naked form. “My turn,” he whispered. Then his body shifted and stretched, a tap sounded and a soft glow filled the room.

  Evie blinked and moaned. “No lights.”

  “Yes, lights. I want to see that body I’ve been dreaming about every night.”

  The hum of arousal in her that had become a screech of need as his nude body pressed into hers suddenly went silent.

  He kissed her temple. “What’s the matter, babe?”

  She snorted. “Babe? Please, do I look like a babe?”

  He kissed her until she forgot what she’d been annoyed about, then he put his mouth to her ear and murmured, “You look like a babe to me.”

  His hips flexed, and her body responded with undiluted lust to the call of his—hardness to softness, hill to valley, man to woman.

  She gave up trying to resist the inevitable. “Babe, honey, whatever. Could you turn off the light?”

  “Nope.” He rolled to the side and busied his hands with the star-spangled buttons of her shirt. She grabbed his fingers, and he lifted his gaze to hers, eyebrows raised in question.

  “Uh, you see, well…” She didn’t know how to explain that she wasn’t a babe, not really, and that his fantasies about her body were going to turn to nightmares when he got a good gander.

  “What?” He twined their fingers together. “Tell me.”

  “All right.” She gave up with a sigh that sounded sad even to her own ears. “You’re so perfect. Your body is incredible. I love touching it.”

  “I love when you touch me.”

  “And I love looking at you.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’d love to have a look at you.”

  How could he joke at a time like this? She was out-and-out terrified, so she turned her head aside, away from his amused gaze. “I look better in my clothes, Joe.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How would you know?”

  Fear always made her angry. She pulled her hand from his and would have sat up, but he threw a big, heavy arm across her chest.

  “Uh-uh-uh. No running away this time. I’m in no condition to chase you down.”

  She stared at the ceiling fan above his bed so she wouldn’t have to gaze at him. “Have you ever seen a woman’s body after she’s had a few kids—one pregnancy a set of twins?”

  “Can’t say that I have—” another button popped open on her shirt “—but I’d like to.”

  “It’s not pretty. I’ve got stretch marks.” She forced her eyes from the lazily turning fan and back to him. “My butt resembles a road map.”

  His lips twitched. “This I have to see.”

  “It’s not funny, Joe,” she whispered, mortified.

  “Shh,” he said, and the sound soothed her, as did the desire in his eyes.

  He still wanted her, and she’d told him the entire ugly truth. But telling wasn’t the same as seeing, so she braced herself. No man had viewed her body since she’d hit the other side of thirty.

  He held her eyes as he finished unbuttoning her shirt, then flipped the front catch on her bra with an expert twist. The garment flew open, and her breasts swelled free. His gaze lowered from her face to her chest. The slow revolutions of the fan cast a languid breeze across the bed, cooling her heated flesh, making her nipples tighten, then throb.

  He stared at her for so long that she wanted to squirm. Then his ice-blue eyes raised to hers. “You mean these silver strands, here?”

  His calloused fingertip traced the slope of one breast to illustrate the question. In answer, she shivered. His head lowered, and his tongue traced the path of his finger, along the fullness, then over the peak. His lips closed on a sensitive nipple, and she gasped.

  “And here?” His tongue followed another silver trail. “They make me hot. You make me hot.” He traced every line, every curve, every mark upon her body, until she forgot what she’d been worried about in the first place.

  “We have a saying in my business—marks of the battle make you a man. These make you a woman, Evie. They’re something to be proud of, never ashamed. You got them creating life, and there’s nothing more of a battle, or a victory, than that.”

  He left her for just a minute, and the drawer on his nightstand opened, then shut. A second more, and he rose above her, joined himself with her.

  He made her feel wanted, needed, cherished and beautiful. He made her feel things she had not felt in a long time—in a lifetime.

  Faster and faster, harder, deeper he thrust, and together they shattered, shivering, shaking, sated.

  He pulled her into his arms, yanked the cover over them both. Then he smoothed the tangles from her hair, rubbing his fingers along her scalp and soothing her nearly to sleep.

  How long they lay there, content in each other’s arms, she didn’t know. For once, Evie let her worries go and lived in the moment. His bed was as big as he was, comfortable and warm. She stretched out her legs, curled against his side and looked into his beautiful blue eyes.

  “You know what I dream?” he asked.

  She smiled. “I think you just gave me the X-rated version.”

  His laugh held true joy, something she had never heard there before.

  “I didn’t mean that kind of dream. I meant life dreams.”

  R
ubbing her cheek along his chest, she reveled in the texture of his hair along her skin, his heat against her body and his scent filling her soul.

  “I’ve always wanted a houseful of kids. Boys, girls—doesn’t matter.” Her eyes popped open, and she stopped her explorations. “I like babies. I have this great memory of Toni right after her bath and just before bed, all warm and compact in one of those sleepers, smelling like baby shampoo and powder.”

  He hugged Evie close, but she just lay there like a lump. He didn’t notice. “I love them when they’re like that. I want that again. Not that I had it much before. I think at least three—not more than five. Doesn’t that sound like fun? How old are you, anyway?”

  Evie had gone from sexual satisfaction and happy dreams of a secret affair, straight to shivering, shaking fury. “What am I—your broodmare?” She got up and started searching for her clothes.

  “What’s the matter? What did I say?”

  “I thought you’d changed. The way you’ve been acting since you came to town … I really thought you’d changed.” She found her shorts tangled in the plain, brown bedspread. “But I should have known better. I should have known a guy like you would want to keep me barefoot and pregnant for the rest of my days.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You!” She shoved her arms into her shirt and nearly tore the sleeve free. “What you just said.”

  “That’s my dream. Why are you shouting?”

  “Don’t include me in your nightmare, buster. I’ve already lived it. I’ve had three kids, and I’ve raised them alone. I’m just getting to the fun part, and you want me to go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars?”

  “I don’t know what’s set you off. What did you think this was about?” He made a sweeping gesture to include the tousled bed.

  “Sex. Great sex.”

  “It wasn’t just sex, and you know it.”

  “Do I? Are you saying you love me?”

  “I don’t know.” His voice was as uncertain as his words, but when he looked away, she knew the truth. Why did that hurt so much? It wasn’t as if she loved him, either.