Hoops

by Patricia McLinn

  An image of the players huddled around C.J. during a time-out with twelve seconds left in the game and the other team up by two points came to Carolyn’s mind. She’d seen C.J. emphatically drawing on his clipboard. Ellis had looked at him for just an instant in surprise, then had nodded.

  “I gave him a play and told him to run it.” Frustration added gravel to his drawl. “The guys ran it just the way I told them, and it was the wrong damn play. If I’d just let ’em go, they might’ve had a chance.”

  He swore more vehemently. “When I played I could accept a loss, as long as I’d done my damnedest out there. But that’s not enough in coaching. I’m not just responsible to myself. I’m responsible to those players. When I make a mistake I cheat them. All of them.”

  “Aren’t you being hard on yourself? What would you have said to them if they’d run a play that didn’t work? What would you have said to Ellis?”

  “Thanks, Carolyn.” He faced her, and for a moment, she wondered if he would kiss her again. She didn’t have time to decide if she wanted him to before he turned away again. “But that’s not really the point. What kind of coach tells his players one thing, then does something else.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she murmured an answer. “Human.”

  “I tell them to use their minds so they’ll know how to make their own decisions. So they’ll know how to evaluate a situation in a split second and come up with the best way to handle it. That’s what coaching’s about.”

  Carolyn understood. That was how she viewed teaching. It wasn’t teaching specific facts that gave her pleasure, but helping develop someone’s skills so he could learn on his own.

  “That’s something Coach Gates and Coach Kenner sure as hell taught me. But first chance I get, I grab that decision right away from them. And Ellis just looks at me and says, ‘Okay, Coach.’ ” He looked away from her. “Some coach I am.”

  A need to console him moved her hand to rest lightly just above his knee. “Why don’t you ask your players what kind of coach they think you are before you go condemning yourself?”

  His eyes came back to her. Their warmth began to kindle to heat. His hand covered hers, moving it a little higher on his thigh and holding it here. The lean strength she’d seen that day in the gym stretched taut and hard under her fingers now.

  She’d intended the gesture to comfort; it had turned into something different. For both of them.

  Memories resurfaced—his muscular abdomen under the cropped sweatshirt that day in the gym, the feel of his hard chest under her hands as his lips tempted hers in Angelo’s parking lot. Not looking at him, she slid her hand slowly out from under his, forming an inadvertent caress. She looked anywhere but at him, searching for a distraction from thoughts she was trying not to have.

  “You know, you were right,” he said.

  She welcomed the change of subject, but his low words confused her. “Right about what?”

  “That play. It was a foul. That guy hacked Ellis.”

  Nonplussed, she stared at him. “You heard me? How could you hear me? Everybody was screaming at the same time.”

  “What was it you called the ref? Jerk, wasn’t it?”

  “How could you possibly hear me out of all those people?” she demanded.

  “I seem to be tuned in to you.”

  He’d been teasing at first. But he’d meant those last words. She knew it from the tone. And the intensity of his blue eyes. And the way his breathing changed.

  Her own breathing skittered, sending a tingling through oxygen-starved veins. “I . . I . . ” She couldn’t say anything as long as he looked at her that way. Turning away, she reached for the car door handle. “Thanks for the ride, C.J. Good night.” She escaped the car and him.

  From her living room window she watched him drive away and wondered if the distinction between cautiousness and cowardice might really be a blurred line.

  Chapter Six

  The second-floor corridor in Ripon Hall was cool and quiet after the student newspaper office, where voices shouted, phones rang and computers whirred—all at top speed. The next issue wouldn’t be published for eight days, but with Thanksgiving three days away, not even the executive editor wanted to spend the weekend in the office.

  Carolyn paused just outside the sturdy wooden door and enjoyed the peaceful contrast to the journalistic frenzy she’d left behind. A few steps down the dimly lit hall brought her almost to the stairwell.

  Into the quiet came quick, sure footsteps on the stairs leading from the third floor. She glanced up and recognized C.J. smiling down at her. Her answering smile was spontaneous.

  “See what I mean about being tuned in, Professor? I even find you in dark, deserted places like this.” He hesitated, but so briefly she might have missed it. Then his smile frosted into one of determination as he joined her on the landing. “No, I forgot. You don’t hold with that ‘tuned in’ idea, do you?”

  Hold with it? How could she know when the idea of his being tuned in to her was scrambling her thoughts?

  “What are you doing here, Professor?” he asked before she had any chance to consider either her own pleasure at seeing him or his abruptly changed mood.

  “I dropped off an article on the seminar in England that the Gazette wanted to publish.”

  Belatedly, his question pierced her confusion. Behind his neutrality she heard what amounted to a demand for an answer—to a question he had no right to ask.

  Her good feelings toward him disappeared in a rush of indignation. She didn’t care one bit about talking to the media about the basketball team, but she wouldn’t be dictated to by anyone. If he wanted to pick a quarrel—and she could almost believe he intended just that—she wouldn’t deny him. “Why? What business is it of yours?”

  “Since that’s what you were doing, it’s none of my business.” He slipped a hand under her elbow, apparently to indicate a return to friendliness. But the gesture didn’t mask his cool attitude.

  She pulled away. “And if that wasn’t what I was doing here?” she asked with deceptive calm.

  “If it wasn’t what you were doing here, I’d have to make sure you weren’t here to talk to the press—even the Ashton University Gazette—about my team without my permission. And direction.”

  “Your team? Your direction? Your permission?” Icy indignation solidified around each word. Who did he think he was?

  The man she’d eaten with at Angelo’s and glimpsed the other night in his car had vanished; in his stead stood an arrogant, tight-jawed jock.

  He descended two steps before he seemed to realize she’d stopped for good. He turned and faced her, ascending one step to bring them nearly eye to eye, although he remained an inch or two above her. “Yes.”

  “What right do you think you have—”

  “I have the right of knowing what I’m talking about.” He overrode her without raising his voice. “Listen, Professor Trent, you’re into a world here that you know absolutely nothing about. You’re not going to run into your scholarly magazine types on the basketball beat.”

  A short sound of impatience escaped him while she maintained a rigid silence.

  “Not all the reporters are bad guys,” he said, “but even the ones who aren’t are looking for one thing—a story. If the media wants to talk to you about the guys, it’s to get a story about the team. Not because they’re students. Not because they’re good kids or not good kids. But because they’re basketball players. And that’s my world. That’s where I make the decisions. Not you. Understand?”

  They glared at each other.

  She knew that whatever she tried to say at this moment would bear no resemblance to the well-reasoned, measured statements she expected of herself. So she held her tongue.

  “Understand?” he repeated.

  Not contradicting him this time stretched her self-control to the limit.

  “Good.” He nodded as if she’d satisfied him, breaking the stare. When he looked up again, a dry sha
dow of his grin was starting its crooked path. “So, I’ll see you around, Professor.” He nodded, a farewell as well as an acknowledgment of her anger, and headed down.

  She waited for him to disappear so she could vent her fury. She longed to kick something—a wall if not C.J. Draper.

  At the landing halfway down the flight of stairs, he stopped a moment, looking over the banister. He glanced back at her, then again at something beyond the banister, as if trying to weigh the possible impact they’d have on each other. He seemed almost bemused as he shook his head once, then turned and came back to where she still stood immobile. “C’mon, Professor, let’s go out the other way.”

  The odd tightness was gone from his face and voice; the amusement that now tinted them infuriated her. She jerked her arm away. How could he laugh?

  “I’m going this way. Good night, Mr. Draper.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Professor.” He had a hold on her arm again, preventing her from taking the last step to the landing.

  “What are you doing? Let go of me.”

  “Shhh. Not so loud.”

  “Why should I be quiet?”

  He gave a deep sigh. “If you’d cooperate . . . but I guess you won’t be satisfied . . .”

  She couldn’t shake his grasp on her arm, but he gave her enough slack to advance the last step to the landing. The idea of refusing to look over the railing just to thwart him tempted her momentarily. But such childish pleasure was beneath her, she sternly told herself. Better to go along for now so that he’d release her before the warmth of his hand penetrated right through her coat and blouse to skin that was already traitorously softening.

  She peered down to the dark hallway below them and barely distinguished a couple entwined on a couch that served as a reception area for several tiny offices. Much too intent on each other to be distracted, they showed no sign of noticing Carolyn or C.J.

  Instinctively she stepped back into the corner of the landing. Her first thought to not disturb the couple quickly gave way to the realization that seeing them disturbed her, reminding her of too many temptations.

  “You should stop them,” she whispered as C.J. followed her into the corner.

  “Me? Why?” he whispered back. He was so close he didn’t need to do more than whisper.

  Why? Because a man held a woman just a stairway away. Kissed and touched. And C.J. Draper stood so close to her she could hear the rhythm of his breathing, could feel the brush of it on her face. He was so big that he cut off the rest of the world. Only this small corner, with the two of them, existed.

  “They probably both have roommates and don’t have anywhere else to go,” he said.

  “They shouldn’t be doing that.” I shouldn’t be thinking what it would be like to do that with you.

  “They’re just doing a little necking.” His broad shoulders deepened the shadows that seemed to swallow her.

  “They shouldn’t be doing that,” she repeated haltingly. She tilted her head back to look up at him.

  “Shouldn’t be doing it here? Or not at all?” C.J. bent closer and looked into her eyes with an intensity that held her.

  She wished he’d look away. Her throat went dry. Swallowing didn’t help. “What do you mean?” Her question had a small crack in the middle.

  “Don’t you believe in necking, Professor?”

  Now he was looking at her lips, and that was worse. She wanted to lick them. She couldn’t, not with his eyes resting on them. Resisting the urge cost her breath, burning her lungs as if she’d been running.

  “I do, Carolyn.” His voice barely had sound. It was just a thought, a desire, hanging in the few molecules of air that separated their lips. “I believe in necking.”

  Carolyn remembered the feel of his lips from their kiss at Angelo’s. The warmth and firmness of them against hers.

  She wasn’t aware she’d tipped her head back farther to receive his kiss until she felt its light touch. Then she wasn’t aware of anything except the texture of his mouth moving on hers, the warmth of his hands and arms underneath her coat, wrapping around her, urging her body to curve into his.

  So big, yet so gentle. He enveloped her, the strength of his arms cradling her firmly against him.

  He held her tightly as his lips grazed her ear, then traveled down the side of her throat. She heard him breathe her name before his mouth came back to hers.

  His tongue traced the outline of her lips, then slid along their seam, patiently requesting entrance. She parted her lips because that was what he wanted . . . no, because that was what she wanted.

  Enticingly his tongue slid over the smooth, sharp line of her teeth. He explored the intimacy she allowed him with luxurious leisure. This could go on forever, he seemed to be telling her.

  And as kiss followed kiss, she wanted it to. But she also wanted more. She needed more. She stretched up to wind her arms around his neck. Her body pressed against his so that she felt the power of his thighs against hers, the hardness of his chest against the swelling softness of her breasts.

  The first hesitant touch of her tongue to his shocked her with waves of longing. Thought was for plodding along the earth. This took her up to the sky, circling around and around, higher and higher. She could only hang on.

  Her fingers raked the hair at the back of his neck, urging him closer, closer. The warmth of his hand on the bare skin of her back fed her senses, but with no remembrance of his easing her blouse loose from her slacks to slip underneath it.

  His tongue plunging deeper and deeper into her mouth drew a groan of mingled satisfaction and frustration that she didn’t recognize as her own. The swift climb left her lightheaded—and wanting still more.

  He pulled back to frame her face with his long hands. She felt the slight roughness of calluses against the tender skin of her cheeks. He tilted her head back. She stared into the desire that he made no effort to hide and the question in his eyes that no amount of studying would give her an answer to. And she felt the beginnings of vertigo.

  She glanced away and the dizziness rushed in.

  “No.” She couldn’t get enough oxygen, not with the hardness of his body still pressing against her. “We shouldn’t.” She twisted away, leaning her right shoulder against the wall as she struggled to drag air into her lungs.

  “What’s the matter, Professor? Did your brain kick in?”

  “Don’t.”

  He hated the harshness in his own voice, hated it even more when he heard the confusion in hers. He knew what had happened as clearly as if she’d told him. He’d seen the fear in her eyes when she’d opened them and seen how far she could fall. He’d been up there with her, but that wasn’t enough for her, so she’d brought them both tumbling down.

  Hs anger sparked from the friction of coming so suddenly back to earth. Gently he straightened the collar of her green silk blouse that his urgent hands had disturbed. Then he stroked her hair away from her neck.

  He knew he’d threatened the delicate balance between them when he’d asked what she was doing here. And he’d expected her to react that way to his telling her to stay away from the media. Hell, maybe that was why he’d done it. He’d been so damn pleased to see her, like a high school kid with a crush. And he’d felt like such a fool; just one reference to his being tuned in to her and she’d frozen. So he’d stepped on her toes good and hard with his size fourteens. Last time she’d run away; this time he’d given her a push.

  Oh, the warning about reporters had needed saying. He couldn’t risk her inadvertently hurting the guys just because hearing her laugh made his veins burn. But he could have done it another way, without kicking whatever remained of their truce to smithereens.

  The players needed her; that was what he had to remember. He had to work with her for the good of the team; that was what was important. Then how come he felt like he’d just lost ten games single-handedly?

  “No, maybe we shouldn’t,” he said softly as he drew away from her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t hav
e . . .”

  Damn, he didn’t want to say he was sorry. He didn’t regret kissing her. He wanted to hold her, stroke her hair, tell her everything would be okay. But who was he to try to tempt her out from behind that marble mask? He hadn’t come here for that. His top priority had to remain the opportunity he’d worked for all these years. He knew that.

  She’d retreat behind the marble now. Just as well. Only it wouldn’t stop this damn ache for her.

  He knew that, too.

  * * * *

  She thought it out that night, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. The first step was to gather the facts.

  Fact: when she closed her eyes, she could hear his voice, low and soft in her ear, and feel the stroke of his hand, tender and soothing on her hair.

  Her lips tightened grimly.

  Fact: what bothered her about the night they’d scouted the game wasn’t so much falling asleep on his shoulder—that could happen to anyone lulled by the warmth and rhythm of a car—but that for a moment between waking and moving she’d known exactly where she was and what was happening, and she’d allowed it. More than that—reveled in it.

  Fact: she’d made no move to stop him from kissing her outside Angelo’s the other night.

  Fact: she was more than a recipient of his kiss tonight; she was a participant. He’d apologized... I shouldn’t have. But he’d done nothing alone. She’d welcomed the pressure of his lips on hers, the texture of his tongue, the heat of his body. She’d responded to it.

  She felt a burning emptiness at the center of her, an emptiness she’d tried to ignore for weeks. Instead it had grown, spurred on by thoughts of C.J.

  Enough facts. The obvious conclusion: she was attracted to C.J. Draper.

  She was a grown woman. It was all very natural that she have sexual desires. That she should want a man’s kisses, the solid warmth of his body, the shiver of his caresses, and all the things they promised.

  Natural. All natural.

  She twisted onto her side and stared unseeingly at the red glow of the digital clock.

  Natural but not reasonable.