“Mikey!” McClellan called, his eyes practically glued to Rachel’s ass. His friend, already a mass of musculature that gave him a strangely rounded look, seemed to be growing stronger and bigger every day. Michael’s knee twinged as if jealous. “This was the best idea you’ve had in a long time.”
“Who knew you were the brains of the operation?” Julian added with a grin. He threw himself on the ground and panted heavily. “All this time, we’ve been trying to haul your giant ass over the course. What we needed was a lightweight.”
While the rest of the men followed Julian onto a groaning heap on the ground, Rachel began stretching. First her arms up over her head, breasts jutting toward Michael in a manner that demanded his complete attention. Then she bent over, touching her toes and twisting her hips in a way that seemed to defy the mechanics of human movement.
Nick’s eyes practically rolled out of their sockets until Michael reached over and slapped him on the back of the head.
“How is it you have any energy at all, kid?” he asked, emphasizing the word kid. Little punks needed to learn their place around here. “I thought you were helping Jennings all this week.”
“I am!” he protested, rubbing his head with a scowl. At least he’d taken the hint, though, and turned his eyes elsewhere. “We took it easy today.”
“Easy?” Peterson asked. Roared, more like it. The man had been in a pissy mood all day. He’d been late to rehearsal, and when he finally did show up, it was primarily to yell at Larson and sulk in the corner. Most of the crew chalked it up to preshow jitters. Most of the crew except the Hewitt women and Michael, anyway.
Michael knew it was the Nick stuff. Something about that situation was really getting to Peterson lately.
Fortunately, Molly had acted like a balm on him, and he’d instantly become more calm once she cooed up at him. Rachel had seen the interaction and went from some kind of crazy-hot Egyptian in a sheet to a furious, smoldering bundle of fury. Still hot. Even more so, if that was at all possible. She’d looked very much like a woman in need of a distraction—hard, fast and complete with hair-pulling.
Michael had provided it, of course.
Wardrobe malfunction—worked every time. He’d spent far too many years prancing around in a kilt not to know how to work a skirt to his advantage. As he leaped across the stage about to go to battle, he let his sword clatter to the ground and snag the clasp of his skirt as it went down. He caught it only at the last minute, saving the entire crew from an eyeful of his boys in all their glory.
There was something about a vulnerable, almost-naked man that worked magic on a woman. Usually, they swooned or came up with excuses to touch him—on the arm, the back, a quick twist of the nipple when they thought no one was looking.
Not Rachel.
She threw a piece of the set at his head.
It wasn’t a heavy piece—it was actually a giant block of foam painted to look like marble—but there was enough force behind her arm that it sailed across the stage and thunked him gently on the forehead.
“What was that for, woman?” he asked, adopting the same, dramatic theatrical voice Dominic had coached him on. The trick of it was to use all of his lungs. Fill the damn things up as full as they would go and push it out to the last word. It was a pretty good workout, actually.
“Stop showing off,” she returned. Her own voice was overloud to the point where he suspected she wanted an audience. Public spectacles, huh? He could accommodate that. “We’re here to do a job. Not preen.”
He’d put on a perplexed look, loving the way her face darkened even more. Playing dumb always seemed to infuriate her. “Isn’t preening when you pull your dress down so everyone can see your cleavage better?”
“Oh, like that’s any different than you thumping your chest so everyone is sure to notice your man boobs.”
“Fine. If you’re bothered so much by me upstaging you, why don’t you do the same? Whip off your shirt, Rachel. Do it right here. We’ll have a contest. See whose pecs are better.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, barbarian? Well, too bad. I didn’t get to this point in my life by taking off my clothes and making friends and pretending to be some overgrown, overly cheerful—”
He interrupted her with a loud laugh. “Don’t you worry, Ms. Hewitt. Making friends is something no one here would accuse you of.”
With each insult, they drew closer and closer to one another, until they were almost toe to toe, gold Egyptian sandal to rough, leather Gladiator wear. Her chin tilted up in defiance, her eyes sparkled with wrath. Peterson and Molly were all but forgotten by this time, and the wrath belonged solely to him.
He basked in it.
“I’m only here because you asked me to be,” he said. His voice was still loud, but he’d curbed a little of the resonance of it. “If you want me to leave, say the word and I’m gone.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not fair. I’m thinking about more than just myself. I’m thinking about the whole production team.”
“Are you? Funny. I didn’t know you were aware there were other people here, working extra hours away from their families just to make you look good.”
With a heavy snort of breath, Rachel reached up. He thought she might have been going to slap him, so he remained perfectly still, fully willing to let her have her moment. Instead, she ripped off her headpiece, sending little hair pins—and her hair—flying in all directions.
“Why, Rachel Hewitt,” Michael said, mockery pursing his lips. “Are you going to try and kiss me?”
“No.” She stamped her foot, angling it square on his practically bare foot. He barely even registered it. “This thing weighs a ton, and I can’t look up at your stupid face if it’s going to keep slipping off.”
“Here. Let me.” He lifted it gently out of her hand. “You can look at my stupid face all you want now. Is this the point where you’re going to kiss me?”
“How many times do I have to say it?” she seethed. “You. Are. A. Cretin.”
“Suit yourself,” he replied with a shrug. “But I’m getting tired of having to do all the work around here.”
He barely gave her enough time to let an irritated mewl escape her throat before putting an arm around her waist and pulling her against him. The mewl turned to a gasp as her entire upper body pressed against his bare chest, which he knew was hot to the touch. He felt hot to the touch, his blood pulsing with the energy of the fight, and now with the sensation of Rachel finally yielding.
Amidst a round of applause that echoed through the theater, he brought his lips to hers and captured them in a searing kiss. He let the headpiece clatter to the ground and wrapped his free arm around her back, crushing her to him. The mewls were back now, but they were evident to no one but him as he captured each one and returned it, smoothly and slowly in the way he already knew drove her crazy.
The applause turned into catcalls, so Michael pulled away and steeled himself for what he knew was coming.
“How dare you!”
He hid a smile. There was no other way Rachel could let that kiss end. Saving face, he believed it was called.
“Who do you think you are?” she called, turning on her heel and storming away. But she’d left her giant wig thing and had to turn around to get it. He watched, smirking, as she did her best to keep a semblance of control. “And stop looking so smug. You aren’t that good of a kisser.”
“Then we’ll keep practicing,” Michael promised. “That is what this was, right? Rehearsal? For our kissing scene?”
This time, he ducked out of the way as she swung her helmet up at him. That thing really did look heavy.
The rest of the dress rehearsal had gone well—at least from his side of things. He was no connoisseur of the theater arts, but even he had to admit that Rachel made a damn good Cleopatra, especially when she looked like she wanted to roast his head on a pitchfork.
In fact, she was still reeling with that same anger and irritation now. She l
ooked up from her stretches on the ground and glared at Michael.
“So this is how it works? You stand there telling everyone what to do, and they just do it?”
Peterson, who up until that moment had been working hard to stay out of her way, agreed. “She’s right. I get that you’re down for the count, buddy, but you can go easy on the coach crap for a little while. And I still haven’t heard an explanation from you, Nick. What do you mean Jennings took it easy on you?”
“Lay off, Eric,” Nick muttered. “I don’t need you watching everything I do every minute of the day.”
“Trouble, boys?” Rachel asked coolly.
“It’s none of your business,” Peterson muttered. To Michael, he added, “Talk to Jennings about this, okay?”
Michael forced a calm smile. There were way too many tempers flaring right now. Mud, fists, brothers, a gorgeous woman—he didn’t need to add his own to the mix.
“If I know Jennings, this is the calm before the storm. Take it easy tonight, buddy. The old man probably has a whole herd of cows for you to butcher tomorrow. So relax, Peterson, and let me enjoy my brief stint as Master and Commander. And you, woman.” He turned to Rachel with the biggest grin of all. “I want you on the field. I’ve got some one-on-one work I want to do with you.”
Everyone seemed far too exhausted to argue, which was fine with Michael. He was getting tired of being everyone’s mother all the time.
“It’s kind of been a long day, Michael, and tomorrow is opening night,” Rachel said warily. Her eyes were shifty and wouldn’t land anywhere near Michael’s face. That was the look of Rachel avoiding him.
He knew it well.
“Can’t we do this next week?” she added.
“Nope.” Michael blew the whistle around his neck. Loud and very near Rachel’s ear. “A deal’s a deal. If you’re taking my place in the Top Warrior Race, I need to make sure you can fill my shoes. And I don’t know if you’ve looked yet, but I have very big…shoes.”
To her credit—and to Michael’s growing sense of respect for the woman—Rachel didn’t back down from the challenge. Nor did she sneak a peek at his shoes or any other measurable portion of a man’s anatomy. In fact, she took his hand in a move that seemed downright friendly, and he pulled her to her feet.
“I can give you thirty more minutes, and then we’re done.”
“I only need five,” Michael said confidently. The other guys must have known he had the one-on-one combat training planned, because they all remained on the sidelines to watch.
He led Rachel to the line of the soccer goal, where the repetitive motions of a goalie had worn the ground down to nothing but dirt and mud and jagged pebbles. They stood practically toe to toe, and Rachel immediately crouched and tensed, her hands up in a very good boxing stance.
“What makes you think I’m going to fight you?” Michael asked, looking down on her with some amusement. Cheers from the sidelines changed the direction of his mood, and he swore. Those bastards took all the fun out of things. “Did they tell you this part was coming? Dammit! It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“Some surprise,” Rachel said, firming her stance. She stole a glance up, and there was laughter in her eyes. “Just so you know. I don’t go down easy.”
Michael winked. “As long as you go down, I’m not complaining.”
As he’d hoped, she caught the full inflection of his meaning and immediately stood up, outraged. He used the advantage it gave him and shot his hand out, grabbing her by the wrist and twisting it up and behind her back before she knew what was happening.
Her position was totally vulnerable. She stood pinned, immobile against the length of him, and he could control her every movement by the amount of pressure he applied to her arm. He wasn’t at full strength, obviously, and had taken care to keep his bad knee out of her reach, but he was still master of the situation. It was hard not to enjoy it in every sense of the word. Mentally, emotionally. Physically. In fact, if she didn’t stop wiggling her ass into his crotch—
He released her, and she fell away, panting heavily. When she whirled around to face him, Michael half expected her to rail out at him for taking advantage of his size to fight unfairly. But she steeled her face and stretched the muscles of her neck.
“Okay. Do that again, slower this time.”
“Really?”
The look she gave him was one he’d long since come to recognize—it was the special face she reserved for when she thought he was being a really big idiot.
“How am I going to learn if you don’t take me through the steps? So, according to what the guys told me, it’s first man pinned to the ground for ten seconds loses, right?”
“Those are the official rules. Points off for foul behavior.”
Her eyes sparked with a flash that could only signify trouble. “Foul behavior?”
Michael instantly shifted and went to cover his groin. “You know what I’m talking about. My man tonsils stay out of this. Official rules.”
“Michael—you wound me. I would never resort to such underhanded tactics.” She sobered. “At least not like this. Not in a fair fight.”
Before he could reflect on her sudden change, she crouched. “Okay. Do it again.”
He did, but it was much more difficult than he expected not to react to her continual nearness. His whole life had been spent grappling with men on the field and with women in bed. Mixing the two parts of his life was new—and the fact that it was Rachel only complicated things. She was a good student, eager to learn and willing to give the workout her entire attention.
But she was also someone he was beginning to care much too deeply for, and that was where Michael started to get a little fuzzy. It wasn’t just fun and games. It wasn’t about making her mad and riling her up and watching the sparks fly.
It was something else.
And Michael knew, with a tightness in his chest, that even several hours of wrestling in the mud with her wasn’t going to be enough. Not for him.
Not anymore.
Chapter Eighteen
Opening Night
Rachel crawled out of bed the next morning certain her bones had been surgically removed and implanted into a body that wasn’t quite large enough. Each movement of her arms and legs felt like she forcing them into a vise, and no amount of gentle stretching would stop them from screaming at her to remain immobile.
Between the run, the headpiece and the training yesterday, Rachel was pretty sure she’d killed her muscles. All of them.
“Good morning!” Molly called brightly, emerging from her bedroom all dewy-eyed and full of happiness.
“Morning, Molly,” she said grudgingly. “Your smile is giving me a headache.”
Molly linked arms with her and practically dragged her to the kitchen island. At least she had the good sense to prop Rachel up on a stool and bring her a cup of coffee before starting to chatter about the day. Rachel mostly tuned her out. Wrapping her hands around the cup was agony, even her fingers protesting the extra exertion. Talking to her sister was beyond her range of abilities right now.
“So I figure we’ll head to the theater around ten and start—”
There were plans made, Rachel knew, most of them involving the two of them and details like hair and makeup and costumes and sending a pair tickets their mother would most likely never use. Food was consumed, and Rachel was placed in a car, her seat belt pulled carefully across her lap for her.
“What did they do to you yesterday?” Molly asked, laughing all the while. Rachel wasn’t sure if she answered or not, but when they walk-hobbled into the theater’s back doors and saw Michael, Molly dissolved into peals of laughter that made Rachel long to fill her ears with cotton.
“You guys are the worst pair of leading actors I’ve ever seen in my life!”
And then she left, leaving Rachel sinking onto the couch next to Michael, who was so unruffled at the prospect of opening night, he looked as though he’d been sitting there for mon
ths, his skin slowly grafting into the upholstery.
“You look like shit,” he offered. “Was I too much for you last night?”
“Very funny.” She didn’t have the energy to insult him correctly. “I don’t know why I let you goad me into it. I’m supposed to get rest before an opening night, not be beaten to a bloody pulp.”
“If it helps, I think you might have actually bruised one of my fingers a little,” he offered. Rachel reached over to shove Michael in the arm, but he moved too quickly, and she toppled over into his lap, unable to do more than just fall like a tree in a forest. To her surprise, he used his free arm to half embrace her, holding her comfortably where she landed.
Even more to her surprise, she let him.
It was the sort of position that longtime lovers and couples married a zillion times over favored—the sort of thing that was silly and romantic and for people too stupid to know they were never going to last.
This, though, with Michael and her—it was neither silly nor romantic. She was simply tired, and he was a perfectly shaped warm and willing pillow. There was nothing more to it than that. Nothing.
“You must really be in pain today,” he murmured. “Unless this is some sort of secret plan to murder me?”
“Can you be not sarcastic for five minutes? I need a nap. I need twelve naps.” She shifted her head so she was peering up at him. “I still say you’re lousy at a lot of things, but you’re a hell of a coach, Coach.”
The grin that crossed Michael’s face at the compliment warmed her like she was basking in the sun. And bask she did, letting herself fall into the comfort of his lap—the comfort of him—for a few long, luxurious minutes.
The snap of plastic pulled her out of a near sleep. When she opened her eyes, it was to find a little baggie, complete with pills ominously white, small and unmarked, dangling in front of her face.
“What are those?” she asked, struggling to sit up. Her stomach muscles protested by igniting a fire that spread outward into her internal organs. She gave up and let herself lie there some more. Weakness and futility—and all in a man’s lap. She hardly recognized herself.
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