by Jill Shalvis
“That was fast.”
Mark nodded, and she understood that he’d expedited the building process. He’d pulled strings, spent his own money, done whatever he’d had to do to get his dad back into a place, and the knowledge had something quivering low in her belly.
And other parts, too, the parts that he’d had screaming for him last night. Don’t go there, she told herself. There’s no need to go there. Not with a man who was only here for one month at the most, a known player, and…and possessing the absolute power to embed himself deep inside her, and not just physically. He didn’t want her hurt by a guy? Well the joke was on him because there was no one who could hurt her more.
When they got to the heart of the worst of the fire devastation, it was painful to see the blackened dead growth and destroyed homes where once the hills had been so green and alive.
“Damn,” James said. “Damn.”
“Besides doing the sports,” Rainey said quietly, “I run the rec center’s charity projects. We’ve been raising money all year to fund one of the rebuilds, the one you guys have been working on. There was a lotto drawing from the victims, and one lucky family won the place free and clear. We’re going to go notify the winner.”
“Mark has contacts you wouldn’t believe,” James said. “He can snap his fingers and make people drop money out their ass. You should have seen how much money he raised for the Mammoths’ charities over our last break. Maybe he could get another house funded for you.”
Rainey glanced at Mark, surprised to find him looking a little bit uncomfortable, though he met her gaze and held it. “You good at raising money?” she asked. He was good at raising holy hell, or at least he had been. Probably Mark was good at raising whatever he wanted.
Casey grinned. “Yeah, he’s good. He rented out our favorite club and he had a mud wrestling pit set up right in the center of the place, then invited a bunch of supermodels.”
Rainey could imagine all the wild debauchery that must have gone on in that mud pit, each player getting a model for the night.
Or two…
Just thinking about it made her eye twitch, and she carefully put a finger to the lid to hold it still. “Interesting.”
“Yeah, he raked in some big bucks that night,” Casey said. “Our charities were real happy.”
“Does all your fundraising involve mud pits and centerfolds?”
“Models,” James corrected. “Though centerfolds would have been great too. Hey, Coach, you’ve got a bunch of centerfolds on auto-dial, right? Maybe—”
He trailed off when Casey drew an imaginary line across his throat for the universal “shut it.” “Ix-nay on the enterfolds-say.” Casey jerked his head in Mark’s direction. “He’s trying to impress.”
“No worries,” Rainey said dryly. “I’ve already got my impression. It’s burned in my brain.” She pulled into a trailer park and drove down a narrow street to the end, where she parked in front of a very old, run-down trailer.
“Wow, that’s the smallest trailer I’ve ever seen,” Casey said. “Someone lives here?”
“Six someones,” Rainey said. “We’re here to tell them the good news, that they’ll have a place by late summer.” She smiled. “They’re big hockey fans. Plus,” she said, turning to Mark, “you’ve been coaching their daughter, Pepper.”
The guys unfolded themselves out of her car and she looked them over, realizing that they were dripping with their usual air of privilege. “Do any of you ever look like anything less than a couple of million bucks?” she asked Mark.
James snickered, then choked on it when Mark glared at him. “I’m wearing sweats,” he said calmly. “Same as you.”
“Yes, but mine aren’t flashy,” she said. “Yours are from your corporate sponsor.”
“Rainey, we’re both wearing Nike.”
“Yes, but yours probably cost more than I made last month.”
James grinned. “Actually, you can’t even buy what he’s wearing. They made it just for him.”
Mark let out a breath. “Should I strip?”
“No!” But as they walked through the muddy yard the size of a postage stamp to a tiny metal trailer that had seen better days in the last century, she slid him a look. “What if I’d said yes?” she whispered. “What would you have done?”
“You didn’t say yes.”
“But—”
Mark stopped and stepped into her personal space bubble, bumping up against her as he put his mouth to her ear. “The next time we’re alone,” he said softly, “if you still want me to strip, all you have to do is…instigate. Or, as you so hotly did last night, demand. Careful, you’re going to step on those geraniums.”
She stared down at the flowers in the small pot near her feet, the only thing growing in the yard. They were beautiful, and at any other time it might have amused her that Mark Diego had known the name of the flower when she hadn’t, but she was stuck on the stripping thing. She’d ask him to strip never.
Or later…
And great, now her nipples were hard. She slid him a gaze and found him watching her.
Eyes hot. Ignoring him, she moved to the door. “This trailer’s just a loaner. They lost everything and have been borrowing this place from friends.”
Karen Scott opened the door. She was in her mid-thirties but appeared older thanks to the pinched, worried look on her face, one that no doubt came from losing everything and having no control over an uncertain future.
“Karen,” Rainey said gently. “I have a surprise for you—”
Karen took one look at Casey and James, and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God! Oh my God! You’re—” She pointed at James. “And you! You’re—”
James offered his hand. “James Vasquez.”
“I know!” She bypassed his hand and threw herself at him, giving him a bear hug made all the more amusing because she was about a quarter of James’s size.
Casey was treated to the next hug. “This is unbelievable! We’d heard you were in town and Pepper’s told us about you, Mr. Diego, but I never in a million years thought you’d be visiting us. The kids and John are all still at work—they’re not going to believe this!” She moved back, revealing the interior of the trailer, which was maybe 125 square feet total, a hovel that had been put together in the seventies, and not well. Formica and steel and rusted parts, scrubbed to a desperate cleanliness.
Karen insisted they sit and let her serve them iced tea. Mark, James and Casey sat on the small built-in, fold-out couch, their big, muscled bodies squished into each other. Rainey watched James and Casey look around with horror as they realized that six people lived here. Mark didn’t look surprised or horrified, but there was an empathy and a new gentleness she’d never seen from him before as he watched Karen bustle around the tiny three-by-three kitchenette. She was in perpetual motion, excited about the lovely surprise visit, and finally Rainey made her sit.
“Karen,” she said. “The guys aren’t the surprise. At least not the main one. You remember the housing project. Your name was drawn in the lottery for a new home.”
Karen went utterly still. “What?”
“You and your family should be able to move in by the end of summer.”
Karen gaped at her for a solid ten seconds, before letting out an ear-splitting whoop and throwing herself at Rainey.
They both hit the floor, laughing like loons.
Later, when Karen’s family came home, there were more hugs and even tears. The guys spent some time autographing everything the kids had and then Casey stripped off his hat and sweatshirt and gave them to an ecstatic Pepper, which prompted James to do the same for her brother.
The kids’ sheer joy choked Rainey up. They’d had everything taken from them, everything, and yet they were so resilient. She turned away to give herself a minute, then found her gaze caught and held by Mark’s. She had no idea how it was that he managed to catch her at her weakest every single time, but he did.
He didn’t smirk, didn’t even s
mile. Instead his eyes were steady and warm and somehow…somehow they made her feel the same.
* * *
MARK WAITED UNTIL Casey and James had gotten into the back of Rainey’s car before he took her hand and turned her to face him. “You’re amazing,” he said softly.
“I didn’t do this.”
“You do plenty. For everyone.” He paused. “What do you do for yourself?”
“Tonight I’m going to the ballet.”
Shit. He’d nearly forgotten about her date that wasn’t a date date.
After refusing to let him drive, Rainey dropped him and the guys off at the rec center and promptly vanished. Mark took James and Casey back to the motel, and for the first time since they’d arrived, neither had a word of complaint about where they were staying. Compared with Pepper and her family’s trailer, they had a palace, and James and Casey seemed very aware of it. The three of them ordered Thai takeout, and afterwards, Casey and James wanted to go out.
“Is there a club around here?” James asked. “We need some fun, man.”
“I’ve got just the thing,” Mark said, and drove them to the town’s community theater.
James eyed the marquee and groaned. “No. No way. The last time a chick dragged me to the ballet, I fell asleep and she wouldn’t put out after because she said I was snoring louder than the music. I’m not going in there and you can’t make me.”
“Consider it cultural education,” Mark said, and gave him a shove towards the entry.
“This is about him getting laid,” James whispered to Casey. “And how is that fair?”
“Dude, life’s never fair.”
* * *
AT THE BALLET, Rainey sat with Jacob on one side, Lena on the other, surrounded by coworkers and friends. As the lights went down and the music began and the dancers took the stage, she could feel the tension within her slowly loosening its grip.
Mark wasn’t going to show. Good, she thought. A huge relief hit her.
And the oddest, tiniest, most ridiculous bit of disappointment…
The lights dimmed even further, and Jacob slid his arm over the back of her chair, like he was stretching. But then his fingers settled on her shoulder. She waited for a zing, a thrill. But nothing happened. Relax, she ordered herself. He was cute. Nice. Normal.
His face nuzzled in her hair as he pulled her a little closer, but though she wished with all her might, she felt no zing, and definitely no thrill. When Mark so much as looked at her, her nipples hardened.
“You smell fantastic,” Jacob said, and his hand nearly brushed the outside of her breast.
Her nipples didn’t care.
Straightening, she pulled away with regret. “I’m sorry, can you excuse me a minute? I need to…” She waved vaguely to the exit and rose, stepping over Lena. On the other side of Lena was Rick, and on the other side of Rick sat…
Mark.
Oh, God. When had he showed up? She managed to get past the man without making eye contact, then found her way to the lobby to gulp in some air. A smattering of people were walking around looking glazed. She wondered if they were having a panic attack as well. Bypassing the bathrooms, she beelined straight for the bar. “Wine,” she told the bartender, and slapped her credit card down. “Whatever you have.” It didn’t matter. She rarely drank wine because it tended to relax her right into a coma but she could use a coma about now. What was wrong with her that she’d been in the presence of two perfectly good guys in two days, and neither had produced a zing?
And just knowing that Mark was in the building had her so full of zing, her hair was practically smoking. The wine came and she gulped it down. “Another, please.”
* * *
MARK CAME UP behind Rainey. He looked at the two empty wine glasses in front of her and read a new relaxation in her body language—which was quite different from the body language she’d sported when she’d run out here—and smiled. “Better?” he asked.
Her shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t look at him. “Go away.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?” She waved at the bartender, but he didn’t see her, so she sighed. She had her hair up tonight, but a few golden-brown tendrils had escaped, brushing the nape of her neck.
She was heart-stoppingly beautiful to him, and just looking at her made him ache. He ran his finger down that nape and was rewarded by her full body shiver. Encouraged, he put his mouth to the spot just beneath her ear, smiling when she shivered again and sucked in a breath. “How’s that not-a-date date with your non-fixer-upper going?” he asked.
“I think it’s me.” Looking morose, she propped her head on her hand. “I’m the fixer-upper.”
Hating that she felt that way about herself, Mark swiveled her bar stool to face him. Her mascara was slightly smudged around her eyes, making them seem even more blue. She’d nibbled off her pretty gloss. She was wearing a little black dress, one strap slipping off her shoulder. Running a finger up her arm, he slid the strap back into place and left his hand on her. “I think you’re perfect,” he said softly. Beautiful, and achingly vulnerable, and…perfect.
She went still, then sighed and dropped her head to his chest, hard. “Now who’s the liar?” she whispered.
With a low laugh, he tipped her head up and stared into her glossy eyes. She was half baked. “I mean it,” he told her. “You don’t need to change a goddamn thing.”
Her gaze dropped from his eyes to his mouth, and her tongue darted out to lick her dry lips. The motion went straight through him like fire, heading south. She stood up, her hands on his chest now, but he didn’t flatter himself. She needed him for balance. Her high heels, black with a little bow around the ankles that he found sexy as hell, brought her mouth a lot closer to his. Her fingers dug in a little, fisting on the jacket of his suit.
He placed a hand on the small of her back, holding her to him, right there where he liked her best, when she murmured his name and sighed. “I’m going to instigate now.”
His heart kicked. “Instigate away.”
Just as their lips touched, a low, disbelieving male voice spoke behind them. “Rainey?”
They turned in unison to face Jacob, who was holding Rainey’s shawl in his hands. Mouth grim, eyes hooded, he handed her the shawl, gave Mark an eat-shit-and-die look, and walked out of the theater.
7
THE BARTENDER BROUGHT Rainey a third glass of wine. She looked at it longingly but pushed it away. “All I want to know,” she said to Mark, “is why. Why are you so hell-bent on sabotaging my dating life?”
Mark couldn’t explain it to her. Hell, he couldn’t explain it to himself. But apparently it was a rhetorical question because she began a conversation with her wineglass, something about men, stupidity, and the need for a vacation in the South Pacific. While she rambled on, Mark texted James.
Lobby. Now.
Mark then stole Rainey’s keys from her purse, and when he saw James appear, he shifted out of earshot of Rainey. “When the ballet’s over, take Rainey’s car back to the motel.”
“Do we have to wait until it’s over?”
Mark handed him Rainey’s keys. “Yes. I’ll retrieve her car for her later.”
James looked past Mark to see Rainey sitting at the bar. “What’s the matter? Is she sick?”
“Indisposed.”
James knew better than to try to get information from Mark when Mark didn’t want to give it, but it didn’t stop a sly smile from touching his lips. “I take it you’re not going to be indisposed too.”
Mark just looked at James, who sighed and left.
Mark turned back to Rainey, still seated at the bar, still talking to herself.
Nope, not to herself.
There was a guy seated beside her now, smiling a little too hard. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said, leaning in so that his shoulder touched Rainey’s bare one, making Mark grind his teeth. “How about I buy you another drink?” the slimeball asked.
“No, thank you,” Raine
y said. “I’m with someone.”
“I don’t see him.”
“Right here.” Mark stepped in between them, sliding an arm along Rainey’s shoulders. “Let’s go.”
She stared up at him. “Not with you, you… you date wrecker.”
The situation didn’t get any better when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and came face to face with Slimeball, who said, “I think the lady is making herself pretty clear.”
“This doesn’t involve you,” Mark told him.
“She was just about to agree to come home with me.”
“No she wasn’t,” Rainey said, shaking her head. At the movement, she put her fingers on her temples, as if she’d made herself dizzy. “Whoa.”
Slimeball opened his mouth, but Mark gave a single shake of his head.
The guy was a couple of inches shorter than Mark and at least twenty pounds heavier. He was bulky muscle, the kind that would be slow in a fight, but Mark was pretty sure it wouldn’t come to that. He waited, loose-limbed and ready…and sure enough, after a moment, the guy backed away.
“I’m taking you home, Rainey,” Mark said. “Now.”
“I’ve never been spoils of war before.”
Shaking his head, Mark slipped an arm around her waist and guided her outside. The night was a cool one, and as they stepped into it, Rainey shivered in spite of her shawl. Shrugging out of his jacket, Mark wrapped it around her shoulders. “Pretty dress,” he said.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t tell you how beautiful you look?”
“I’m trying to stay mad at you.” She wobbled, and he pulled her in tighter, breathing in her soft scent, which was some intoxicating combination of coconut and Rainey herself.
But she backed away. “Don’t use those hands on me,” she said, pointing at him. “Because they’re magic hands.” She pressed her own palms to her chest as if it ached. “They make me melt, and I refuse to melt over you, Mark Diego.”
“Because…?”
“Because…” She pointed at him again. “Because you are very very very verrrrrrryyyyyy bad for me.”
He didn’t have much to say to that. It happened to be a true statement. Even if he wanted to give her what she was looking for, how could he? The hockey season took up most of his year, during which time he traveled nonstop and was entrenched in the day-to-day running of an NHL team. If he wasn’t at a game, he was thinking about the next one, or the last one, or he was dealing with his players, or planning game strategies, or meeting with the owners or the other coaches… It was endless. Endless and—
