Playing Hard

by Melanie Scott

  “Trust me, I’ll make you feel even better with two hands.”

  “Promises, promises,” she said. The shiver that ran through her may have made her teasing tone less believable.

  “Satisfaction one hundred percent guaranteed.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” she said. Her fingers traced circles on his chest, started to drift lower.

  Oliver made a low noise. “Hold that thought just a few more minutes.” His arm tightened around her as he shifted on the bed.

  She stopped her circling. “Do you feel all right? That didn’t hurt your ankle or anything?”

  “I’m fine. Just need a few minutes for recovery.”

  He had just had surgery a week ago. He was doing pretty damned well as far as she was concerned, and she was prepared to wait for her next fix.

  “Okay then,” she said. “So. Awkward post-sex small talk?”

  “Why awkward?”

  “I don’t know. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be?’

  He laughed again, the sound vibrating through his chest. Then kissed the top of her head. “I don’t feel awkward. Do you?”

  She shook her head. “Weirdly, no.”

  “What’s weird about it?”

  “Well, we’re kind of doing this backward,” she said. “We haven’t actually spent that much time together. We’ve probably spent more time playing Words with Friends than we have face-to-face.”

  “You want to do the getting-to-know-you thing? Now? Isn’t that a little late?”

  “Did you have something else planned?” she said. “You’re not going to fall asleep on me, are you?’

  “Not a chance,” he said. “All right. Getting to know you it is. So, Ms. Graham what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?”

  “Chocolate chip cookie dough,” she said promptly. “You?”

  “Actually, lemon gelato.”

  “Gelato isn’t the same thing.”

  “Okay. Then pistachio.”

  “Green, huh? I’ve never been convinced ice cream should be green.”

  “I’m quite fond of green,” he said. “After all, it looks good on redheads.” He laughed. “Now I kind of want to smear some on you.”

  She was definitely in favor of that plan. But not right this second. “Technically I’m a strawberry blonde,” she said. “Indecisive hair.”

  “Gorgeous, not indecisive,” he corrected. “Okay. Next question. Favorite movie.”

  “Bull Durham,” she said without thinking.

  His sudden shout of laughter almost deafened her. “Why, Amelia, don’t tell me you’re a secret baseball groupie.”

  “It’s the Kevin Costner factor. And that speech he makes.”

  “The one about long slow wet kisses?”

  “Yeah.” She went silent for a moment, thinking of Oliver’s kisses.

  “I don’t mind that one myself. But I’m not accepting your Costner explanation.”

  “You are entitled to your own delusions,” she said. “What’s your favorite movie?”

  “Almost Famous.”

  She giggled. “By your theory that makes you a wannabe groupie.”

  “No, I think it’s the rock-star thing.”

  “Like being the center of attention, do you?”

  “Depends whose attention it is. Next question.”

  “Favorite food.”

  “New York cheesecake. Junior’s.”

  “Hey, mine too.”

  “I take that as a good sign. Hmmm. Okay, how about, What would you do if money was no object?”

  “That’s easy. Travel. Jump on a plane and see the world.”

  “Really?”

  She tilted her head back to look at him. “Yes. I’ve always wanted to travel. Ever since I was little. I always used to get library books about other places. And drove my mom up the wall making her watch all the National Geographic specials.”

  “Have you been to some of those places already?”

  “No. We never had money for big holidays. And I was too busy keeping my scholarships at college.”

  “But you work on Wall Street. You haven’t treated yourself to some exotic location vacations?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “I wanted to help my mom buy an apartment so she could retire. She finally bought one at the start of the year.”

  His arm tightened around her. “You’re good people, Amelia.”

  “How about you? Have you gotten to go anywhere exciting?”

  “Most of the fifty states. Canada. I did once go to Paris for a week.”

  “Paris.” She sighed enviously. “Sounds wonderful.”

  “I liked the city,” he said. “But it wasn’t the greatest week of my life.”

  “Why not?”

  “Turns out the girl I took with me was more interested in the clothes my credit card could buy her in all the designer stores than in the joys of Paris. Or me, I guess.”

  “Ugh.”

  “It’s okay. I wasn’t madly in love.”

  “Where else have you been?”

  “I try to go somewhere warm in the off-season,” he said. “I’ve been to Mexico a few times, the Bahamas. Hawaii. Fiji once. But honestly, I travel so much all season, it’s nice just to stay home.”

  She could see how that might be. “Home is nice, too.” Though right now, she was trying not to feel envious. Fiji. The Bahamas. She wanted sand under her toes and unfamiliar smells and tastes and sounds. Wanted to know how it felt being somewhere so different.

  “Do you miss Chicago?” Oliver asked.

  “I miss my mom. Em and the Castros, of course. But I love it here. I mean, if you’re going to stay in one city for a while, then New York kind of has everything, right?”

  “Yeah. I’m fond of it.”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “New Jersey,” he said. “It was nice. I moved into the city when I got drafted by the Saints. No. That’s a lie. I lived on Staten Island for a couple of years. But as soon as I turned twenty-one, I moved to Manhattan.”

  “You don’t mind the commute back to Staten Island?”

  “I like the ferry,” he said. “The team has apartments where we can stay on days when we don’t want to travel after training. And like I said, we’re out on the road so much, most of the time my commute is jump on a bus from the hotel and go to a stadium. Then take another bus back to the airport.”

  “Your frequent flier miles must be pretty good. I have envy.”

  “Yeah, we rack up plenty of time in the air. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. Travel like that is a lot different from traveling for fun.”

  “Well, eventually you’ll be able to put them all to good use.”

  “Let’s hope not for a few more years.” He lifted his bandaged hand, studied it for a moment.

  “Your hand is going to be fine.” She pressed her lips to his chest. Felt him shiver and then shift restlessly.

  “I hope you’re right,” he said. “But in the meantime, how about you kiss me and make me feel better?”

  She smiled at him, then turned and draped a leg over his hip. “I can do that.”

  * * *

  It was way too early when her phone started chiming softly. Beside her Oliver stirred on the mattress, opening one eye.

  “Someone calling?”

  “My alarm. I have to go to work.” She turned the alarm off, rolled back to him. “Go back to sleep. No reason for both of us to suffer.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Five thirty?”

  “Five thirty?” he groaned. “You’re not a morning person, are you?”

  “No. But I have to go home and change and then get to work.” It was a while since she had done the sneaking-home-before-daylight thing. She should’ve planned better. But it would’ve been hard to cart an overnight bag to the Saints game last night without having to explain to the Castros what the hell she was doing with it. She kissed him fast, then c
limbed out of bed before she could change her mind and succumb to the temptation to stay right there with him.

  Because Oliver’s bed was definitely her new favorite place. “Go back to sleep,” she said again as she picked her skirt and underwear up off the floor.

  Cuddling the clothes to her chest, she slipped out of the room, heading for the living room and the rest of her stuff, intending to leave him in peace.

  But as she was wriggling into her skirt, Oliver appeared in the doorway, hair sleep-tousled, stubble darkening his jaw. He’d pulled on a T-shirt and boxer briefs and the sight of him silhouetted in the light from the windows melted her resolve all over again.

  Damn.

  No. She had to go to work. She had a project to finish.

  The lights clicked on and she blinked. Then she started giggling as she saw what was written on his shirt. “Kiss a Saint and go to heaven?” she said. “Really?”

  He looked down at his T-shirt. “The Angels gave them to all the guys in the team last Christmas.” He looked back up, waggled his eyebrows. “Wanna go to heaven?”

  She shook her head, sat down on the nearest chair so she could pull on her shoes. “I’m pretty sure corrupting Saints doesn’t get you into heaven.”

  “Depends on your definition of heaven,” he said. “I, for one, am all for corruption. Of the naked kind.” His voice was still low and sleepy. Made for tangled sheets and sex.

  Just as well she was sitting down. “Well, your fall from grace is going to have to wait a bit longer. Some of us have to go out and earn a living.” She remembered their sleepy conversation earlier. She’d never wished more fervently that money truly was no object. Because then she could ignore the world outside this apartment and drag Oliver back to bed.

  But sadly, there were bills. And projects. And demanding bosses.

  “You won’t even let me make you coffee?” he asked. “What are you, some sort of love-’em-and-leave-’em femme fatale?”

  “Not fatal. But today, yes to leaving,” She stood. Checked her purse. Phone. Wallet. Keys. Both hers and the one he’d given her. “But I’m not leaving forever.” She paused. “Are you going to go to Boston for the last game?”

  He shrugged. “I hadn’t decided. I’ll see what Lucas thinks. I’m meant to start hand therapy this week. You’re not going?”

  She shook her head. “Too hard to get back for work. Why can’t all baseball be in New York?”

  “If we get through this game, the championship series will be. The Yankees cleaned up the Twins.”

  “Convenient.” It would be if the Saints actually managed to take out this final game to win the series. Though then coming up against the Yankees who’d dominated all season had to be a daunting prospect.

  “I think so. It would be nice not to travel six months of the year every year.”

  Did he really mean that? And what happened if he did travel half the year? How did that work in a relationship? Some of her post-sex glow of happiness dimmed. She needed time to think. To process. Without him being there, fogging her brain with that body and those kisses. “I really have to go.”

  “Not even a kiss good-bye?”

  Oh so tempting. But she had a fairly good idea about what would happen if she walked over there and let him touch her again. “I kissed you before I got out of bed. That is just going to have to tide you over until tonight.”

  * * *

  “Ms. Graham, there’s someone in reception asking for you.”

  “There is?” Amelia frowned at the voice coming from her speakerphone. She didn’t get visitors at work. It was five p.m. The Castros should be safely in Boston by now, if not already at Fenway Park itself.

  “Yes. A man. Said his name was Mr. Oliver.”

  Amelia nearly dropped the phone. The receptionist sounded calm. So either she wasn’t a baseball fan or she hadn’t yet realized who Oliver was. In other words, no time to waste if she didn’t want the Pullman grapevine to be full of the news that she was dating a baseball player in about five minutes. “Okay, I’ll be right down.” Her pulse started to race as she hung up the phone and grabbed her security pass. Oliver was here? She doubted anyone else using ‘Mr. Oliver’ as an alias would be looking for her and she didn’t know anyone whose actual last name was Oliver. Other than John Oliver, the comedian. Unlikely that he’d suddenly decided to look up an economist he’d never met.

  A rummage through her purse resulted in hastily applied lip gloss and a spritz of perfume.

  Oliver here.

  She hadn’t expected that. But she wasn’t going to find out what he wanted standing in her office. She practically jogged to reception.

  In the pale wood and gleaming glass lobby, Oliver stood out. He wore a suit jacket and dark jeans, metal-framed sunglasses hiding his eyes. He looked much as you might have thought a pirate would standing in the middle of a ballroom. Dark. Sexy. Unmissable. Not even the walking stick and sling could ruin that. In fact, it might have enhanced the effect.

  Elsa and Reiko who staffed the reception desk were looking at him much the way a hormonal woman might stare at a big box of cupcakes. It was clear they thought he was edible. But had they figured out who he was yet?

  Amelia nodded to them as she passed them, trying to walk as though it were nothing new for her to be meeting a mysterious hot guy at work.

  “Hello,” she said, taking his arm as she reached him. “What are you doing here?” She tried to steer him back toward the elevator, but she might as well have tried to move one of the granite sculptures that sat in the downstairs lobby.

  Oliver smiled as she tugged on his arm. He didn’t remove his glasses. She wasn’t sure they did all that much to hide his identity. The back of her neck was tingling. Reiko and Elsa were watching them, she knew it. Watching would lead to speculating unless she got rid of him.

  “I decided to go to Boston,” he said. “I thought you might want to come.”

  “Oliver, it’s five already. It will take four hours to drive to Boston. Maybe more.”

  “Who said anything about driving?”

  “Flying isn’t going to be that much faster.”

  “It is if you have a helicopter.”

  She blinked. “You’re going by helicopter? Isn’t that expensive?”

  “Less when you know someone who owns a helicopter charter.”

  “Right. Lucas’s wife. She’s a pilot.” After a day of trying to decipher IT-speak and wade through data, any career but economist sounded good. “Isn’t she in Boston already?”

  “Yes. But she’s not the only pilot in the firm. So. What do you say? We can be at the heliport in fifteen minutes.”

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d left work so early. If ever. The mental list of everything she still needed to do today was long. Very long. But this was the final game in the series. A big moment for Finn. One she would love to witness.

  Oliver Shields wanted to fly her to Boston in a helicopter so she could see Finn play. It would be downright rude to say no to anyone making that offer. Coming from Oliver it was irresistible.

  “I think this is what you call an offer that I can’t refuse,” she said. “I need to grab my stuff from my office. Go wait downstairs. You kind of stick out here.”

  “You worried about the office grapevine?”

  She gave him a little push. “Just go. I’ll be five minutes. Maybe ten.” She needed to make sure there wasn’t anything urgent she had left undone. Sneaking off early once wasn’t going to be an issue—she hoped—if she’d crossed her t’s and dotted her i’s for the day.

  Oliver turned and she didn’t wait to watch him go. Instead she made a beeline for her office, ignoring the girls in reception as they turned in their chairs to watch her.

  It didn’t take long to gather up all her stuff. Then she sat to give her email one final scan. There was a reply from the project team on one of her queries, and she forwarded it to the IT guys. Then she skimmed through the other four emails that had popped up si
nce she’d gone to see who was in reception. Two internal memos. One calendar invite for a staff meeting that she accepted without reading. The last email was unexpected. A message from Leon Tang, who worked in the Hong Kong office. She’d pinged him earlier in the day to see if he’d heard anything about any transfer positions opening up but hadn’t expected a reply so quickly.

  Nothing concrete. But rumors of a big project floating around. So far anyone who might know anything is very tight-lipped. Will keep an ear out.

  Well. That wasn’t what she’d hoped for. She typed a quick thank-you. Rumors. Nothing concrete. But a suggestion that maybe Daniel wasn’t just randomly dropping by her office.

  As though just thinking his name could summon him, she looked up to see Daniel standing in her doorway.

  “Was that Oliver Shields in reception?”

  How the hell did he know that? She hadn’t seen Daniel when she’d been talking to Oliver. Then again, she’d been facing the outer doors. He could have walked past behind her. Damn. “Um, yes,” she said.

  “I thought he’d be in Boston.” He lifted his eyebrows at her.

  She blinked. “I thought you didn’t follow baseball?”

  “Hard to miss at the moment with two New York teams in the—what do you call them?”

  “The divisional series,” she said.

  “Yes. That’s it. We had a leadership team meeting this morning and it seemed to be a topic of interest. So was it Shields? He’s the one who got injured, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “A friend?”

  “Yes. I told you I knew someone who played for the Saints?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “Well, I’ve met other players because of that.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why he isn’t in Boston.”

  “He’s headed there now. He came to see if I wanted a lift. He knew I was working today and couldn’t get to Boston to see Finn—that’s my friend—play.”

  Cool gray eyes studied her. She couldn’t help feeling that she was facing a test. One she was fairly sure had a right answer. But that right answer involved staying here tonight and working late. Which she wasn’t going to do unless Daniel flat-out ordered her to. “What did you tell him?”