Below the Belt

by Jeanette Murray

  Cutting into the steak, she sighed in pleasure—then shot him a mischievous grin. “Your salmon looks . . . not as good as my steak.”

  He scowled, but she could see the humor in his eyes. “Your arteries disagree.”

  “I’ve trained them to appreciate when I feed them red meat.” She took a bite and moaned in pure pleasure, maybe just a little louder than usual to bait him. But when her eyes opened again, he wasn’t laughing or shooting her a playfully angry face. He was watching her mouth intensely, like he was memorizing the shape of her lips.

  “What?” She used her napkin to wipe her mouth and chin.

  He just shook his head and stabbed at a piece of broccoli . . . a little harder than necessary, in her opinion.

  “The broccoli would like you to take it easy,” she joked, trying to regain the teasing lightness they’d had moments before . . . before what? What had she done wrong?

  He stared at his plate for a second, then up at her. “Sorry. Tired. I just zoned for a few seconds.”

  That she could understand. “I hope you take your day off to rest up. At the rate Coach Ace is going to push you, you’ll need all the reserves you can grab.”

  He nodded and went back to eating. But a moment later, when a carrot landed smack in the middle of her split-open baked potato, she grinned.

  * * *

  NEVER had Brad had to argue for so long in the parking lot of a restaurant about following a woman back to her house. Not because he wanted inside, but because, as he’d told Marianne repeatedly, he wanted to make sure she got back safely.

  And of course, being who she was, she argued. Only one beer and switched to lemonade, lived here almost her whole life, could drive around town blindfolded, yada yada yada.

  Jesus H., the woman loved to argue. He’d just kept his mouth shut and indicated she go ahead. She could fight it, but he’d still make sure she got back safe. It wasn’t a date; he wasn’t trying to get in her pants, good as they made her ass look. But his stepfather would kill him dead if he knew he’d gone out with a woman for any reason and not made sure she’d gotten home safely.

  He preferred to avoid his stepdad’s wrath whenever possible. That was self-preservation. The Marine Corps liked their officers to carry a decent amount of self-preservation instinct.

  The entire drive back to her place, Brad debated whether to actually walk her to the door. Would she think he was a creeper who couldn’t take a hint? Maybe just parking and making sure she got to the door would suffice. She’d just moved back; likely she moved back in with her parents, since the job was short-term. If it was anything like his parents’ house, it would be well-lit and in a typical, nice neighborhood.

  He was pleased with the thought that it would be safe enough to just drive past her driveway and do the honk-and-wave before making his exit when she surprised him and pulled into an apartment complex. The complex was decent, with good access to one of the side gates to base that would be less busy during the mornings. Smart.

  But it also meant his theory of leaving her in her parents’ well-lit driveway was kaput. He could still just pull the honk-and-wave. She wouldn’t care. In fact, he’d bet Marianne would prefer it if he just drove off and left her to get inside herself. He should just count his lucky stars they’d made it through the entire meal without her harping on his leg or him slipping up and confessing about the pain.

  The mere thought of annoying her had him smiling as he parked three spaces away and stepped out of his car.

  He knew he was right when he found her standing on the sidewalk, hands on hips, eyes narrowed. The faint parking lot light made her pale shoulders glow.

  “I can get into my apartment by myself, thank you.”

  The words were polite, but the way she forced them through her teeth told him she wanted to add a not-so-nice Buzz off at the end of that thank-you.

  Why that made him grin, he had no clue. “I know you can get into your apartment. Humor me.”

  “Remember when you used to avoid me? That was fun.” She rolled her eyes as he merely stood there, waiting, then shook her head and headed for the stairs.

  “Nice complex,” he said as they walked up. “Good view.” The fact that her butt was directly in his line of vision didn’t hurt.

  “Easy access to base, and decent safety. I didn’t need much more.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t move back in with your folks.”

  “I love my parents, but by doing that, I would have been committing myself to the loony bin. This one’s got a six-month rental, which is perfect for me. And I’m surrounded by Marines. Best theft deterrent I know.”

  He glanced over the railing by the stairs to see a parking lot full of SUVs, motorcycles and pickup trucks, almost all with the Eagle, Globe and Anchor sticker on the back. No Marine’s vehicle was complete without the EGA somewhere. “Probably true.”

  She walked to a door with a doormat out front. In bold black letters, the mat proclaimed, “Oh, no, not you again!”

  She caught his chuckle and glanced down. “Yeah, housewarming gift from my dad. He’s got a warped sense of humor. But it’s also why he can put up with my mom like he does.”

  “She seemed like fun—the kind of mom you can have a good time with as an adult.”

  “She is. It was a little embarrassing as a kid. She’s a strong personality,” she added with a wry smile. “But now, I appreciate the ability to treat her like a friend as much as anything.”

  He watched her dig through the large purse she’d brought—or was that a duffel bag?—and come up with a key ring with about forty keys on it.

  “Do you moonlight as a security guard or something?”

  “What?” She glanced up as her fingers flipped through the stack of brass, silver and gold keys. “No, half of these are for stuff in the gym I need to get to. The main gym door, my training room, storage room, offices, more storage rooms. Then the apartment, the key to the twenty-four-hour gym, my storage locker here, my parents’ place . . .”

  He stepped closer, just for a moment, while she was distracted. He couldn’t help himself. Away from the scents of the restaurant, he could appreciate her clean, cool fragrance. Like laundry and the ocean breeze mixed together.

  She glanced up suddenly, startled at seeing him closer than she expected and dropped the keys to the concrete ground with a clang. Her fingers clench into fists, as if fighting the urge to shake.

  Her eyes watched him, like a rabbit watched a chained dog in the backyard. How long was the dog’s rope?

  Even he wasn’t sure, all of the sudden. Because in an instant, he wanted to kick down her door, throw them through the entryway and slam it shut with her back against it and him pressed into her like they could melt into one person. He leaned down just an inch, then she ducked.

  Or rather, bent over to grab the keys, smoothly stepping two feet back when she popped back up. Her laugh was a little brittle, but she didn’t look at him again as she continued to flip through the keys. “Stupid things. I do that once a day at least.”

  Wake up, Romeo. There’s your sign.

  “Here it is.” She held it up, as if he needed verification, then inserted it into the lock and opened her door a crack. “Thanks for walking me up, and the company.”

  Rabbit running scared. He had the most absurd urge to let out a soft Woof. “Yeah, sure, no problem.” His foot itched to block the door’s closing, as if that would prolong the evening rather than have her calling the cops.

  Time to go, Romeo.

  “Have a good night.” Hands in his pockets, he stepped back, gave her a nod and watched the door close.

  * * *

  MARIANNE’S fingers lost their grip on the clip hook key chain and forty billion keys and let them tumble to the entry laminate with a sharp thump and jangle.

  Oh. My. God.

  Had she honestly been that socially awkward just then? She turned, rested her shoulders against the door then thumped her head back against the closed door on
ce, hard. Maybe some sense would rattle back in place.

  “Marianne?”

  She froze, staring into the dark living room.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  Brad. He hadn’t left yet. Why hadn’t he left yet? She could ignore him. Pretend she hadn’t heard him calling out.

  Except he must have just heard her drop her keys and bang her head against the door. So that would only make her look like the coward she was and create even more problems later on. With dread, and more than a little confusion, she turned and opened the door sheepishly. Just enough to stick her head out. “Yeah?”

  He watched her, and she got the vague sensation that he was mentally searching for signs of trauma.

  “What did you need, Brad?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Just heard a really heavy thump. I worried you’d fallen or something.”

  “I’ll press my Life Alert button if I can’t get back up.” At her snappish tone, he raised a brow. She sighed. “Sorry. Yes, I’m fine. I just dropped my keys and . . . hit my head against the door.”

  Not really the full story, but it was technically all true.

  He smiled a little. “Those keys seem pretty slippery.”

  “Sure are.” When he didn’t move, she looked around the breezeway. “Did you need something else?”

  “No, I . . .” He huffed out a laugh. “No.” Then his face changed as he watched her, and she knew instinctively what he was thinking. Just as he leaned in, he whispered, “Yes.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  There was that half second, that bright flash of awareness just before he bent down when Brad knew he could still pull away. It would have been awkward, and he would have been embarrassed, but he would have done it. Almost did.

  Except for that moment when Marianne’s eyes brightened, her head tilted up and her lips parted in complete acceptance. And then the moment to pull away was a distant memory.

  The instant his lips touched hers, Marianne’s arms wound around his neck and pulled him closer. He groped with one hand to find the doorway to keep both their balances, then used the other to palm her lower back and pull her body into his.

  She tasted like summer. Like cool lemonade, with a hint of the key lime tartness from their shared dessert. He licked inside her mouth to see how long the taste would last. Her tongue met his, circled around, danced in an instinctive move that made him moan and press against her until her back slid into the doorjamb.

  She gasped into his mouth, but didn’t break the contact. His hand bunched in her shirt until he could feel the smooth skin of her back with his thumb. He stroked there in the same circles his tongue made, and she melted even more into his body. That tender patch of skin, so simple and yet so sensual, nearly had him rocketing off without her, like a horny teen who had held off for too long.

  A door opened and closed somewhere else on the floor of her building, and it was the signal he needed to break the spell. He gripped her shoulders with both hands—damn that sweet, bare skin again—and pulled away, waiting until her eyes popped open before letting go.

  “Steady?” he asked cautiously.

  She blinked, then looked down at one of his hands. The tanned skin of his fingers, hand and wrist made hers seem even more pearly white. Luminescent.

  “Yeah, Romeo. I’m not going to swoon, if that was your hope.” She grinned, then shrugged one shoulder until he let go of that one. But he couldn’t quite break the contact altogether. She raised a brow, then shrugged the other.

  He held on.

  She blew out a breath, stirring the blonde hairs that clung to the corner of her mouth, but not moving them. She growled and swiped at them with an impatient push of her hand, but they stubbornly clung to her lips.

  Not that he could blame them.

  Before she hauled off and punched herself in the face, he brushed the hairs back behind her ear, tracing the outer shell before caressing the lobe and dropping his hand away.

  “Lip gloss,” she muttered.

  What that had to do with hair, he had no clue. But he wasn’t going to ask. Women were a rare, special breed. It was best to not get too many details, or it might scare you off permanently.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said quickly. Then she glanced around, like she was waiting for someone to pop out and scare them. “I’m fine.”

  “You said that already.”

  She nodded quickly, and it was like she couldn’t stop once she’d started. Her head just kept bobbing. He cupped the back of her neck and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  That stopped her.

  Clearly, she wasn’t fine. But he wasn’t about to push. He had no clue what the hell had just happened, or why he’d been the one to initiate it. But he knew he needed one gigantic step back to assess the situation.

  More than that, he just needed to get the hell out of there before he did something embarrassing . . . like kiss her again and not stop.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets—good-bye, temptation—he took one more step toward the stairs. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “I didn’t pay,” she reminded him, one corner of her mouth quirking with a smile. That her humor was returning was a good sign. It meant maybe they could just . . . ignore whatever the hell had happened. And she wouldn’t be turning his ass in for harassment or whatever.

  “Right. So I’ll see you tomorrow then.” When she opened her door all the way and took a step in, he waved and beat a hasty retreat.

  Cowardly, maybe. Or just smart.

  Sure. We could go with smart.

  * * *

  SHE’D kissed him. Oh, God almighty, she’d just kissed one of her athletes.

  For the second time that night, Marianne let her head beat against her front door. No need to worry about him coming back this time. Brad had hustled it out of the building like his boxers were on fire.

  Did he wear boxers? Or was he a briefs man? Maybe a boxer briefs kind of guy . . .

  No, Marianne. Bad Marianne.

  She was about to embark on a serious campaign to move up in the ranks of the training world. How the hell would she explain to future bosses that she had a habit of lusting after her clientele? No NBA star wanted a trainer staring at him with puppy dog eyes, and no coach or team owner wanted their investments being cared for by a woman with a record of dating the players. They wanted a serious businesswoman with talent, end of story.

  Walking into her kitchen, she forced herself to pull in a few deep breaths, then let them go again. Just like Kara had taught her.

  Yoga was so not her thing, but the deep breathing had been a godsend on more than one sleepless night.

  With a calmer head, she took one more breath. This was not a problem. Opening a cabinet, she got down a glass for some water. Not a problem at all. They were both adults, and they could both laugh about it tomorrow morning. Chalk it up to a couple of good Yuenglings, a great meal and decent company.

  No, not decent. Excellent company. Sexy company.

  Bad Marianne.

  She would act like it was nothing, and so then it would become nothing. Wasn’t that what Kara was always preaching? Visualize the goal, sense the goal, blah blah blah, reach the goal?

  Come to think of it, maybe that blah blah blah part was more important than she had thought.

  Draining the water, she put the glass in the dishwasher and went to get her cell phone out of her bag. Three missed calls from her mother. Fantastic.

  Ignore.

  She’d call Mary back later, when she wasn’t still buzzing from the adrenaline rush of that kiss. Her mother could sniff out pheromones through the phone lines. When it came to men, dating or anything remotely embarrassing, Mary Cook was on the hunt.

  Instead, she thumbed through her contacts and found what she needed. She breathed a sigh of relief when a voice answered.

  “Kara, hi. Is it too late to call? I have a few questions about that whole visualize the goal thing you tried to teach me
that one time.”

  * * *

  BRAD’S back had barely done more than bounce on the mattress when his door opened.

  He draped his forearm over his eyes and groaned. “It was closed, numb nuts.”

  “But not locked. Smells like someone wants company.”

  Brad threw his pillow without looking. He heard it hit a wall. Pointless.

  “Where’d you go?” When Brad didn’t answer, Higgs wandered around the room. Brad tracked his roommate’s path by the sound of his voice. “I know you were out for a while. And given you dressed up—”

  “Jeans. I’m wearing jeans. In what world does that constitute dressing up?”

  “—you probably weren’t going out for a drink at a titty bar.”

  Gross. The last time he went into a titty bar, he was nineteen, eager to prove he was a mature adult to the other Marines in his platoon, and vomited up the beer they’d given him—illegally—behind the Dumpster in the alley out back.

  Ah, youth.

  He decided the best way to make his chatty roommate go away was to stop answering. Sometimes, mosquitos got high on the attention of being swatted at.

  “And the group didn’t go out tonight anywhere. I know, since I would have been invited before you,” Higgs continued. It was true, but that didn’t account for the tightening in Brad’s belly at the honesty. “So I’m left to conclude you had a date.”

  That one word had all his hackles rising. No, not a date. Not dating the trainer. “Wasn’t a date.”

  “Ah, he speaks.” As if that were an invitation, Higgs sat at the edge of his bed, within kicking distance. Brave SOB. “And as you didn’t feel the need to denounce the other options—”

  “You did for me,” he pointed out.

  “—I am left to conclude—”

  “Again.”

  “—that it was a date, and that you are embarrassed by her. Which makes this all the more interesting.” Flopping back, he laced his hands behind his head. His elbow bumped Brad’s. “So tell me more.”

  “Hold on, I forgot to put on my nightgown and grab my curlers. Do you want to do my hair, or should I do yours first?” Brad asked with as much of a sneer as he could work up.