The Rebound Girl (Getting Physical)

by Morgan, Tamara

  Whitney pulled the door open a crack and peeked out. “Why, Mr. Fuller,” she crooned, her voice low. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

  “My heart is not the organ I wish to discuss right now.” Slipping in, he shut the door as discreetly as he could behind them.

  The dressing room was small. Tiny. Barely big enough for one person to turn around in, let alone two of them, all hands and mouths and a furious desire to mesh them together. Whitney did her best to make room by backing up against one side of the dressing room, her hands flat against the flimsy particleboard walls, her legs spread. She had yet to do anything more than remove her shirt, and was dressed to kill in nothing but her bra, a form-fitting black skirt and boots that went almost all the way up to her knees. In his excitement to enjoy the skintight cut of the material across her ass, he flung a pair of hideous flamingo-covered pants to the floor.

  Whitney’s eyes opened wide. “Are you going to dress me?” she asked, her voice dripping with sex and faux innocence. “Or is undressing more what you had in mind?”

  “I think you know exactly what I want to do.” Matt grabbed both her hands in one of his and held them behind her back, using his leg to force hers wider. “And clothes are the last thing I’m worried about right now.”

  He kissed her then, but without any tenderness or meaning beyond the need of the moment. She moaned into him, enjoying the show of dominance. He enjoyed it too, a lot more than he expected, which was part of the appeal. He’d always been a slow starter, the last to hit his growth spurt as a teenager, the last of his friends to brush his hand across a girl’s breast, the last to lose his virginity, which didn’t happen until college. The only milestone he’d been the first to hit was marriage, and they could all see how well that turned out.

  So the fact that he could pin Whitney against the wall, forcing her body to move and mold under his, their mouths playing at a game that was half pain and half pleasure, teeth and lips fully interchangeable where they crashed—it was exhilarating. Exhilarating and hot and, given that her bra slipped low and her breasts swelled against his chest, going much further than he’d intended.

  “I take it back,” she whispered, arching her back so that her body rocked against his. “You’re not scared at all.”

  “No.” He ran his lips along her jawline. “But you better be. Because you’re going to pay for those remarks.”

  “Tough words, Galahad.”

  His fingers slid up the length of her thigh, just underneath the hem of her skirt where it brushed against the boot. It was a small expanse of skin by any real standards, but that only added to the appeal of it, especially when she hitched her leg up on the small bench seat along the back of the dressing room.

  As his hand moved up, Whitney let out a low moan. He captured the sound quickly with his mouth, continuing his path up her thigh until he reached his destination. As always, she was ready for him, her lace panties slick with moisture. He slid a finger inside her, feeling a shudder of excitement hit him in the groin as her body tightened around him. Firm and hot, yet always ready for more—her responses were the biggest surprise in all this. She loved his touch, craved it even, begging for more, harder, faster.

  She made him feel like a god.

  Leaning down to capture one of her escaped nipples in his mouth, he slipped another finger inside. She bucked against his hand, and this time, the moan that escaped wasn’t low. Crap. He’d left her mouth free.

  He tried to kiss her into silence, but it was too late. Someone outside the door must have heard because there was an awful knock at the door, sharp and concise.

  Matt jumped back. Since he was the primary object keeping Whitney aloft, she stumbled to the ground, bringing the mirror down with her. Matt had just enough blood left in his brain to be able to catch one of them, and he went for the mirror, saving them both from getting showered in shards of glass. He half expected Whitney to rail at him for letting her fall, but she just rolled onto her knees, face to face with one of the hardest erections he’d had in his life, and started laughing.

  The knock sounded again, this time followed by an even sharper and more concise voice. “Hello? Can I ask you to step out, please?”

  There was a decidedly schoolmarm undertone to the woman’s voice—something all teachers perfected over time, Matt included. But instead of striking fear into Whitney’s heart, she only laughed louder, struggling to get up and shrug back into her shirt. Matt helped her up and tried to stifle his own amusement, but she wasn’t making it any easier.

  “Uh-oh, Mr. Fuller. We’re in for it now,” she whispered between gulps of air. “I bet I’m going to have to buy at least four pairs of those flamingo pants.”

  Matt drew a deep breath and willed his body to cool. Fortunately, chagrin acted as a fairly good anti-aphrodisiac, and he was able to pull the door open with his best composed, upstanding citizen-of-the-world look. He might have gotten away with it, too, if the woman standing on the other side of the door had been anyone but Natalie Horn.

  Natalie Horn, whose family not only owned the entire chain of Great Golf stores, but who also headed up every local charitable and political organization in town. Natalie Horn, whose tall, wiry frame and freckled features had been an everyday part of his life with Laura, seeing as how the two were best friends.

  “Matt! What are you doing?” she called, surprise softening her face just a little—though not enough to make him feel any better about what was to come. “Is this woman attacking you?”

  Definitely not better. The moment those catastrophic words crossed Natalie’s lips, Whitney lost any and all of her ability to act like a mature adult. Giggling with mirth, her shirt hanging open, red-faced and not the least bit ashamed of any of the above, Whitney wasn’t exactly the kind of woman who made saving face even a remote possibility.

  “Yes, Matt. Tell us,” Whitney managed. “What were you doing in there?”

  If he’d been wearing a tie, he would have used this moment to straighten it, along with his stance and a firm mouth. As it was, all he had was a T-shirt that had moved up to show a sliver of his stomach and the sinking feeling that Whitney’s teeth had broken the skin along his neck, and he might actually be bleeding all over himself.

  “Natalie,” he said, resisting the urge to swipe at his neck to check for damages. “How nice to see you again.”

  He’d always liked Natalie, even if she was difficult to get to know. She’d been the maid of honor at their wedding, and he’d come home from work on more than one occasion to find her and Laura chatting in the portico. Although there was a good chance she’d been sitting in that portico, sipping white wine and smiling at him with the full knowledge that Laura was sleeping with another man, he didn’t harbor the woman any ill will.

  It was clear the feeling was not reciprocated.

  “I’m sorry, but were you...fornicating in my changing room?” she asked. At least her voice was low. It seemed they were drawing quite a crowd.

  Whitney let out a snorting sound, and Matt kicked his leg backward, catching the shin of her boot. She let out a howl that was more laughter than pain.

  “I’m really sorry, Natalie. My, uh, friend needed some help with her clothes.”

  This was what came of putting pleasure before propriety. It would take all of an hour for this story to spread around town—and he knew exactly what the topic would be during the next teachers’ meeting.

  Natalie refused to look at Whitney, directing all her attention to the space about one foot above Matt’s head. “I can see that. I hope she plans on paying for those.”

  Whitney held a pair of flamingo-covered pants up triumphantly. “I’ll take four pairs. One in every color. You have no idea how good these pants make me feel. Or, I guess, uh, maybe you do?”

  Natalie’s lips came together tightly, and Whitney leaned in to examine the purse
of them, as if performing a medical examination.

  It took him a second to realize that was exactly what she was doing.

  “You know, my colleague Kendra has a cream that will do wonders for those perioral wrinkles—or, if you’re looking for a quicker boost, I do fillers that leave practically no marks.” She fumbled around in her purse, pulling out a pair of worn nylons and a handful of tampons before finally coming across a business card.

  Natalie didn’t take it. She turned on her heel and marched toward the checkout line and, with one imperious wave of her hand, indicated they were to follow.

  “Really?” Matt ushered Whitney toward the front of the store. She paused only to grab three other pairs of those god-awful flamingo pants in alternating colors of blue, green and yellow. “You thought now would be a good time to plug your business?”

  “What?” she said with faux innocence, her dark eyes wide and flashing. “I was trying to distract her.” Then, more seriously, “Does everyone in town know who you are?”

  “If they have kids under the age of twelve, yes.”

  She paused before making her way to the checkout stand, where Natalie was whispering something in fierce undertones to the scared teenage clerk.

  “Ma’am, I will thank you to take your business elsewhere next time,” Natalie said, looking up at Whitney with a death glare. “And Matt, I have to say that I’m really disappointed in you. This isn’t the sort of thing we expect from a man like you. Are you retaliating for what Laura did? Is that what this is about? I know you’re still hurting, and I know forgiveness is hard—”

  Whitney interrupted her by slapping a credit card down on the counter. Her whole body straightened, taut with anticipation—and not the good kind. If Matt didn’t know any better, he’d say she was angry.

  “Lady, if you’d been the one Matt recently had pinned up against the side of your changing room, you’d know damn well that Laura is the last thing on his mind.”

  Matt laid a restraining hand on Whitney’s arm. She was angry. He could feel it in the tension coming off her skin and the clawlike grip she had on her purse. The anger itself wasn’t too surprising—this was clearly a woman whose blood ran hot—but the fact that the anger existed for his benefit was.

  She was defending his honor.

  And he kind of liked it.

  “Whitney, it’s fine,” he said, his voice low.

  She whirled to face him. “It is not fine. How dare this woman stand there and defend a cheater? Okay, so maybe we weren’t behaving like saints back there, but at least we’re not lying about who we are and how we feel.”

  “Whitney.” He waited until some of the anger ebbed away, until her eyes softened just enough that he knew she understood. This one was his call. His ex-wife. His pain. She nodded once.

  “Natalie, thank you for your assessment of my condition, but my friend here is right. This has nothing to do with Laura.” Except that wasn’t entirely true. As long as Whitney remained nothing more than his rebound girl, every one of their interactions was a direct retaliation against the life he’d once had.

  Natalie scowled and pushed Whitney’s credit card across the counter, making sure their fingers didn’t touch. “She’s still not welcome in here again.”

  Matt grabbed Whitney’s elbow and steered her in the direction of the door. Fortunately, they moved fast enough that only a handful of hangers-on by the door caught the stream of lilting, almost sweet obscenities she uttered every step of the way.

  Well, and him. He heard each one—and agreed with at least half.

  Chapter Eight

  “So...that happened,” Whitney explained, wincing as she took a huge gulp of red wine. One thing about Pleasant Park—there were wineries and vineyards in abundance, and most of what they produced was really good. Cheap too. Who knew they were hiding all the best wine out in the country?

  “You’re banned from the golf store?”

  “The whole chain of them, actually. I’ve been blacklisted so hard I might as well put a scarlet letter on my chest and call it done with.”

  Kendra sighed and buried her emotions in an equally oversized glass of cabernet. “This isn’t going to be good for business. You need damage control.”

  “What did Dimples say?” John asked. “I can’t imagine that sober smile takes kindly to tarnishing its schoolteacher reputation.”

  Whitney frowned into her wineglass. There was no easy way to answer that question.

  Naturally, Matt admitted a shared culpability. “I was kind of an active participant in there, if you didn’t notice,” he’d said wryly as he walked her to her car. “No need to apologize to me.”

  And he hadn’t said a word about her outburst against that horrible, uptight Natalie woman. Which seemed about right, actually. One of the things she was coming to appreciate about Matt was that he didn’t try to tell other people what to do. He had his own moral code and adhered to it with an almost frustrating level of diligence, but he didn’t force it on anyone else.

  But she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d somehow let him down. Herself down. Kendra and John and New Leaf down. Slashing and burning bridges—that had always been her style. Why waste energy placating people she cared about less than fingernail clippings? She could always build new bridges. She could always find an alternate route.

  Pleasant Park, though...it was different. There were only so many paths to take here, and encountering the same people day in and day out meant she had to take a good, hard look at the consequences of her admittedly impetuous actions. And to be honest, she didn’t always like what she saw.

  What had she gotten herself into, moving here? What had she gotten herself into, taking up with a guy like Matt?

  “Dimples is too much of a gentleman to say anything,” she finally replied, purposefully haughty to stave off any further discussion. “He kind of thinks I’m amazing.”

  “Well, we’re all happy that you’re settling in with your new boyfriend, but I think you should find something more productive to do tomorrow. You’re bored, that’s the problem.” Kendra looked at her pointedly.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” Whitney ignored the rest of her friend’s statement. “I’m helping him move on with his sexual journey. That’s all. You know, like Beatrice and Dante. Except you replace the seven levels of hell with sexytimes.”

  John snorted and held up his glass in a toast. “Here’s to replacing hell with sexytimes.”

  “You’re both older than twelve, so please act like it,” Kendra snapped. “I mean it, Whitney. Find something to do other than Matt. You could, you know, volunteer at the hospital or something.”

  Whitney’s jaw clenched. Next to the word boyfriend, she hated volunteer the most, recoiling against it with the force of a thousand black holes. And Kendra knew how she felt about both.

  “I’ve already worked out the operating room situation with them. I just have to coordinate with their physician liaison whenever I want to schedule a complex procedure or overnight recovery there, but otherwise we’re all clear—there’s no need to go all Mother Theresa on them in order to grease the works.”

  “No one would ever accuse you of going Mother Theresa,” John said.

  Whitney flipped him off. “I’m good at what I do, Kendra. Incredible, actually. I don’t need to prove myself by kissing babies and making nice with the community. So we can drop it now, okay?” She grabbed her glass and stomped to the kitchen, not stopping until she reached the sink. She poured the rest of her wine out, watching the dark red liquid swirl down the drain.

  She knew she was overreacting, but she couldn’t help it. Besides her parents, Kendra and John knew better than anyone just how much she didn’t want to start up all the charity work again. As far as she was concerned, she’d done her time—and then some.

 
For the past twelve years, she’d busted her ass, getting the grades, landing the residency, passing the boards. All she wanted right now was to spend a little time looking out for Number One. And since Number One wanted to kick her heels for a few months, dallying with a nice, cute guy and making no commitments further than a cup of coffee tomorrow, who was she to stop her?

  “Stop sulking!” John called, snapping his fingers. “We’re not saying you have to change, Whitney. We’re saying you should probably work a little bit harder on your Plays Well With Others badge. That’s all.”

  Whitney slapped on a smile, determined not to let gloomy self-reflections derail her. In the battle of introspection versus Whitney Vidra, she would always put her money on the latter.

  “You’re right,” she agreed. “And I’m going to start by letting you pick which Lifetime movie we’re going to watch.”

  She took a seat next to John on the overstuffed leather couch. Kendra sat at their feet, her gaze locked on some complex problem neither Whitney nor John could see.

  Whitney snuggled closer to John, instantly feeling better. He was big and warm and comfortable, and it didn’t take long before she even felt conciliatory toward Kendra. These were her friends. She had hot sex, great professional success and people who loved her.

  What more could a girl possibly want?

  * * *

  Matt rarely got sick.

  He laid most of the credit for it on Hilly’s capable shoulders. At almost a full decade older than her brothers, she’d been primarily responsible for raising them when their mother had passed away in a car accident at the unfairly young age of forty-two. Matt remembered his mother as a soft, gentle woman who always smelled of sunshine and used cookies to bribe them away from dangerous activities like climbing to the roof and daring each other to jump off.

  He and Lincoln took after her in a lot of ways, both smaller of stature than they cared to admit and with a distaste of arguments and disorderly scenes. Lincoln, Matt knew, tried to hide it behind his overloud bachelor lifestyle and the gun his job required him to carry. But other than a few rebellious years in which he dyed his hair black and—only once, he swore—wore eyeliner, Matt was content to simply be himself.