Hot as Sin (Contemporary Romance Box Set)

by Katherine Lace

  “Tomorrow doesn’t work for me. I’ve got an appointment in fifteen minutes. It’s either leave her here or take her to Mom’s.”

  Whatever “take her to Mom’s” means to Austin, it’s obviously something undesirable. “Fine,” he says through gritted teeth. “But you need to start planning this shit ahead of time, or we’re going back to the mediator.”

  She just makes a face. “Whatever.”

  This time when she pulls the door open, he lets her go. After the door falls shut behind her, he turns his attention to the little bundle of adorable in his arms.

  “It’s okay, honey,” he says in an ultra-sweet voice. “Mommy doesn’t mean to be a raging bitch.” Then he looks up, and this time his eyes meet mine.

  “You have a daughter?”

  He gives me a proud smile. “Yeah.” Then he glares at the door where Megan disappeared moments before.

  I lean against the wall just inside the living room, crossing my arms over my chest. “What happened?”

  “She wasn’t planned, that’s all.” He strokes a hand over Emma’s round head. “Well, I have my suspicions.”

  She seems content, not flailing or crying or acting like she needs something. Her big eyes are a dark blue-gray, and there’s a string of drool hanging from her chin. She’s adorable, and utterly alien to me.

  “So you think Megan got knocked up on purpose?”

  He rolls his eyes. I realize I’m making light of the situation, but I still haven’t gotten over the shock. Austin Sherwood as a daddy. It’s not the kind of thing that’s easy to get your head around. Especially when you were damn near having sex with him not five minutes ago.

  “Considering how she’s acted since Emma was born, yes, I suspect that’s what she was after.”

  He moves toward the living room, where he takes a seat on the couch. I can’t help but notice the flash of the insides of his thighs as his robe flaps.

  He’s not just holding her now. He’s got her propped in his lap while she plays with his face, her little fingers grabbing at his nose and his lips. She pulls at them, then he crosses his eyes at her and she bursts out in peals of giggles. God, she’s cute.

  I settle onto a corner of a recliner on the other side of the room. “She’s adorable.”

  He gives me a smile that tugs at my heart. “Thank you.”

  “How come you never talk about her? From everything I’ve read about you, you’re footloose and fancy free and fucking your way through most of the city.”

  Austin claps a hand over Emma’s ears. “Don’t talk like that in front of the baby.”

  Both my eyebrows shoot up, and it’s all I can do to keep from laughing at him. “Coming from the guy who just said b-i-t-c-h.”

  Emma makes a sound, sort of a grunt but also something like an attempt at vocalization, and it sounds so much like “Uck” that I can’t hold back the laughter anymore.

  “Look what you did!”

  “Oh, come on. That wasn’t really a word. And she’s precious.” I reach out, wiggling my fingers, and Austin hands Emma over to me with a sigh. “Does she need to eat or anything?”

  “Yeah. I’ll go get her dinner ready.”

  Emma and I sit and play on the couch while Austin goes to prepare a bottle and some rice cereal. After a few minutes, the baby starts to get restless, so I get up and meander over to watch Austin, balancing Emma on my hip.

  “Is that all she eats?” I ask.

  “At the moment.” He carefully tests the temperature of the bottle, then the cereal. “I think it’s getting close to the time where we can try some vegetable baby food, but I’m going to check with her doctor first.”

  Emma starts wiggling, hands reaching toward the food.

  “I think she’s hungry.”

  Austin fetches a high chair and sets it up next to his table. I slide Emma into it, buckle her up, and watch while Austin spoons cereal into her mouth. I can’t believe it’s really happening. Austin Sherwood feeding a baby right in front of my eyes. And he’s good at it. Emma burbles and coos, eating her cereal, mooshing it out of her mouth until it runs down her chin, then wiping at it with her hands and painting abstract rice cereal art all over the high chair tray.

  When she’s done eating and painting with the cereal, Austin cleans her up and takes her back to the living room, where he sits on the couch and gives Emma her bottle. She’s getting sleepy, eyes drooping shut as she sucks happily.

  I can’t resist. “May I?”

  Austin gives me a small smile and eases Emma over into my arms. I’ve never given a baby a bottle, and it feels nice, with her heavy little body growing progressively heavier in my arms as she drifts closer to sleep.

  “I can’t believe you have a baby,” I say after a few minutes, keeping my voice low.

  Austin, sitting next to me on the couch, smiles over my shoulder down at his daughter. “Neither can I, really.”

  “She’s so perfect. I don’t understand how you’ve kept her a secret all this time.”

  He shrugs. “I just want her safe. I want all my family safe. If people knew I had a kid, the press would be all over her, taking pictures, following us around, harassing me about her mom, you name it.”

  “And what’s the story with her mom?” I tell myself I don’t want to know, but I actually do want to know.

  “The usual story, I guess you could say. Football groupie, very stupid wide receiver. I don’t think I would have even known Emma existed except Megan decided to basically ask for hush money.”

  That hits me a little wrong. “Isn’t it really child support? To take care of Emma?”

  “That’s the way I look at it, but Megan did tell me if I didn’t keep paying, she’d leak things to the press, go on talk shows, sell pictures of Emma to the tabloids…” He trails off. “I can’t have that. Not for my little girl. I just want her to have a normal life. Or at least as normal a life as possible.”

  I nod. I understand that. “A lot of men would have walked away.”

  “Maybe. It didn’t seem right. Now I have joint custody and a big chunk of my paycheck going to a woman I don’t really know and don’t particularly like.” He sighs.

  I turn my head a little to look toward his face. Abruptly, I realize his lips are a breath away from mine. My gaze falls to his mouth, and my own lips part, and he leans in…

  Abruptly, I jerk my head back to face forward. I can’t get Emma off my lap gracefully, but I start moving carefully to hand her back to Austin.

  “I need to go,” I tell him. My voice is shaky.

  “Are you sure?” His face is still very close to mine. I can feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  He takes Emma so carefully she doesn’t even wake up. “Just try not to slam the door, okay?” His tone is quiet. He doesn’t sound angry. I give him one last look; he’s smiling a little.

  I leave as quickly as possible, and I’m careful not to slam the door.

  On the way home, my brain starts to settle. I shouldn’t have let him get to me. I’m a professional—if I have this kind of reaction to every client, I won’t be a professional for long. Just because there’s a low-level, buzzing attraction doesn’t mean I can lose my shit.

  Low-level, my ass.

  The pragmatic inner voice that always calls me on my shit is right. What’s going on when I’m in the same room with Austin isn’t a low-level buzz. It’s more like the screaming, frantic hum of a million beehives somebody has just poked with a stick. Adding Emma to the mix…well, that was just playing dirty, not to mention turning the buzz up to eleven. There’s no way to ignore that.

  Well, you’re going to pull up your big girl panties and do exactly that.

  Stupid voice. If it weren’t from inside my own head, I’d slap it silly.

  At home, I fling my bag on the couch. It sucks that I’m going to have to go back to get the mat. That’ll have to wait until I can get myself better under control. Maybe I can sneak in—bre
ak in through his window, grab the mat, and run.

  Forget that. I’d never get past the main gate.

  I’m still on edge, anxiety making everything feel prickly and unmanageable as I try to pace it off. Austin will call Dr. Richards and tell him what happened. Dr. Richards will call me into his office, dress me down, and then take me off Austin’s case. He’ll probably fire me, in fact, for not being able to manage a high-profile client. It’ll take me years to get my reputation back…

  Oh my God, stop it, Chloe.

  In my head, I’ve fast-forwarded myself all the way to my late thirties so I can see the tragic failure I’ve become. Hell, if I let my imagination run much further, I’ll be in an embarrassed-physical-therapist protection program.

  I flop onto the couch. I just need to apologize. But first I need to get myself under control.

  Digging my phone out of my bag, I find Austin’s contact information and stare at it for what feels like four hours. Finally I take a deep breath, swallow hard, fix my hair—because you can totally tell over the phone if somebody’s hair isn’t perfect—and touch the screen to dial his number.

  “Chloe?” He answers right away, like he’s been waiting for me to call. Somehow that makes me a little less nervous. Maybe he’s worried about me.

  “Hi,” I say. My heart starts pounding again, and I wonder how I ever thought I was calm enough to do this. “I just… I wanted to say I’m sorry. There was no excuse for me to run out like that.”

  “Are you okay?” He sounds genuinely concerned.

  “Yes. I just…I don’t know. I kind of lost it. This job is really stressful. My boss is putting a lot of pressure on me to do everything right and be sure you’re ready in time for the championship game and—”

  His chuckle cuts me off.

  “What? Why are you laughing at me?” I demand.

  “I’m not laughing at you.”

  “Yes, you are!”

  “Well, Doc, you can tell me about the stress and the pressure and job security and your boss being a dick all day, and it’s not going to change the fact that I know exactly what’s going on with you.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Really. I can read you like a book, Doc.”

  “You can read?”

  There. Be pissed off. Remember he’s an asshole. Remember how much you hate football players.

  He just chuckles again. “You want me. You want me so bad it hurts.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Don’t lie to me. I can smell it on you.”

  “What, you’re a bloodhound now?”

  “No, I just know when a woman wants me.”

  My teeth are grinding together now. “You just assume every woman wants you, which is not even remotely true.”

  “Tell me you don’t want me.”

  “I don’t want you.” I say it firmly, and it sounds almost like I believe it.

  “Tell me you don’t want to do filthy things with me on my massage table while I rub oil over your arms, your legs, your ti—”

  “Stop it, Austin.” Damn it. It’s pathetic how weak I sound. I clear my throat to make my voice stronger. “You’re out of line!”

  “You know what you should do? You should just get it out of your system. Fuck me.”

  “What—”

  “Fuck me oh, once or twice or maybe five times, and then you’ll be able to concentrate. It’ll be better for you, better for me… I’ll get better care because you won’t be thinking about my dick the whole time you’re rubbing me down.”

  “That is the worst idea in the history of ideas.”

  “I see what you mean.” His tone is thoughtful, which is probably a bad sign. “It might take more than that. I mean, once you get the D from me, you’re going to want it all the time. That could really interfere with my recovery.”

  Okay, I’ve had it.

  I stand, yelling into the phone now. “You know what’s interfering with your recovery? Your inability to follow directions, and your fucking obnoxious personality. I do not ‘want the D’ from you. Do you really even want to get better?”

  “Of course I do.” He sounds a little taken aback, and I get some satisfaction from that.

  “Then you get ice on that goddamn leg for twenty minutes at a time every four hours until our next session. And you take your meds and do your goddamn exercises, you understand me?”

  “Yes, Doc. I got it.”

  “And don’t think you can skimp on any of it, because I’ll be able to tell.”

  “Yes, Doc.” Now there’s an undercurrent of amusement in his voice, but I’m so pissed I don’t care.

  “Next session, we’re meeting at the practice facility.”

  This seems like a fair compromise—they have everything I need to properly treat him, but it’s neutral territory.

  “That okay with you?” I make it clear in my tone that it had damn well better be okay with him.

  “It’s fine,” he answers.

  I could leave it there, but I’m not done. “And for God’s sake, act like a grownup. This is a professional relationship. Get your head out of your dick.” And I stab the phone screen and hang up on him.

  That felt good. Maybe I’ve finally figured out how to deal with him.

  Then my phone buzzes. I pick it up to see a text message.

  Do you really think my dick is so big my head would fit in it?

  Oh my God. I delete the message, determined to ignore him. But the phone buzzes again.

  You’re really hot when you’re mad.

  I roll my eyes, my hand tightening on the phone as I delete this one, too.

  You should yell at me more. I think it helps. I feel better already.

  I fling the phone onto the couch and stomp into my bedroom.

  There’s no way I’m going to survive Austin Sherwood.

  6

  Austin

  I’m about to get myself into a shitload of trouble. But that’s okay, because it’ll be worth it in the end.

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Chloe in the last few days, it’s that she’s hella hot when she’s pissed off. Which of course makes me want to piss her off as much as possible.

  “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be recuperating?”

  I glance at Orrin, who’s suiting up for practice next to me. It hadn’t occurred to me until late last night that the team was practicing today. It had taken another few seconds to realize I’d been ordered to meet Chloe at the practice facility at the same time team practice was going on. I could have called her and changed the time, but where was the fun in that?

  I shrug in response to Orrin’s comment. “Eh, it’s not that bad.”

  “You sure? Cause you looked like an elephant stomped on you when they took you off the field. And Coach said you were going to be out for the playoffs.”

  “Y’know, Walters, I’m a grownup. I think I can decide if I should be at practice or not.”

  He shrugs, still giving me the side-eye. I focus on what I’m doing. It actually hurts like hell to get my pads on, though not as badly as it hurt doing the exercises Chloe left for me.

  “Austin Sherwood, you son of a bitch.”

  There’s no mistaking that voice. I have no idea how she figured out where I was this fast, but I’m impressed. I’m also impressed when she storms across the locker room, giant naked football players parting in front of her like the Red Sea. She seems completely oblivious, focused on me and nothing else.

  I smile at her when she stops in front of me, fists planted on her hips. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “You know exactly what’s up, Sherwood.”

  She wags a finger in my face. It makes me wish she was wearing a hot librarian outfit.

  “I said meet at the practice facility for your therapy session, not meet at the practice facility for practice.”

  I hear laughter next to me and glance at Orrin. He seems to be enjoying watching me get yelled at.

  “I’m sorry, Doc. I must have hea
rd you wrong.”

  “You—” She breaks off and glances around, seeming to just then realize we’re surrounded by half the team, many of them buck-ass naked, all of them attentive. “Come with me.”

  “Sure, Doc.”

  She grabs my arm and drags me across the locker room. I can hear the laughter following us, the assortment of lewd comments. This is honestly going better than I’d imagined it would. It’s so much fun to get her riled up.

  I might feel just a bit guilty that I’m going back on my promise to follow her instructions. Not much, though. Her chains are so easy to jerk, and I just can’t help myself.

  We make it to a quiet-ish corner of the locker room and she half-shoves me up against the wall.

  Oh, baby.

  “What are you grinning about?” she snaps, as if grinning were a federal offense.

  “I like the way you’re throwing me around. It’s getting me all hot and bothered.”

  Her face is starting to turn an alarming shade of purple, and I wonder if she’s been stress-tested recently.

  “Although I have to admit, when I fantasized about it, it was just you and me, not you, me, and a dozen other naked dudes.”

  Chloe absolutely flips her shit. I thought I’d seen her mad before—that was nothing. That was a high school experiment-type volcano compared to the Chloe-shaped Vesuvius that’s erupting right now.

  “I thought we had an agreement, Sherwood! I thought you made a promise. Hell, I thought you actually wanted to play football again this season. Because you know what? That’s not going to happen if you don’t fucking do what I tell you!”

  She’s so infuriated she’s spitting while she talks, and red patches have risen high and bright on her cheeks. I can’t help but wonder what all that emotion would be like if it were channeled into sex. She just might be able to give me a run for my money in the bedroom. I don’t think I’ve ever thought that about a woman. Ever.

  Then it starts to soak in exactly how angry she is. How disappointed she is in me. That’s when I start to actually feel bad for pulling this prank on her. All she’s trying to do is her job. And her job is fixing me. So why am I giving her so much shit?