Playing for Love

by Mel Curtis

  At center court Evan passed the ball to Bo, who said, “Check,” in that foreign ritual that had started the game. Before Amber could blink Evan began tearing down the court, Bo hot on his heels, straight at Petey, who rocked on the balls of his feet, arms out. Evan pivoted at the last second, spinning away from Petey but ending up past Petey and nearer Amber.

  He thrust the ball at her. Amber tried to grab it, but her fingers barely touched it before Evan continued past her, flying through the air and dunking the ball in the hoop.

  Bo and Petey panted as they pow-wowed beneath the basket.

  “Two-zip.” Glowing, Evan jogged back to Amber, shaking a wayward lock of dark brown hair from his eyes. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. “You were fabulous.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” He’d barely let her touch the ball and Amber had trickles of perspiration tickling her cleavage.

  “You didn’t get taken out though, did you?”

  He was right about that, but Amber was starting to understand what Jack Gordon was talking about. Being the monkey on the court felt like doo-doo. She wanted to quit.

  No. That wasn’t quite right. She wanted to punch Evan and then quit. She’d never punched anyone in her life.

  Petey faced Amber. He plopped one dirty hand on her arm and kept track of Evan over his shoulder.

  Ugh. He reeked of sweat, cheap cologne and cigarettes.

  “Smoking is bad for your lungs.” Amber pushed Petey away, but he came right back, muttering something about bitches not knowing the game.

  “Tsk. Tsk. Language, Petey,” Amber chastised.

  Bo and Evan did that check thing again. And then Evan started down the court so fast it seemed she barely had time to blink before he was nearly on top of her. She and Petey were locked in an arm war. She wasn’t going to be able to get a hand free to touch the ball. Evan dribbled by, bounced the ball off her head lightly, caught it and continuing on to the basket. “Three-zip.”

  Petey swore. Very creatively.

  Amber shoved Petey and this time he stepped away. She turned to Evan, rubbing her crown. “Do I look like something you bounce a ball off of?”

  “Get your hands out next time and I’ll pass to you.” Evan grabbed her wrists and moved her hands palm out in front of her chest. “Relax your fingers, accept the ball and release, accept and release.”

  Amber’s fingers clenched into fists and she considered slugging him.

  Less than ten minutes later Amber was hobbling to her car. Evan be damned. She was going home. Tomorrow was another day. Amber was dirty and sweaty. Her slippers were scuffed irreparably, one of Tink’s wands was missing and her skirt was in tatters. The toe she’d stubbed in the Flash’s parking lot ached, as did her scraped hands and knees. And then there were the bruises she was certain to have – one on her head from Evan’s bounce and one from Petey knocking her on her ass. Her opponent had gotten a good hard look at her crotch before she told him pissy little perverts got kneed in the balls.

  When had she become so violent?

  “Amber, wait up. We’ve got another game.” Evan tugged Amber back around.

  “You mean you’re paying someone a hundred bucks to beat me up some more?” Amber shook her head. “No thanks. You win.” This way she’d live to fight Evan about the Rules another day.

  “We’re having fun.”

  “You’re having fun.” Amber made a face. “For me, it was more like torture.”

  Evan stopped her with a hand on her arm, flashing a cajoling grin. “Hey, the guys are waiting.”

  She would not fall prey to that boyish enthusiasm again. “No.”

  “But – ”

  “You aren’t paying me enough.” Amber freed herself. “Oh, that’s right. You’re not paying me at all. See ya.”

  Ball under one arm, Evan watched Amber drive away. That sucked. He trotted back to get his sports bag, made his excuses and then left, smiling. Amber may look like a fragile, high maintenance babe, but she wasn’t. She’d gone down on that delectable ass of hers and hadn’t done more than talk smack and slug Petey in the shoulder when Evan helped her up. Amber and her Tinkerbell slippers could have walked at any time, but it wasn’t until they’d won the game that she’d left. Now this was something to Tweet about.

  Her Mercedes was two lights up, blinker signaling she was entering the freeway. Amber had what his grandmother used to call gumption. She’d disrupted an NBA game, stood up to Jack Gordon and played streetball.

  Shit. Amber Rule was the most fun Evan had run into since…since he didn’t know when.

  Evan accelerated onto the freeway. Amber’s Mercedes was about ten cars ahead of him. He should call her, but his cell phone was in his sports bag in the trunk. Maybe he’d follow her back to her office and let her know that he’d do this life coaching thing. That would pacify Jack. Sooner or later the Flash owner would realize Amber had no influence on his game.

  Until then, Evan was going to play.

  Chapter 21

  Head down to thwart the paparazzi on the street, Amber parked in the driveway of her dad’s Beverly Hills house and hurried inside, clutching her skirt together and hoping the Zablonskis were eating lunch in the their little house out back. She needed a break from being the CEO of the Dooley Foundation. She needed to take a moment to be a woman whose body and ego had been bruised in a basketball game. Later this afternoon – or maybe tomorrow – she’d start the fight again.

  Amber dropped her sandals at the door and then kicked her slippers off, one by one as she limped down the hallway. Once in her bedroom, she flopped on her back on the rock-hard twin bed and contemplated whether the knots in the wood above her head looked more like Andy Rooney or Frosty the Snowman.

  Frosty was more comforting, because Andy was probably planning a humorous exposé.

  The doorbell rang.

  “No.” Amber scrunched her eyes shut, hoping the world – and the Zablonskis – would go away.

  “No,” she repeated after the bell chimed again.

  That’s when the knocking started.

  Amber did a quick hop-step down the hall to the front door. “For the love of God, Sonny…”

  Evan Oliver stood on her stoop in his black basketball shorts and black sleeveless T-shirt that put his muscles on display. “Hi.”

  Amber shut the door.

  Or she would have, if Evan hadn’t stuck his humongous sneaker in the way and caught the door with his hand.

  “I take it this isn’t your home office. Do you live here?” Evan peered at the time warp behind her.

  “It’s my dad’s house,” Amber explained, leaning harder against the door, annoyed that it didn’t budge.

  He spared her a strange glance. “I was thinking I’d sign the papers or whatever you need to start this thing Jack wants us to do.”

  “Oh.” Amber stopped trying to push the door closed. “Why didn’t you just call?”

  A photographer leapt out of his SUV and zoomed in on the doorway, on Amber standing with Evan Oliver. And Amber looked like Jane to his Tarzan. She grabbed a handful of black shirt and yanked. Lucky for her, Evan came willingly, laughing when she drew him further inside and closed the door.

  “I left my cell in my sports bag and I thought…” Evan looked her up and down. “You need cleaning up. Where’s your first aid kit?” And then he disappeared down a hall.

  Having grown up in a trailer park, Evan liked houses of all shapes and sizes. The Rule house was unique – loud colors, shagadelic style. It was nothing like he would have pictured Amber living in, especially when the exterior looked so typically posh Beverly Hills.

  The brown tiled entry fed into the living room and a kitchen with black and white checked linoleum and orange countertops. Two hallways led off the entry to more intriguing parts of the house. One of Amber’s fuzzy Tinkerbell slippers lay like a breadcrumb in the hallway to the right. He found the second slipper at the end of the hall, Tinkerbell’s wand pointing toward one of two bedrooms. One bedroo
m was unimaginatively clean. The other, the one Tink gestured to, looked as if it was harvesting luggage – bulging suitcases sprouting clothes between twin beds and beneath walls covered with horse head wallpaper. The blue checked quilt was nice, but nothing he’d expected Amber to have. She was more modern satin than western cowgirl.

  “Moving in?” Evan looked back over his shoulder at Amber.

  She glared at him. He’d set out to make things hard for Amber. Mission accomplished. He should leave it at that, but Evan couldn’t, not when she lived in a place that was so surreal.

  Evan entered the small retro pink tiled bathroom and – eureka! – discovered some Band-Aids and antiseptic. “The doctor is in.” He took her delicate hands in his and tenderly soaped them up. “You were a trooper today.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yep. Bo and Petey will quake with fear the next time you step out on the court.” He inspected Amber’s hands to make sure he’d gotten all the dirt and gravel out. How often had his father done the same thing when Evan was a kid? Patched him up, gave him a pep talk and then sent him back out again to do battle with the big kids in the neighborhood.

  “You’re smiling. Are you laughing at me?”

  “Never.” He must have been. Memories of his father didn’t amuse him. What was wrong with this picture?

  Evan wet a wash rag and knelt at Amber’s feet to clean her knees, which put his face level with her pot of gold. There was nothing wrong with this picture.

  “Then stop smiling,” she demanded.

  But Evan already had. It was easy to stop smiling when he was seriously in need of air. Kneeling at the feet of a woman who kissed like she was licensed in the art of pleasing a man, with the body of a goddess and the face of an angel tended to do that to a guy. Mechanically, he dabbed at her knee when what he wanted to do was draw her down on the pink floor on top of him so she could kiss him again.

  “Ow.” Amber bent to get a better view of what he was doing. Her long auburn tresses draped around them like a privacy curtain, blocking the light, tickling his shoulders, bringing the tropical scent of coconut.

  Evan’s entire body tensed. Slowly, he angled his head until his gaze jolted into hers, trapping her gaze until her pupils expanded and her eyes became the color of dark chocolate. He stroked one hand down Amber’s trim calf and then up the back of her bare her leg, his fingers stopping just below the juncture of her thigh and crotch. She had the soft muscles of a woman. She didn’t know how to use those muscles on the basketball court, but Evan was certain she knew how to use them in bed, twin or otherwise.

  Evan flexed his fingers closer to the thin strip of royal blue silk she’d exposed on the basketball court.

  “Evan.” Amber tried to straighten, but she stumbled a bit in the crowded space. “Ow.”

  The big toe on her right foot was bloody and dirty. He’d started this game of doctor to push Amber’s buttons, but now he was unexpectedly angry. Goddesses were for pedestals, not fights in the trenches. “When did you do this?” he demanded.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He tried to clean her toe, but he couldn’t see it well. So he stood, letting his empty hand follow the voluptuous curves of her body the rest of the way up – around the top of her thigh, across the swell of her hip, to the curve of her waist and beneath the knotted hem of her top. He’d only done half the job of freeing Amber earlier when he ripped her skirt. She was still tied tightly into her blouse.

  Amber’s cheeks were nearly as red as her lips, deepening the pink of her nose. The rest of her skin was a soft, creamy white and warm to his touch. Everyone in L.A. had a tan, most of them from a tanning salon, despite the nearby ocean. Evan used to think that made women look sexy, but there was something about the delicate color of Amber’s skin that drew his hand.

  “Good thing the doctor makes house calls.” He lifted Amber carefully to the sink and stepped between her thighs.

  Amber leaned back, but only slightly. Her gaze was riveted on his lips. “You can’t toy with me. I’m not your plaything.”

  “I’m done playing.” Evan’s grin wouldn’t go away as he reached around her to rinse out the wash rag.

  “You’re my client.” Amber’s voice pitched desperately as Evan turned sideways and drew her foot up for inspection. “Remember?”

  “I haven’t signed anything. Right now you only work for Jack.” She had delicate feet, with small, pebbly toes. He daubed at her injury one more time before blowing on it, rewarded when her thighs convulsed around him.

  Evan tossed the rag aside. Amber’s cheeks were still engagingly rosy, but her lips were parted as if waiting for his kiss.

  Evan was rock hard, more than ready to take Amber here, in the bathroom, and he hadn’t even touched those fantastic tits of hers. They’d use the clean bedroom the second time. And lucky boy that he was, he had two condoms in his wallet, which was enough to let Amber know who was boss. Him. More than that and she might start to think she had some kind of influence over him.

  His hands slid up beneath her torn skirt, his fingers beneath the narrow front edge of her thong.

  Amber’s breath hitched. “I think there’s like some client-life coach code that says no sex.”

  Ignoring her, Evan leaned closer until his mouth brushed hers. “That makes this wrong.” One of his fingers traced the parting of her inner lips.

  “Very wrong,” she murmured, eyes drifting closed.

  “And this wrong.” That same finger slid down the top of her slick lips to the place his dick desperately wanted to enter.

  “Incredibly wrong.” Her fingers drifted through Evan’s hair as her legs rolled open wider, welcoming his entry.

  Every cell in Evan’s body clambered for him to take her. Amber was in for a long, hard ride, but she was ready. His forefinger was drowning in her moist heat. Amber undulated her hips on his finger as she captured his mouth. Evan loved a woman who knew what she was doing. She was hot and he was ready to burst. Slow wasn’t going to be an option. Evan was going to take her quick and follow her down, but first –

  Amber moaned against his mouth, rocking his finger with a purpose.

  “Time out.” His equipment jerked in reproach. Evan didn’t want to get left behind, like last time in Tingle.

  “Keep up.” Amber stole the hand she wasn’t riding and guided it between the knotted folds of her top. Together they shoved her bra out of the way until he – Bingo! – had possession of one plump breast.

  “Holy God.” Evan must have done something right in this life because Amber was his idea of heaven – beautiful, stacked, as horny as he was.

  “Harder,” Amber commanded against his lips, her legs wrapping tighter around his waist. Her inner muscles were crowding his finger. She was on the brink and so was he, but this time he wasn’t going to be a bystander.

  “Time out. Time out.” This time he pulled back and went for his wallet.

  Amber’s eyes were closed. “Bad idea.”

  His wallet slapped onto the tile floor. Amber’s eyes flew open. She took note of how he was protecting her.

  Her smile was warm. “Good idea.” Then her hands were at his waist. She sent his shorts and boxer briefs sagging about his ankles. “Much better idea.” Her skimpy panties followed. The torn skirt hung open at her waist.

  Evan barely had the condom rolled on when Amber slid to the edge of the counter, grabbed his shoulders and practically mounted him all by herself.

  Okay, that was his fantasy. He did lift her up while her hands reached for him, guiding him home, Sweet Mama, moaning with pleasure as she swallowed every inch of him. Or maybe he was the one moaning because she was hot and tight around him and he was so close to release his legs trembled.

  And then Amber picked up that rolling motion, too soon, too demanding. Evan didn’t have his bearings. He was feeling too much, enjoying too much.

  He came. “Damn it.”

  Amber froze. Gaped up at him.

  “Oops.” Evan
grimaced. “That’s never happened before. Give me a minute.” Probably less. His release had hardly taken the edge off his need for her.

  “Amber, honey. You left your front door unlocked.” A woman’s voice.

  And they hadn’t closed the bathroom door. Amber kicked at it at the same time Evan pushed at it. The door clicked closed. He engaged the lock.

  Hello, naughty booby. The breast she’d wanted him to fondle stood brazenly at attention against his chest, bra and shirt twisted around it. Evan swelled with renewed wanting.

  “Amber?” There was a hitch to the woman’s voice that indicated she was old. She was also closer. In the hallway. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m taking a shower, Yvonne,” Amber called back, then whispered to Evan without looking at anything other than his chest, “Put me down.”

  Only if it was on a bed. Evan pulled Amber’s hips closer, thrusting against her. He couldn’t help it. Evan was having an out of body experience. He knew he shouldn’t reclaim Amber’s tit with his hand. He knew he shouldn’t bury his face in her reddish-brown hair and nibble on her earlobe.

  “Evan,” Amber breathed, half protest, half plea. Her hands became caught in his thick dark hair just behind his ears.

  He was still hot for her, on the brink of coming again.

  Amber ached for release. Evan’s body pressed against hers in all the right places. She could feel him inside her, growing harder, larger. She’d always heard athletes had tremendous endurance. She was experiencing it first hand at the most awkward time, but Amber couldn’t help herself. She was due.

  Strike that. She was a couple of years overdue.

  Amber tightened her muscles and rocked her ride. Once. Twice.

  But the building tension was only a prelude to what she really wanted.

  “Who’s car is out front?” Yvonne asked.

  Evan convulsed inside her.

  “Are you kidding me? Twice? You have got to see Senge Tenzing,” Amber whispered, managing to climb off him, feeling empty and let down. She raised her voice. “That’s a friend’s car, Yvonne. He…he went for a short walk.” Damn athletes. All promise and no go. And she hadn’t even unpacked her vibrator. With her luck, the batteries would be dead.