by Pamela Clare
He sauntered over to where Lissy sat in the shade, tossed the T-shirt on the ground and reached into the cooler for a cold one. “How you doing, sugar? Hot day.”
“Yeah.” Her gaze was fixed on his pecs.
Lissy dropped the chicken strips into the wok and stirred them, her blood sizzling hotter than the pungent sesame oil. Watching him play a hard game of football, all those delicious muscles shifting and bunching beneath his sweat-slick skin, had left her wishing she’d never suggested this stupid bet. She’d be in the shower with him right now, running her hands over those luscious muscles, washing that spicy man-sweat away, instead of stewing in her own pheromones in the kitchen.
Why had she gotten herself into this?
You wouldn’t be the first woman to confuse a man’s sexual attention with love, Melisande. Just wait till he gets his fill of you and the hormones wear off.
Is that what had happened to her mother? Had she married her father in the afterglow of an orgasm only to regret it later? Lissy had always known her parents’ marriage was an unhappy one, but she’d never understood how unhappy it was until she’d left home, watched other couples and seen her parents from the outside. They were angry, bitter, worn.
Even when she’d been a little girl they’d slept in separate bedrooms, lived separate lives, coming together only when occasion demanded. She knew her father had fooled around with other women, his unfaithfulness seeming to rob her mother of what remained of her youth. No amount of money had been able to fill the void between them.
But Lissy’s relationship with Will was nothing like theirs. She and Will truly loved each other, loved spending time with each other. They earned about the same amount of money, held similar jobs, had similar interests. She would not wake up one morning to find herself in her mother’s shoes.
Still, a bet was a bet. She had agreed to it. Worse, it had been her idea. And now she was stuck with it.
She dropped chopped veggies into the wok and watched them fry.
“No, sugar, I’ll do it. You made supper. It’s my turn to do dishes.” Will stood, winced.
She looked up at him, concern in her pretty eyes. “Your knee?”
“Yeah.” He picked up their plates and silverware, took another step, allowed a hiss of breath to pass his teeth. His knee did hurt. Not much. But it did hurt. “Damn!”
She stood, took the plates from his hands. “Sit, hon. I’ll get an ice pack.”
“No, let me handle this. It’s not bad.” He was telling the truth.
She gave him a worried frown. “Liar. Sit and elevate it. I’ll be right back.”
He sat and lifted his leg onto a chair, suppressing a satisfied grin. She’d been distracted and grumpy during dinner, and he thought he knew why. He’d followed the football game with a shower and had come to dinner wearing a pair of old jeans and a Calvin Klein shirt—which he’d left unbuttoned. She’d spent the better part of their meal trying not to look at him.
Devon was a genius. Will could win the bet and get Lissy back into his bed, protecting his groomsmen from the Curse of the Pink Cummerbunds while preventing himself from becoming the first man in history to die from a case of blue balls.
He soothed his conscience by telling himself it wasn’t cheating. Nothing in the conditions of their wager prevented them from trying covertly to seduce the other person. And when Lissy gave in to her lust, he’d not only make certain she enjoyed it, but he’d also prove what a great guy he was by letting her wear the Very Wang or whatever gown it was that she liked so much.
When Lissy returned, she had a pillow, a tea towel and an ice pack in her hands. She looked down at his knee. “Oh!”
He pretended not to understand the problem.
“You’re going to have to take off your jeans.”
He nodded, stood, unbuttoned his fly. Then he slipped the worn denim down his hips, letting his cock hang free, and watched her eyes widen. “Sorry, Lissy. You said dinner was ready, so I hurried.”
Lissy drew an I and Will a P, so Lissy went first. Will watched as she calculated the value of her letters, then set five tiles on the board: N-I-G-H-T.
“Double letter score on the T for ten points.” She scribbled her points on paper and drew five more tiles.
It had been decades since Will had played Scrabble. With sex out of the question and nothing decent on television, he’d figured they’d rent a DVD. But Lissy had found the old board game last week while packing the contents of the guest room closet and had wanted to play.
“You can keep your leg elevated, and we can still have some fun,” she’d said, dropping a pair of gym shorts in his naked lap.
He adjusted the ice pack on his knee, looked at the letters on his tray, then bit back a smile and set down his tiles, taking advantage of her T: B-R-E-A-S-T-S.
“Double points for the R for a total of ten. We’re tied.” He pulled six new tiles and sat back to see how she’d react.
“The game has just started.” Her green eyes held defiance. Using the second S from BREASTS, she spelled out S-E-X for eleven points.
Will studied the board and pulled three tiles from his tray; using the B in BREASTS, he spelled B-L-O-W for ten with a double score for the L.
She smiled sweetly, picked up a tile and dropped an N above his O, spelling NO. Four points. “Your turn.”
Will was glad they weren’t playing poker, because once he’d looked the board over and considered his tiles, he was unable to keep himself from smiling. He pulled five tiles from his tray and set them down one by one, using the R from BREASTS: P-E-C-K-E-R.
“Double word score for a hot twenty-eight points. Top that, sugar.”
Lissy squirmed in her seat, considered her options. She would put him in his place. She picked up three tiles, and going down from the P he’d just placed added U-N-Y to spell PUNY. It was only eight points, but sometimes it wasn’t the score that mattered.
She looked up at him, ready to gloat—only to find him watching her through intense blue eyes that told her he knew she knew better. There was nothing puny about Will.
She swallowed, watched him set out his next word for twelve points: L-I-P-S.
She rolled her eyes, used his L to spell L-I-M-P. Eight points.
He gave her a lopsided grin and shook his head, drawing her gaze down to the telltale bulge in his shorts. Then he used the E in SEX to spell E-N-T-E-R. Seven points.
She lifted her chin, used his N and spelled out N-E-V-E-R for ten points.
He narrowed his eyes at her, bit his lower lip. Then a slow smile spread across his face as he moved back up the board and used the A in BREASTS to end the word V-A-G-I-N-A. Twelve points.
And so it went, crossword warfare, neither of them speaking, Lissy barely breathing, until Will passed two hundred points with the fifteen-point word Q-U-I-M.
Lissy stood, glared at him and began tossing the wooden tiles back into the little velvet bag. “So long as you understand, Will Fraser, those four letters are as close as you’re getting to the real thing until you say ‘I do.’”
This time, Lissy said good night to Will while he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, then fled to the safe haven of the guest room.
Will heard Lissy open the bedroom door. He opened one eye and glanced at the clock—twelve-oh-five. He pretended to be asleep, certain she was about to crawl beneath the sheets and wake him for a bit of midnight madness. Instead he heard the drawer of her nightstand slide open, then close. And then she was gone.
A few minutes later, he heard a faint buzzing sound.
And then it hit him.
She was having sex with herself! Without him!
He sat up, intensely aroused and irritated. He’d spent the better part of the day trying to get under her skin, and she was taking it out on a sex toy?
He’d set one foot on the floor on his way to replace the stupid bit of vibrating plastic with something real when he caught himself. He forced himself back into bed, flipped onto his side and punched
a pillow. And listened.
By the time the buzzing stopped ten minutes later, he was hard as steel. He’d take care of the steel tonight. The vibrator he’d take care of tomorrow.
She wasn’t getting off that easily.
The wall woke Lissy again early Monday morning. She took a shower, slid into her bathrobe and had breakfast ready and coffee brewing when Will emerged from the bedroom, looking tired and surly. She poured him a cup, handed it to him, then kissed him on the stubbly roughness of his cheek. “Morning, babe. How’s your knee?”
He sipped, frowned. “My knee? Oh. Better. Thanks.”
“Should we ride together?”
He looked into his coffee, shook his head. “Take your car. I’ll be at Broncos team camp most of the day. We’re doing a couple of live feeds.”
“A late night?”
He nodded. “How about you?”
“A day of boring meetings. We’ve got to pin down the concept for our fall fashion preview, and I need to finish interviews for the staff writer position. We can’t head into the rest of the summer understaffed.”
He set his coffee down, pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “I miss you, Lissy. I miss having you in our bed. Sex or no sex, it’s not the same without you.”
She pressed her cheek into his chest, sank into the haven of his body. “I miss you, too. But it’s only—”
“—thirteen more days.”
Thirteen more days.
Somehow that had begun to sound like a long time.
That was what she thought, but that was not what she said. “Don’t tell me you’re ready to cave so soon.”
“Who said anything about giving up? I was simply stating a fact.” Then he kissed her on the nose. “Have a great day.”
“You, too.” Lissy watched him head back up the hallway toward the shower and wished he’d had the good grace to give up. Although sex with her vibrator relieved some of the tension and helped her sleep, it didn’t come close to the pleasure of sex with Will.
She hurried to the bedroom, got dressed, then grabbed her briefcase and purse and drove through early morning traffic to the five-story office building that housed the Denver Independent. As a senior editor, she got one of the coveted parking places beneath the building—a luxury that saved her countless hours searching for a spot on the streets of downtown Denver, where parking was a blood sport.
She had a meeting with her assistant editors, interviewed two candidates for the staff writer position and then shot down three design concepts for the fall fashion cover. By ten, she was beginning to feel in control again. Not even her mother, who called to demand once again that Will sign a prenup if she wanted her to attend the wedding, ruined her morning.
Because Will was in Englewood watching the Donkeys—she only called them that because it irritated him—she had lunch with Holly. Over a salad so wilted it looked like it had been fished out of the alley garbage can, she found herself telling Holly about the weekend: how she’d woken up ready to jump Will’s bones and had moved into the guest room, how the sight of Will in the shower had driven her out of her mind, how she’d nearly melted watching Will play football without his shirt, how he’d toyed with her over a game of Sex Scrabble.
“Thirteen days sounds like forever!” She leaned forward and whispered, “And there’s not a vibrator in the world that comes anywhere close to him.”
For a moment Holly said nothing but nibbled at her fruit plate. Then she smiled. “He’s doing it on purpose, you know.”
“Doing what on purpose?”
“Trying to turn you on. Trying to make you so desperate you’ll give in first.”
“Oh, no! No, no, no! Will wouldn’t do that.” When Holly gave her an exasperated how-can-you-be-so-stupid look, Lissy tried to explain. “Scrabble was my idea, and I’m the one who walked in on him when he was in the shower. He didn’t ask me to come in. And he’s played football without his shirt before. No, it’s me. I’m just—”
“—head-over-heels in love with a very sexy man,” Holly finished for her, then continued, “who knows perfectly well how he affects you and is doing everything he can to make you lose the bet before he does.”
Lissy shook her head and stood, cafeteria tray in hand. “I just don’t think he would do that.”
Holly followed her to the trash. “Lissy, dear, Will is special, but he’s still a man.”
“The Broncos have a young receiver corps this year, heavy on strength and speed but light on experience.” Will spoke into the mic on his headset, almost finished with their second live broadcast of the day. The hot June sun beat down on him, made him sweat beneath the sport coat the station insisted he wear. “Receivers Coach Tony D’Angio put them through their paces today running cross patterns and focusing on technique—footwork and hand position.”
From the station downtown, helmet-haired sports anchor Don Philips was interviewing him, his voice buzzing in Will’s earpiece. “Darius Williams was taken out with a pulled hamstring. Any word yet as to how serious it is?”
“No, Don, though it’s unlikely he’ll return to the field this week. The coaching staff is working hard to prevent preseason injuries in hopes of avoiding an early season like the one they had last year. They’ve added extra stretching and conditioning workouts, which are also helping the newest members of the team adjust to playing at altitude.”
“If anyone knows what injuries can do to a player’s career, it’s you, Will. It was a devastating knee injury that ended your career, taking you from Big 12 star to former college legend overnight.”
Will hated it when Don brought up his past, but Don seemed to love rubbing it in. “That’s right, Don. Neither the coaches nor the players want to see that scenario unfold here at team camp, so, while they’re training hard, they’re also holding back a bit, waiting for their conditioning to peak before they push forward into the more strenuous workouts.”
“Checking in with Will Fraser at Broncos team camp in Englewood. We’ll continue to follow events as the week unfolds. Tonight, the Red Sox—”
Will waited until the red light on the camera went out, then ripped off his headset. “Stupid dick.”
“Don’t listen to him, Will.” Merrill, the cameraman, began breaking down the equipment. “The asshole can’t catch a clue, much less a football. Spends his days worrying about his hair.”
“Thanks, Merrill. Go find yourself something cold to drink and some AC.”
Will had assumed he’d be over it by now. It had been eleven years since his dreams of playing pro football had ended in one moment of shattering pain. Although he’d never played a single pro game, he had turned professional football into a solid career for himself, using his name and his knowledge to earn a good living reporting from the sidelines. His work had brought him together with Lissy, more than making up for anything he’d lost. He had no regrets. Yet there were still times when he found himself wondering what might have been.
Let it go, Fraser.
Feeling on edge, Will turned back toward the practice field and watched the players finish one-on-one drills in the red zone. He’d been irritable all day, maybe because it was ninety-nine degrees outside and maybe because he had a beautiful fiancée whom he hadn’t touched for almost three long days.
He’d come close last night to winning the bet and ending this whole thing. Then Lissy had gotten help from an old friend. He’d known the vibrator was there. Why hadn’t he thrown the damn thing out or hidden it somewhere else? Well, he might have blown it last night, but he was a man who learned from his mistakes.
He’d waited until she’d walked out the door this morning, then he’d searched the guest room until he’d found it. Knowing he couldn’t smash it or toss it out without giving himself away, he’d turned it on and slipped it back beneath the mattress where she’d hidden it. By the time she got home from work, the batteries would be dead—and he’d taken care to make certain there were no more AAs anywhere in the condo. If she reached
for her little buzzing boyfriend tonight, she’d find him unresponsive—and Will doubted she’d go to the trouble of getting dressed and traversing the Cone Zone for replacement batteries.
Of course, she still had fingers.
The thought of her touching herself, sliding her pretty fingers between her lips and over her tasty little clit until she came, sent a rush of blood to his groin, leaving him half-hard.
“Hey, Fraser!” Coach D’Angio strolled over to him, pigskin in hand, followed by two rookies who would most likely spend the year serving an apprenticeship on the bench. “I hear you’re getting hitched.”
Will nodded, grinned, grateful for the distraction. “You heard right—two weeks from this past Saturday.”
D’Angio slapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations!”
The rookies nodded and smiled.
“Is she worth the ball and chain?”
Ball and chain? Will had never thought of marriage to Lissy in that way. “More than.”
Coach D’Angio held up the ball. “Hey, you want to show these two clowns how to catch a damned football? Will here is more than just a pretty face,” D’Angio said to the rookies. “For six years, he was the Big 12 all-time leader in receptions, receiving yardage and touchdowns.”
“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve run a serious pattern, D’Angio? These guys are pros. I can’t teach them anything.” But Will was already unbuttoning his sport jacket.
From Big 12 star to former college legend.
By the time Coach D’Angio had the ball in the air, Will was far downfield. He turned in, saw the leather spiraling toward him but about two feet too far to the left and high. As it had always done, his mind emptied of everything except how much he wanted that ball. He leapt for it, thought it into his hands, pulled it against his chest. Then his feet hit turf, a sharp bite of pain in his knee the only proof he’d just done something stupid.