The Thrill of Victory

by Sandra Brown

  "Oh, it's sexy alright," she told him with an impish grin. "Devilishly so. Almost as good as the hairy chest."

  "No lie?"

  "No lie. My mouth's watering."

  "Hmm."

  He lowered his eyes to her lips. His intense gaze was as stirring and provocative as his scathing prose, though in an entirely different way.

  The bottom seemed to drop out of Stevie's stomach. Before she became hopelessly trapped by his stare, which seemed to be drawing her closer to him like a powerful magnet, she turned away from him and began vigorously shaking the bottle of lotion.

  "Where do you want to do this?"

  "I don't know," he answered in a low voice.

  "How well are we going to get to know each other?"

  She spun around to find him standing very close behind her, looking hungrily at her exposed neck while he played with the end of her braid. As he rubbed the silky strands between his fingers, he whispered, "There's the chair. Or there's the bed."

  She flicked his hand away. "Do you want a rubdown or not?"

  "I do."

  "Then sit down and let's get it over with."

  "I guess that means the chair," he said dryly, making an effort to keep from smiling. He pulled a straight chair from beneath a desk and straddled the seat, folding his arms over the back of it. "Have at me."

  Stevie moved to stand behind him. She filled one palm with the lotion, then rubbed it against the other. However, when it came time to actually touch him, she hesitated. He had his chin propped on his stacked hands. Eventually her hesitation brought his head around.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing."

  "This isn't going to burn or anything, is it?"

  "Chicken?" ' 'When it comes to my hide, you bet your ass."

  "Do you think I'd smear it on my own hands if it burned?" she asked crossly.

  "I don't know. You might. I've written some rotten things about you. This might be your way of getting revenge."

  "Which you sorely deserve."

  The conversation had given her time to bolster her courage. She laid her hands on his naked shoulders and began massaging in the healing lotion.

  "Hmm," he moaned pleasurably after several moments. "Not bad, Stevie."

  "Thanks. I've had lots of practice."

  "On whom?"

  "Other players on the tour."

  "Men?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Oh, yeah? Is there material for a column here? 'Locker Room Lechery'?"

  "That sounds like you. Low, mean, base."

  " Tennis Court Courtship'?"

  "Ghastly headline."

  "'Racquets and Romance'? 'Over hands, Or Head Over Heels?'?"

  The freckles that dotted the ridge of his shoulders were adorable. They begged to have kisses pecked on them. The skin beneath Stevie's slippery fingers was taut, the muscles supple.

  She wanted to slide her hands down his sides and over the corrugated rib cage. The fuzziness in his armpits intrigued her. With her eyes, she followed his spine into the waistband of his shorts. Touching him hadn't satisfied a building curiosity. It had only heightened it.

  "Well, how 'bout it?" His mouth was pressed against his hands so the words came out mumbled.

  Her massage was lulling him. His eyes were closed. For such a tough guy, his eyelashes were ridiculously thick.

  "How about what?"

  "Romance. Ever had to use your racquet to beat off the circuit Romeos?"

  "Never."

  "Not your style, huh?"

  "What is my style?" she asked.

  "To give an unwanted suitor one of those cool, condescending stares of yours. That would chill most men to the bone."

  "So far it hasn't worked on you, Mackie."

  "As you said, I'm incorrigible. If I'd taken every woman's first no as final, I'd still be a virgin."

  He sighed. "Keep this up, Stevie, and you can have your way with me."

  "Don't play so hard to get."

  Even though he didn't open his eyes, they crinkled at the corners when he smiled. His eyebrows were as dense as his lashes. They were the eyebrows of a man with integrity, although integrity was a term she would never have applied to Judd Mackie. Not until yesterday, when, out of respect for her dilemma, he had let another sportswriter scoop him on a big story.

  That unselfish decision had gotten him fired from the Tribune. Didn't that indicate that under that tough, bad-boy veneer, there was a man of honor?

  "Do my arms, too."

  "My fingers are getting tired," she complained.

  "This massage business is hard work."

  "Just do it."

  Her complaint had been a token one. She was deriving as much pleasure from the massage as he. His biceps were as firm as green apples and as finely shaped. She squeezed them hard, watching the deep impressions her fingers made in his flesh. When she let go, white stripes were left on the tanned skin. He grunted with animal pleasure.

  "You accused me of missing my calling," he said. "I think I just figured out what you should have been."

  Stevie realized then that Judd wasn't the only one being stimulated by the massage. She had moved closer to him, until her middle was lightly grinding against his back with each motion of her hands.

  Realizing that, she suddenly withdrew them.

  "That's all I can do," she said, silently adding,

  "Without making a fool of myself."

  Reluctantly he raised his head and pivoted his bottom until he was sitting correctly in the chair.

  He spread his knees wide, placed his hands around her waist and drew her between his legs.

  "Mackie?" she said breathlessly.

  "Hmm?"

  "What are we doing?"

  "Doing? Nothing."

  He laid his hand on her abdomen again, with his fingers pointed up toward her breasts. "Any more pain?" He applied pressure to her lower body with the heel of his hand.

  Unable to speak, she shook her head no.

  "Positive?" His fingers curled into the softness of her belly, then relaxed again.

  "Positive."

  "Good." He'd been watching the movement of his own hand. Now his eyes scaled up her body until they connected with hers. "You'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

  The demand was disguised in the form of a polite question. "Yes. I'd tell you."

  Keeping his gaze locked with hers, he slid his hand up the center of her body until it covered her heart, which was beating heavily.

  "You smell good." He leaned forward and nuzzled her breasts, bumping them with his nose.

  "Where'd you find the perfume?"

  "I brought my own." Stevie was barely able to form the words while his head was moving from one side of her body to the other and his hand was catching each of her drumming heartbeats.

  "I like it."

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  She whimpered when his lips touched the bare skin of her chest just above the slipping neckline of the peasant blouse. Briefly his lips brushed across her cleavage. Gradually, slowly, he kissed his way up her chest and throat as he came out of the chair.

  When he was standing, feet still widespread, he encircled her waist with one arm and pulled her against him. His lips covered hers as his hand curved around her breast.

  "Mackie…?"

  "Judd."

  "Judd…?"

  "Go with it, Stevie."

  His lips parted, so did hers. When they met again, their tongues touched and each released a low, satisfied, and conversely hungry sound. His mouth was as warmly possessive as his hand upon her breast, which he reshaped with his gently flexing fingers. Her nipple became hard and flushed beneath the idle sweeping motions of his thumb.

  He dipped his head and kissed her through the blouse, leaving a damp, sheer spot on the soft cloth. Noticing that as he raised his head, he molded the wet fabric around her nipple until it clung, delineated, made visible.

  His nostrils flared slightl
y and he muttered irreverently and arousingly. When his lips returned to hers, he kissed her with more depth and urgency and wildness.

  "Stevie, don't worry, baby," he rasped against her lips, "you're more than enough woman for any man."

  When the words registered, a wildfire of a different sort rampaged through Stevie's already burning body. She tore her mouth from beneath his and sent him sprawling across the hardwood floor when she pushed him away.

  "So that's it!" She was seething, angrier than she'd ever been in her life, angrier than she'd ever been over a rotten line call or a lousy draw.

  "That's why you're being so nice to me. That's what all the sexual innuendos and pawing are about. You feel sorry for me.'

  'Huh?" Judd blinked his eyes back into focus.

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Your kindness and concern, your unselfish invitation to share this rural refuge with you, your flattery and sly come-ons." Clenching her teeth, she slapped her hands against the sides of her thighs. "Lord, I can't believe I was stupid enough to fall for it."

  "Does this tirade have a point?"

  He was looking up at her darkly, obviously none too pleased that she'd cut their party short.

  But his anger didn't come close to the level of hers.

  "I don't need your pity, Mr. Mackie," she said heatedly.

  "Pity? Pity didn't put this here," he said, briefly touching his fly.

  "Then if your motivation isn't pity, that makes you even more despicable. You're manipulative.

  You figured I'd be easy to get into bed because I was panicked over losing my womanhood."

  He released a series of creative curses. Aiming a finger at her, he said, "You should be the one writing the novel. You've got the imagination for it."

  Stevie was pacing the width of the room.

  "While you were at it, you thought you would soften me up, get me to talk about every private aspect of my life. Then, when we returned to Dallas, you planned to write a really bang-up story that would ingratiate you with your boss again, sell newspapers, and leave the competitor who scooped you with egg on his face because you got the real story."

  "I don't believe this." Still sitting on the floor, he laughed softly and shook his head.

  "Let me tell you something." She stood above him, quaking with fury. "I don't need a Neanderthal like you to restore my faith in my femininity.

  Even if the surgeon does have to take everything out, I'll be more a woman than you are a man. A real man doesn't have to resort to the lowest, sneakiest form of trickery to get a woman into bed with him."

  "That's the highest pile of crap I've come up against in a long time." He came to his feet so that they were standing toe to toe. "I'm not about to honor it with a comment, much less a denial."

  "No matter what you said now, I wouldn't believe you."

  "That's why I won't waste my breath." ' 'You're a lying con man. Your writing stinks.

  Your column is a joke. Being in your company makes me sick, and I've eaten much better steaks!" She tossed her braid over her shoulder and took a calming breath. "I want to leave.

  Right now. Drive me back to Dallas."

  "Forget it." 'Wow I said."

  "No I said. You can stand there and fume all night if you want to, but I did the work of ten men today. I'm tired. I'm going to bed."

  He unfastened the shorts. They dropped to the floor and he stepped out of them. Then he peeled off his briefs. Nonchalantly he moved toward the bed, flung back the covers, hit the wall switch of the overhead light and got into bed.

  "G'night."

  Stevie was sitting at the kitchen table the following morning when he came sauntering in. He was idly scratching his bare chest and yawning broadly.

  "Ah, coffee, good." He took a cup out of the cabinet and filled it, then leaned against the drain board to drink the brew. "Got your bags all packed, I see."

  "No.'

  Wearing an amused expression, he nodded toward the large canvas tote bag she'd brought with her the day before. It was propped against her chair. She was dressed in her own clothes. They were filthy, but her bearing was one of superiority.

  'Sleep well?" he asked guilelessly.

  '*Gee, that's too bad. I slept better than I have in months, maybe years. What was your problem, bed too soft?"

  She gave him her iciest stare. "I guess I should thank you for putting on some shorts before coming downstairs." That was all he had on, but more than he'd been wearing the last time she'd seen him.

  "Actually I enjoy drinking my first cup of the morning in the buff, so the shorts are a real concession in your honor." He executed a quick, little bow.

  "Go to hell."

  He laughed. "Come on, Stevie, lighten up. If we're going to be staying here together-"

  "We're not. I'm going back to Dallas. If you won't drive me, I'll take a bus."

  "There is no bus."

  "Then I'll hitchhike."

  "I'd pay to watch that.'

  'I'll find a way home," she shouted.

  "Are you still mad at me? Look, you know that everything you said last night is garbage.

  Taking pity on you and getting you here under my roof just so I could bed you while you're in a vulnerable state of mind is all hogwash."

  "Is it? I don't think so."

  "Believe me, baby, the only reason I ever kiss a woman is because I want to. Pity has never extended that far."

  "You said yesterday that you wanted this arrangement to be platonic, that seduction wasn't what you had in mind."

  "Okay, so I told a fib. It was a tiny one." She didn't return his beatific smile. He tilted his head down and peered up at her from beneath his eyebrows. "I think you're madder at yourself than you are at me."

  "Why would I be mad at myself?"

  His grin was egotistical and knowledgeable.

  "You didn't want to enjoy kissing me, but you did."

  "You…you…'

  "No need to get huffy. I was enjoying it, too," he said, raising his hands helplessly. "I couldn't very well hide the fact, could I?"

  She quickly averted her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "The hell you don't. See, Stevie, that's what happens to a man when he caresses a woman's breast. Even kissing it through her blouse is a real turn-on." His voice lowered an octave.

  "And your nipple wouldn't have been so easy to find through your blouse if you hadn't been as aroused as I was. So what are you going to do, shoot me for behaving and responding normally?

  If so, you're gonna have to shoot yourself, too. That's only fair."

  Her cheeks were flaming. Her whole body was as hot as a furnace. All her extremities were throbbing. His words had evoked stirrings within her she wished she could forget. But after unsuccessfully battling them all night, it didn't seem likely that they would simply vanish over breakfast, especially with Judd fanning the coals of her recollection.

  "I want to go home," she said sternly. "You put on a sincere dog-and-pony show yesterday, but you brought me here for self-serving rea sons."

  "Nope, Stevie, that's not why you're angry."

  He set his empty coffee cup on the countertop and moved toward her. "You're not even mad because I stripped down in front of you."

  She inclined away from him, until she was at risk of falling out of her chair. "Of course that's why I'm mad."

  "Then why didn't you take the car and strike out for Dallas on your own?"

  "I thought of it!"

  "Well?"

  "It was late," she said, hoping he couldn't tell that she was grasping at straws.

  In fact, she hadn't thought of leaving by herself.

  After seeing him naked, all she had thought about was distancing herself from him before she did something really foolish, like follow him into bed.

  She'd gone to her room, got into her own bed and lain as stiff as a board, afraid to move for fear that her churning body would prompt her into committing a rash and regretta
ble act. For all his swaggering this morning, she might just as well have.

  If he were this disgustingly arrogant when she resisted, imagine how obnoxious he would be if she ever gave in. It didn't bear thinking about.

  He was waiting for a plausible answer. She said the first thing that popped into her head. "I wasn't sure I could find my way along these country roads back to the interstate."

  He gave her a smug look that told her at once he knew she was lying. "Uh-huh." Bracing his arms on the table, he leaned over her. "You got upset because last night reminded you of Stockholm."

  If his goal had been to knock the props out from under her, he had succeeded. She made several vain attempts to speak, opening and closing her mouth like the dummy of a ventriloquist with laryngitis. Finally she was able to croak, "I didn't think you remembered."

  "I do."

  "You were drunk."

  "Not that drunk."

  Leaving the chair, she ducked under one of his imprisoning arms. The coffeepot shook in her hand as she refilled her cup. She sipped it for fortification and to give her eyes something to look at besides the triumphant gleam in Judd's.

  He thought he had her at a disadvantage. He did. The only way she was going to save face was to brazen it out. She assumed a haughty, indifferent air.

  "Stockholm happened a long time ago,

  Mackie. Ten or eleven years, for heaven's sake.

  It wasn't any big deal."

  "Oh, no?" He sprawled in one of the kitchen chairs, thrusting his bare feet out in front of him arid crossing them at the ankles. "The shindig at that place was one of the best damn parties I've ever been to."

  "You crashed it."

  He chuckled. "See, that's the beauty of party crashing. You get to choose the very best ones to goto." ' 'You and your pals bribed- "

  "Charmed." '' -your way inside. You upset-'' "Entertained."

  "-everybody. The hosts were mortified-"

  "Amused."

  Stevie sighed with annoyance. "I see we remember it differently."

  "Admit it. My group livened things up considerably."

  "That much I will admit." Her lips ached to surrender to the smile tugging at the corners of them. "Until you showed up, it was a stuffy and boring affair."