Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats)

by Jeanette Murray

  “Come over here.” He motioned to the chair Teddy had vacated, which sat closest to him.

  She hesitated, then walked over and sat primly down, hands folded in her lap. Not at all like the loose-limbed, relaxed Kat he’d hoped for.

  “Your business partner slash friend didn’t seem to like me being here too much.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  He didn’t curse often, especially out loud, so he wasn’t surprised when Kat’s head snapped up at his sharp retort.

  “You should care. If you’re working with him, and you want this camp up and running, then you should be working in harmony.”

  “Maybe I care about what’s best for the camp more than hurting his feelings.” He held out his hands and was pleased when she automatically reached hers out to place in his. He let his thumbs and fingers roam over her wrists, the palms of her hands, lacing and unlacing with her own fingers. “How did that feel?”

  Her pulse leapt under his fingertips, and her hands stiffened.

  He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “I meant the meeting. Is this the same sort of thing you do normally when you do volunteer work?”

  “I don’t… no.” She shook her head. “I do volunteer, but something of this magnitude… no, I’ve never been in a meeting where they’re taking an idea from the ground floor up.” Her eyes looked a little dazed. “It’s a bit exhilarating, isn’t it?”

  He leaned over and kissed her then. Because he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Kat yielded immediately to his touch, his embrace, leaning into his body and wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer. This time the kiss spun into something deeper. Their breathing synced, their mouths met at the perfect angle, and when he wrapped his hands around her waist to pull her over him, she came without resistance. Snuggled on his lap, her core meeting his growing erection, she pressed into him like she could melt over his body.

  He let his hands skim up and under her stiff blouse, crinkling the fabric as they explored the smooth, tight skin of her stomach. She was lean but strong. And with every breath she took, every little twist, he reveled in feeling the muscles and tendons of her body lengthen and move under his hands. But he didn’t dare go higher than the bottom of her ribcage. Not now. Not like this. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—tempt himself further.

  Finally, sanity returned, and Michael remembered they weren’t in his apartment with all the privacy in the world but in his lawyer’s conference room, with only a closed—but unlocked—door separating them from the rest of the world. And while Michael wasn’t a prude, he also didn’t consider getting caught making out with the athlete he was supposed to be mentoring a great way to set an example of propriety.

  With reluctance, he drew back, taking in Kat’s sleepy, satisfied look and small noise of protest. God, what he wouldn’t give to blink and transport them to his bedroom. Where he could see that look over and over again. In bed. Naked. After an even more satisfying encounter where they’d let more than their mouths meet.

  “Shh,” he said, kissing her once more before she came back to her senses and yelled at him. Or tried to lunge for him again. He had no clue which way she would swing, and that only made it all the more damn exciting. “Let’s table this for right now. I have to finish the meeting, clarify a few more things with Martin, and then run some errands. Can you wait on me to finish up this meeting?”

  “I…” Kat sat back so she was perched at the edge of his knees. It made him nervous, but her core was strong enough to keep her balanced. “Actually, I think I’ll take a walk.”

  A walk? He waited while she stood and fixed her shirt, pulling it down in short, aggravated jerks. “A walk where? We’re downtown. There are no trails or anything nearby.”

  “Not a hike. Just… a walk. Clear my head. I’ll be fine.” She gifted him with a sunny smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Kat—”

  “I’m good, Michael. Promise.” She reached out and gripped his forearm with a firm hold, squeezing a little as evidence she was steady. “I’ll text you later, okay?”

  “Let me know where you are, and I’ll come pick you up.” He led her to the door of the conference room, then paused with his hand on the door handle. “What is it about you and me and conference rooms?”

  She laughed quickly, then went up on her toes to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Lightning fast, she was already pulling away again, as if not wanting to give him the chance to pull her back.

  “We’ll talk about it,” he promised. That dimmed some of her joy, which he hated to see. But they had to talk, and he wasn’t going to put it off any longer.

  Chapter 8

  As she turned left out of the office building that housed Michael’s lawyer’s firm, she did a quick double take. She hadn’t been paying attention before when they’d driven here, or she would have realized it sooner. She knew where she was.

  Sin’s Inn was two hundred yards away and probably closed at this early an hour. But she found her feet walking that direction before she could second-guess the choice. As she reached the closed glass doors leading to the bar, she sighed. What the hell was she expecting? A doorman to be there, ready to open the place up so she could go in and have a private moment in her own personal bar?

  Something touched her shoulder. She shrieked and jumped a foot.

  “Whoa, nice ups.”

  Kat turned to find Stacy behind her. Her face was devoid of the dramatic makeup she’d worn the other night when they’d first met, but she wore the same style polo with the bar’s logo on it, same small shorts and sexy heels. Her dark hair was pulled into a sort of beehive hairdo that looked equal parts complex and effortless.

  “You…” She gulped in air, fighting to calm the drumbeat in her ears. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “No kidding. Come inside, you look like you’re going to pass out.” Stacy led her around to an alley that sat between the bar and the business next door. They ducked in a side door, and Kat found herself in the back room she’d helped carry boxes into the last time she’d been there. “Sit, and I’ll bring you some water.”

  She didn’t feel shaky anymore, but she wasn’t going to argue. It wasn’t as if she had anything else to do with her time. As she sat, Stacy walked back in and grimaced.

  “What?” Kat asked as she took the cup of water Stacy handed over.

  “You creaked. Did you know that? Did you hurt something when I scared you?” Stacy pulled up a box and sat, crossing her legs and dangling one high heel from the ball of her foot.

  “My knees. They do that when they bend. It’s typical,” she added with a shrug when Stacy’s eyes widened. “Years of jumping and running and twisting will do that to the body. I’m getting old.”

  “You can’t be more than twenty-five.”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Oh, well, never mind then.” Stacy sniffed. “You’re ancient. Over the hill. We should put you on one of those barges and shoot flaming arrows at you.”

  “There are some mornings I think that would be appropriate.” Kat laughed. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop to say hi.”

  “We don’t open for another two hours, but you’re welcome to hang out, as long as Red doesn’t mind.”

  “Red?” Kat asked.

  “That’d be me.” The redhead Kat remembered from her last trip to the bar walked in, a box hefted in her hands. “Siss, you wanna take this and earn your keep?”

  “Yeah, sorry.” Not looking at all concerned her boss had caught her sitting on the job, talking, Stacy walked over to take the box from Red.

  “When you put that away, start making calls. Irish called off tonight. Again. That girl sneezes, and suddenly she’s convinced she’s got the plague and can’t work.”

  Irish, Kat guessed, was the nickname of another bartender.

  Stacy rolled her eyes at Kat but said, “Sure thing. Anyone you want me to start with?”

  Red studied Kat f
or a solid half minute without speaking, to the point that Kat began to shift in her seat.

  Stacy hefted the box into a better grip. “Red? Hello? Should I just go down the list?”

  “Wait on that for a minute.” Red ignored her employee, who just rolled her eyes and walked out with the box. “You working anywhere, honey?”

  “Uh, no. I mean, yes, just not here in town. I’m taking a short break. A sort of self-imposed off-season.”

  “Off-season.” Red took Stacy’s seat and leaned back against the concrete wall. Her jeans and tank top molded to an unbelievably curvy body, making Kat think of pinups from the forties. Sex appeal in a Betty Boop sort of way. “Athlete?”

  “Tennis.”

  “Can’t say I recognize you.”

  Kat bit back a sigh. “People rarely do.” Not for the right reasons anyway.

  “I know about those two Williams sisters.”

  “Venus and Serena.”

  “Huh?”

  “Those are their first names.”

  Red lifted a shoulder as if to ask, So? “If I’ve never heard of you, you can’t make much money with the whole tennis thing.”

  “Wanna see a tax return?” Kat snapped. She stood, brushing off the butt of her pants in case any dust had found her. “I’m going to get going. Please tell Sta— Sorry, Sissy, that I said bye, and I’ll catch her later.”

  “Hold up.” Red stood, evaluating her once more with her eyes. It felt nearly as intrusive as a doctor’s exam. “Ever wait a table?”

  “A little,” Kat said slowly. “Not recently.”

  “It’s like a bicycle. Ever dealt with rowdy crowds?”

  “Only every tournament.” Except they often weren’t rowdy for her but for the bigger names. But hey, a crowd was a crowd.

  “Need some money?”

  Kat opened her mouth, then closed it again. She was getting light in the bank accounts, she could admit it. Losing the sponsorships had meant she lost more than half her income. “I… wouldn’t say no to extra cash.”

  “Good. You can start tonight. You can take Irish’s shift.” With that, Red dusted her hands off and leaned into the hallway. “Hey, Siss! Your friend here’s starting tonight. Get her started, would ya?”

  Kat heard Stacy’s loud “Yes!” from down the hall, and she laughed.

  “You got a job? What the hell do you mean you got a job?” Michael thundered.

  “I mean, I work here now.” Kat looked around her at the patrons that were beginning to pour in and grinned.

  “You went for a walk and became employed.” She was the most baffling person he’d ever met.

  “It’s gonna be fun.”

  “You’re a tennis player,” he said on a growl. “You don’t work in a bar.”

  “I am an adult who needs money,” she corrected him, holding the bar door open for another server to walk through, carrying an empty tray. “I have expenses and a life to pay for, same as you. Except you,” she added as she walked down the bar, forcing him to trail after her, “get paid whether you win or lose.”

  That much was true. He couldn’t argue there. And as he had no clue what the state of her finances were—and wouldn’t ask, not his business—he couldn’t really argue getting a job to supplement. It was better than going into debt. But still…

  “I could help you find a job. Like, an office job. Or something.”

  “I like working with people. Customer service isn’t bad. And I won’t lose my mind like I would sitting at a desk all day.” She held up a finger and turned her back to him, listening to whatever the server behind her had started to say. “Yeah, okay. Manny,” she said, turning back to him.

  “Don’t call me that,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “I’ve got a shift to work, and I’m still learning, so we’ll have to cut this short. If you don’t want to come back and get me after my shift, I’ll Uber home.”

  “You think I’m leaving now?” He stared at her, jaw slack. She really didn’t get it. “I’m not leaving. The second you’re out of my eyesight, you get into trouble.”

  “I hardly call getting a job ‘trouble.’” She propped her hands on her hips, which drew attention to the small inch of skin exposed between the pants she’d worn to the meeting hours ago and the bar’s polo shirt she’d slipped on since the last time he saw her. What the hell was with those shirts, were they designed to do that automatically? And why did he find that single inch of bare skin more erotic than if she’d flashed him?

  “Sawyer’s not going to like this,” he warned, settling himself on the seat in front of her.

  “Sawyer isn’t my boss. Red is,” she added with a smile, pointing her thumb to the left at the sexy redhead he’d seen on the bar the last time. “So do you want to pick me up?”

  He wanted to do more than that. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder, drag her out to his car, speed back home at a reckless pace, haul her sweet ass upstairs to his apartment, and tie her to his bed for a week, where she couldn’t get into any trouble… unless it was with him.

  Shifting uncomfortably on the stool, he just said, “I’m staying.”

  “I don’t get off for five hours. That’s insane.”

  “Insane feels about right,” he muttered. “Just bring me a water and something on draft.”

  “You can’t park here all night,” she warned as she turned to the taps and started pulling the darkest beer. He grimaced but didn’t say anything. “They need money just like I do, and you can’t take a seat away from a paying customer.”

  “I’ll tip well,” he growled as she set the glass down on a coaster in front of him.

  “You better. I’ve got court time to pay for.” With that light warning, she moved a few spots down and greeted another customer—male, of course—with a genuine smile.

  Six hours later—and thank God he only had walk-through practice tomorrow—Michael dragged his exhausted body to his apartment. “I can’t keep doing this.”

  “I didn’t ask you to stay with me,” Kat pointed out reasonably. “I said I would Uber home. Frankly, I should get a car for myself at this point.”

  Did it make him a little bit of an asshole that he didn’t like her separating from him? Probably. He wasn’t her manny, however much she liked to say so. She didn’t require his permission to come and go. He was just supposed to mentor her, keep an eye on her. Cut off any disasters in the making.

  Which he had, so far, sucked at.

  “If you want a good deal on a get-around car, I know a guy. If you can wait until after the game Sunday, I’ll get you hooked up with him.”

  She nodded silently but didn’t seem like she wanted to go to her own apartment. So he took a chance and opened the door, motioning her in.

  He waited for her to set her folded white shirt down on his kitchen table. She wouldn’t look up at him, which made him nervous. “Kat—”

  “Don’t say it was a mistake.” She finally met his eyes, and they were intense. “Don’t tell me kissing me was a mistake. Anything else but that.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake.” Unexpected, maybe. But after the second round, he knew it wasn’t a mistake. “It caught me off guard. You came in here—”

  “In here?” Kat did a turn, looking at his apartment.

  “Into this apartment building. Into Santa Fe.” Into my life. “With this swagger. This tough-girl routine. Too cool for school.”

  “Too cool for school.” Kat moaned, but laughed right after. “How old are you?”

  “Old enough to know there’s more to you than this attitude you’ve got about life right now.” Michael stepped forward, every cell in his body jumping at being close to her. He cupped her head with both hands, using his thumbs to gently tilt her head up for him. “Let’s clear something up. I don’t want to be your babysitter or your supervisor. I’m not getting paid to mentor you. And I don’t want there to be any weird power play junk between us. There’s no boss here. Now. With this.”

  “Can’t I
be the boss?” she asked in a husky voice, her eyelids drooping a little. Her body swayed into his as if unable to stand upright anymore. “I’m a good boss.”

  He chuckled and kissed her nose, then her eyelids, which fluttered closed. “I’m tired, and you’re probably dead on your feet.”

  “It’s been a while since I’ve had to do the whole customer service thing,” she admitted. “I’ll probably regret it in the morning when I go to training.”

  “Training?” He slid his hands down her neck, her shoulders until they were cupped under her elbows. She moved with him as if in a trance.

  “My coach in Florida found me a trainer here. No more begging to use your facilities. Now I just need a coach to work with and I’m set.”

  He realized then he didn’t like the idea of her working out elsewhere. Logistically, bringing her to work was unreasonable at best, against the rules at worst. But still, he’d slowly built up some sort of fantasy world in which he brought her to work with him and she became a type of good luck charm. Caleb had already asked him today if she was coming back again soon.

  But she wasn’t a good luck charm, she was a woman with her own training needs. Her job had physical requirements like his. He wouldn’t reduce her to a cute side piece when she was there for a job.

  But what happened in the gym and what happened in the apartment were two totally separate things. He kissed her briefly. “We both have to get up tomorrow, and we’ll both regret it if we don’t get some sleep.”

  “Sleep. Yup.” She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest, as if she could fall asleep standing up. When she went slack against him a moment later, he worried she actually had.

  “Kat, I’m going to walk you back to your place.”

  “My place?” she questioned. “I thought we were going to…” The words faded as she yawned. “Talk.”

  “Since neither of us would actually stay awake for it, it can wait. Until tomorrow, Sleeping Beauty.” He used one arm to guide her, as if she were at the one-shot-too-many point, out his door and over to hers. He took the key card from her and slid it in, hearing the door unlock. “Here you go.” He opened it wide, handed her the card back, and pushed her until she walked over the threshold.