by Avery Flynn
“Change of plans.” He grabbed her hand, pulled her to the counter and spied their pizzas coming out. “Can you make those both to go, please, oh, and add a six-pack of Black Butte Porter to the bill?”
5
Trish slid into the driver’s seat and gripped the steering wheel, waiting for Stryker to get in. Nothing made sense. He kissed her, just like he had in all her visualization exercises only better—and he said he wanted to do it again. Then, instead of receiving the kiss she’d begun to visualize, she’d been dragged to the counter to get their order to go, and led back to her car. When he got in, the scent of pizza wafted through the interior and her stomach growled. “Aren’t you hungry?”
His eyes took a slow trip up and down her body, lighting up nerve endings she never knew could be stimulated with only a look.
“Starving. That’s why I want to get this thing with Karma over and done with.”
Karma, shit. Her name hit Trish like a bucket of ice water. She took a deep breath and did her best to concentrate on backing out of the parking space. After all, this was business. She was his handler, and Karma had requested their presence. “Don’t forget, we still need to go to the grocery store after we’re finished.”
“Not tonight.” He sounded like he was in pain or possibly angry.
“You must not be a coffee drinker.”
He grumbled something and Trish didn’t know if it was a grunt or a word, either way, she didn’t understand it. She was completely out of her depth and she felt like an idiot, which was a new one on her. She was a smart, independent woman when it came to everything and everyone except Stryker.
She drove the few blocks to Humpin’ Hannah’s visualizing a perfect princess parking space and, lo and behold, the universe blessed her with one right in front, another unusual occurrence—especially on Main Street in downtown Boise on a Saturday night. She parked and sent up a prayer of thanks to the Princess Parking Gods. In her estimation, gratitude was everything when it came to her new mindful way of life, and right now she was extremely thankful for the perfect spot. Before she could even grab her purse, Stryker had opened her door. She didn’t bother moving. There wasn’t room enough to get out without doing something embarrassing like plastering herself to him or smashing the pizza into his chest. “Do you need something?”
“No.” He looked annoyed.
Not that it helped her plight, he still lingered in her personal space. She didn’t know what to do. She was trapped there, in her car, with Stryker hovering like an oversized Doberman Pinscher waiting to pounce. “Would you move, please?”
“I’m trying to help you out of the car.”
“Why? I don’t need help. I get out of my car on my own every day. I can get in by myself, too. I’m pretty good at it.”
Stryker didn’t move, but now, instead of looking annoyed, he looked like a cross between pissed and completely exasperated. “I know you don’t need help, I’m trying to be nice.”
“Nice would be stepping away from the car and not hovering like an underfed guard dog with a pizza craving.”
He grumbled again, a habit he seemed to have picked up when he was around her. She wasn’t sure, but he may have said that pizza was not what he craved, which was wrong in so many ways, especially since it was he who chose to go to Guido’s in the first place.
She huffed out an annoyed breath, elbowed him on her way out of the car, and turned, pizza box held between them, waiting for him to back the hell off.
He didn’t. Instead, he set the pizza on the roof of the car, backed her farther into the corner of her open door, and then kissed her. This was no little peck of a kiss like a man might give to a woman on Main Street as she arose from a vehicle. No, this was a no-holds-barred, enforcer-mode attack in the form of a full-body-check kind of kiss. Trish was too stunned to take evasive action—not that she wanted to. It was all she could do to grab hold of him so she wouldn’t melt into a puddle at his feet. And speaking of feet, when he finally finished the most enjoyable oral assault ever perpetrated on her mouth, it took her more time than it should have to realize her feet floated several inches off the ground. If her cute new shoes didn’t have ankle straps, she’d be barefoot. Stryker’s fingers were still tangled in her hair and his arm was still banded around her waist, holding her against his bigger, harder body—thigh to thigh, pelvis to pelvis, chest to chest.
She didn’t know what to say. Heck, she wasn’t sure she was capable of speech. Her mind hadn’t finished rebooting. The kiss fried her brain cells and gave her mind the green light to take advantage of the lack of neuro-activity and run a freakin’ hormone-induced power play. Her heart beat soared into the danger zone, her breath was ragged, her insides turned all hot and liquidy, and she tingled in places one shouldn’t tingle while on full display on Main Street.
One corner of his lips rose in a half-smile. “See, I can be nice when I want to.”
Still speechless, she barely managed a nod.
He placed her gently on the ground, making sure she had her feet securely under her before he handed her the pizza. “You should probably carry this. It will be safer.”
Safer? For whom?
He slid his arm around her, shut the car door, and led her to the entrance to Humpin’ Hannah’s.
Trish was about to ask what he meant by safer, but then there was the whole inability to speak problem and the fact that the notes to the beginning of Van Halen’s “Jump” blared through the closed bar doors. Stryker pulled the big door to Humpin’ Hannah’s open, ushered her inside, and whispered in her ear, “Heads up—Karma sometimes does this thing when she hasn’t seen me in a while—”
“Stryker!”
His whisper was interrupted by Karma’s shriek rocketing above the volume of the music.
Trish saw the blur of blonde hair running toward them and was given a gentle but definite shove sideways by Stryker a split-second before Karma took a flying leap at him.
She landed on Stryker, wrapped her arms around his neck, her long legs around his waist, and crossed her cowboy booted feet just above his incredible ass before she screamed “thank you, thank you, thank you” over and over again, punctuating each thank you with a kiss on a different part of his face.
Trish turned her back on the commotion Karma caused, made her way to the bar, and handed the pizza to Kevin the bartender. “We brought this for Karma.”
Kevin stood on his tiptoes to find his boss still wrapped around Stryker. “I thought she only did that to Ben Walsh, but I’ve never seen her kiss him.”
Ben Walsh was Karma’s pseudo cousin who spent most of his time in New York. Trish had seen Karma jump on Ben like that several times, but she’d never had the urge to rip one of Karma’s cowboy boots off her foot and beat her with it before today. Trish couldn’t tell if Stryker was kissing Karma back since the entire population of the bar had surrounded the dynamic duo. Humpin’ Hannah’s was beginning to look more like a mosh pit than a bar.
Kevin shrugged. “Do you want the usual? A dirty martini?”
Trish took a seat and tossed her purse to Kevin to stow behind the bar, “You better make it a double, and make it so dirty, it’s downright slutty, if you catch my drift.”
“A double, dirty, slutty martini coming right up.”
After several sports-themed songs and more than half of her humongous perfectly prepared dirty martini were history, Trish felt the subtle pressure of an arm around her. She was surprised to find Jessie James-Kincaid, Karma’s sister-in-law and sports reporter for ESPN, leaning in for a sideways hug. “Are you all right with all this?”
Trish was surprised to find a concerned look on Jessie’s face. “Am I all right with what? This—” she raised her hands to encompass the entire spectacle, “is exactly what Karma planned. Why wouldn’t I be all right with it?”
“I doubt she filled you in on the Karmic Jump she hit Stryker with the second he stepped through the door, or the fact the poor boy had to shove you out of the way to ke
ep you from taking a cowboy boot to the stomach. It was quite chivalrous, really.”
“Chivalrous?”
Jessie shot a hand signal to Kevin, ordering two more dirty martinis without stopping for a breath. “I doubt she mentioned she was planning to kiss every square inch of the man’s face either. But then, knowing Karma, she’s just winging all this. In my experience, that’s when she does the most damage imaginable without ever meaning to—or at least that’s what I like to think. In any event, it’s gotta smart.”
Yeah, Trish wasn’t sure what she felt, but to the best of her knowledge, a paper cut smarted, seeing Karma kiss Stryker while they both ignored the fact that Trish even existed made her feel something she chose not to label, but smarting was not on the same astral plane.
“Funny, I didn’t know you and Stryker were an item. I knew that you’ve known each other since you were kids and that you went to college together, but I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you mention his name. Is it because of Stryker’s legendary dislike of all sports reporters, or is Stryker Gyllenhaal your dirty, not-so-little, secret?”
“Stryker and I are not an item.” Were they?
Jessie leaned back into her barstool and raised a brow. “Wow, if I hadn’t seen the two of you playing tonsil hockey outside, I’d swear you were telling the truth. When did you get to be such a great liar, Trisha Reynolds?”
“I’m not lying.”
“Don’t worry, this is off the record. As far as I’m concerned, the players’ private lives are just that, private. I don’t jump into that mud pit unless it gets them tossed in jail on assault charges. Then it’s fair game.”
Stryker had been dreading Karma’s normal theatrics since the second he found out she’d requested his presence. He figured she’d pull her usual stunt, but she’d never spent five minutes kissing his face before today. With the way she clung to him like a chigger, there was no way to get out of the situation. By the time Karma released him, they were surrounded by everyone in the bar except the one person he wanted—Trish.
It had taken him almost fifteen minutes of accepting congratulatory salutations, smacks on the back, and come-ons from insistent puck bunny wannabes before he could get out of the crowd long enough to find Trish. He groaned when he spotted her cozied up to ESPN Reporter, Jessie James. That certainly hadn’t taken long. This was his worst nightmare. Stryker made a beeline for them, hoping to stop the damage. He stepped behind Trish, and without thinking of anything save getting her away from the damn reporter, placed his hands on her shoulders. She jumped at his touch and shot him a guilty look. He wasn’t sure what she was guilty of, talking to a reporter or deserting him in his time of need. He could really have used his handler when it came to crowd control.
Jessie James’s gaze bounced between Trish’s stunned, guilty face to his and back again. Then she shot him a knowing smile—one that had all of the hair on the back of his neck standing at attention.
Trish swallowed hard, which he knew because he slid his hand around to the back of her neck before he’d stepped in between the two women, shielding Trish from the eager beaver reporter. He pulled on the blank look he always wore while dealing with the media, and made eye contact with Jessie. “I’m not giving interviews until tomorrow. If you want to schedule one, talk to Karma Kincaid, the owner.” He didn’t give Jessie the chance to respond. He turned his and focused on Trish who now looked pissed. Maybe she didn’t like Karma jumping on him and kissing him, which would be a mixed bag. He did warn Trish—or tried to anyway, and he did shove her out of the way so she wouldn’t get hurt. Hell, he didn’t even kiss Karma back—besides, Karma never even came close to kissing him on the mouth. She just covered his face thanking him for helping her make a boatload of money. If Trish hadn’t taken off, he could have gotten out of that uncomfortable situation a lot earlier and they could have been on their way back to the apartment for pizza and dessert. Whatever it was Trish was pissed about, it would definitely be better if they dealt with it far away from the nosey reporter sitting next to them. “Why don’t you finish your drink and let’s go?”
“Why are you being so rude to my friend?”
“What friend?”
Someone tapped on his shoulder like an annoying gnat. He turned his head to see Jessie James with a grin on her face just before she gave him a royal wave. “That would be me.”
He turned back to Trish. “You’re friends with her? Since when?”
Trish looked royally pissed. Maybe it had something to do with Jessie’s royal wave—some kind of female hand signal or something no man would ever be able to decipher.
“Jessie and I have been friends since she and Fisher Kincaid got engaged last fall. You remember Fisher, don’t you? Karma’s older brother. Karma and I threw her a bridal shower and bachelorette party. Jessie’s one of my best friends.”
This was just great. Trish was best friends with a freakin’ sports reporter. His worst nightmare was a walk in the park compared to this new reality. He still reeled from the potential calamity, if Trish hadn’t already spilled the beans. “Fisher married a reporter?” He was so screwed.
Jessie wiggled her fingers, showing off the rings on her left hand. “You don’t have to worry, Stryker. I don’t divulge personal information about players’ love lives, unless they want me to. If all those women coming on to you a few minutes ago saw you and Trish snogging before you came in here, I doubt even you would be that popular with the ladies.”
He closed his eyes and groaned. “Caught that, did you?” He opened his eyes and found Jessie smiling from ear to ear.
“Uh-huh, it was kind of hard to miss. You literally swept our little Trish here right off her feet. I’ve never seen anything like it, and right in the middle of Main Street no less. If you’re trying to fly under the radar, big guy, that play was an epic fail.”
He kept his arm around Trish, doing his best to ignore the visual daggers she aimed at him and faced Jessie. “We have no reason to hide our relationship—”
Trish spoke over him. “Stryker and I don’t have a relationship—”
He turned to Trish so they were nose-to-nose.
“What?” He and Trish said in stereo.
Jessie leaned against the back of the barstool and laughed. “You are too cute together. Not to mention funny. I mean, Fisher and I had our signals crossed when we first met, but even we weren’t this bad.” She leaned toward him conspiratorially, “When I met Fisher, I thought he was an unemployed stalker who lived with his mother and had the IQ of an amoeba, but at least I was aware of his interest in me. I wasn’t nearly as clueless as Trish seems to be.” She patted him on the shoulder. “You might want to show her the copy of the relationship playbook you’re working out of so you two can get on the same page.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
“I’ve already scheduled an interview which I’m sure you’re looking forward to. It’s on your itinerary. Have fun tonight. I’d better go. I see my husband heading upstairs with his brothers. It looks like we have another pool tournament to win.”
He might have groaned but he wasn’t sure, he was too busy trying to figure out what the heck was up with Trish. She hadn’t said a word since she’d told Jessie they didn’t have a relationship and then downed the full martini in front of her and flushed almost scarlet.
“Maybe we should go. I’d better drive, it looks like you’ve been busy while I was taking care of business.”
“So that’s what you call it.”
“The situation would have been easier to get out of if my handler hadn’t taken off and left me in the lurch.”
“You seemed to be having fun playing kissy-face with Karma.”
“Oh, so that’s what this is about. She kissed me but I never kissed her.”
“No, you just caught her when she jumped into your arms and let her kiss you—not that I care. You can kiss whomever you want.”
“That’s good, because the only person I want to kiss is you. Just not h
ere. Come on.” He flagged down the bartender. “How much do I owe you for these?” He pointed to the now empty martini glasses.
“They’re on the house.” The guy shot him a knowing smile and handed him Trish’s purse. “She’s had two doubles, so make sure you drive.”
“Okay, thanks.” He took a twenty from his billfold and tossed it on the bar for a tip and took a good look at Trish. Her eyes were a bit unfocused, giving her expression a dreamy quality with a touch of ticked off woman. “Two doubles, huh? I never knew you to be much of a drinker.”
“You never knew me. Not really. Not personally or anything.”
“And whose fault is that? It wasn’t as if you ever talked to me about anything other than schoolwork. You were all business back then.” He took her arm to help her off the stool. “You never seemed interested in anything but my grades, you all but ignored me around campus unless you were tutoring me. It was as if you were embarrassed to be seen with me outside a study room.”
The shocked look on her face stung.
“You were always so smart—what would you see in a dumb jock like me anyway?”
She stopped, stood right in front of him, and poked him in the chest. “You were never dumb.” She spat under her breath and gave him another poke. “I always knew you were highly intelligent, well, once you get past that boulder of a chip on your shoulder.” She poked him again. “I mean you have learning disabilities, who cares if you don’t learn like everyone else? So what?”
He grabbed her hand to stop the poking and pressed it flat against his chest.
“Did you know most people with learning disabilities usually have very high IQs? Having learning disabilities doesn’t mean you’re dumb, it means you learn a different way than most other people. Einstein was dyslexic, as was Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Alexander Graham Bell. Would you say any of them were dumb?”
“No.” His heart raced beneath her hand like it had when he skated onto the ice in the last game of the series. He took a deep breath.