by Desiree Holt
“You don’t want to do that, Tyler. You’re drunk and tomorrow you’ll regret it and be embarrassed.”
She looked up at him, something like pain glittering in her eyes. “And what if I don’t regret it? What if I’m serious?” Her lips curved in a sloppy semblance of a come-hither smile. “I could give you a very good thank-you, Rafe Ortiz. Very good. It’s what I do best.”
He sighed. He seemed to be doing a lot of that tonight. “Go inside, Tyler. Go to sleep. You’ll feel differently in the morning.”
He took her keys from her hand, unlocked her door, and eased her inside. Dropping the keys on a little table in the foyer, he gave her one last searching look before he closed the door and headed back to his car. He didn’t fire the engine right away. Instead, he sat back in his seat, eyes closed. He could still feel the softness of her round breasts pressed to his chest, the hard tips of her nipples poking into him. He was sure she hadn’t been able to miss his swollen dick imprinting itself on her mound. That damned dress was just too thin.
He ran his fingers over his lips where the taste of her still lingered, her own sweetness mingled with the flavor of whatever she had been drinking. The combination should have been a turnoff, but instead it gave his hormones a mega jump-start. And her tongue. God, when she’d thrust it into his mouth all he’d wanted was to suck hard on it and wrap his own around it. He silently cursed the unwanted boner pushing at his fly.
Tyler Gillette was a hot mess, a disaster waiting to happen. He wondered how a man like Kurt Gillette had let his daughter get so out of control and why he didn’t figure a way to rein her in. Yeah, that “trouble” tattoo seemed like a good idea.
He was allergic to women like her, especially when the woman was Kurt Gillette’s daughter. The man would eviscerate him if he stepped out of line with her. That alone was enough to throw cold water on his feelings.
He was so preoccupied with his body and Tyler’s effect on it that he barely noticed the dark sedan that followed him through the quiet residential streets and out to the interstate.
Chapter 2
The first thing Tyler noticed when she opened her eyes the next morning was how difficult the process was. Crap! That meant she’d fallen into bed with her makeup still on and her mascara was bonding her eyelashes together. The next thing she noticed was the headache pounding in her skull, a reminder of how quickly alcohol had an adverse effect on her these days. And finally, her lips curving in a tiny smile, she recalled that hot kiss with Rafe Ortiz.
Rafe! How many years now had she dreamed of getting him into bed for just one night of incendiary, soul-searing, no-holds-barred sex? It seemed as if that feeling had hovered at the edge of her awareness ever since he joined the team as a rookie at twenty-two. She’d crushed on him big time. Huge! She’d been just a college freshman then with a bad case of hero worship.
Of course, her father had laid down the only rule he’d ever been inflexible on: stay away from the players. She could have defied him out of meanness, but despite her feelings for Rafe, she hated the team enough not to go head-to-head with Kurt. She wanted nothing to do with any part of the operation, not the players, not anything else. Even as the years passed and Rafe morphed into a man so masculine, so sexy, he made every woman’s mouth water and her panties get wet, she’d forced herself to ignore him. He was connected with the team and her father, a man she believed had ruined her life, so that meant Rafe was definitely off her to-do list. Her father hadn’t had to forbid her to date the players. They held about as much attraction for her as a bad case of the flu.
All except Rafe.
Why had she never been able to kill her desire for him, or the longing that persisted to this day? Somehow, even as she had an excess of wild flings with men whose names she couldn’t even remember, even as she nearly ruined her life with a very bad—and thankfully brief—marriage, when she closed her eyes at night it was Rafe Ortiz’s face she always saw.
Well, damn. Just damn.
He was off-limits. She shouldn’t have kissed him last night.
Yeah, well, there were a lot of things she shouldn’t have done in the course of her very rocky thirty-two years. The list had grown to be endless.
Your choice, Tyler. Can the pity party.
She pushed herself out of bed, dragged her fingers through the wild tangle of her hair, and made her way to the bathroom. She chanced a look in the mirror over her vanity, and for the second time since she’d started the wild, crazy ride that was her life, she didn’t like what she saw. Didn’t like? Make that disgusted. Who was that cheap-looking person staring back at her? The one who ended up in that ugly situation with Dewey. She wanted to throw up. What had she done to herself on this vindictive road? The whole thing had certainly not done her any good. Her relationship with Kurt Gillette wasn’t one bit better. Maybe worse, even. Poking the bear had only made him turn away from her even more.
What did she do with her life besides shop, spend time with her two best friends and hang out in bars? Talk about a waste case. At the rate she was going even her friends might wash their hands of her before too long. She couldn’t get rid of the memory of drunken Dewey trying to break down the door of the ladies’ room and her cowering inside, frantically trying to figure out who to call for rescue.
God! She was a disaster and heading toward complete self-destruction.
Scrubbing her face clean of the thick layer of makeup that still remained and brushing her teeth made her feel marginally better. Next on her list—a hot shower and shampoo. Maybe she could wash away the person she’d seen in the mirror. But first a cup of coffee.
Grabbing her phone, she made her way downstairs and started the coffee brewing. Next to the machine were three gigantic boxes of boutique chocolates courtesy of Nate Broder, her obnoxious ex. She hated throwing them out. That would be just so wasteful. Maybe she’d give them to her cleaning lady again. The woman had an unquenchable sweet tooth.
She was just filling her mug from her single-serve coffeemaker in the kitchen when she heard the staccato beat of drums that signaled an incoming call. Leaving her mug to finish filling, she grabbed her cell from the counter where she’d set it down, taking a moment to check the caller identification first. Nate. Crap. Didn’t this guy ever give up?
For a while he had stopped calling. She’d figured since she’d been deleting all his calls without answering them, calls that used to come in two or three times a day, he’d gotten the message. But yet, here he was again. What the hell? Maybe it was time to state the message a little more clearly.
“I asked you nicely not to call me anymore,” she opened with. “You took me at my word for a while. The situation hasn’t changed. Not a bit.”
Nate’s irritating chuckle floated over the connection. “Good morning to you, too, sunshine.”
Tyler gritted her teeth. “Listen to me, and please try to pay attention. I thought you’d gotten the message. We’re done, Nate. Finished. I don’t want to talk to you, text with you, have lunch with you… Nothing. We are finished. Don’t call me again. I mean it.”
He was silent for a moment. “Tyler,” he said at last in his all too familiar drawl. “I was just checking to see—”
“See what? Nothing about my life concerns you anymore. I thought we had that taken care of.” She resisted the urge to slam her fist on the counter. “Anyway, just so you know, I’m changing my number. Again.”
“I don’t know why we can’t at least be friends.” His voice had that oily, egotistical sound that she hated. “Maybe have lunch together once in a while. Enough time has passed I thought we could at least be friendly acquaintances. We did enjoy each other’s company.”
“I think only one of us had any enjoyment.” Tyler looked at the phone and frowned. “How did you get this number, anyway? I just changed it again.”
He laughed again. “I’m an attorney with connections. I can get anything I want.”
“Except for me. You can’t
get me. We aren’t friends. We aren’t anything. Now go away and don’t call again.”
She pressed the End button with more force than necessary. They’d each had a reason for getting into the marriage, neither of which had anything to do with love. It was the one time she’d tried to do anything to make herself respectable in her father’s eyes. A last-ditch effort for a man who made it all too obvious he despised her lifestyle. Nate had thought it would give him a seat at the right hand of her father.
That hadn’t worked for either of them. Before three months were up, she’d known what a mistake it was and kicked him to the curb. For a while the persistent messages he left in her voice mail were rich with anger. Then began the deluge of flowers and candy and texts, a good indication that he wasn’t about to give up.
She was still holding the phone when it chimed again. This time it was Chad Sinclair, media relations director for the Hawks. Another big effing pest.
“What is it, Chad?” She didn’t need to ask him how he got the number. She was meticulous about leaving it with her father’s secretary every time she changed it. She didn’t need the ten tons of shit that came down when she didn’t, although she had no idea why he even cared.
“No hello? Or, hi, Chad?” His voice was nearly as smooth as Nate’s and irritated her just as much. She really hated the occasions when she had to spend time with him.
“I’m really busy. What do you want?”
“Okay. Okay.” He dialed it back. “Just wanted to remind you of the event this Saturday night at the Conquistador Club.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “This Saturday?”
“Yes. The big fundraiser for athletic scholarships. The Hawks are big benefactors.”
“Oh, yeah, another command appearance.” An obligation forced on her by her father—if she wanted to keep the money in her trust fund flowing.
But he never left the choice of escort up to her, probably thinking she’d bring someone from her skanky nightlife. So Chad got the nod and made sure she got to each and every one. Maybe she’d once hoped if she continued to attend, her father would see a different side of her, see she wanted to please him and maybe even…like her.
But it hadn’t made even the tiniest dent in the situation. She’d finally got the message nothing she did would change things with her father, but couldn’t seem to stop herself.
Did he think that by forcing her to attend these, she’d begin to bond with the Hawks? She hated the effing football team. She saw it as the child that had usurped all her father’s affections.
“I’ll pick you up at seven,” Chad told her.
“Fine.”
“So, I wondered if you’d like to have lunch with me today?”
This was only about the fiftieth time he’d asked her. She had no interest in spending time with him beyond what she had to.
“Thanks, but I already have plans.” Or she would as soon as she made them.
“You know,” he said, in what she assumed was his most seductive tone. “I’m really a nice guy if you’d get to know me outside of our obligatory dates.”
“I’m sure you are. I’m just not interested. See you Saturday.”
She clicked off and finally managed to get her mug from the coffee machine.
Chad was always the perfect escort, dancing attention, even after she started drinking too much, often making a real fool of herself. A few times when he brought her home, he’d actually had to half carry her into the house and up the stairs. She always had enough wits about her, though, to make sure he left before he could try to take things further.
When she heard the chimes for the third time, she let out a string of curses.
Ed Spinelli. What did he want now?
Had she pissed someone off royally? Was that why the three men who annoyed her the most all just happened to call her this morning? Or was Mercury in retrograde or the stars out of alignment? Did that mean she could expect a call from her father, too?
Ed wrote a sports blog that was followed by half a million people. He’d hit on her at a Hawks barbecue where she’d given one of her many command appearances. She’d gone out with him for a couple of reasons. For one she was curious about someone who had a blog that people followed religiously. For another, he’d written a lot of unflattering things about the Hawks, so it had been another big Fuck you to Kurt.
The man was hardly her type, tall and skinny with an ego bigger than the stadium. She’d expected him to be funny, charming, full of exciting and interesting things to do. Instead she’d discovered that his entire personality was confined to the words he wrote on his computer.
She’d been stupid enough to date him more than once. She’d broken it off when she found out that his goal was to get in her pants as his way of giving her father the finger. Apparently he was the only person in San Antonio who didn’t know Kurt Gillette didn’t give two hoots what his daughter did.
He hadn’t been too happy when she broke it off, but at least he hadn’t stalked her via her cell phone, unlike her ex. When she’d sent Ed a text telling him to lose her number or she’d do a blog about him, he finally got the hint. She had seen him out a few times with other women and figured he couldn’t be too heartbroken. She hadn’t heard from him in ages now, and wondered what was up with him now.
She had barely tapped the button to send the call to voice mail when—damn it!—here came another one. She looked at the screen and couldn’t decide whether to answer it or not. The number wasn’t familiar but the readout also didn’t say Unknown or Blocked like the other weird calls she’d been getting, so she took a chance.
“Hello.” She waited but no one replied. “Hello,” she repeated. Still silence. Not even any background noise. Her fingers tightened on her cell and her stomach cramped with tension. Would this never stop? “Hello.” This time she shouted it as anger bubbled up inside her. “Listen, whoever you are, this is not fun. Don’t call me again.” She paused. “Do you hear me?”
When there was still no answer, not even heavy breathing, she disconnected the call and tossed the phone down on her bed, as if it had a disease.
Crap.
Damn it all to hell, anyway.
The calls had started three weeks ago, silence, then heavy breathing. In the beginning, they’d only come once a day, then it had escalated to two, then finally four. At first, she kept saying, “Hello? Hello?” but no one ever answered. All she heard was that damn heavy breathing. Then whoever it was would hang up.
She’d thought it was some guy who’d somehow gotten her number and was pranking her. Since she didn’t make a habit of giving it out, the choices of who the caller could be should be limited. She’d changed her number twice since it started, to the irritation of her carrier, but too bad for them. They got paid, didn’t they? So how did some stranger keep getting his hands on it?
She was pretty sure they hadn’t gotten it from any of her friends. They were all very careful not to share each other’s information with anyone. If it was Nate or Chad or even Ed, what would she do next? Who would she tell? Tyler Gillette, the wildest woman in San Antonio. As she’d told Betsy, everyone would just think all this was a by-product of her crazy lifestyle. She’d stitch her mouth shut before running to her father. Maybe Rafe would help her, but he was off-limits. Besides, after last night he’d probably never go near her again.
Her own damn fault, for playing out this outrageous charade all these years.
Taking a deep breath, she dialed the number from the readout. No luck, just as the other times she’d tried. All she got was “That is not a working number.” As someone who didn’t live under a toadstool, she was aware that telemarketers bought phone numbers that they could hide behind. But no one spoke up and tried to sell her anything.
Climbing the stairs, she reviewed other possibilities, ticking off more names.
Maybe someone from the Hawks who’d seen her and wigged out on her? Was it someone hanging around the fringes
of her life, lusting after her or angry with her for something? She tried again to think of every man she’d picked up and walked away from. Or those she’d hung tight with for a few days, maybe even weeks, then ditched with little more than a verbal kick in the ass.
She gave herself a mental shake. Time to get dressed and get moving. Nothing would get solved this way. She just kept hoping whoever this was would finally get tired of the game.
She stood in the shower, spreading the body wash lavishly over her skin, hot water sluicing over her, and tried to remember every place she’d had her phone for the past couple of weeks where someone could palm it long enough to check the number. She had to admit sometimes she wasn’t as careful about keeping it in her purse as she should be. Maybe it had happened before that, and whoever was doing this had just been biding his or her time. Who had she pissed off so much that they were making these kinds of calls to her?
Oh, well, Tyler, how much time do you have?
She hadn’t made any friends in the dive bars she trolled. Besides, that had all been nothing but a ploy. What had she thought? That the famous Kurt Gillette would finally ask her what the hell this was all about? Clutch her to his heart and ask how he could help? Unfortunately, her plan bombed since she never got the reaction she wanted. She wondered who was more disgusted with the person she’d made herself into, her father or herself?
In any event, she was pretty sure it wasn’t anyone from her nightlife. They were all highly unlikely to indulge in games like this. She could barely recall half of the idiots she’d strung along in the bars but none of them would have her number. Would they? And no one else jumped out at her.