Going All In

by Cassandra Carr

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he murmured as he let go of her coat and reached for the door. “Enjoy dinner with your grandmother.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for lunch.”

  “Anytime.”

  She really wished he didn’t mean that but was absolutely certain he did.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning at work, when Alex arrived to have his leg looked after, Nathalie tried very hard to look like she was busy with other things. But Joanne insisted she work on loosening the knot that had gotten worse since Friday. Alex was actually limping when he came in.

  She felt bad as she watched him ease into the lifted chair that gave her easy access to his leg. He was wearing loose shorts that were easy to push out of the way so she could work. She focused on assessing the bruise, which was yellowing now, and the tightness in his right quadriceps. If not for her lack of self-control, she could have helped him with this on Sunday.

  Warming her hands until they would feel good against the sore muscles, she set them gently on either side of his thigh and began a measured probe for the knot. When she found it, she actually cursed under her breath. “You should have told me your leg was this bad,” she muttered as she worked.

  “I did. You thought I was faking to get you into bed.”

  “Shut up. My boss will hear you.”

  He glanced behind her. “She’s on the opposite side of the building. No one is listening to us. Relax.”

  Oh sure, relax. Like that would be a simple thing to do. She sent a little more heat into her palms, just enough to aid the massage, and moved her fingers and palms over the patch of muscle. “How’s that feel?”

  “Your hands feel like magic. My leg feels like crap.” He grunted when she hit a particularly tight spot.

  She snorted. “It’s not permanent, big guy. Don’t worry. You’ll be ready for this next road trip.”

  “You checked our schedule?”

  “I’m a fan, remember. I know your schedule.”

  “You going to miss me?”

  The teasing in his tone made more than her hands warm. “Shut up.” But she smiled. Damn. She hadn’t meant to smile. “I’m trying to concentrate here. Or do you want me to hit a wrong nerve?”

  “No, no. You just keep working that magic.” He paused as he scanned the area again. The Center was quiet this early on a Monday morning, only a few clients were scattered around the large main therapy room. And none of them were close enough to catch their conversation. “Funny calling your hands magic when you’re a witch.”

  “Funny.” If only he knew.

  “I was looking forward to seeing you today.”

  “Stop,” she said, before he could continue down that conversational path. “Working here. No personal talk.”

  “Can I get personal tonight?”

  She shook her head but didn’t actually answer because her stomach was doing that fluttery dance again, and she was a little too excited about the prospect of Alex getting personal with her.

  “What kind of oil do you use?” he asked, breaking into her concentration.

  “Hmm?”

  “Massage oil, what kind do you use? It always has a lot of good heat. But none of the other PTs seemed to get that much out of it.”

  “My already warm hands help.” Yet another problem with getting this close to him. He was going to uncover her last secret whether she liked it or not.

  “You really are the best here, Nathalie,” he said quietly. “Thank you for not avoiding working on me today.”

  She snorted. “Joanne wouldn’t let me.” She gave him a sideways look and half-smiled. “But you’re welcome.”

  He left after she’d finished with his leg, promising to see her at exactly 7:30 at her place. She hid in the back room so she wouldn’t actually have to watch him leave, though she noticed he wasn’t limping as he walked to the locker room. Pride in her work was quickly overshadowed by worry.

  She was in the middle of a dangerous game she had no business playing. She didn’t need this. She didn’t want the risks. Yet, she was afraid it wasn’t the uncovering of her secrets that would end up the real problem. The real problem was the fact that she was falling hard for Alex. Maybe even love. Which would suck.

  But how to get out before it was too late?

  *****

  The dinner that night actually started out pretty well. Nathalie had to contain herself from turning into a squeeing fan girl when Chris introduced her to his date. She loved Melanie Gould’s novels almost as much as she loved her defense of the Romance genre.

  After dinner, Marcus Mitchell arrived with his date, a really sweet woman she recognized as one of the wait staff from Vegas Night. Annalise Alonso. The poor woman looked more uncomfortable in that setting than Nathalie, so she immediately felt a kinship with her. She noticed her slight limp as Annalise and Marcus walked into the living room and wondered if there was something she might be able to do for her. Maybe if they got a chance to chat and build up a little trust, she could broach the subject.

  Nathalie tried to pay attention to the various conversations going on around her, but every word made her nerves tightened. One woman started discussing a reality show she and her Empire boyfriend were courting. Another one brought up having her name splashed across Page Six. All the exact kinds of attention Nathalie didn’t want. Yet these women were glowing with excitement over the possibilities. The woman who’d landed on Page Six was bragging about it!

  She didn’t belong with these people. She didn’t belong in Alex’s world. Not if she wanted to maintain any privacy.

  After a few minutes of conversation, the men all disappeared into the kitchen to get more drinks.

  “Do you want something else?” Alex leaned in to ask.

  “If Rob has a Scotch in there, I will love him forever.”

  “If I bring you the Scotch will you love me, too?”

  “I’ll consider not killing you for leaving me alone with all these ladies,” she said with a snarly smile. To be fair, they weren’t all bad. But they made her uncomfortably aware of her differences.

  She felt like such an imposter. She wasn’t Alex’s wife or girlfriend, she wasn’t his real date. And to top that off, she’d done some sort of PT work on every man here, though she wasn’t sure any of the women realized it. Given the attitudes of a few of the flashier broads, she had a feeling if they found out what she did, they wouldn’t be entirely pleased at having her there.

  To confirm her fears, as soon as the men left, one of the women, Barb, started in on Marcus’s date. Annalise got hit by insults that made Nathalie’s hands heat.

  “Hey,” she said, when Barb started grilling Annalise about her job. “What’s with the inquisition?”

  Barb shrugged and continued to lay into Annalise. Nathalie growled. Barb was joined by another bully, Deb, and before she could say more, they’d driven Annalise from the room.

  The women laughed and launched into another conversation involving courting the attention of the press. Nathalie’s stomach rolled. Disgusted with them, she rose to go see if Annalise was okay. By the time she got into the hall outside the kitchen, though, she didn’t see Annalise anywhere. But Chris stopped her on his way back to the living room.

  “What happened in there?” he murmured quietly.

  She shook her head. “Ask Melanie. She’ll explain.” She wasn’t sure she could go into the details without losing her temper. At least not before she’d had her Scotch.

  She went into the kitchen, took the drink Alex handed her, and downed it in a gulp.

  “What the hell happened with Marcus’s date?” he asked.

  She breathed down the soothing effects of the alcohol and set her glass back on the counter. Glancing at Rob, she motioned Alex outside the kitchen. Quietly, she said, “Couple of the women insulted Annalise, made the poor thing feel like she wasn’t good enough for Marcus. I got to tell you, Alex, if this is the crowd you normally hang with, I’m glad we’re not really dating.
I’m not sure I’d be able to deal with those women without…” She was going to say setting their hair on fire but stopped herself and amended it to, “Damaging one of their pretty faces.”

  Alex raised his brows. “I don’t hang with the women. But the guys I play with wouldn’t put up with that from their girlfriends.”

  “Yeah, well their girlfriends have a different perspective.” She shook her head, still upset about the way Annalise had been treated but also tight with anxiety about the talk of Page Six and reality shows.

  “I think I need another drink,” she told Alex, and he obliged. As they leaned against a kitchen counter while a few of the guys who were still in the room chatted, she tried to calm her nerves. But even the excellent Scotch and the more soothing company of the players didn’t help.

  This life, Alex’s life, drew public attention and gossip reporters. And those women in there loved it, wanted it. She would never be able to be a part of that world. Not safely, not with any kind of peace of mind.

  But he was. Which meant this fake dating that felt suspiciously like real dating had to end.

  Marcus came into the kitchen a short time later to say he was putting Annalise in a taxi. Nathalie’s anger inched up again at the thought that those women had driven Annalise away. She couldn’t blame Marcus’s date, though. She didn’t want to go back into the room with the bitches either.

  She finished the last few sips of her drink slowly, then with a great deal of care, set the glass into the nearby sink. “I need to leave,” she said to Alex quietly. “Let’s get the walk around the area over with, okay?”

  “Okay.” He took her arm and led her to the closet with their coats.

  As he held her coat for her, helping her into it, she asked, “Do you know what’s wrong with Annalise’s leg? You think she needs some help with it?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.” He pulled his own coat from the closet. “Or Marcus. I’ve never met her before this.”

  “Maybe she’d like to have lunch sometime. A little camaraderie after that debacle.”

  “Bet Marcus would love for you to do that. I get the impression this one is special to him. He’s gonna be pissed when he finds out what really happened in that room after we left.”

  As they came out of the elevator, they ran into the very Empire in question. And he asked her what had gone on. She told him exactly what was said.

  Marcus swore and Alex squeezed his shoulder in support.

  “I had no idea they would ever be this blatantly cruel,” Marcus said. “If I had known, I never would’ve brought her here.”

  “Look,” she said. “I hate how the evening turned out for her. Do you think she might want to have lunch with me some time, make up for having such a shitty experience tonight?”

  After a moment, he nodded, smiling. He gave her Annalise’s phone number and details on getting in touch with her before heading back upstairs.

  “Good luck,” Alex said to him as he got into the elevator. “See you tomorrow for the flight.”

  When the elevator door closed, she said, “I hope he rips the bitches a new one.”

  She stuffed her hands into her coat pockets as they walked away from Rob’s building. She was still concentrating on keeping her palms from sparking too hot, and she didn’t want Alex to notice how warm they were in the cold night air. The fact that she was assuming he’d take hold of her hand during this walk was yet another confirmation she was losing sight of the reality of their relationship.

  “I’m not sure I can keep this up,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “This pretend dating business.”

  “Then stop pretending we’re pretending.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Nathalie heartbeat quickened. If only it were that easy. If only she could let go and accept this thing between them as real. But it couldn’t work and she was going to get hurt if she allowed herself to think otherwise.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said, walking faster to get away from the conflicting emotions he was forcing her to feel.

  “Nathalie.” He pulled her up with a hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him. “I didn’t invite you over yesterday because of your vision. I’m not desperate to kiss you right now because I’m worried about being shot. I’m not out here with you because I seriously think we’re going to find this building we’re looking for.”

  She lifted her chin. “Why are we out here then?”

  “Because you wanted to leave, and I want you happy.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I want you, damn it.” His grip on her shoulder tightened. “Why the hell does this have to be so difficult?”

  “Because it is.”

  “Do you want me?”

  “Alex…”

  “Do you want me?”

  She growled under her breath. “You know I do. That’s not the point.”

  “But it’ll do for now.” He pulled her close and kissed her, a hard kiss this time, with a lot less restraint than he’d shown before. So hot and hard her knees went weak.

  Nathalie kissed back. Forgetting to leave her hands in her pockets, she snaked her arms around his neck and held him in place. A small part of her was screaming that this was stupid, idiotic. They were out in the open! Anyone could snap a shot of this.

  Her only consolation was that her face was probably well hidden in the depths of his passion. He devoured her, savored her. And any sense of logic or self-preservation melted under his assault.

  “Come home with me,” he said against her mouth.

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  His please got her every time. She was trembling with need, desperate for the privacy of his home, his bed, desperate for him. “Bad idea.”

  “Good idea,” he assured. He eased back, grabbed her hand and fast walked to the busier cross street a block away, where he could flag a cab.

  “We haven’t finished looking around the area.”

  “I won’t come back to Rob’s again until after the season is over.” He waved a yellow cab to the curb in record time and practically shoved her inside.

  She giggled as she settled and fastened her seatbelt. “So much for your control,” she commented.

  “I warned you.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her again.

  She gripped his wrists and eased back. “Alex, we are not alone yet.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He stopped her from protesting again by kissing her and making her forget why she was trying to protest.

  She got lost in the feel of his hands, his mouth, his tongue. He didn’t touch her anywhere below the shoulders, which only served to heighten her need to have his hands everywhere. And she wasn’t very comfortable straining against the seatbelt. But that didn’t stop her from gripping his coat lapels in a tight hold to keep him close and kissing him with all the pent up desire she’d been denying for months.

  When the cab pulled up in front of his home, she had a moment to wallow in embarrassment as he paid the driver. Though, being New York, the man probably saw this kind of thing a lot, but she wasn’t the kind of woman who typically made out in the back of a taxi.

  Alex didn’t give her long to feel the embarrassment, though. He ushered her up the stairs to his front door, unlocked it with shaking hands and pulled her into the entryway before the cab reached the end of the block. When he’d closed the door, darkness enveloped them, and Nathalie felt all the tension drain away to be replaced by need and heat and want.

  She tossed her purse against the wall and let him strip her coat off before helping him with his own jacket. Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her with that same demand he’d started on the street in Brooklyn.

  He moved his mouth from hers to run his lips down her neck, kissing and sucking the sensitive skin over her pulse. “You’ve been driving me crazy since Vegas Night,” he muttered against her skin. “Before then. For months now.”

  “L
iar.”

  “You’ve wanted me, too. That’s made it all worse.”

  She couldn’t even pretend to deny him when her body would have made a liar out of her, too. “Why didn’t you…why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “You kept your distance, made it clear you’d refuse if I asked you out.”

  “I did not.” In truth, she’d never guessed he wanted to ask her out. She probably would have said no, but she hadn’t realized there was a question to be answered.

  He returned to her mouth and kissed her again, which was a relief. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to think about everything this might cost her. With his mouth doing such wickedly wonderful things to her, she embraced the privacy they had now because she wanted him too much to refuse this chance.

  “Upstairs,” he growled and grabbed her hand. He paused on the third step. “I love how hot your hands are.” He started walking again. “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined these hot little hands of yours on my cock.”

  She tripped on a step. He held her until she got her balance, then he eased her around and pressed her against the wall, one leg between her thighs, one leg on the step above them.

  The position pressed his erection firmly against her hip. He cupped her cheeks in his palms. “Avoiding getting hard while you were working on me took a lot of effort.”

  “Not bothering with the effort anymore,” she commented and rubbed against him.

  “Mmmm, do that with your hand.”

  She obliged, more than happy to get her hands on him. Through the material of his slacks she stroked his hardness. He groaned and dropped his head to her shoulder as his hips bucked against her palm. She took advantage of his position to nibble his earlobe, biting gently and then sucking as she continued to rub his cock. She even let a little heat build in her palm, just enough to pleasure.

  He jerked back suddenly, startling her, took hold of the hand she’d been stroking him with and pulled her up the stairs. The door to his room was open when they stumbled through and he slammed it shut behind him as he dragged her to the bed.