Players

by Rachel Cross

  His hands slid onto her arms, his touch light and hesitant, as if he couldn’t resist but wanted to give her room to object. When she didn’t—couldn’t—those hands skimmed along her forearms, over the backs of her wrists, awakening every nerve ending along the way and setting the tiny hairs to standing on end.

  His hands slid farther still, over the tops of hers, enveloping them. Warm skin on warm skin, a simple point of contact, and every cell in her body shuddered with the relief of it, the sheer pleasure. She drew in a soft, ragged breath, knew she owed him the truth in return, but the words refused to leave her mouth. She didn’t want to ruin what the night had been.

  Instead, she told him a version of the truth. “I’ve heard of your family. I know you’re heir to a fortune. Your father owns luxury hotels. My father owns a bookshop in town. We struggle to make ends meet most months. Truth is, last night was a fluke. You and I don’t run in the same circles.”

  She drew a deep breath, forced herself to turn and face him, and laid a hand against his chest. “But none of that really matters, because I need this to stay at one night, Michael.”

  “Me, too.” He stroked his hands down her arms. “Let me at least make you some breakfast before I take you home.”

  She offered him a soft smile and nodded. “I’d like that.”

  • • •

  An odd melancholy filled Cat’s chest when they pulled into the last available spot in front of her apartment building an hour and a half later. Mother Nature had provided a gorgeous morning—a clear blue sky, birds chirping and chattering, and the oppressive heat had yet to set in.

  Wrapped in Michael’s jacket, Cat clung to his back, still reeling with the exhilaration of riding on his bike.

  “The perfect end to a perfect night.” The words left her mouth on a blissful sigh as Michael cut the engine.

  He made a sound of agreement at the back of his throat, but as he pulled the key from the ignition, the last shred of her high spirits evaporated. After pulling off the helmet, she turned her head and rested her cheek against his right shoulder. He took the helmet and hung it on the handlebars. Neither made a move to get off the bike and neither spoke.

  The seconds ticked by as she struggled with what to say. His body tensed against hers and butterflies danced in her stomach. She’d spent the entire night exploring every inch of this man, but she hadn’t the foggiest idea what to say now. Thanks for a great time, have a nice life?

  With a long sigh, she pulled away and slid off the bike. She lowered her gaze and straightened her skirt. It gave her hands something to do at least.

  “I’m sorry to bring you home so early.” Michael turned a rebellious grin in her direction. “My family actually expected me yesterday, and my father doesn’t like it when I’m late.”

  She couldn’t help but smile in return. The look in his eyes told her he didn’t care if he was on time or not.

  He slid off his bike, slipped his hands into his pockets, and stood staring at her with soft, somber eyes.

  An electric current of unspoken wants and desires buzzed in the air between them. That tiny part of her still wanted to see him again, and the black depths of his eyes echoed the same sentiment.

  She had to end this here. Before she opened her big mouth and set herself on a path to destruction by asking him exactly that.

  “It’s okay.” She shook her head. “You don’t have to walk me up.”

  A smile touched the corners of his mouth, and he quirked a brow in challenge. “Are you that anxious to get rid of me?”

  She sighed. Why did this have to be so hard? It was one night, with a stranger. Wasn’t it supposed to be easy? “This is just so . . . ” She paused and shook her head, at a loss to say more.

  “Awkward.” He nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  She laid a hand against his chest; his warmth radiated against her fingers. “I don’t want it to follow us upstairs. I’d rather remember you exactly the way I met you.”

  His eyes narrowed, playful. “Dark and dangerous?”

  She let out a soft laugh, half from sheer nerves, half from relief. “Something like that.”

  He’d given her something intangible, something more valuable than money. Immersed in nothing but him, without a care in the world, she’d been free from the fear and shame that had ruled most of her life. While she loathed relinquishing that feeling, she also knew she couldn’t let it go any further.

  Michael, however, was nothing if not persistent. With a determined glint in his eye that dared her not to let him play the gentleman, he slipped his hand into hers. With a gentle tug on her arm, he moved onto the sidewalk and eyed the building. “So, where are you?”

  “Right here.” With a defeated sigh, she nodded at the dark wooden stairwell in front of them. “Second floor.”

  Their fingers still linked, he followed a step behind as she made her way up the stairs. Once again, silence reigned supreme, making her wonder what he thought. Did he feel the same awkwardness that twisted her stomach?

  At the top of the landing, she turned to look at him, her heart fluttering in her chest when he stepped up with her. Towering over her, desire flared in his eyes, sending new shivers along her spine. In one long stride, he closed the distance between them, his hands seizing her waist. He tugged her flush against him, but the playfulness in his touch melted into something softer, more intense and needy, the instant their bodies met.

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “You didn’t think I’d let you get away from me that easily, now did you?”

  The quiet possessiveness in those words, the wistfulness in his voice, filled her chest with a torrent of confusing emotions. Slowly throughout the night, the dark and mysterious façade had come down. She’d gotten a glimpse of this man’s heart and liked what she’d seen. He was better than the fantasy.

  Here, in his arms, she had the oddest sense of rightness. And his eyes . . . his eyes spoke to her, connected to some part of her, deep inside. Last night those sensations made for something incredible. Michael had taken her to heights she hadn’t even known were possible.

  In the harsh light of day, they scared her to death. She didn’t want to see he was just a man, didn’t want to see his flaws, because she couldn’t chance he’d turn out like Nick. A playboy who only wanted to toy with her heart.

  The thoughts flitted away as he leaned his head down and nipped at the curve of her neck. One hand slid inside his jacket she wore, his touch, light and tantalizing, skimmed the side of her breast, and she couldn’t contain the gasp that escaped. The tips of his fingers caressed her skin as he moved the collar aside, taking the strap of her top with it. He placed a soft kiss to her shoulder before straightening.

  He fingered the lapel of his jacket. “I’m afraid I’ll need this back.”

  “Darn. And here I thought you’d let me keep it as a souvenir.” She narrowed her eyes and jokingly clutched the lapels closed.

  “I don’t think so.” He let out a soft laugh and shook his head.

  He stepped back to give her room. She lowered her gaze and fingered the lapels before bringing them to her nose and inhaling. As she finally let the soft leather slide from her shoulders, a pang of remorse twisted through her stomach. She didn’t want to let it go.

  “It smells like you.” Like leather, soap, and fresh air.

  “I’d imagine so.”

  As she handed him his jacket, their fingers brushed, stilled, connected for the span of a heartbeat, before she finally pulled them back.

  “Good-bye, Michael.” Simple and effective, yet the words didn’t seem nearly enough.

  His expression sober again, he cupped her chin in his palm and idly stroked his thumb over her skin. “Good-bye, Cat.”

  He dropped his hand and slung his jacket over his shoulder, then turned and walked away, his gait slow and casual.

  She leaned back against her apartment door and watched until he disappeared from sight at the bottom of the stairwell. When his engine roared
to life, her chest constricted at the finality and irony of his exit from her life. He was gone the same way he’d entered—quiet and unassuming yet powerful all the same.

  With a sigh, she turned and pushed her apartment door open. She only needed to change into fresh clothing, then she was headed to her father’s shop. Her father had opened a small bookstore some twenty years ago. After their marriage ten years ago, he and her stepmother, Judy, ran the place together. It was a small, eclectic place, selling new and used books, and had become a landmark on Main Street.

  Two years ago, tragedy struck their small family when her stepmother died of an aggressive form of cervical cancer. Since then, Cat had taken to helping her father in the shop on the weekends. Now that she’d quit working for Nick, she’d help her father full-time until she found another job.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re home early.”

  Two steps inside her apartment, Cat halted, turning toward the sound of the voice. Lisa sat at the kitchen table ten feet in front of her, her eyes searching Cat’s like a worried mother who waited all night for her errant daughter to come home.

  “Didn’t you get my message?” Cat moved into the apartment toward the coffeemaker. Despite having already had breakfast, the smell of the fresh brew still lured her. “I called your phone last night. I tried to find you, but you disappeared.”

  “I did, but I figured, given your message, you probably haven’t seen the paper yet.” Lisa surged to her feet and crossed the kitchen, shoving the newspaper at her. “You and Michael made it onto the front page.”

  A hard knot of dread formed in her stomach. Cat set her coffee aside and reached out to take the paper. The Weekly Tribune called itself a newspaper but could more accurately be described as a gossip rag. It tended to showcase the local rumors, the who’s who and who’s doing what of their small town rather than actual world news. The woman who ran it was sweet and simply loved the town and the people in it, but she was a little too nosy for her own good. By the look on Lisa’s face, Cat had a feeling she didn’t want to know what she was about to read.

  One glance at the front page and Cat clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God.”

  The headline read, “The Prodigal Son Returns,” but the picture beneath had acid rising up the back of her throat. It was a sidelong view of her and Michael as they stood at the beach, just after he’d dunked her in the water. Their arms were wrapped around each other. The picture had been taken with a close-up lens, so the faces were clear, despite the darkness, and they were very obviously kissing. An intimate moment captured on film.

  Cat growled low in her throat, unable to stop the emotions that rose over her. “You know, this really pisses me off. They’re invading my privacy, as well as his. Who do they think they are to post something like this in the morning paper? This is the exact kind of thing I’d hoped to avoid since I came back to town and half the reason I left years ago.” She moved to the couch in the living room and sat down, an eerie sense of invasion crawling up her spine. Cat shook her head and glanced at Lisa. “But you know, I find this really disturbing, Lisa. There was no one else out on that beach with us. It’s private property and the neighborhood around us was quiet and dark. No flash went off.”

  “It means someone was spying on you.” Lisa furrowed her brow, the same sense of worry currently knotting Cat’s stomach creeping into her eyes. She reclaimed her seat at the table and looped her hands around her own coffee mug. “Who the hell skulks around in the bushes to take pictures of the two of you?”

  Cat nodded. “Exactly. Who the hell does that?”

  The shrill of the phone interrupted, and Cat stretched to reach the cordless receiver on the coffee table in front of her. “Hello?”

  Silence rang over the line.

  “Hello?” Cat called again, but again only silence echoed back at her. She punched the “end” button and set the phone on the couch beside her.

  “Who was that?” Lisa lifted her gaze from the paper.

  Cat turned her head and shrugged. “Don’t know. They didn’t say anything.” Taking a sip of her coffee, the phone rang again. Cat picked it up. “Hello?”

  More eerie silence echoed back at her. Irritated, she hung up.

  “Nobody again?” Lisa flipped the newspaper page.

  Cat nodded. “Prank calls, I guess.”

  When the phone rang a third time, the caller ID on the display window once again flashed “number unavailable.” Cat snatched up the receiver, her voice less than friendly. “I’m getting really tired of this game.”

  This time breathing echoed across the line, low but distinct, and a cold shiver raced down her spine. Unnerved, she punched the “end” button and tossed the phone to the other side of the couch. She turned to Lisa. “Well, that was nice and creepy.”

  Lisa quirked a blond brow. “What did they say?”

  Cat shook her head. “Nothing. Just somebody breathing.”

  Lisa shrugged. “Probably just a kid.”

  Cat nodded, but unease settled in her stomach. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d gotten prank calls. Around Halloween, the tricksters all came out to play. She’d never gotten this kind, though. She couldn’t help notice the seemingly coincidental timing, either. Michael’s appearance in her life. The photos in the newspaper, which occurred during a time when she was sure they were alone. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s all it is.”

  • • •

  The steady cadence of his boots hitting the tiled floor echoed off the walls as Michael made his way down the hospital corridor. The place was eerily silent, the only sound coming from the hushed conversations of the occasional personnel he passed. He focused on his destination, tried to keep his mind set on what he came to do, but each step wrenched the knot in his stomach a little tighter.

  Upon reaching the last door at the end of the hall, he paused. As his eyes traced the metal numbers adorning the wooden structure, he drew in a deep breath. This day had been ten years in the making. If he were lucky, the brush with death had calmed his father a bit. Maybe the old man had forgotten, and they could finally move on.

  Yeah, and maybe pigs would fly south for the winter.

  Deciding he couldn’t put it off any longer, he reached for the brass handle, but the door opened before he made contact. Gabe’s form filled the doorway, and dark eyes that had been moving in search of something settled on Michael.

  He couldn’t resist the sigh of relief at the small reprieve.

  “’Bout damn time you got here.” One corner of his brother’s mouth hitched as he stepped through the door and let it fall closed behind him. “Dad can harp on you for a change.”

  Michael couldn’t help the wry chuckle that escaped him. At least he wasn’t his father’s only victim. “How are Lilly and the girls?”

  His older brother had done everything right according to their father’s plan. He married his college sweetheart five years ago and had two daughters. He’d also followed in their father’s footsteps. Gabe normally ran management between the hotels as well as kept tabs on the bar in town. With Lilly currently eight months pregnant with their third child, however, Gabe chose to stick to the bar.

  “Ah, they’re good.” A proud smile spread across his brother’s face. He sobered a moment later and cuffed his shoulder. “You were supposed to stop by the bar last night. What happened?”

  What happened? Bright green eyes and a shy smile. He lingered for a moment in the memories. The way his hands molded perfectly to her sleek, feminine curves. Her warm, creamy skin, slick with perspiration, sliding against his. Her subtle, exotic scent had either imbedded in his mind or in his jacket, because he swore he still smelled her.

  He refocused on his brother and gave a nonchalant shrug. “I got a bit distracted.”

  “Must’ve been cute if she caught your attention.” Gabe winked, but a heartbeat later, his playful smile melted into a pity-filled frown. “Hope she was worth it, though, man, ’cause you’re about to catch hell for it. Dad’s
not a happy camper.”

  Was she worth it? The answer slid into his mind barely a breath later. Even if he never saw her again, Cat had given him something he hadn’t had in ten years—a night of peace. Peace from the memories that haunted him and the guilt that followed him wherever he went. Peace from the oppressive weight of being who he was. For one night, he was simply a man, and he’d be forever grateful to her for that.

  “Yeah.” Michael couldn’t resist the smile. “She was definitely worth it.”

  “You plan to see her again?” Gabe folded his arms across his chest.

  Michael’s shoulders slumped with the force of the emotion that grabbed him. Of all the questions, Gabe asked the one that weighed the heaviest on his mind. He couldn’t believe how hard it had been to leave Cat an hour before. Did he want to see her again? With every ounce of his being. The woman piqued his curiosity and stirred his desire like no other. Would he see her again?

  “No.” He didn’t get involved with women from this damn town.

  “You can’t stay single forever, you know. It’s been ten years, man.” Gabe gave a slow shake of his head. “You have to let it go.”

  His brother referred, of course, to that awful night. The exact reason he left town in the first place. Ten years ago, on the Fourth of July, a jealous ex-girlfriend murdered his best friend in front of him, then turned the gun on herself, killing her unborn child in the process. The gruesome images were burned into his brain.

  Michael heaved a sigh and raked a hand through his hair.

  “Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.” He closed his eyes, the memories rising like acid. The gun, the bodies, the blood. “I can’t stop seeing Kaylee hit the ground and wondering if I could have done something to stop it.”

  The nightmare repeated like a broken record, over and over. It haunted his sleep, and every time he saw that night, the guilt weighed on him like an anchor.

  “Well, you came home. That’s a start.” Gabe settled a brotherly arm around his shoulders in a quick, familiar hug that reminded him of all the years growing up. Michael opened his eyes and smiled his thanks. His brother always had his back. “You should go see Taylor. He’s asked about you.”