by Sara Rider
She gasped, her full lips parting in the most sensual way. “I just introduced you to three of the more honest, competent agents in the business.”
“But they’re not as good as you.”
“No. But I don’t trust you. And I don’t work with people I don’t trust.”
He leaned in close enough to feel her breath against his cheek. “Maybe I’m not the problem. Maybe you don’t trust yourself around me.”
Heat sizzled between them despite the chill in the air, like they were wrapped in their own private cocoon of desire. He’d only said it to goad her, but her hesitation made him wonder if he hadn’t hit the mark.
“No, Salinger. I don’t trust you not to jeopardize your own career and everything I could do for you by throwing the first punch against your teammate.” She pried at his fingers on her arm and he let her go.
“There was a good reason for that.” Frustration threaded into his muscles, tensing his shoulders and tightening his jaw.
“One you’re not going to tell me?”
“Because I have it handled.”
“Then you don’t need me, do you?” She walked to the curb and raised her arm to flag a cab.
Almost instantly, a flash of headlights appeared, coming fast toward her. Too fast.
The cab must have hit the brakes, but instead of slowing down, the vehicle spun on the icy road, careening out of control toward Jillian.
There was no time to think. The cab jumped the curb inches from where she stood. He dove for her and hoped to god he wasn’t too late.
5
“I’m fine,” Jillian mumbled as she unbuckled her seat belt and tried to get out of the car by herself. The throbbing ache on the side of her head kicked up a few notches from the slight movement.
“You’re not fine. You were nearly roadkill,” Nick scolded.
“Do you ever get sick of being so bossy?”
“I never get sick of being right.”
She didn’t like it, but letting Nick and his brother help her out of the cab was a smart decision because as soon as she stood up a wave of dizziness crashed over her, draining the blood from her head. A strong pair of arms steadied her. Thankfully, it was Ben holding on to her, not Nick. They looked remarkably alike, with their deep blue eyes and dark hair, but Ben was at least forty pounds lighter, clean-shaven, and capable of smiling without looking like an asshole.
She bit her lip instead of arguing as Ben braced her elbow and led her to the emergency room entrance. She’d reprimanded her fair share of athletes over the years for not taking concussions seriously, and she wasn’t going to be a hypocrite, even if it did mean letting Nick help her.
Then again, if he hadn’t already helped her, she’d probably be coming to the hospital on a gurney rather than her own two feet. She wasn’t even sure what had happened. All she had were fuzzy memories of flashing headlights and screeching brakes, then crashing hard on the ground. Everything else was a blur.
Luckily, she didn’t have to wait too long before she was taken for an examination. She might have protested the guys accompanying her, but hospitals were no place to be alone. It was kind of nice to have some company. Ben’s casual jokes and anecdotes about their childhood in Minnesota were surprisingly entertaining.
The physician who treated her—Dr. Trevor Morgan—looked like he’d walked straight off the set of Grey’s Anatomy with his wavy brown hair and disarming smile. He took her vitals, asked some questions, and poked around the tender spot on the side of her skull.
Then he noticed the burly hockey player sulking in the corner. “You’re Nick Salinger,” Dr. Morgan said, sounding less like a levelheaded medical expert and more like a starstruck fan.
“I didn’t hit her,” Nick muttered.
Dear god, the man needed a serious crash course in public relations.
“I should hope not. Jillian said you saved her from getting hit by a cab.”
At least, that’s what she remembered happening. The unimpressed look Nick gave her made her doubt herself for a moment.
“Anyway, I’m a huge Vipers fan,” Dr. Morgan continued with a winning smile, as though he hadn’t noticed the downright hostile vibes wafting like poisonous gas from Nick’s corner of the small room. “And I know a lot of the kids in our pediatric ward are, too.”
With a grunt, Nick pulled out a crumpled receipt from his pocket, wrote his number on the back, and handed it to the doctor. “Give me a call and we can set something up. I can probably swing a visit on Christmas Day, but I need to know how many kids will be there so that I have enough signed jerseys.”
“Fantastic, thank you.”
“So, what’s the prognosis with our friend?” Ben interrupted.
“Do you do that a lot?” Jillian whispered to Nick while Ben and Dr. Morgan discussed the current status of her brain.
Nick shrugged. “Once in a while.”
She swung her legs to the side of the cot to face him, which made her feel like she’d just taken a direct blow from a wrecking ball. She pressed a hand to her forehead and inhaled deeply before continuing. “I’ve never seen any media attention on your philanthropy before. Not one speck.”
“That’s because only assholes do that kind of stuff for PR.”
She bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from screaming in frustration. “You need that kind of PR right now.”
“They’re sick children, not sock puppets. And what do you care, anyway? You’re not my agent, remember?”
“Right.” She swiveled back around, more slowly and carefully this time, and crossed her arms. “So, Doctor. Am I clear to go?”
Dr. Morgan smiled. “Yes, as long as you promise to take it easy for the next few days. And for tonight, you need to have someone waking you up and checking on you every few hours. Do you live alone?”
She’d never been embarrassed about her single status before, and yet her cheeks burned. “Yeah, but I’ve got someone I can call.” Her Uber account had to count for something, right?
“Then you’re free to go.”
Nick and Ben eased her off the cot. She hated feeling helpless, but swallowing her pride for a few more minutes meant she wouldn’t have to contend with debilitating dizziness. They escorted her to the front desk, where a nurse handed her an ungodly stack of discharge paperwork to fill out.
As she signed her name on every page, she could hear Nick and Ben arguing in hushed voices behind her. It struck her as odd, since the pair seemed to get along quite well. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the ability to both concentrate on the paperwork and make sense of what was at the core of the argument, and the three years she’d spent in law school made her incapable of not reading the fine print on even the most boilerplate documents.
Eventually, she heard Ben say “fine” in a voice that sounded like he was anything but, and then he stalked off.
She handed the papers back to the nurse and turned to face Nick. “What was that about?”
“Nothing.” He took her by the elbow. “Come on, the cab will be here any minute.”
They climbed into a taxi, with Jillian and Ben in the backseat and Nick in the front, just like before. Nick gave the driver an address on the Upper East Side.
Jillian grabbed the back of his seat and leaned forward. “It’d be faster to drop me off first.”
“You’re not going home.”
“Excuse me?”
“The doctor said you needed someone to check on you every few hours, which means you’re coming to my place.”
Anger filled her chest, making her want to explode. “I said I had someone I could call.”
“And if that were true, you would’ve already called that person. But you didn’t, so I’m bringing you to my place. There’s a third bedroom with a private bathroom. Clean sheets and hot water. What more do you need?”
She s
ucked in a breath, preparing to unleash a tirade against his presumptuousness, but the words “hot water” triggered the memory of the thirty-second ice-cold shower she’d taken this morning. The promise of an uninterrupted flow of steamy hot water was the one thing that could quell her indignation.
Ben reached across the leather seat and patted her hand. “The bathrooms are stocked with spare toothbrushes and every type of L’Occitane hair and skin product you could possibly imagine. My influence, of course. If it were up to Nick, the only things in there would be a bar of Irish Spring and a roll of toilet paper.”
“I like Irish Spring.”
“Ignore him,” Ben said, rolling his eyes. “Plus, I promise to make my famous vanilla rum French toast with peaches and whipped cream in the morning.”
Her stomach rumbled. “Cool Whip or the real stuff?”
“Real dairy, hand whipped,” Ben said reverently.
“Fine. One night.” Her dad had once told her that anyone could be bought for the right price. It turned out that almond-scented bath oils and a sugar-filled breakfast was hers.
The cab pulled up to a massive limestone building that screamed luxury. Once again, Nick paid the fare before she even had a chance to pull out her wallet. Still, she made a mental note of the cost on the meter so that she could pay him back for her share.
His apartment was on the seventeenth floor. She nearly made a sarcastic quip about it not being the penthouse, but when she stepped through the front door and saw the incredible view through the floor-to-ceiling windows, she held back. The city was laid out in a dazzling display of lights against the inky-black sky. She could only imagine what the sunrise would look like over morning coffee.
Nick flipped on the lights, revealing a clean, modern aesthetic with just enough warm wood accents to make it seem like a real person lived here. A floating staircase flanked one of the living room walls. He dumped his keys in a bowl on a small table by the door and gestured to her to follow him in. “Your room’s this way. You can leave your shoes on.” He led her through the large open-concept kitchen to the right of the entrance and opened a door halfway down the short hallway.
Dear god, the room was nearly as big as her entire condo. The sheer enormity of it was magnified by the lack of furniture. A king-size bed and a nightstand were the only items in the place, other than the framed replica of a van Gogh painting adorning one of the pale beige walls—which probably reflected the ubiquity of Starry Night prints more than Nick’s personal taste in art.
Nick must’ve slipped out while she was picking up her jaw from the floor, because when she looked over her shoulder, he was nowhere to be found. She tossed her purse and jacket onto the bed and explored the adjoining bathroom. Elegant slate tile floors, a Jacuzzi tub, and a huge glass-enclosed shower. Ben hadn’t lied about the luxury products, either. Multiple cloth-lined wicker baskets sat on the countertop, filled with every kind of fancy cream, oil, gel, and mist a person could imagine.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected the apartment of a rough-and-tumble athlete like Nick to look like, but it certainly hadn’t been a Parisian day spa. Suddenly, the image of Nick’s water-slicked body inside the shower flashed into her mind, soapy bubbles sluicing along the hard planes of his broad shoulders and muscular back.
That was not the kind of thought she should be having while recuperating for the night in his apartment. I know you’re damaged at the moment, Brain, but can you focus on something other than Nick Salinger’s naked torso?
Her brain complied by flashing an image of his naked butt.
She groaned and turned on the tap to splash water on her face. Her reflection wasn’t pretty. The bump on the left side of her head made her usually compliant straight hair stick out like a cowlick. The color had long since drained from her skin. She looked like a college kid five days into a spring break bender rather than an educated thirty-year-old professional.
She almost jumped out of her skin when she exited the bathroom and saw Nick standing at the foot of the bed, holding a New York Vipers T-shirt.
He tossed it to her. “Figured you’d need something to sleep in.”
“Thanks,” she said, hoping she wasn’t wearing the kind of expression that said “I was just picturing you naked.”
Her phone, which had fallen onto the duvet when she’d thrown her purse there earlier, buzzed loudly, interrupting the awkward silence brewing between them. She took a step forward, but Nick was quicker.
She watched in horror as he picked up the phone and answered the call. “What?”
“Give that back,” she whispered, tugging at his arm.
He waved her off. “Jillian is recovering from a head injury and can’t help you right now. An economy-class ticket is not an emergency. Be a big boy and talk to the ticket counter agent yourself if you need an upgrade that badly, instead of calling her to fix it for you.” He ended the call and tossed the phone back on the bed.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she hissed while scrolling through the call display. “Aaron Vincent is a top-ranked, six-foot-seven volleyball player on his way to the pre-Olympic national team training camp! He needs legroom on that flight!”
“I don’t care who he is, he shouldn’t be calling you at two in the morning.”
“It’s my job!” She dialed Aaron’s number and swore when he didn’t answer.
“Let someone else deal with it for one night. An intern can handle a call to the airline.”
“I don’t have any interns.” She sank onto the edge of the bed and pressed one palm against her forehead while typing a frantic text with the other hand.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, which means that I don’t get to stop working just because of an injury. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Jesus, of course it is,” he said, sounding so affronted that she put her phone down. His blue eyes were gleaming with what seemed like anger. “You nearly got run over because of me.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” she said in a gritty voice, throat dry from shock. “Unless my brain is more scrambled than I realize, you saved me.”
He fixed her in his gaze a few moments longer, mouth drawn into a tight line. “Have a good night. I’ll check on you in a couple hours.”
Jillian watched him storm out of the room with a strange realization pooling in her gut. Maybe Nick Salinger really did have a soul.
6
There was no room for hesitation in Nick’s life. He spent the majority of his time playing a sport that required him to fly down the ice on two blades at breakneck speed. He went after what he wanted without a second thought. Hesitation meant giving up. Losing. And yet the moment he stepped into his spare bedroom and saw Jillian asleep in his T-shirt, he froze like a chump.
It was impossible not to notice how beautiful she was when she wasn’t arguing with him or looking at him like she wanted to kill him. The faint city lights cut through the darkness and illuminated her pale skin. She’d sprawled across the king-size mattress, taking up an impossible amount of space for someone so small. His reluctance to wake her wasn’t just due to how peaceful she looked—he knew better than most how important it was to take proper care of a head injury. The problem was that he liked the way she looked in his bed and his clothes a little too much.
It was the kind of sight he could get used to.
He pushed that thought out of his head, padded to the edge of the bed, and gently shook her shoulder. She rolled onto her side and let out a soft little moan. Christ, he should not have found that sexy.
He shook her again with a little more force. “Wake up, Jillian.”
She opened her eyes with a gasp. “Where—”
“My place. You have a concussion, remember?”
Awareness settled into her features, washing away the trace of panic in her eyes. “Right, thanks. I’m still alive.”
Relief tightened his throat. He nodded, not trusting himself to say anything, and headed for the door.
“Nick?” she called out just as he reached the threshold. “Would you mind getting me a glass of water? Please?”
“Sure.” He filled a tall glass in the kitchen and came back to set it next to her on the nightstand.
She pushed up on her elbows with an obvious struggle and winced. “Dammit. Could you . . . help me?”
He knew it’d be a mistake to touch her when his brain was too foggy to control his desire, but the frustration in her voice broke him. She wasn’t the kind of woman who liked showing any vulnerability. He sat next to her, careful to keep as much distance as possible between them, and slipped his arm behind her back, easing her up to a sitting position. She curled toward him, steadying herself with one hand on his bicep, the other pressed against his bare chest.
Fuck. Why hadn’t he thought to put on a shirt? Her touch felt like a brand against his skin.
He needed to get out of here before he did something stupid.
He let her go, intending to hightail it back to his bedroom, but she stretched her neck to the side and winced again.
“Sore?” he asked.
“Very.”
Seeing her in pain and knowing he was partly to blame unearthed a weakness in his resolve. He reached for her shoulders and massaged the tight muscles at the base of her neck. She melted into him, her back molding to his chest, sending every molecule of blood in his body straight to his cock. The distance between them narrowed even further until the sweet scent of her perfume overwhelmed his senses.
“Jillian.” His gruff whisper was meant to warn her, but it sounded like he was asking permission. Maybe he was.
She half turned and her gaze trailed down his body like she was seeing him for the first time. The sweatpants he’d thrown on did little to conceal his growing erection. She inhaled sharply, letting him know he wasn’t the only one feeling the electricity crackling between them.