“With all the traveling we do during the season,” Derek continued, “I’m just not around that much.”
His shoulders rolled back, as if he was trying to loosen some imaginary knots, but the subtle hitch in the tone of his voice was real. She had to explore it, if only to guide him to a place where he could begin to trust her.
“Being on the road so much must be hard. My clients complain about that all the time,” she said, empathizing. “This place is huge. Maybe it needs some more furniture or something. So it won’t feel so...um...empty when you come home.”
Derek furrowed his brow and looked past her into the living room. “It doesn’t look empty to me. I’ve got my top-of-the-line TV, a custom-built couch and the remote.” His eyes settled back on hers. “What more could a man want after a long trip?”
She shrugged and slid her mug closer, debating whether to take another sip under his gaze. It was watchful, curious and just plain sexy. Yet he seemed totally unaware of her at the moment and instead appeared to be pondering her question seriously.
Suddenly, Derek picked up both coffee mugs and put them aside. “But in a way, though, I think you may be right.” He leaned both elbows on the counter. “This place is missing something.”
Derek inched closer, his head and eyes nearly parallel now with hers. Natalie held her breath, trying not to focus on his full lips and strong jaw threatening her ability to remain aloof.
“It needs a woman’s touch,” he teased. “Interested?”
His steel-gray eyes had a hint of fire in them. But there was no question that the rest of him, from his locks down to his toes, was smoking hot.
Interested? She’d be a fool not to be, and an even bigger fool to fall for his charm and good looks.
This is business, she reminded herself as she picked up her mug and leveled her eyes at him.
Steam from the hot liquid rose between them, tickling her nose. Her lower abdomen pulsed with the tension of desire.
Derek didn’t move. Neither did Natalie.
She swallowed hard. His eyes immediately flicked down to trace the curve of her neck and her throat went dry. She’d always had a hate/curse relationship with her long neck, but the way Derek was looking at it made her wish it was even longer.
Although she was flattered by his interest, the man was making her feel things that could only hurt her in the end.
“I’m not available,” she said, her voice flat.
And she wasn’t. To any man.
Getting her heart broken was not on her to-do list.
His arms squeaked against the counter like fingernails scratching down a chalkboard as he stood. His back was ramrod-straight and he didn’t say a word. It was clear she’d hurt him and that surprised her. She knew his reputation. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have other options for female companionship. It shouldn’t even matter that she’d rejected him.
Then why did she get the sense that it did?
Time to change the subject.
She took another sip of the coffee.
“Ooh-la-la is right. This is heavenly.” She sighed. “By far the best café au lait I’ve ever tasted.”
The smile returned to his face, although her heart was heavy with the knowledge that when he heard what she was about to say, it wouldn’t last long.
“I thought you’d like it,” he responded. “Now that I’ve been benched for the next few days, I’ve got a lot of time on my hands.”
He rubbed his palms together as if he were formulating a devious plan. “So what’s on the agenda first? I’ve got a mountain of basketball shoes sitting in the middle of my closet just dying to be organized. One of the reasons I think I’m late in the morning is because I can never find shoes that match.”
She flipped open her notebook. “That’s not quite what I had in mind.”
He frowned as he stirred some sugar into his coffee. “O-kay. Maybe we can go shopping for a couple of new alarm clocks that have really annoying rings. The one on my phone obviously isn’t enough to wake me up.”
She crossed her legs to steady her nerves, aware of his eyes on them as he sipped his coffee.
“Actually, we’re going to see your father.”
Derek clattered his mug against the granite countertop. “What are you talking about?”
Her heart lurched at the sudden change in his demeanor. The hard stare he gave her now was a far cry from the way he’d been looking at her moments earlier.
She shifted in her seat. “I’m talking about making things right with your family, especially your dad.”
He flattened his palms on the counter.
“How did you find out about him?” he demanded. “I thought you were a life coach, not a private detective.”
She kept her voice calm. “I do background research on all my clients, and it’s amazing what you can find archived on the internet. The newspaper articles are all there and—”
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “My dad doesn’t want anything to do with me. Trust me.”
“I think the opposite is true,” she ventured.
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t think you want anything to do with him.”
He said nothing, yet something seemed to deflate within him.
“As I was saying, there are tons of articles about your rags-to-riches success story on the web, but your family is rarely mentioned.”
“So?” he challenged. “I thought you were here to help me get off the bench and back on the basketball court where I belong, not poke around where you don’t belong.”
She understood his anger, but she wasn’t going to let herself be deterred by it.
“I’m here to help you in any way I can,” she replied.
Derek walked around the counter, sat on the chair opposite her and crossed his arms. “Well, you can start by leaving my past out of it.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”
He leaned forward. “Why not?”
She met his eyes and kept her voice firm.
“Sometimes when people have unresolved issues in their past, it can affect their lives in the present, as well as the future. No matter how successful they become, there’s always something missing.”
She knew that feeling all too well. It was something she struggled with every day.
He waved her comment away and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “That sounds like some kind of self-help mumbo jumbo, Dr. Kenyon.”
She took in a sharp breath and brought her hand to her mouth.
“Don’t look so shocked that I did a little investigation of my own,” he advised.
She said nothing for a moment, preferring to forget about that part of her life. A time when she’d tried to start over, and failed miserably.
“Actually, I’m glad to hear that you did a little digging on your own,” she said, recovering quickly. “It shows you’re highly invested in doing things in your life differently.”
“Or it could show that I’m highly interested in you,” he added, watching her for her reaction.
Her heart fluttered, yet she managed to keep her expression calm and her voice light. “I’d heard you were a huge flirt, Derek. You don’t have to prove it to me.”
His brows knit together and she sensed he was disappointed with her response. What had he expected her to say? Her interest in him was strictly professional and her fantasies were hers alone.
“Do you remember Jamal Carter?” The former NBA star turned heroin addict had been her last patient in her short-lived second career as a psychologist.
Her insides quaked at the memory of their counseling sessions. Some of the stories Jamal had told her about growing up in one of the fiercest projects in Brooklyn still haun
ted her. Despite his wealth and success, he could never get past all the pain he’d experienced as a child.
She’d quit practicing psychology soon after his death from suicide. Even though she knew it wasn’t her fault, not a day went by when she didn’t ask herself if she could have done or said something to prevent it. Questions that would forever remain unanswered.
Derek ran a hand through his locks and looked uncomfortable. “Of course I remember him. He grew up in the same projects I did. I was brought in to replace him on the team after he died. You were Jamal’s therapist?”
She nodded. “I counseled Jamal for a few months before he died. He was an incredibly gifted and successful athlete. But his past ultimately destroyed him.”
He crossed his arms. “That’s not going to happen to me,” he insisted, looking away.
She hated the prideful tone in his voice, yet she knew it wasn’t the result of arrogance. The man was wealthy, yet he didn’t flaunt it like some of her other clients. There was something that mattered more to him than money and whatever it was, she had a feeling it scared him more than he wanted to admit.
“Don’t you see, Derek? It is already starting to happen!”
He lowered his head, refusing to look at her even when she slid off the chair and stood next to him.
“Your playing has been off-kilter for months, you’ve been suspended right before the most important games of the season and your reputation in the media has taken a major hit.”
“I know,” he muttered, running his hand down his face. “I can’t seem to get it together. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Natalie smiled inwardly, secretly pleased he didn’t deny what was happening to him, even if he didn’t know what it was.
On the flip side, it made Derek even more attractive to her. He was less of an untouchable sports celebrity and ultimately more human.
“Do you really think seeing my family is going to help?” He lifted his head. “I haven’t spoken to my dad or my brother in over ten years. Not since high school,” he murmured. “Can you believe that?”
The shame in his voice curdled in her ear. It was so real and so familiar that she just wanted to bolt. But perhaps it was time for her to stop running. Sometimes her faith and her inner drive to succeed, no matter the consequences, were the only things that kept her going.
She forced her voice steady. “You can do this. I’ll help you.”
He shook his head again. “No, Natalie.” Derek’s voice was firm. “I haven’t seen them in years. It will never work.”
“Only because you won’t let it,” she charged, even though she knew she should be more patient. The stubborn determination in his eyes upset her because it could only mean one thing: his mind was made up.
She turned away and grabbed her purse. Why couldn’t he see that this was for the best? Even worse, why did she care so much? So soon? She had that irrefutable feeling in the pit of her stomach that made her want to dive into his muscular arms and never come up for air.
“Thanks for the coffee,” she snapped. For reasons she knew she’d analyze to death later on, she was deeply hurt by his rejection of her plan. “I’ll let Tony know that we won’t be working together.”
Her heels tapped out a brisk rhythm as she walked to the elevator.
As she was searching for the down button, Derek placed one arm against the wall and turned her around to face him. Her breath came out in a rush of surprise.
“There’s a security code,” he reminded her.
“So why don’t you punch it in, so I can leave,” she retorted.
He didn’t move.
Behind his gray eyes: pure pain.
Between their bodies: pure heat.
“Look. I hurt a lot of people when I was coming up. My family mostly. And you’re right. I need someone to walk through this with me.” He stepped a little closer. “Someone who doesn’t want anything personal from me.”
Natalie’s heart plummeted and bottomed out in frustration. Mostly at herself for thinking the spark she’d felt between them yesterday and this morning was more than just a bunch of molecules colliding together.
Derek wouldn’t be the first person who hadn’t bothered to look beneath her expensive clothes and runway-model looks. No one but she knew that she existed within a carefully crafted persona, designed over the years to avoid being hurt by anyone.
She’d given up on the dream to be loved for who she was a long time ago.
Nothing personal, huh?
Fine. She could keep it real. Real superficial.
Besides, keeping it casual was just the way she liked all her relationships to be, business or otherwise. She hadn’t been called “Ice Queen” back in her skating days for nothing.
She met his eyes and plastered on a confident smile that belied her true feelings. “All I want is to get you back on that court. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
He ran a thumb along her jawline and she shivered at the gentleness of his touch.
“Is that a promise?”
She had a feeling that despite his imposing presence and competitive spirit, there was a soft and tender side to him that was rarely seen. She was always a sucker for teddy bears, especially a big, hard-muscled one like Derek.
She tilted her head, trying not to lose her professional composure. “You want to play me for it?” she challenged, not realizing that her voice had dropped to a low whisper.
He moved even closer and put his other hand against the wall where she leaned, barely able to breathe. She was trapped, although not unpleasantly, in a dual firestorm of will.
Her nose twitched. Something that sometimes happened when she got nervous or excited. In this unusual situation, she was both.
“So, what’s in it for you?”
His question hit her rock-square in the gut. It wasn’t the money she’d make, that meant nothing to her. Instead she thought of Jamal, her grandparents and her parents. All gone now. Nothing left for her but memories, dead dreams and wishes for more time.
How does one explain all that?
Yet, for the first time in a long time, she felt hope.
Her eyes met his and her voice was strong. “A chance to see a family come together instead of being torn apart.”
Derek punched in the security code and slid the elevator door open. “I’ll have a car pick you up this evening.”
There it was again. The alluring sound in his voice making her skin tingle in all the places it shouldn’t.
But how to resist the rest of him? The hair she longed to twist around her finger, the broad shoulders she wanted to trace, the full lips that looked too delicious not to kiss. She certainly couldn’t work with a blindfold on her face.
She nodded, but didn’t say anything else as she entered the elevator. When she turned around, their eyes locked and she froze, not in fear, but in anticipation. As she descended to the ground, she hoped she wouldn’t pay for digging into his past with her heart.
Chapter 3
Derek felt a sensual hunger unlike any he’d ever known at the sight of Natalie stepping out of the limousine. She could have melted the tar right out of the tarmac as she walked toward him with those long legs and curves that could drive a man crazy and make him lose himself, or worse, his independence.
At age twenty-nine staring down the hard-nosed barrel of thirty, he was rich beyond his wildest dreams playing the game he’d loved ever since he was a young boy growing up in the notorious Pinecrest projects. He’d made it. He’d beaten the system all but designed to shackle him.
Yet the only thing he didn’t have was what he wanted most of all: a family, with a woman he could call his own.
Playing pro basketball for most of the year and doing intense training during the off-season wasn’t exact
ly conducive to a mortgage on a house in the suburbs with a picket fence and a couple of kids, or a commitment to one woman for more than an evening.
His playboy rep in the league was only an excuse for the truth. A real woman, one like Natalie perhaps, wouldn’t want more than a night with him anyway, if she knew how he’d treated his own flesh and blood during his rise to the top.
He found himself standing even taller when Natalie finally reached him.
A breeze ruffled her short black hair, shorn into a pixie cut, and he noticed she was shivering, despite the warm evening temperature.
She clamped her hands over her small ears. “Why didn’t you tell me we were flying?” she shouted over the noisy din of a plane taking off.
He took one hand away from her ear and leaned in close. Her scent, warm apricots and vanilla, made him wish he could get even closer.
He gestured to the sleek aircraft in front of him and smiled. “Do you like her?”
Although the smile she returned was gracious, her eyes flicked around, seeming to take in every detail of his beloved private plane. Something was bothering her and he needed to find out what it was.
After a few moments, when it was quieter, she jerked her chin at him. “I like her, but I’d rather drive.”
Was she kidding? Baker’s Falls was only an hour away by plane. In his mind, the only way to travel was by plane.
He stepped back with a mock look of chagrin. “Then I guess you don’t want the bottle of Dom Pérignon I have on ice.”
She pointed to the cap on top of his head. “You know I think they have laws against pilots drinking while flying, or at least they should!” she exclaimed.
He reached for her arm and gave it a gentle squeeze to reassure her.
“Take it easy. I was just kidding. I would never put my passengers in harm’s way.”
She visibly relaxed, but only a little, and he wondered why she seemed so uptight. Nervous even. Was she regretting the decision to help him?
“But I will give you a rain check on that Dom, if you promise not to look at me cross-eyed.” He winked.
Stealing Kisses Page 3