by Ann Jacobs
He wasn’t leading her on. In fact, after the game yesterday he’d told her he was done grieving for Jack’s mother—and that he intended to bring his long celibacy to an end. “I’m going to sample some of what I’ve been missing out on for a long, long time,” he’d said as they ran the gauntlet of groupies outside the players’ exit. Not that Tina could blame him. He’d married really young—younger than she was now—before his face and hot body had been plastered on TV ads and billboards to cause the frenzy of females chasing him at every turn. She just wished sometimes that he wanted to sample her.
They’d had good times, though. Warm, happy days when she and little Jack joined Keith in the massive dining room for Thanksgiving turkey, and when he began joining them for strolls along the lake behind his house. Even when he insisted she start bringing Jack to his home games, she felt right at home, getting to know his teammates’ wives and girlfriends when she sat with them and cheered at every Maulers’ play.
Some of the hard-eyed players like Willis made her nervous when they came in casual contact, but she wasn’t afraid because she felt confident that Keith’s protection would keep them from acting on their anger. She’d noticed almost from the first that she didn’t have the wariness around Keith that she usually had around men. He was…comfortable, even though that seemed a strange way to describe the hottest, sexiest, best-looking guy she’d ever seen.
Keep your head out of the clouds, Tina. He’s not for you.
Being sensible was hard, though, when she was beginning to anticipate Keith’s smiles as much as Jack’s. She’d stupidly begun keeping count of his casual touches like a schoolgirl.
Like today. They were out in front of the house, putting strings of lights on the evergreen shrubs in the front yard while Jack was taking a nap. Every time Keith passed her a new string, or when they had to brush bodies to connect a new set of lights, her body registered it like an embrace. A libido she hadn’t recognized she had came to full, embarrassing life, nipples tightening against her bra, dampness soaking into her panties. She leaned forward against the ladder, where she’d been standing a couple of minutes, arguing with herself about whether or not to acknowledge these unfamiliar feelings.
“Are you okay?”
She gave him an absent glance and a smile. “Yeah. I guess I was doing a little daydreaming.”
“Me, too.” He put his hands at her waist, ostensibly to steady her down the ladder, but instead he turned her into him, reached up and cupped her head. Sliding his fingers through her hair, he claimed her lips. His big hands circled her waist, holding her steady when she’d have melted like a falling snowflake on this not-quite-freezing day. He didn’t devour her. Instead he sampled her mouth, urging her lips to open for a lazy, sweet exploration.
He drew her close, so close she felt his arousal through the layers of their winter clothes. It wasn’t insistent, just there, warm against her belly, reminding her he was male…a good male, a male who’d protect her, who’d never hurt her the way her stepfather had. When he released her mouth, he kept her close, rested his bent head against her shoulder.
“I guess I should apologize, but I’m not sorry.” His damp breath warmed her throat while the heat of his body kept out the chill of the brisk wind whipping across the lake. “Merry Christmas, Tina.”
He said he wasn’t sorry, but Tina felt him draw back at little, emotionally. As if he needed to explain his action. “Merry Christmas to you, too.” She steadied her hands on his muscular biceps, daring to look up at him, return his smile. “I’m not sorry either.”
“It was an impulse, maybe brought on by the season, the bright lights. I don’t think either of us is ready to take this further.”
He wasn’t. That was obvious. He might feel a certain desire for her, because of close proximity and their growing friendship. Most of the time, though, Keith treated her like a favorite younger sister. Despite the heat of his body next to hers, the quick beat of their hearts as they stood outside his house, she sensed this wouldn’t go any further. He might want her, but he was fighting the desire. He wouldn’t act on it with her.
As if she were damaged goods. No, Tina wouldn’t go there. She wouldn’t ruin this beautiful day by thinking of her stepfather or the rape. And she wouldn’t let that one experience color the way she felt toward other men. There were plenty of other reasons, such as Keith not wanting to disturb her relationship with his baby, such as her being too young and green for him, that might make him think twice about initiating a sexual relationship with her.
He hugged her then loosened his grip on her waist and let her slide down his body to the ground. “I’m not sorry, but…it’s getting cold out here. Let’s go inside.” Keith’s tone made her think of warm beds and crackling fires, of his hard, fit body entwined with hers.
But she dared not dwell on what wasn’t going to happen. Instead she stepped back, smiled up at him. “All right. It should be about time for Jack to wake up from his nap so we can take him around the gated community to look at all the decorations and lights.”
When they turned to face the house, Tina thought she saw Mrs. Gardner staring at them from the French windows in the dining room. “I think Mrs. Gardner was watching us,” she said as they carried the ladder to the garage.
“I imagine she was. She seems to enjoy spying more than she does polishing the furniture we never use.” Keith set the ladder down, pulled Tina to him and hugged her, hard. “After the season’s over, I’m going to have to let her go and find another housekeeper.”
“I could…”
“No, you couldn’t. You have enough to do, taking care of Jack. I won’t have you taking on Mrs. Gardner’s work, too.” He bent, kissed the tip of her nose. “Thanks for offering, though. You know, you’ve already made yourself indispensible. I’ve got no intention of overworking you and losing you.”
He wouldn’t lose her. Tina had a feeling Keith knew it. Baby Jack had her wrapped around his little finger. But she was afraid Keith had, too. “You won’t,” she whispered, so quietly she doubted he heard her.
* * * * *
The last Monday in January, Keith tossed a travel bag into his car. After that far too brief kiss on Christmas Eve, he’d done what he’d told himself to do after that possibly unwise impulse and reined the relationship with Tina back to friendship. When he’d wavered, he reminded himself how having her as a nanny and friend had turned his house into a home, maybe for the first time ever. That was true, no matter how disloyal to Jackie’s memory it sounded.
He itemized all the good things about her being his “friend”. But he’d miss her as well as Jack this Super Bowl week.
Tina was…comfortable. When she asked if he’d like to play with his son, he never felt pushed. But he rarely said no. He found himself getting as much pleasure riding the boy piggy-back and pushing him in his stroller, while Tina walked along beside them, as he did playing ball or studying film for the next game. In the evenings, after Jack was asleep, they watched game film or talked about what had gone on at practice.
It was more than that. His feelings for Tina had crept up, from gratitude that she seemed to love his little boy and made juggling his responsibilities so much easier, to easy friendship to—although he’d tried hard to deny it—a desire to take the relationship between them to the next level. To see if what he felt for her was love or merely need born of long self-denial.
He’d even started expecting to see her at all his games, even ones that involved road trips. At his insistence, she and Jack had watched last week’s division championship game from a warm luxury box in Pittsburgh’s outdoor stadium while the Maulers eked out a three-point win during a nasty snowstorm. Knowing they were there had warmed Keith’s heart even though his body had been damn near frozen.
Maybe he should have taken them with him this week. But Keith quickly discarded the idea. Super Bowl week in New Orleans was no place for a baby—and no place to take the young woman who was becoming more important to him eac
h day. He’d use the time away from them to end his widower’s period of grief and sample how life as a football hero could be, at the highest level. Bobby’s frequent warning, “Don’t mess with Tina’s mind if you’re not serious, she’s been hurt way more than she deserves,” rang in Keith’s ears. But rather than anticipating a feast on augmented breasts, painted lips and women who knew how to turn a man inside out in bed, he was already thinking of what would happen if he found out that lifestyle truly wasn’t what he wanted. He could come back and pursue Tina, with no worries about his motives. And that thought had his groin tightening in a way the groupie images hadn’t.
He turned away from the car, looked at her standing on the steps. Then he went to them. “Take care, you two,” he said, ruffling Jack’s fair hair and nuzzling his cheek. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled them both into his arms and brushed his lips briefly but emphatically across Tina’s inviting lips. “And wish us luck.”
* * * * *
The first person he called when the game was over was Tina.
“We won.” Keith imagined Tina curled up on the couch in front of the big-screen TV, flushed with excitement while Jack bounced up and down in his playpen by the bar.
“I know. You were incredibly good today. Congratulations on getting the MVP award.” Her soft voice had him half hard in spite of his exhaustion. “Jack and I will have a celebration for you when you get home.”
Keith let himself fantasize over a celebration that would involve just him and Tina, but only for a minute. The din in the locker room was drowning out their conversation, and everybody was yelling for him to get dressed and go talk to the waiting reporters.
“See you when I get home. Give Jack a hug for me.” Keith figured, by the time he got home, he’d have a pretty good idea of what it was he wanted—the playboy life or…one woman who’d love him, appreciate his career and be a mother to his son.
Later. Dressing quickly, he went out to accept the accolades that meant far less than the joy he’d just heard in Tina’s voice.
Chapter Three
New Orleans, Maulers’ post-Super Bowl Celebration
“Way to go, Keith!” Bobby and Marly Anthony found the MVP quarterback surrounded by a horde of players, coaches and family members gathered for the presentation of league awards, including the Lombardi Trophy that Keith had hoisted on the field after the win an hour ago.
“Wish you’d stayed around long enough to earn your ring.” Keith felt bad. Bobby had stepped in and won six of the Maulers’ sixteen games while he’d been laid up with a bum shoulder.
Bobby grinned. “That’s okay. I’ll get mine next year.”
Wishful thinking, Keith figured, because Bobby’s new team was rebuilding and wasn’t likely to have a winning season, let alone win its division, for several years. “You’ll have to beat us to get it.” Just as he’d had to beat the Savannah Rebels and his old idol, Dave Delaney, today. He had no doubt Savannah would be rebuilding next year since Dave had said he’d be retiring and the Rebels had no immediately recognizable replacement for him at quarterback.
“See you at the party later?” Marly asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be there.” He could hardly wait to start celebrating.
Today he felt alive. As though he’d come back to life and let go of the blue funk that had surrounded him since Jackie died. Nearly a year had gone by, and Keith was up for pretending his life was as good as he hoped his grin would look in a few minutes when he accepted the key to his MVP prize, a new Cadillac model of his choice.
“Which Cadillac are you gonna choose?” Bobby asked.
“The Escalade.” Keith hadn’t realized until now that he meant to hand over the MVP prize to Tina and Jack for their trips around Memphis. Right now, though, his main interest was in finding a girl to party with, a groupie who wouldn’t expect anything but a good time celebration. “Is Liz around?” he asked Marly. He knew the Maulers had brought their cheerleading squad down for today’s festivities, but he’d been too busy playing and planning his next offensive drives to notice the eye candy on the sidelines.
“She’s here. She’d fall over if you’d actually go talk to her a little bit.” Marly scanned the crowd, pointed out her friend. “See her? She’s over in the corner talking with Ellis and his wife, and Jeff Gregory.”
Jeff, their punter, looked as if he was already putting a hit on the hot blonde groupie, but Keith figured he’d have a pretty good shot if he went after her. After all, they weren’t exactly strangers since they’d stood up with Bobby and Marly at their wedding a couple of months ago. Liz had told him then that she had a thing for signal-callers while dropping thinly veiled hints that he could take her home and enjoy a one-night honeymoon instead of collecting Jack and his nanny and spending another lonesome night in his own bed. “I’ll go catch up with her after I do my thing on stage.”
* * * * *
After they polished off a meal fit for kings, a band came out and the party began getting interesting. The music was loud, a mixture of New Orleans jazz, disco and raucous rap. Keith was finding it hard balancing one groupie on each knee while downing champagne as though the fountain at the center of the table was about to run dry.
He didn’t remember the Maulers’ post-Super Bowl party having been quite so wild three years ago when Jackie had been at the party with him, looking pretty scandalized. For certain, Jackie hadn’t been gyrating on him then the way Liz Grady and another Maulers cheerleader were doing now. He hadn’t caught the redhead’s name but his cock was getting well acquainted with her hot little pussy, through his slacks and whatever it was she had on under the barely-there dress that was hiked up over her thighs.
He tweaked one of her impressive, silicone-enhanced boobs. “Hey there, you. Unless you want to get fucked right here in front of God and everyone, quit the teasing.” He freed one arm from Liz and lifted the redhead off him. Liz took over, straddling him and giving him a lap dance he wasn’t likely to forget when the band started playing something that sounded strictly carnal. He thought he’d once heard the bump-and-grind cadence in a strip club some of his teammates had dragged him to after an out-of-town victory a few years ago.
In a way he was glad Jackie wasn’t around to purse her pretty lips and drag his butt upstairs before things got rowdy. He was even gladder he hadn’t brought Tina and Jack, because while Tina wouldn’t have complained, he was pretty sure she’d have been hurt watching cheerleaders gyrate all over him the way Liz was doing.
He was wired, high on the atmosphere and buckets of vintage champagne. His offensive linemen were doing a conga dance around the table while their wives and girlfriends laughed over their drunken antics. Oh fuck. Liz knew how to move her ass against him, and she ground harder and faster when the guys started chanting encouragement.
She bent close and nibbled on his ear, never missing a beat of the stripper music. “You can fuck me anytime you want. Anyplace.”
Would she have liked it if he said, “Here and now”? Having sex in public had never been one of Keith’s fantasies. He’d even been shy about gettin’ it on with his high-school girlfriend under the old bleachers at Hedgecock County High.
Something inside his fuzzy brain suggested he should feel some sense of sadness over his memories of Jackie, but right now he wasn’t feeling any guilt or grief. Amazing what alcohol could do to dull emotions. Especially the copious amounts of champagne being served to celebrate the biggest win in football.
Liz felt hot, reeked of pure lust that had nothing to do with any other emotion. And Keith was pumped up as well as pleasantly buzzed and horny as hell. “Why don’t we try dancing standing up first, you sexy thing?” He set her off him and stood, a little unsteady on his feet from the champagne bubbling away in his brain. “C’mere.”
She was tall. And stacked like a brick outhouse, too, as one of his college teammates used to say. Her generous breasts burrowed into his chest when he wrapped both arms around her and swayed to the
tune of some blues song about strangers fucking in the moonlight on a one-night stand. The song turned Keith’s thoughts toward ending a long, sexless dry spell with this woman who so obviously was eager to sample Keith Connors, Super Bowl MVP and out-of-practice stud desperately in need of a few orgasms.
There was always a first time to indulge in the sort of debauchery some of his teammates enjoyed talking about pretty much all the time. The win had been a high unto itself, while the champagne and all the public foreplay had his hormones on fire. When the dance was over and they sat back down, Keith winked across the table at Marly and Bobby, who seemed not at all shy about indulging in some pretty obvious sex play of their own.
What the hell? He nuzzled Liz’s smooth, silky neck and whispered, “How about sliding under the table and giving me a blowjob where nobody will see?”
She turned, placed a wet, champagne-flavored kiss on his lips. “I was hoping you’d ask. I’ve always wondered what an MVP’s cock would taste like.” Laughing, she slid off his lap and landed at his feet, on her knees. When she unfastened his belt and unzipped his slacks he had a brief second, time for one uncomfortable and unexpected thought about what the fuck he was doing here.
Then her full lips closed around him, and he forgot any reservations that might have been lurking in his fuzzy brain. Yeah. Suck me, baby, suck me hard. Like that. Omigod. He held out his glass, let Coach Lyle pour him more champagne from a giant bottle he was carrying around the ballroom. “Having fun, Coach?”
“Hell yes. My wife went upstairs, so now I’m gonna party.” Coach did a double take. “What happened to the hot blonde that was on your lap a minute ago?”
Keith didn’t know if he should laugh or cry when Liz’s hand came up and touched his lips. “She’s under the table,” he croaked, figuring Coach knew anyway that he was getting some head there in the middle of one of the Hotel Monteleone’s very elegant ballrooms. Marly was down there, too, blowing Bobby, or else she’d slipped away to the restroom. Probably Keith’s first guess was right, from the ecstatic look on his former backup’s baby face. “Don’t stop now, honey,” he said, knotting his fists in Liz’s bright blonde hair. “You don’t know how good that feels.”