by Savanna Fox
Except, the heat that rushed through her, the tingles that darted across her skin, the pulse that throbbed at every pulse point, felt incredibly good, in a way she’d never experienced before, yet somehow recognized. Why did she—Oh, there’d been a similar description in the passage Marielle had read yesterday.
“George, are you all right?” Her boss’s voice was sharp.
“Yes, of course.” She answered automatically, belatedly realizing she was mere inches from that six and a half feet of muscled nakedness. From that black pouch, its skimpy fabric doing its best to contain all the masculinity inside.
His package. That was one of the less crude terms people used for male genitals. A package, wrapped in black—was that silk?—and just begging to be unwrapped.
No, wait—what was she thinking? Georgia Malone, the girl who had, without a moment’s hesitation, sworn chastity vows as a teen, did not think about unwrapping men’s private parts. Not unless there was a wedding night involved, which wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon—and less likely with this guy than with any other she’d ever met.
“Should get that shoe fixed,” Woody said.
“Right.” Striving to find her balance—in all meanings of that word—she stepped away from him. “And I apologize for being late. I left my last meeting a few blocks away, and that’s when my heel snapped off.” She hated to look unprofessional. This marketing campaign, her first as account manager, was a critical step on the path to her ultimate career goal: to have enough clout to choose the campaigns she worked on, or to set up her own agency. While she loved putting all her expertise and energy behind products she believed in, a few campaigns had made her feel like a snake oil saleswoman.
She set down her briefcase. “Let’s try this again. My name is Georgia Malone, and as Mr. Hanrahan so astutely observed, I’m a woman.” She limp-walked, trying for as steady a gait as possible, toward the third man in the room. “You’d be Marco Sanducci of VitalSport?”
“Indeed. A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Malone.”
They shook hands. While her boss, Billy, was mid-thirties and metrosexual, this man was perhaps a decade older and more casual in appearance. He looked fit, vigorous, and attractive with silverstreaked black hair, tanned skin, and the right kind of wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. He wore nicely tailored pants, a sports jacket, and a blue shirt open at the neck, no doubt VitalSport designs. As a visual symbol for his company, he made a great impression. Pity he wasn’t the person the campaign would center around.
She forced herself to turn back to Woody, and finally studied his face. Yes, she saw a resemblance to the video clip Billy’d given her of an interview between the periods of a hockey game. Except, in it, Woody’s hair was stringy with sweat, his face flushed and angry, and his eyes slitted as he spat out obscenities that challenged the censor’s bleeper. As the crowning touch, a slash high on one cheek dripped blood down his face.
Now his mahogany hair was clean and glossy, his face sculpted, and his eyes the deep blue of a lake in summer. The slightly crooked nose and a scar cutting one cheekbone—from that same slash?— saved him from being a pretty boy. His hair needed styling and the overgrown beard had to go, but he could be made to look good in an ad. That was a relief.
Billy’s market research indicated that Woody was not only Canada’s favorite hockey star, but one of the country’s most recognizable athletes. Recognizable even though, unlike many players, he’d stayed out of the media limelight and he hadn’t done product endorsements. Snagging him for the VitalSport campaign was a coup.
Briefly, she wondered why Woody had signed. Hockey players made an obscene amount of money. Did he really want more? Had staying out of the limelight been a ploy to win him even bigger bucks when he finally agreed to an endorsement? She shook her head. Motivation didn’t matter. He’d signed and he was locked in.
And she was the account manager and this was supposed to be her meeting. A meeting, so what was the hockey star doing in his Skivvies?
“Gentlemen,” she said crisply, “I understood this was to be an initial discussion of the marketing campaign for VitalSport’s Canadian launch.” She raised her brows in Woody’s direction. “I assume there’s an explanation for your state of undress.”
“Not a fucking good one,” he grumbled.
Trying not to look below his neck again—the view was too distracting, and the fact that it was distracting annoyed her—she said, “Perhaps you’d like to get dressed; then we can discuss the explanation, or lack thereof.”
“First good idea I’ve heard.” He hooked his hands in the sides of the thong as if …
Oh my God, he was going to take it off! “Stop!” She raised both hands, almost losing her balance again.
He grinned. It was a thoroughly wicked, extremely sexy grin. “Got a problem with nudity? You wouldn’t survive in the locker room.”
She frowned. “No, I do not have a problem with nudity, in appropriate circumstances.” Like between two people who were in love. “And why on earth would I want to be in the locker room?”
He snorted. “Right. A lesbian. George. Figures.”
It wasn’t the first time her nickname and tailored style had led to that assumption. Her sexual orientation, like her gender, was irrelevant in the workplace, so she didn’t bother to correct him.
Also ignoring Woody’s comment, Marco Sanducci explained, “Journalists visit the locker room. Sports reporters. Women as well as men.”
“Oh.” Women mingled with a whole team full of men like Woody, in various states of undress? The thought struck her that her mother’d be in seventh heaven. But Georgia was nothing like Bernadette. In fact, they had a standing joke—one neither of them found very funny—that she must have been swapped at birth.
“I’ll turn around while you get dressed, Mr. Hanrahan. Let me know when you’re decent.”
She was about to turn when laughter, in three different male tones, stopped her. Fine, that hadn’t been the smartest thing to say. Her brief research had told her that “decent” wasn’t a word typically used to describe Woody. On the ice, he was a forward, captain of his team, and known not only for high scoring and being a good team player, but for collecting penalties and never backing off from a fight. Off the ice, he had the reputation of being “forward” too—in other words, he was a player in a whole other sense of the word.
Woody picked up a ratty hockey jersey with the logo of his Vancouver team, but, rather than pull it over his head, he stood there, holding it. Like he was thinking about something—and thinking was a painful process.
It dawned on her that she’d seen a lot of those chocolate-and-caramel jerseys on the streets of Vancouver recently, but she’d never paid particular attention. Now she studied the stylized logo: a little brown creature up on its back legs, with a big tail, bright eyes, and two huge front teeth.
For her first solo campaign, she had to transform a man named Woody, who was captain of a team called the Beavers.
Life just wasn’t cutting her a break.
Three
Nudity didn’t give Woody one bit of trouble, but the idea of strutting around in his underwear in front of a camera did. There was such a thing as dignity.
And he wanted to get this fuckup settled right now.
He tossed his jersey back on a chair and turned to George.
For a moment, he forgot what he was going to say. When Billy Daniels had talked about George, he’d never imagined the account manager was a woman. But she sure as hell was.
She dressed like she was trying to hide the fact, all buttoned up in a starchy white shirt and a tailored charcoal pantsuit, with her red hair slicked back in some weird knot. But he saw her curves, the creaminess of her skin, and big eyes the color of his favorite Granville Island amber ale. He’d felt a sexy charge when he’d gripped her elbow, and that charge hadn’t faded.
He was turned on by a lesbian, one of the few women he’d ever met who didn’t get excited about the thought of vi
siting the locker room. Man, he must really be stressed over this stupid campaign, not to mention his mom’s illness and his agent’s betrayal, which were the only reasons he was here, needing money so badly he was letting himself be turned into a model.
But not a gonch model.
And George was not a puck bunny. This was about business, and he had to get his head—and body—into that game.
He narrowed his eyes and leveled George with a “no one’s fucking with me” glare. “You’re handling this campaign, so that makes you the head coach. Tell them I’m not modeling gonch.”
Her brow creased in puzzlement. “ ‘Gonch’ means underwear?”
He rolled his eyes. What red-blooded Canadian woman didn’t know that? Oh, wait. A lesbian. One who, from the way she’d gaped at him when she’d first seem him in that god-awful thong, might never before have seen a semi-naked guy in the flesh.
For some stupid reason, he wondered if he impressed her.
George turned to the other two men and said briskly, “He has a point. My understanding was that Mr. Hanrahan would model sports and leisure wear. No one mentioned underwear.”
Woody nodded firmly. “Damn right.”
The dude Sanducci from VitalSport said, “Underwear is clothing, just as much as T-shirts and jerseys.”
“It hardly falls under the term ‘leisure clothing,’ ” George said.
“Sure as hell doesn’t,” Woody pitched in, taking her assist and shooting for the goal.
Sanducci blocked the shot with, “You don’t wear underwear when you undertake leisure activities?”
It was a great save. Despite his state of pissed-offedness, Woody had to grin. “Depends on the activity.” And damned if now he wasn’t thinking about one specific leisure activity: getting George out of that tailored suit and shirt and checking out what lay beneath. Curves tempting enough that his body throbbed with awareness.
Of a lesbian. Yeah, he was losing it.
“We have a team of designers,” Sanducci said. “When one of the women heard we’d signed you for the Canadian campaign, she said, ‘The Cowboy Way.’ ”
Woody groaned. All his life, he’d heard the Woody jokes. Little kids had made that Woody Woodpecker ha-ha-ha-ha-ha laugh sound, and adolescent teasing had centered on “woody” being slang for a boner. As an adult he’d been compared to Woody Harrelson in every role the actor had ever played—not just the various athletes, but the dim-witted bartender in Cheers, the psychopath in Natural Born Killers, and, yeah, the gonch model in The Cowboy Way. He wished his mom’s granddad’s name had been anything but Woodrow.
George said, “What are you talking about? Mr. Hanrahan’s a hockey player, not a cowboy.”
“It’s a movie,” Sanducci said, “with Woody Harrelson.”
“Oh.”
“There’s a huge billboard with Harrelson in a cowboy hat and boots and Calvin Klein underwear,” Sanducci said. “Woody Harrelson, Woody Hanrahan. Athletic guys in tight underwear. Grownup guys with real male bodies.” He grimaced. “Sorry; I’m quoting the designer. A lot of male underwear ads have models who look like they’re barely legal. Anyhow, the designer said we should start an underwear line, and whipped up some samples. It’ll be something special for the Canadian launch. We figure it’ll appeal to men because they respect and identify with Woody, and it’ll appeal to women because, well”—he shrugged—“the designer says that one’s obvious.”
Woody scowled. He had the feeling he was screwed. In the short time since his agent had betrayed him and lost all his money— millions of fucking dollars, including the money that should have paid last year’s income tax—he’d been flying solo. He’d trusted his own judgment when he’d read the VitalSport contract, which now seemed like a dumb move.
He honored responsibilities, but what had he gotten into? He wasn’t comfortable with the media, not like the phenoms like Crosby who’d grown up with it—and who didn’t have shitty family secrets to hide. Woody had avoided interviews and product endorsements until now, when he had no choice. Sanducci and Daniels liked how he hadn’t been “overexposed,” to use their word.
Well, now it seemed he’d be about as exposed as a guy could be.
“George,” Daniels said, “I want your team to meet with Woody tomorrow. Brainstorm; start on a strategic plan. The Beavers are in the Western Conference finals, so you’ll have to work around Woody’s game schedule. And speaking of games”—he turned to Woody—“don’t forget to wear a face shield.”
“What? What the hell?” The only time he wore a face shield was to protect a broken nose or similar injury. He was an old-style player and didn’t like having something in his field of vision.
“Did you read the contract?” Daniels asked.
“Sure.” And it hadn’t said anything about a face shield. Of course, it hadn’t said anything about gonch either.
“Then you’ll have seen the clause about protecting your face. Cuts and bruises, not to mention broken bones, aren’t photogenic.” The man’s voice held a note of warning.
Photogenic. He groaned. He was a hockey player, not a goddamn model. All he’d ever wanted to do was play hockey. And look after his mom. Which, right now, meant not only covering the mortgage and expenses for her luxury home in Florida, but paying for fulltime care, medical bills, and now the special cancer treatments in Switzerland. The very expensive alternative treatments that were the last hope of saving her life. Damn it, she wasn’t even fifty, and she’d had such a crappy life. She deserved a future.
He pulled his attention back to Daniels, who was rising and saying, “Marco and I will go to my office and sign some papers. George, I suggest you make sure Woody is clear on the details of the contract.”
She nodded. “Good idea.” Despite her words, she sounded less than enthusiastic.
Sanducci joined Daniels at the door, where the Dynamic Marketing dude turned back. “I forgot to mention—let’s target the Boys and Girls Club fund-raiser next month.”
“The what?” she asked warily.
“What d’you mean?” Woody asked. It was a charity he supported—one that the VitalSport deal would let him keep supporting—and they’d asked him to be guest of honor at their event. By that time, if things went the way Woody intended them to, the Beavers would’ve won the Stanley Cup.
He’d agreed to attend, on the promise that he didn’t have to give more than a five-minute speech. He was no public speaker and he sure as hell wasn’t going to give one of those sob-story motivational talks. The world knew all it was going to know about his personal history: he’d had a tough childhood, and it was his best friend’s dad who’d helped him get into hockey.
What guy wanted to reveal that his dad had beat up on him and that, even worse, he’d had to lie in bed and listen to his dad beat up on his mom? When, at the age of five, Woody had tried to help his mom, she’d slapped him—it was the only time she’d ever hit him— and told him to go back to his room and mind his own business.
Hockey’d been his escape. Getting out on the frozen lake in winter with his best friend, Sam. They’d been tough, scrappy kids, and they bashed each other around a lot, but it was equal and it was sport, so it was okay. Man, he’d loved the purity and power of skating, shooting, blocking, tussling with his friend. It was all so clean and simple.
Hockey’d been his ticket out of small-town Manitoba, thanks to his innate talent for the sport, and to Sam’s dad, Martin.
Martin Simpson. The man who’d been Woody’s agent since he was fourteen. The man he’d trusted to run his career and manage his money. The man who had confessed in tears that he had a gambling problem and had lost all Woody’s money—the money Woody needed now, right now, to save his mom’s life.
Martin belonged in jail. But Woody couldn’t turn him in. He owed his career to that man, and it’d shatter Sam if he found out what his father’d done. Woody’d told Martin that if he joined Gamblers Anonymous and stuck with the program, his secret would be safe.
Martin had left a message on Woody’s voice mail a couple days ago, saying he’d followed through and was going to meetings. He’d asked Woody to give him a call. That wasn’t happening—at least not yet. Woody was still too pissed off.
Tuning back into the conversation, he realized Daniels had been explaining about Woody’s involvement with the Boys & Girls Club. “A couple of days ahead, we’ll do the formal campaign launch. There’ll be lots of interest, and eyes’ll be on Woody. George, you should aim for having a few ads ready by then: one that yells ‘sports,’ another that’s more leisure, and one of the underwear ones.” With that parting shot, Daniels and Sanducci left the room and the door closed firmly behind them.
“I thought it was my campaign,” a soft voice said.
He turned to George, who was frowning at the closed door. Absently, she rubbed the back of her neck where the stiff collars of her shirt and suit jacket met up with a few curly red hairs that were too short to be captured in that tight knot.
“Got the GM breathing down your neck?” he asked with some sympathy.
“What? Who?” Her hand dropped away from her neck and she turned to him, a dazed expression in those amber-ale eyes. Big eyes, fringed with darker lashes. Really pretty eyes. A man could get lost in there.
She didn’t look away for a long moment, then finally blinked and did. “What’s a GM?”
He blinked too. “General manager.” That had been weird. If she wasn’t lesbian, he’d have thought she wanted to kiss him. He’d have wanted to kiss her. In fact, under that scrap of thong, his cock was stirring.
“I wish you’d get dressed,” she said irritably. She seemed to be making a deliberate effort to not look below his neck.
For some reason, he wanted to rattle her buttoned-up cage. “You really do have a problem with nudity.”
“It has its place,” she snapped, “and this isn’t it.”
“Man and a woman alone together,” he teased, moving closer to her, so close that he realized she smelled like vanilla. He preferred that scent to sultry perfume. “Seems to me that’s a pretty good place to get bare-assed naked.” Then he snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, you bat for the other team.”