"It"s pretty obvious you"re a big A.A. Milne fan, honey." His eyes were warm with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Go on. What happened?"
"The housemother eventually called Bert. He yelled at me, but I couldn"t eat it. After that, the other girls came to my rescue. They took turns sneaking my meat onto their plates."
"That doesn"t entirely explain why you"re so secretive about it now."
"Most people think vegetarianism is a little kooky, and my kook quotient is high enough as it is."
"I don"t think I ever met anybody other than football players who invests so much energy in pretending to be tough."
"I am tough."
"Sure you are."
His grin annoyed her. "Just because I wasn"t strong enough to fight you off tonight doesn"t mean I"m not tough."
He immediately looked so stricken that she wished she"d held her tongue.
"I"m really sorry about that. I"ve never hurt a woman in my life. Well, except for Valerie, but that was-"
"I don"t want to hear it."
He turned off the heat under the skillet and walked over to the table. "I"ve explained what happened, and I"ve apologized every way I know how. Will you accept my honest apology, or is this going to be lurking around every time we"re together?"
His eyes were so full of concern she had a nearly uncontrollable urge to slip into his arms and ask him if he would just hold her for a few minutes. "I accept your apology."
"An honest acceptance or one of those female things where a woman tells a man she forgives him for something, but then spends all her spare time thinking up ways to make him feel guilty?"
"Does Valerie do that?"
"Honey, every woman I"ve been close to has done that."
She tried to slip back into her old role. "Life"s tough when you"re irresistible to the opposite s.e.x."
"Spoken by someone who knows."
When she attempted to frame a retort, nothing came out, and she realized that she didn"t have any resources left to play the part she had staked out for herself. "Those sandwiches must be just about done by now."
He went back to the stove, where he checked the bottoms of the sandwiches with a spatula, then lifted them out of the skillet. After neatly halving them, he returned to the table with two brown pottery plates and sat in one of the captain"s chairs.
For several minutes they ate in silence. Finally, he broke it. "Don"t you want to talk to me about the game today?"
"Not really."
"Aren"t you going to second-guess me on that double reverse? The sportswriters are going to rake me over the coals for that one."
"What"s a double reverse?"
He grinned. "I"m beginning to see that there are some definite advantages to working for you."
"You mean because I don"t have any secret desire to coach the team myself?"
He nodded and bit into his sandwich.
"I"d never do that. Although I do think you might consider opening up the offense more and starting Bryzski instead of Reynolds."
He stared at her, and she smiled. "Some of Bert"s cronies got to me in the skybox."
He smiled back. "The reporters were upset that you didn"t show up at the postgame press conference. People are curious about you."
"They"ll just have to stay that way. I"ve seen a few of those postgame interviews. A person would actually have to know something about football to answer the questions."
"You"ll have to talk to the press sooner or later. Ronald can help you through it."
She remembered that Dan still thought she and the general manager were personally involved. "I wish you wouldn"t be so negative about him. He"s doing a good job, and I certainly couldn"t function without him."
"Is that so?"
"He"s a wonderful person."
He regarded her intently as he picked up a paper napkin and rubbed it over his mouth. "He must be. A woman like you has a lot to choose from."
She shrugged and listlessly picked at her sandwich.
"d.a.m.n. You"re sitting there looking like a mule that"s been kicked one too many times."
"Gee, thanks."
He balled his napkin and tossed it aside. "I can"t stand to think that I did this to you. Where are your guts, Phoebe? Where"s the woman who maneuvered me into taking Ronald back as GM?"
She stiffened. "I don"t know what you"re talking about."
"Like h.e.l.l you don"t. You conned me. It took me a couple of days to figure out your neat little scam. You and Ronald set me up. He actually had me convinced the two of you were lovers."
She was relieved to see that he seemed annoyed rather than angry, but she picked her words carefully. "I don"t know why that"s so hard to believe. He"s a very attractive man."
"I"ll have to take your word for it. But the fact is, the two of you aren"t lovers."
"How do you know?"
"I just do, that"s all. I"ve seen the way you treat him when you think I"m watching: running your eyes all over him, nibbling on your bottom lip, cooing when you talk."
"Isn"t that the way women behave with their lovers?"
"That"s just it. You behave the same way with the janitor."
"I do not."
"You behave like that with almost every man you meet."
"So what?"
"Everybody but me."
He watched her push away her uneaten sandwich. "You try to tantalize me with that man-eater body of yours, but you can"t pull it off very long, and the next thing I know, you"re staring at your feet or foolin" around with your fingernails." He leaned back in his chair. "It hasn"t escaped my notice that you stick your chest out for everybody in pants, but lately it seems I can hardly exchange two sentences with you before you"re hunching your shoulders. Now, why is that?"
"You have an overactive imagination."
"I don"t think so."
She stood. "It"s late. I have to go."
He rose, too, and came around the end of the table to touch her for the first time since the incident in the gazebo. He was relieved when she didn"t flinch, but his stomach still clenched when he thought about what he"d done to her.
As she stood before him in his old blue shirt, she looked both beautiful and fragile, and he couldn"t remember ever meeting a woman so full of contradictions. He didn"t want to like her, but it was getting increasingly difficult not to.
He closed his hand over her shoulder. "Are you still afraid of me?"
"Of course not."
She might not be afraid, but she was skittish, and his conscience couldn"t tolerate that. Lowering his hand, he began very gently to rub her arm through the soft cotton sleeve. "I think you are. I think you"re scared silly I"m going to turn into some kind of deviant and attack you again."
"I"m not."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am."
"Prove it."
"How do you suggest I do that?"
He didn"t know what devil was prodding him; he only knew his teasing made her smile, and he loved the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when that happened. With a mischievous smile of his own, he pointed to his jaw. "Give me a kiss. Right here. A friendly little smacker like one friend gives to another."
"Don"t be ridiculous."
Her eyes were crinkling, and he couldn"t resist teasing her a bit more, although it wasn"t exactly teasing since he kept thinking about how that incredible body would feel pressed up against his own, which, considering their earlier encounter, wasn"t the best reflection on his character.
"Come on. I dare you. We"re not talking about one of those unsanitary soul jobs. Just a friendly little peck on the cheek."
"I don"t want to kiss you."
He noticed that she"d waited a few seconds too long to protest, and those golden brown eyes of hers were as soft as her lips. He was no longer in the mood to tease, and his voice sounded husky. "Liar. All this heat can"t be coming just from me."
He dipped his head, and the next thing he knew, he was nuzzling the side of her neck, finding a soft spot just below her ear. He didn"t draw her into his arms, but the tips of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s brushed his chest.
He heard her sigh. "We don"t like each other."
"We don"t have to like each other, honey. This isn"t a permanent partnership. It"s animal attraction." He kissed that alluring mole at the corner of her eye. "And it feels good. You feel good."
She moaned and leaned against him. He gently cupped her arms, and his kisses moved lower until he found her mouth.
Her lips were soft, neither parted nor sealed, just soft and right. She tasted good, smelled good, like baby powder and flowers. He felt like a randy sixteen-year-old, and as he slid his tongue over the plump curve of her bottom lip, he reminded himself that he"d outgrown her type of woman years ago. Unfortunately, his body seemed to have forgotten that fact.
He deepened the kiss, telling himself that he might be starting to like her, but he didn"t respect her, he didn"t trust her, and if he couldn"t touch those b.r.e.a.s.t.s of hers soon, he was going to explode. Except after what had happened in the gazebo, he needed to move slow, but, G.o.d, she was driving him crazy.
She pressed against him and made a soft moaning sound that was like a shot of whiskey straight to his veins. He forgot about moving slow. He forgot about everything except this hot little, soft little, eat-me-up baby with the come-to-papa body.
Her lips parted and he plunged inside her warm mouth, but he wanted more. He caught her hard in his arms, felt those cream whip b.r.e.a.s.t.s spread against his chest while rockets shot off in his head. And then he had one hand on the sweetest curve of beautiful a.s.s he"d ever touched in his life, and he deepened the thrust of his tongue, but even that wasn"t good enough because he wanted to curl it around her nipples and slide it between her legs and lick the sugar right off her. He was hard and crazy and his hands were all over her, his lunacy fed by the throaty moans she was making and the frenzy of her movements against him.
He wanted her to touch him. He wanted her on her knees, on her back, straddled, spread, any way he could get at her, right here where the heat from their bodies would burn up the floorboards and send them plunging straight down to the fiery center of the earth.
He could feel her wildness matching his, her maniac hands digging into his arms, her hips pushing and thrusting against him, grinding. She was crazy, as crazy as he was, and just as needy. And those sounds, almost like fear, almost like ...
He went rigid as he realized that she was trying to get away from him, and he was holding her against her will.
"G.o.d d.a.m.n!" d.a.m.n!" He pushed himself away, knocking over a chair in his haste. He pushed himself away, knocking over a chair in his haste.
Her mouth was swollen and bruised from his kisses. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaved and her hair was tousled, as if he"d plunged his hands through it, which maybe he had because he sure as h.e.l.l didn"t know what he was doing anymore. As he looked into her stricken eyes, he felt sick. He"d been with a lot of women, and this was the first time he"d ever had any trouble sorting out no no from from yes. yes. The accusation in those tilty-up eyes made him feel like a criminal, and that wasn"t right because they"d gone into this together. The accusation in those tilty-up eyes made him feel like a criminal, and that wasn"t right because they"d gone into this together.
"I"m not apologizing again, G.o.ddammit!" he shouted. "If you didn"t want me to kiss you, all you had to do was say no!"
Instead of arguing with him, she lifted her hand in a small, helpless gesture that made him feel like the world"s biggest bully. "I"m sorry," she whispered.
"Phoebe ..."
She grabbed her purse and ran from the kitchen, from his house, from the dangerous heat of two bodies on fire.
11.
Phoebe felt muzzy and depressed as she sipped her first cup of morning coffee. Slowly swiveling in her chair, she looked out through her office windows onto the empty practice fields. It was Monday, "b.u.mps and Bruises Day," when the players picked up the grade they had been given by the coaches for their performance during the game, had physical checkups, and looked at films. They didn"t practice again until Wednesday, and she was grateful she wouldn"t have to spend the day watching Dan run up and down the sidelines in a T-shirt and shorts, yelling and screaming and throwing clipboards as if he could propel his team to football glory through the sheer force of his will.
Why had she let him kiss her last night when she"d known that she wasn"t woman enough to see it through? She couldn"t blame him for his anger; both of them knew she had gone into his arms willingly. But when she had heard the hot rasp in his breathing, felt his strength, and known she couldn"t control him, she had panicked.
She looked down at the body that made up the lie of who she was. If her outside matched her inside, she would be flat-chested, scrawny, brittle from lack of moisture. What good were curvy hips and full b.r.e.a.s.t.s if she couldn"t let a man caress them, if they would never bring a baby into the world or nurture its new life?
She didn"t want to be this way anymore. She wanted to go back to those moments before her fear had taken over, when Dan"s kiss had sent fresh new blood pulsing through her body. She wanted to go back to those moments when she had felt young again and infinitely female.
She heard a knock and the door of her office opened. "Now, Phoebe, don"t get upset." Ron crossed the carpet toward her, a stack of newspapers in his hands.
"An ominous beginning."
"Well, as to that ... I suppose it depends on your outlook." He spread the newspapers in front of her.