Payoff Pitch (Philadelphia Patriots) (22 page)

As soon as the blunt words were out of her mouth, Teddy winced. She wanted to keep her relationship with the housekeeper on a professional level, and harsh language wouldn’t help. But the woman simply had to stop pushing Teddy’s buttons.

Cristina turned away and took a few steps before looking back. “You should have left well enough alone,” she said crisply. “I think you will be very sorry.”

Teddy grimaced but managed to stop from delivering her own parting shot at the housekeeper’s retreating back. But Cristina’s words burned because they voiced exactly what Teddy was thinking.

Noah stumbled down the stairs, stepping gingerly over Toby who was sacked out against the bottom step. The mutt was apparently oblivious to the fact that he was asking to be stepped on.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

He couldn’t help grinning. That philosophy had seemed to work for Teddy and him last night.

But now he needed a cup of coffee more than he needed air, since he’d only pulled in about three hours of sleep. Not that he had any right to complain after everything that had happened in his bed last night. Jesus, who knew it would be that balls-to-the-wall spectacular? Maybe it was because Teddy was so damn fresh and sweet and normal and…well, not obsessed with proving that she was some kind of acrobatic sex goddess. Strange as it seemed, Teddy made him feel like he was in his teens again, when sex was still something of a marvel.

And, man, he’d liked that feeling

Everything had been perfect—all explosive sex and no talk. No analysis. No recriminations. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep was holding Teddy tight, her sweet, rounded ass fitted against his groin and his cheek pressed against her soft, fragrant hair. But he’d come awake later when she slid out of bed and padded softly down the hall to her room. He hadn’t slept a wink after that.

As he reached down to rub Toby’s head, he heard Cristina’s voice coming from the kitchen. And, damn, she didn’t sound happy. In fact, he caught something along the lines of
you should have left well enough alone.
That froze him in place for a moment because he thought he knew what his housekeeper meant by them.

Shit.

This was hardly the first time he’d had a lady stay the night, and while Cristina had often been a little starchy the next day, she’d also kept her mouth firmly shut. As far as he could remember, she’d never uttered a word about what went on upstairs. Why would she? Cristina was a pro, and it was none of her business.

Well, whatever was going on in there this morning, he’d straighten it out in a hurry. He cared for Cristina and she was important to him, but he’d be damned if he was going to stand by doing nothing if she was trying to intimidate Teddy. He hurried down the hall and into the kitchen.

But by the time he got there, Cristina was heading off and Teddy was sitting on a stool at the counter, her back to him. When she heard the thud of his bare feet, she swiveled around and smiled.

“Good morning,” she said in a high-pitched voice. “Can I get you some breakfast?”

Noah shook his head as he studied her. Teddy looked so edgy he almost wished he had a tranquilizer to slip into her coffee. She gripped the edges of the stool with both hands as if she was afraid of falling off. Her body was pulled as tight as piano wire.

“Thanks, but don’t worry about that,” he said, moving closer. “Listen, I just overheard some of what Cristina just said to you. Did she hear us last night?”

Teddy’s nose wrinkled into an unhappy grimace. “I’m not quite sure what she heard, but she apparently knows.”

“It sounded like she was giving you a lecture.” Noah shook his head, pissed as hell at Cristina. He would
not
have crap like that going on in his house. He jerked a cup down from one of the cabinets, poured himself a cup of coffee, and moved to stand directly across the counter from Teddy. “I heard the bit about leaving well enough alone.”

Teddy suddenly looked a little panicked as she held up a hand. “Please leave it alone, Noah. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Noah wasn’t sure he believed that. “Maybe, but I won’t have her trying to make you feel like you’ve done anything wrong. If anybody’s at fault here, it’s me.”

He reached a hand across the counter and cupped her chin. When he leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on her lips, Teddy melted into him for a moment. Then she sighed. “Nobody’s at fault. Look, I’m sure this is all very hard on Cristina. She hasn’t liked me from the beginning, and now…” She glanced away.

Noah finished her sentence. “And now it’s a whole new ball game, right?”

“Perhaps that’s the way she sees it.”

That took Noah slightly aback. “And how do you see it?”

Teddy picked up her coffee and took a sip. Her hands clenched the cup in tight grip. “I think it’s a little early in the day to be having such a weighty conversation,” she finally said with a nervous chuckle. “I’m sure you need to get some coffee in you.”

Noah gulped a swallow of the still-fresh brew. “Okay, that’s done. Now, we’ll talk.”

Teddy fiddled with her ponytail, adjusting the pink scrunchy that held it in place. Another one of the nervous tells he’d come to recognize. But she stayed silent.

“Do you regret what happened?” Noah hadn’t been sure how Teddy would react in the aftermath of last night but hadn’t expected silence. “It felt pretty inevitable to me. As hard as we both tried to deny all the chemistry that was going on, it sure didn’t make it any less real.”

More silence as she again hid behind her coffee cup. God, he wanted to kiss those coffee-moistened lips again. And then pick her up and carry her back to the bedroom so they could start from where they left off a few hours ago. In her dog-walking gear—a red halter top and gray gym shorts—she looked tired and a little mussed but it didn’t matter. All he could see was the sweet, luscious beauty who had taken him to the moon and back last night.

And he was ready for another rocket ride.

“Chemistry is a wonderful thing,” she said in a soft voice that held more than a hint of nerves. “But it can be incredibly dangerous, too.”

Noah gritted his teeth. Maybe last night had changed nothing after all. “So, we should treat what happened as a one-and-done? Is that what you want?”

He sure as hell knew
he
didn’t want that, but if Teddy was going to twist herself into tight little knots over it, he wasn’t about to add to her self-inflicted torture.

Then he saw her lower lip tremble just a tiny bit and couldn’t stand it a moment longer. He slid around the counter to go to her. As he moved, Teddy jerked to her feet and stumbled into his arms.

“I’m just not sure about anything, to tell you the truth.” Her voice was muffled against his chest as she clutched at him. “I’m so sorry, Noah. It was the best night of my life, but nothing’s really changed, has it?”

He tightened his embrace. “No, everything’s changed.”

She wriggled in his grip, drawing back just enough to look up at him. Gone was the nervous girl of a moment ago. Now she gazed up at him, clear-eyed and a little somber. “What, for instance?”

His mind struggled to form a coherent answer. His gut told him everything
was
different, but what could he say? That she wasn’t just a dog walker to him anymore? That sounded stupid, and she’d known that for a while, anyway. He could say that he wanted to bone her every night and every morning, in every creative way that the two of them could imagine, but that would hardly be music to her ears at a time like this, would it?

When it finally came to him, it clicked easily into place. “Teddy, I don’t think either of us really knows yet, but I want to find out.”

She rested her head on his chest and gripped his back even harder, but he could feel how shallow and tense her breathing remained.

“You want to stop talking about it, right?” He gently opened some space between them and tilted her chin up so she looked straight into his eyes.

Teddy gave a faint but grateful smile. “For now, at least. Honest to God, I’m barely functional at this point.”

He let her go and went back to his coffee. “I’m still going to have it out with Cristina, though. She’s got no business saying anything to you.”

“I wish you would let me handle it. This must all be hard for her.”

He eyed her carefully. She did look determined to have him stay out of it. He admired her for that because he knew how frosty Cristina could be when she was angry. “Okay, if you insist. I’ll let it go just this once.”

She rewarded him with a bigger smile and shimmied her cute ass back up on the stool. Toby padded into the kitchen and went straight to her, resting his long muzzle in her lap.

“How about Toby and I change places?” Noah said with a mock leer.

A pretty blush stained her cheeks. “Just listen to him, Toby. Your daddy’s incorrigible.”

And hard as granite right now.
Noah remembered exactly what it felt like to have his head between Teddy’s soft thighs. That kind of thinking wasn’t real helpful, though, at least not at the moment.

He thought for a minute as they drank their coffee in surprisingly relaxed silence. If he couldn’t talk to Cristina right now about her crappy attitude, he could at least explain to Teddy why she was probably reacting so strongly.

“I should tell you a little more about Cristina,” he said. “I’m sure she hasn’t told you anything about herself, has she?”

Teddy let out a dainty snort as she stroked the Poodle’s curly head. “No.”

Noah wished she was stroking something else right now with those talented hands.

“Teddy, Cristina’s a little hard-boiled, no doubt about it, but there’s a really good person inside that tough shell. She sure hasn’t had an easy life.”

Teddy’s quizzical look made him realize she probably thought Cristina had it pretty soft.

“Oh, she’s got a good thing going here,” he added. “I’m talking about her life before she came to work for me.”

“Go on,” Teddy said as Toby gave one last snurfle into her lap before heading for his water dish. A moment later, Sadie appeared in the kitchen doorway and clicked her way across the stone floor to join her brother for a drink.

“She came to the States as a nanny. She left home because she felt she had no future in the Philippines and didn’t want to be a burden to her family. Initially, she worked for a number of different people in Washington, bouncing around and generally getting exploited and treated like crap. Cristina thought she might be able to have a better life if she got married, but it didn’t work out that way because her son of a bitch husband turned out to be a wifebeater. He knocked her around a lot, even when she was pregnant. She lost the baby because of it.”

Teddy looked stricken. “That’s so awful.”

He nodded grimly. “After that happened, she quit her job and ran away to Baltimore to escape him. But he managed to track her down and keep harassing her for a long time before she got help from a women’s group. Eventually she got a restraining order against him.”

“Jesus,” Teddy said. “Did she work as a nanny in Baltimore, too?”

Noah shook his head. “She worked at a hotel but eventually wound up getting hired as a housekeeper by one of the Oriole players. A friend of mine, actually. That was a good job, but when the dude got married, his wife didn’t want a live-in housekeeper.” He snorted. “Personally, I always thought it was because the wife was nervous about having a woman like Cristina living in her house. She was really beautiful back then.”

“She still is,” Teddy insisted.

Noah shrugged. Yes, Cristina was an attractive woman, only about eight years older than him. But not once had he ever thought of his housekeeper in any sort of sexual way, and she’d never given him the slightest indication that she was interested in anything other than a perfectly appropriate employer-employee relationship. She was a total pro and he respected her for that.

Okay, she was a little possessive, but Noah had always thought that was as much out of genuine concern for him as it was for her position in his household.

“Anyway, my buddy did what his wife wanted but then recommended Cristina to me. I was happy to snap her up, believe me.”

Teddy frowned and went back to playing with her scrunchy. “Cristina’s very protective of you. I’m sure that’s why she said what she did. She shouldn’t see me as a threat but obviously does.”

“She’s my employee. I appreciate everything she’s done for me and always will, but what I do is none of her business. Maybe she needs a reminder of that.”

She gently jabbed an index finger at his chest. “We agreed you’d leave her to me, right?” She got up and brushed past him toward the dishwasher, putting her empty cup inside. “I’m glad you told me some of her history, Noah. Thank you.”

Then she gave a little stretch, unconsciously showcasing her taut, tanned belly and the gentle swell of her breasts. His cock once more sprang to attention.

“But now I think it’s time for my long overdue shower,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Noah let his eyes roam appreciatively over her body and shot her a grin of invitation. Right on cue, the two pooches ambled over and started nudging her with their noses. Cleary, everyone wanted to be with Teddy.

She waggled a reproving finger at Noah, even though she was smiling. “Alone.”

Teddy wasn’t sure she’d be able to get her head into this environmental activism meeting tonight. But she’d come because she’d needed a break from the house, the dogs, Cristina and, yes, even from Noah. She’d been constantly stewing about him and what had happened in his bedroom last night and had thought of little else since the moment she left his bed. So, a break from it all had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now she was beginning to wonder if she’d be able to keep her eyes open.

The meeting room, a dingy affair in the basement of a center city church, contained only a dozen or so people when Teddy arrived a few minutes before the scheduled seven-thirty start. She spotted Rachel right away, a paper cup of coffee in her hand as she spoke animatedly to a blond young guy dressed in a black hoodie and jeans.