Playing Love's Odds (A Classic Sexy Romantic Suspense) (11 page)

A forgotten washcloth dangled in his hand. "The team did. I never played."

Hannah peered around the corner and found him there, staring at the blank wall three feet in front of him. "What happened?"

He jerked his head, startled, his eyes glazed, misty, as if this were a wound he'd rather not reopen. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want."

"No. It's okay." He folded the rag and grabbed another. "By the time I reached high school we'd moved away from Houston. My dad bought a small ranch in south Texas. The school district barely met class 2A enrollment requirements."

"I hear high school football is big in Texas."

"Yeah. Nothing like those Friday nights. Holds the small communities together. Holds some families together."

"Did your father push you to play?"

Logan shook his head. "He wanted what I wanted, football or not. It was always my choice."

"And you chose football," Hannah remarked.

"I chose the notoriety and fame. Football brought great perks. Especially the girls," he admitted, his grin lecherous.

"For some reason, that doesn't surprise me about you." She picked up a sheet and squared it in precise corners. "What happened with the big game?"

"My dad had a heart attack that afternoon."

Hannah sucked in a sharp breath. "So you missed the game to be with him."

"Not exactly," he replied, scooping the rest of the unfolded rags into a pile between his legs. "I'd gone to the stadium early and was in the locker room when my mother called. She told me to stay, that Dad would want me to play."

"She probably thought it would keep your mind off things," Hannah offered, feeling a cutting stab of Logan's hurt.

"She thought wrong. I headed straight for the hospital." He surged to his feet and hands on hips, paced the short hall. "He looked so bad, so ... deathly bad. They said he was stable, that it'd take time, the usual mumbo jumbo."

Hannah hugged her arms to her chest and watched him tread back and forth, his steps heavy, tortured. Her wealth of stored emotions longed to offer comfort. Gently, she asked, "Did they know what caused it?"

He shook his head. "That's the weird part. He'd been fine, or so we thought. A month or two before, my folks received a positive lead on my brother, Simon. It didn't pan out. Guess the disappointment was just too much."

Hannah thought back to her own teen years, comparing the tragedy of hers to Logan's, so full of love and caring. Envy pricked her and she fought it down, knowing the selfish emotion had no place here and now. "What happened with the game?"

"I left the hospital. Decided to
win this one for dad
. Instead I found a liquor store where the proprietor was more concerned with making a buck than selling to a minor. I drove the two hundred miles home without stopping, got drunk on my ass, and never picked up a football again."

"But your father recovered?"

"Yeah. Pulled through like the trooper we knew him to be."

"Yet you never picked up a football again."

"Nope. Enlisted in the Army."

Hannah's eyes widened. "How'd your father take that?"

"Better than I expected. Even with Simon's history, Dad knew why I did it."

"Why did you?"

Logan smiled, a faraway look in his eyes. "Part of the same reason you bought a banana car. I wanted to know Logan Burke. Not the football star, or the middle child, or the brother. Just Logan."

"And you found him?"

"I think so," Logan answered, his mouth quirking whimsically.

Feeling brave from half a hallway away, she ventured further. "Do you like him?"

He looked at her, then one slow step at a time, he approached. "Do you?"

Hannah backed into the corner, tiny pinpoints of expectation pricking low on her spine. "I think so."

He stopped in front of her, reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Just goes to show—"

"What?" she whispered, having trouble finding her voice and holding back her hands. She wanted to touch his face more than she wanted to breathe.

"We've both got exceptional taste," he answered and leaned forward, his mouth so close to hers only a shadow could have passed between. Or the sound of the doorbell.

"Pizza," he breathed into her mouth, then spun and jogged to the front door.

Hannah rolled her head back. Her nerves settled into a web of spiders in the hollow pit of her stomach. What was going on here? What was he doing to her, and why wasn't she stopping him? She knew nothing about him except that his past haunted him.

Nothing, except that everything about him, from appearance to bearing, was stoked in irreverence. Nothing, except that she longed to wrap herself around him, absorb his reckless daring, his easy disregard of the system. Nothing, except that she was rapidly becoming addicted to everything about him.

"Come and get it," he called.

She blinked and shrugged the tension from her shoulders. "On my way."

With one foot tucked beneath her, she leaned back in her chair and bit into the end of a slice, using her tongue to reel in the threads of cheese dangling between mouth and hand. Together they devoured the pizza, Logan eating two slices to her one.

Finally, her stomach on the verge of exploding, she broke the companionable silence and said, "I found something missing in the bedroom."

Immediately, his gaze shot to hers. Around a mouthful of cheese and crust he mumbled, "What?"

"The box of diskettes sitting next to my computer."

He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "What was on them?"

"Half were blank. The rest were letters, all personal, and my budget."

"Nothing connected to ViOPet?"

Hannah hugged her legs to her chest and propped her chin in the cradle between her knees. Cynicism fueled her answer. "Not unless you count my budget. Maybe they'll see how tough I have it making ends meet and offer me a raise."

"Maybe they'll offer you a bribe."

Hannah's eyes widened. "Think so?"

"They won't do anything until they're sure what you know."

"They've got my briefcase. They know what I know."

"But do they know you know they're following you?"

Hannah shrugged. "I hope they wouldn't think me incapable of tying this ransacking to the theft of my briefcase. It's too coincidental."

"If they know you're onto their activities, will they make a move or make you sweat?"

"Or sweat it out waiting to see if I make a move?"

Logan crossed his eyes and made a disgusted face. "This conversation is making me dizzy."

"How can a conversation going nowhere make you dizzy?" she asked, needing the light-hearted banter to keep from thinking about the possible danger stalking her.

"Nowhere?" Logan asked, bemused. "It's going in more circles than a roll of toilet paper after a chili cook-off."

"That's disgusting," she said, groaning as she hopped up from her chair.

"Wait." His hand snapped out and snagged her wrist. He wiped his thumb across the corner of her mouth and brought it to his own, licking away a smear of tomato sauce. His gaze grew bold, heated. She watched his thumb slide between his lips. Unused muscles clenched deep inside. She thought she'd die right then and there.

And then she saw the olive slice caught in a fold of his T-shirt.

"You're a bit messy yourself," she whispered and reached for it. Her fingertips grazed over the ribbed neckline of his T-shirt, her knuckles whisked over the tendon in his neck.

His pulse jumped and he grasped her wrist, lifted her hand to his mouth, and captured her finger gently between his teeth. With the tip of his tongue, he slid the olive into his mouth. Her stomach quickened, her thighs clutched hard.

Just as she felt ready to wrap her arms around his neck and pull his head to her breast, he dropped her hand and stood. In a voice a bit too deep, a bit too husky, a bit too thick, he said, "Think I'll tackle the mess in the living room."

"Good idea," she muttered in response, waiting a minute before following him.

In the living room, Logan spoke first. "What about the CDs?"

"Alphabetize them by artist."

"Last name first?"

"First name first."

She tried to focus on the task at hand but had trouble looking beyond the tense set of Logan's neck and shoulders. Not to mention his backside that gave new meaning to cotton sheeting.

Tearing her eyes away from what she found herself wondering about and wanting with dangerous hunger, she righted the bookshelf and returned her fantasyland of wizards and dragons to order. Books came next, shelf after shelf of titles encompassing every genre imaginable. She scooped them into a pile and dropped to the floor nearby.

"You never finished telling me how you got into the business," Hannah prompted after a long spell of quiet, the living room almost resembling a habitable area.

"Not much to tell. Got hooked on intelligence in the army. Once my four years were up, I went to school and majored in criminology."

"Police work never appealed to you?" Hannah glanced at Logan and caught him frowning at a CD in his hand.

"Nah. Too rigid. I like to work at my own pace." He waved the CD at her. "What is this stuff? Don't you have any Bob Seger? Or Creedence?"

Hannah rose to her feet and stretched out the kinks. "You like the old stuff, huh?"

Logan shrugged. "Call me a rebel."

"Relic not rebel." She crossed to the shelves housing her music collection. "You didn't come across anything you like?"

"I didn't recognize half of it. You got The Who?"

"Who?"

"The Who. You know, Roger Daltrey."

"No. But I have The Cure."

"The cure for what?"

Hannah glared.

"Never mind. How 'bout Led Zeppelin?"

"How 'bout R.E.M.?"

"How 'bout we admit right now we have nothing in common?"

"Wait. I've got something you gotta love." She dug through the rows of discs to the Cs, found the one she wanted and loaded it. "Amazing. You do know your alphabet," she teased, adjusting the controls on the player.

Gutsy guitar riffs, a throbbing bass beat, and the sensual jazz of a saxophone primed the air. The music demanded movement, dance in its purest elemental form. Hannah realized her mistake the minute the music started, the minute Logan moved up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her hips back against his.

"Dance with me." His command left no room for debate. Nor did he give her an inch to move. He held their bodies aligned, his front to her back. His shoulder pillowed her head, his mouth oh-so-close to her neck. The warmth of his breath feathered moist against her skin. The stronger the beat, the more Hannah relaxed, until she was absolutely spineless. If not for Logan's arms around her she'd surely puddle on the floor.

Her carefully catalogued list of rules told her to move away, to put distance between herself and this man she knew nothing about. This man who lived for the moment and to the fullest. This man who would surely break her heart and demolish her hard-won independence.

A grain of impulsive abandon teased her to experience it all—the heat, the wanting, the raw, dangerous need. New found desire tempted her with a go-for-broke edge, promising a risk worth taking. And a risk it would be. A perilous risk of self. A risk she couldn't chance until she knew him better. She didn't know if she had it in her to step completely outside her walls.

She turned in his arms to push him away, her hands pressed flat on his chest. She intended to push, she really did, but her fingers flexed once and she remembered the sleek skin she'd touched on the beach. Her arms circled his neck. She had to feel his hair, that paradoxical blend of spike and silk. By then it was too late. She wet her lips and raised her gaze to his.

And knew he was going to kiss her.

He knew he was going to kiss her.

It had been a foregone conclusion since he'd walked into his office and she'd blown him away. Then it had been purely physical. This time he knew her. This time he wanted more, to taste her sassy mouth, to slip his tongue inside and savor her goodness.

And this time nothing would get in his way. No police investigation, no pizza delivery boy. No for-her-own-good intentions.

He was going to kiss her.

The look in her eyes dared him not to.

It was that look, that give-it-to-me-baby look, that changed the tenor of the kiss before it ever began. He should have been thrilled. He should have been climbing the walls. He was scared spitless. And he was going to kiss her anyway.

Slowly, he touched his lips to hers. Lips were safe. Lips were innocent. Little children kissed with their lips. He brushed across her mouth. Once. Twice. Stopping the third time to pinch her lower one between his and tug.

That was a big mistake. He tasted pizza and warm woman. Zesty spice and sweet honey. Red-hot candied passion. Like an alcoholic staring down a shot glass, he shuddered and moved his mouth away.

He had to stop this insanity now while stopping it was still an option. Hell, he didn't know anything about her except that she was in trouble. And that she made him feel. Neither gave him a right to take her. Both gave him reason to stay away.

Nuzzling his face against her ear, he hugged her close, breathing deeply of her coconut-scented hair. He tried to ignore the way her breasts felt pressed to his chest. It wasn't easy. Especially when she rubbed the hard tips against him.

Sweet torment. Sugared temptation. God, he was in trouble. Her body's reaction fired his own, and he prayed she wasn't easily shocked. She took another step, pressing closer, inches from full-body, head-to-toe contact.

Thinking to give her a quick hug before stepping away, he slipped his hands under her shirt only to find braless, satin skin. No, silk. Warm silk. What the hell? He was supposed to be in control yet was being seduced by a childlike kiss, a friendly hug.

He lifted his head, staring down at the non-existent space between their bodies, afraid this was about to get very adult, very fast. Then, as he watched, her eyes closed and standing on tiptoe, she framed his face in her palms. Before he could put up a token fight, she opened her mouth under his, nudging his lips open with her sweet little tongue.