The Player (8 page)

Not as good as a half a pound of bacon and a Spanish omelet, but better than nothing, he supposed, grateful nonetheless. “Good, thanks.” What? Was she packing breakfast in that bag? he wondered.

Giving him a look he grimly suspected meant
she’d somehow read his mind, Audrey grinned and grabbed the radio attached to her waist. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“A beer would be nice.”

“Not for breakfast. How does tomato juice sound?”

“Nasty. Can I have coffee?”

Eyes twinkling, she bit her lip. “Sure.” She placed his order and asked that it be brought down to the lake. “There we go,” she said. “Henry should be down in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. It had been a long time since anyone had cared whether or not he’d eaten his Wheaties.

“No problem. Besides, it’ll help metabolize that alcohol and get you over your hangover.”

Startled, Jamie almost stumbled over his own feet. “I’m sorry.”

She darted him a sly look over her shoulder. “No need to apologize.”

“I wasn’t apologizing. I just—” He chewed the inside of his cheek and, equally impressed and disturbed, considered her. “How did you know?”

She stopped at a level spot behind a rather thick copse of trees and dropped her bag, then took the chairs away from him. “Well, number one, you
slept late and you’re a military man—granted, one that’s not currently in service—” she said before he could interrupt because he’d instantly readied his mouth for argument. “I know that’s not the norm.”

Good observation, he had to admit. Still, it wasn’t enough to deduce a hangover.

She made quick work of setting up the chairs. “Secondly, you skipped breakfast and you appear entirely too health conscious to make that a regular habit.”

On the money again, Jamie thought, feeling more and more transparent.

“Would you mind setting those up?”

He blinked. “Huh?”

She gestured toward the easels, forgotten in his hand. “Set those up, would you?”

Right, Jamie thought, jolting into action. His cheeks heated with embarrassment. Here she was doing all the work, while he stood rooted to the ground, marvelling over her ability to read him like a friggin’ book. Good grief. He had to get his head out of his ass and into the game.

“And thirdly,” she said, shooting him a mischievous smile. “You look like shit.”

Since he was more accustomed to accepting compliments than criticism, the blunt insult took
him completely by surprise, jarring a disbelieving chuckle loose from his throat. “Don’t hold back,” he told her dryly. “Tell me how you
really
feel.”

She shrugged. “You asked me how I knew,” she said. “Don’t ask if you don’t want to know.”

Utterly intrigued by her, he pushed a hand through his hair and nodded. “Duly noted. Anything else I should know?”

“Nothing.” She paused, then seemed to remember something important. “Oh, wait. Erm…I might have seen you on your front porch last night with that bottle of Jameson.”

A slow smile spread across his lips. Ah, he thought. The heart of the matter. Now that made more sense. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

She handed him a watercolor pad. “I might have heard that once or twice.”

“Or more.”

She nodded. “Or more.”

Feeling like he’d moved back onto solid ground, Jamie flipped the pad open and arranged it onto the easel. He thought about pretending to know what to do next, but ultimately decided against it. What was the point? She knew perfectly well he didn’t have any damned idea how to paint. “Okay. What now?”

Audrey bent down by the water’s edge and filled two plastic cups. Now here was a perk, Jamie thought. She might be wearing the ugliest shirt in the Northern Hemisphere—one that was better suited to a lumberjack and not a woman who looked like a cover model—but that shirt was tucked into a pair of jeans which fitted her quite nicely. Her delectable ass presently tested the seams of the worn denim and he found himself silently wishing he had either X-ray vision or the ability to make her pants instantly vanish.

What the hell. Why not wish for both?

She’d tied her hair back into a long ponytail at the nape of her neck and the cool morning breeze flirted with the ends of her espresso curls. She looked sexy and competent and…wholesome, Jamie realized with a start.

Now there was a word he didn’t usually associate with a woman he was attracted to. Stacked, sexy, dim—those were the qualities most of the women he hooked up with possessed. No muss, no fuss. Attraction, action, reaction, end of relationship.

Audrey, he knew, wasn’t that kind of girl. And yet he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another female in his life. Was it because he couldn’t have her? The so-called thrill of the for
bidden? Had Garrett’s orders somehow made her even more attractive to him simply because he knew he wasn’t supposed to touch her? His gaze slid over the delicate slope of her cheek, the curve of her brow, the dainty shell of her ear and his heart did a funny little squeeze he would have labeled indigestion had he eaten this morning.

That would have been the simple explanation—the one he wished like hell he could cling to—but he knew better. In an act of what he could only deduce as divine punishment for his mistreatment of women, the Almighty had placed him with the one woman in the world whom he instinctively knew could touch his soul…and had made her offlimits.

If that wasn’t divine retribution he didn’t know what was.

She straightened. “Now we paint,” she said brightly.

Ah, yes. For a moment there he’d forgotten.

Audrey chuckled, the sound soft and curiously soothing to his ears. “Don’t look so glum. Remember, this one is for my grandfather.”

Jamie accepted his paints, brush and cup with a vengeful smile. “That’s right,” he told her. “He’s got a fondness for orchids, right?”

“He does,” she confirmed hesitantly. “But I thought you might want to paint the lake.”

Jamie wet his brush and dipped it into the red, toyed around with the combination of pigment to water until he reached the right shade of pink. Pussy-pink, Jamie thought, stifling a chuckle. “Nope. I’ll paint an orchid.”

Clearly suspecting that he was up to something, Audrey slid him a guarded glance. “Suit yourself. I’m painting the lake.”

“Good. It can be a gift for me.”

A smile flirted with her lips while she played around with her paintbrush. “Why would I give it to you?”

He purposely let his gaze slide over her. “So I’ll have a memento of you when I go home.”

She cleared her throat. “And home’s in Atlanta, right?”

“It is.”

“My grandfather mentioned you’d left the military and had gone into a private security business with some friends. Also Rangers, right? In the same unit?”

He could only imagine what else he’d mentioned, Jamie thought. No doubt the sneaky bastard had told her about Danny, too. The thought
had been offhand, but now that he truly considered it, Garrett would have most certainly told her about Danny. And if he’d told her about Jamie’s friends, he’d
definitely
told her about Danny. Furthermore, he would have cited it as a reason for his visit. Jamie’s fingers tensed around the brush and he mentally swore.

Repeatedly.

God, how could he not realize that before now? He suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable, two adjectives he’d just as soon not associate with himself. Danny’s death was a private pain, one he had no intention of sharing with anybody. You know, it was one thing to send him up here to work some behind-the-scenes machinations to keep her from marrying an asshole, but to use his own grief as a means to that end was beyond the pale.

And Garrett had seriously underestimated him if he thought he would simply let that slide.

Belatedly remembering that he was supposed to be carrying on a conversation, Jamie finally managed to respond to her comment. “I
am
in the private security business,” he confirmed. “With friends. Me and a couple of guys who were also under your grandfather’s command opened up shop a few months ago.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, putting more effort into his painting. He wanted it to be
just
right for Garrett, the scheming bastard.

“And business is good?”

“Better than we expected,” he told her, the pride evident in his voice.

“That’s fantastic. It’s nice when hard work pays off.” She added a few strokes to her own work, then nibbled absently on the end of the brush. “Do you miss being a Ranger?”

That topic was still too raw and he didn’t have a clear-cut answer he could give to himself, much less her. “Sometimes,” he told her, for lack of anything better.

“I know what you mean.” She cocked her head, studying her work. “In a previous life I was a commodities broker.”

Now that was enough to draw him up short. Wearing what he knew had to be a dumbfounded look, Jamie paused and turned to stare at her. “You were a what?”

She chuckled at the look on his face. “A commodities broker. Had the whole Wall Street walk going on. The briefcase, the PDA, the BlackBerry.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she told him.

Jamie returned his attention to his orchid—which was beginning to finally resemble the female genitalia he’d been aiming for—and digested this newest bit of information about Audrey. He couldn’t make it fit. “So how does a Wall Street commodities broker end up in Maine running a de-stressing camp?” he asked, genuinely intrigued. That was a big damned leap.

“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you,” she teased. She sidled over next to him. “What are you—” She gasped, clasped her hand to her mouth to smother a laugh. “That looks like a—” Her shocked gaze swung to his.

Jamie quirked an eyebrow.

“I mean to say, that’s…Well, that’s—” She nodded, seemingly at a loss. “That’s lovely.”

Jamie grinned and chewed the inside of his cheek. “Is there something
wrong
with my orchid?”

She pressed her lips together, shook her head. “Not at all.”

“I think he should hang it in a place of honor, don’t you?” Jamie asked her sweetly. “Like behind his desk or maybe in his home office. Possibly even his bedroom.”

Her cheeks pinkened adorably and she gazed at
his vagina painting with something akin to humorous outrage. “I’m s-sure he’ll find a g-good home for it.”

“You look a little flushed,” Jamie commented, thoroughly enjoying her discomfort. “Are you feeling all right?” he asked with faux concern.

Tearing her fascinated blue gaze away from his painting, she jerked her attention back to him. “Me? Oh, no. I’m fine. Look,” she said, a little too brightly. “There’s Henry with breakfast.”

If she’d been drowning, Henry would have been the lone life preserver in dangerous waters, Jamie thought, his lips curling into a grim.

“Oh, good,” he enthused. “After I eat, I think I’ll paint a picture of a couple of mountains. You know, the Colonel was right. This painting is
very
relaxing.”

“W
HAT THE HELL
do you think you’re doing?” Tewanda said, under her breath. She gestured disgustedly at Audrey’s clothes. “Flannel?” she asked, horrified. “
Flannel,
Audrey? Why on earth would you clothe yourself in the single greatest ‘do-not-touch-me’ fabric known to mankind when a hot man like that is here?”

That’s exactly why she did it, Audrey thought, shooting a careful look at Jamie from the corner of her eye. He’d finished his
orchid
painting—she inwardly snorted—and was presently hard at work on his interpretation of “mountains.” Despite the flannel shirt, she kept feeling his darting gaze study her breasts, then go back to work. It was enough to make a perfectly sane woman go a little crazy.

Though she’d been absolutely appalled at first, she had to admit the watercolors he was doing for
her grandfather were excellent retribution for the various books and medications the Colonel had made sure were on hand for Jamie when he got here. She smiled and shook her head. Oh, but to be a fly on the wall when her grandfather opened those packages, she thought, stifling another chuckle.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Tewanda snapped. “I’m not being funny. I’m serious. Stop smiling.”

Audrey made an attempt to accommodate her overwrought friend. She flattened her lips and tried to pay attention.

She failed.

Tewanda shook her head. “I don’t understand you,” she said, seemingly summoning patience from a higher power. “You’re either looking to replace the guy on
Home Improvement,
you’ve become a lesbian, or you’re purposely dressing like this to make yourself unattractive.” Her lips curled with knowing humor. “And my money’s on the last one.”

Then that was a good bet, Audrey thought. This morning when she’d gotten up, she’d actually agonized over what to wear. She’d tried on several outfits, made a mess of her closet and her room—which had taken a solid fifteen minutes to repair—
and generally acted like a junior high drama queen getting ready for her first date.

Which was ridiculous when she already had a boyfriend, dammit, and was not under any circumstances going to act on this unholy attraction to Jamie. If she could have clothed herself in burlap this morning, she would have done it.

That’s how desperate she was.

And it wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust herself.

She’d stood at her kitchen window last night and gazed at him until that throb between her legs had beaten an insistent tattoo against her defenses and had, predictably, become unbearable. Audrey let go a small sigh. Thus, she’d ended up taking matters into her own hands.

Quite frankly, since Derrick wasn’t an altogether guaranteed orgasm, self-service for her wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Furthermore, there was a distinct amount of satisfaction which came from knowing she wasn’t dependent upon a man for her own release. Too bad that younger girls weren’t encouraged to explore their bodies the way that young boys were expected to explore theirs, she thought.

Masturbation in guys was a forgone conclu
sion and yet for many girls, it was still considered taboo. Considering it took a great deal more finesse for a woman to achieve climax than a man, it would seem that girls should be encouraged to explore themselves with the same zeal in which boys did. But that was a whole other matter, Audrey thought, a double standard that she imagined was going to take decades to correct.

The point was, this was the first time Audrey had taken care of business with a specific man in mind and the result had been quite…spectacular. Beyond anything she could have expected. In addition, though it had dulled the edge, so to speak, the ache had immediately returned with a vengeance. If thinking about doing it with him could make her fly into a million pieces and melt against her mattress, then what would actually being with him do to her?

And if he didn’t stop sending her those sexy halfsmiles and sidelong glances, she wasn’t merely going to have to wonder—she’d have to
know.

And that, she knew, was out of the question.

Of course, it’d be easier to remember that if he’d quit flirting with her. She looked down at the ugly flannel shirt and winced. Clearly her plan wasn’t working.

“Go change,” Tewanda told her. “It’s not too late. You’re spending the whole day with him. Has he asked for that massage yet?”

“No,” Audrey said, releasing a shaky breath at the mere thought of her hands sliding over that silky skin and muscle. “And I hope he doesn’t.” She whacked Tewanda against the arm.

“Ouch,” Tewanda yelped accusingly, rubbing the spot. “What the hell was that for?”

“That was for suggesting I give him a massage. Carlos can give him a massage. Not me.”

“Hunh.” She shook her head. “That man is not going to let another man give him a massage.”

“He will if he wants one bad enough,” Audrey said. She needed to keep her hands to herself, thank you very much, and it was going to be hard enough without Tewanda’s interference. Honestly, she’d known that her friend didn’t care for Derrick, but she didn’t realize just how much Tewanda hated him until Jamie had come along.

Derrick had called last night immediately following Audrey’s help-yourself-orgasm buffet and she’d felt so guilty over fantasizing about Jamie that she hadn’t answered the phone. Of course, the instant his accusatory “Where-are-you? Why-aren’t-you-waiting-on-my-call?” tone had
sounded through the small speaker, she’d immediately let go of any remorse.

“My mountains are done,” Jamie called from over his shoulder.

Tewanda frowned. “Mountains?”

“Don’t ask,” Audrey said, laughing under her breath.

“Oh, now you can’t laugh like that, then tell me not to ask.” Tewanda squinted down the hill at Jamie, trying to make out his painting. “What’s going on?”

Audrey nodded her head in Jamie’s direction. “He’s painted some special…
artwork
for my grandfather.”

“How nice,” Tewanda said, brightening. “The Colonel should like that.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Audrey crossed her arms over her chest. “Why don’t you trot down there and take a look and then we’ll see if you still think he’ll like it.”

With a haughty look of sheer bafflement, Tewanda did just that. Audrey quietly followed, looking forward to hearing her friend’s take on Jamie’s paintings.

“Do you mind if I take a look?” Tewanda asked him.

Jamie glanced past Tewanda and his twinkling
gaze tangled with hers. “Not at all,” he said. “Art is meant to be shared, after all,” he drawled.

Still smiling, Tewanda sidled forward and inspected the painting on the easel. The smile froze comically and she cocked her head and squinted, seemingly trying to make Jamie’s mountains into, well…mountains. Her eyes widened and a shocked laugh burst from her throat when she realized what she was looking at. “Oh, you did not!” she said, her voice equally flabbergasted and impressed.

Jamie chuckled at her. “Want to see my orchid?” he offered.

One look at the orchid made Tewanda dissolve into a fit of hysterical laughter. “He’ll have your beautiful white ass drawn and quartered for this, you know,” she finally told him when she could speak.

Jamie inclined his head. “Probably.”

“You don’t look nearly as worried as you should,” she added.

“Nothing worries me much anymore,” Jamie said lightly, but there was a truth in the humor which somehow rang very honest. It was a telling statement, Audrey thought, and filed it away for future consideration.

Tewanda sighed regretfully. “I’ve got to get
back to work,” she said with one last look at Jamie’s orchid.

“Radio me if you need me,” Audrey told her.

She laughed. “Don’t I always?”

Audrey sidled into her friend’s vacated spot next to Jamie and inspected the mountains for herself. Like the orchid, there was a surprising amount of detail which told her that, while he definitely was a novice painter, he had quite a knack for capturing the female form. And since he was painting from memory, well…She instinctively knew he’d never leave a girl hanging.

He would be a guaranteed orgasm.

The mere knowledge made a shiver work its way through her.

“You cold?” Jamie asked.

Audrey shook her head, trying to clear it of before and after orgasmic visions of her and Jamie. “No, I’m fine.” She drew a bracing breath. “So…are you finished painting or would you like to try your hand at a banana?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’ll save the banana for later in the week.”

A self-portrait? Audrey wondered, her mouth watering. “All right, then. Let me take a look at your schedule and see what you’re supposed to do next.”

Jamie rinsed his brush off, then disposed of the water in the cup. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I want to do next?” he asked. He’d lowered his voice an octave and a curious invitation, one that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, rang through the deep, sexy baritone.

She paused, toying with the necklace around her throat. “I’m hoping you’re going to want to follow along with the schedule, but if it makes you feel better to tell me what you want to do, then by all means, go ahead.”

“Where’s Moses?” he asked, moving closer to her.

Audrey felt her brow wrinkle. “He’s at home.”

“Locked up tight, then?”

“Er…yeah.”

She lost a little more of her personal space as he crowded even closer in. “Can’t escape and tear my throat out?”

“No,” she said hesitantly.

Jamie’s finger slid up her neck, tilting her face closer to his, and rested under her chin. “Can’t interrupt?”

“R-right,” she murmured shakily, utterly mesmerized and rooted to the spot.

“Then, if you have no objections, I’d like to
pick up where we left off last night,” he murmured softly, weaving his voice and the image he’d effortlessly conjured around her senses. His warm breath fanned against her lips and his body heat seemed to be magically absorbed into her own hot spots. Her nipples tingled, her belly grew muddled, and that throb in her womb hammered until she wasn’t altogether sure remaining upright without his support was going to be possible.

“Can I kiss you, Audrey?” he whispered, asking permission, of all things, when he could surely tell she had no objections. Making the choice completely hers. It was old-fashioned and noble and her heart squeezed with the kindness behind the gesture.

“Y-yes,” she breathed, unable to conjure the sane response.

And God help her, that was the last fullyformed thought before his lips touched hers and life as she’d known it abruptly ended.

J
AMES
A
IDAN
F
LANAGAN
had stolen his first kiss in third grade from a blue-eyed blonde who’d smiled with angelic wonder after his bold preemptive move—then immediately thereafter cold-cocked him for his impertinence. His nose had bled for
half an hour and his mother—probably the hardest working person he’d ever known—had had to leave her job and come to the school for a “meeting” on his behalf.

Jamie had learned two important lessons from that singularly defining experience.

One, never take anything without asking first.

And two, there was no action without consequence and sometimes those consequences weren’t your own.

As a result of his stunt, his mother had had to pay for that thirty minutes of lost time with an extra shift, or lose her job. Though his grandmother had insisted that he go to bed that night, Jamie hadn’t slept, and when his mother’s tired footsteps had brought her into his room later that evening and he’d felt her fingers brush his cheek and glimpsed her weary loving smile, his chest had ached with the weight of guilt.

Curiously, though tasting Audrey—savoring her sweet breath and the plum-soft texture of her lips—was one of the most phenomenal gut-wrenchingly perfect experiences of his life, that same weighty ball of guilt he’d noted at eight had taken up residence in his belly. The meaning was clear—he might not have taken her kiss without
permission, but he had a grim suspicion that she’d be paying for the consequences of his actions.

A better man would stop now, wouldn’t be dragging her closer to him, angling her head to more fully devour her. A better man would stop, or more importantly, would have never have started. And let’s face it, a better man wouldn’t have agreed to the Colonel’s scheme at all, admiring the purpose but refusing to participate.

But if being a better man meant he’d never feel these small hands pushing into his hair, tasting the gentle pleasure of her breath, the silken slide of her tongue into his mouth, then Jamie would simply have to resign himself to being a self-serving bastard. Because he couldn’t stop now if his life depended on it.

Unlike a lot of men who merely used kissing as a means to an end, Jamie had always enjoyed it. While he wouldn’t go so far as to say that kissing was as good as sex, he would say that it was second in line to the most personal…and telling. A guy could learn a lot about what sort of lover a woman would be by her kiss. In fact, a sorry kisser almost always resulted in a sorry lover.

It was no surprise then, given how potent his
initial attraction and curiosity about Audrey had been, that the meeting of their mouths could be anything short of extraordinary.

And it was also no surprise that she was the single most talented kisser he’d ever had the pleasure of tangling tongues with. Kissing her was a full-body experience. He felt the effects of her lips in every cell in his being. His hands shook, his dick throbbed, his belly inflated with what felt like fizzy air and the rest of him seemed to be melting. Her technique was flawless. She was ardent and energetic, sensual and sure.

But most importantly, she didn’t try to pretend like she wasn’t equally affected.

He could feel her beaded nipples through the flannel, raking against his chest. Flannel suddenly became his favorite fabric, Jamie decided as he slid a hand down her tiny back, then over her sweetly curved rump. She slithered and squirmed, positioning herself as closely to him as she possibly could. Her hands alternately kneaded his scalp and shaped his jaw, forcing him to accept her ministrations. Every mewl and sigh of pleasure echoed off his tongue and it took every iota of willpower he possessed to not topple her to the ground and bury himself inside her.