The Rebound Girl (Getting Physical) (9 page)

“Aren’t you going to want to see how the outfit looks?” She jiggled a tiny neon pink tank top at him. It looked barely big enough to cover her nipples, especially if she was wearing another one of those lacy, gravity-defying contraptions she called a bra.

“Why don’t we just close our eyes and imagine it instead? Or maybe I could just hold your purse.”

“That’s why they invented hooks in the dressing room.” Whitney spoke to him in the kind of slow, patient tone he normally reserved for his most difficult students. “And holding a lady’s purse is something a man in a relationship does. You know what a man on the rebound does?”

He didn’t answer her purposefully leading question. Golfwear was supposed to be about athletics—about sweat and toil. Okay, maybe not toil, since the courses in Pleasant Park wouldn’t let you on without a caddy and a cart for every four people. But Whitney was treating the sport like it existed solely to provide her a chance to have her own private fashion show. And by private, she meant the two of them, wedged inside one of the tiny changing rooms as she squeezed in and out of her clothes.

God, that sounded amazing.

“Try it on and then come out and show me,” he said. There was already far too much squeezing going on for a public place. “I promise to ooh and aah in all the right places.”

Her eyes sparkled with a meaning that his body took the liberty of interpreting for him. “Oh, there will be happy noises, I promise.”

Matt drew closer. He knew he should stay firm, put his foot down, otherwise put a stop to the juvenile antics that were part of Whitney’s general fervor for life. But this was supposed to be fun, right? Wasn’t that the only rule?

“You’re not scared, are you?” she taunted.

“Of you? No.” Of the alluring power she held over him? Maybe a little.

He kept drawing nearer to her, their faces so close it probably looked like a kiss to anyone paying attention. It felt like a kiss, too, all the intimacy of bodies close and mouths closer, her breath warm and caressing.

“Not even a little?” she teased. “With all these big, bad people watching you, knowing exactly what you want to do to me right now?”

Yes, people were watching him. And yes, he wanted to do things to Whitney without a second thought for proprieties. Those fears—things that might have mattered a lifetime ago—had no power to stop the blood from roaring a furious course to his groin, robbing him of sensation as it moved past all his other organ systems to the one demanding the most attention.

She smiled. Matt was too close to see it, but he could feel it, the amusement that curled her lips into a one-sided grin. “In fact, I’d say there’s no way in hell you could get it up in a public place like this. Not you. Not the town schoolteacher. You’re just man enough to want me...not man enough to do anything about it.”

The blood came faster now. Hotter, too, if such a thing was possible, and the sensation of her body against his was the antithesis of all rational thought. Yet he remained unmoved. “Nothing you say is going to change my mind.
This
man on the rebound is going to hold your purse. I’m wise to your tricks.”

“Oh, Matt. You haven’t even begun to see my tricks. You set the boundaries, remember?” With a waggle of her eyebrows, she ducked into the changing room with all her clothes in tow.

Matt technically wasn’t holding anything of Whitney’s as she thumped around in the changing room. Not her purse, not her hand, not anything that might be mistaken for two people in a relationship. But as he examined a print on the wall of a golf landscape somewhere in Scotland, desolate and cold, he realized she was right. Standing outside a changing room wasn’t the hallmark of a man on the rebound. He was supposed to be throwing caution aside. He was supposed to be having fun.

In this instance, fun was a half-naked woman with a voracious appetite for sex. And it was literally waiting for him behind door number one.

With a ferocity that seemed to come from some deep, dark place that had remained dormant for too long, Matt marched to the dressing room door and knocked. “I’m coming in.”

Whitney pulled the door open a crack and peeked out. “Why, Mr. Fuller,” she crooned, her voice low. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“My heart is not the organ I wish to discuss right now.” Slipping in, he shut the door as discreetly as he could behind them.

The dressing room was small. Tiny. Barely big enough for one person to turn around in, let alone two of them, all hands and mouths and a furious desire to mesh them together. Whitney did her best to make room by backing up against one side of the dressing room, her hands flat against the flimsy particleboard walls, her legs spread. She had yet to do anything more than remove her shirt, and was dressed to kill in nothing but her bra, a form-fitting black skirt and boots that went almost all the way up to her knees. In his excitement to enjoy the skintight cut of the material across her ass, he flung a pair of hideous flamingo-covered pants to the floor.

Whitney’s eyes opened wide. “Are you going to dress me?” she asked, her voice dripping with sex and faux innocence. “Or is undressing more what you had in mind?”

“I think you know exactly what I want to do.” Matt grabbed both her hands in one of his and held them behind her back, using his leg to force hers wider. “And clothes are the last thing I’m worried about right now.”

He kissed her then, but without any tenderness or meaning beyond the need of the moment. She moaned into him, enjoying the show of dominance. He enjoyed it too, a lot more than he expected, which was part of the appeal. He’d always been a slow starter, the last to hit his growth spurt as a teenager, the last of his friends to brush his hand across a girl’s breast, the last to lose his virginity, which didn’t happen until college. The only milestone he’d been the first to hit was marriage, and they could all see how well that turned out.

So the fact that he could pin Whitney against the wall, forcing her body to move and mold under his, their mouths playing at a game that was half pain and half pleasure, teeth and lips fully interchangeable where they crashed—it was exhilarating. Exhilarating and hot and, given that her bra slipped low and her breasts swelled against his chest, going much further than he’d intended.

“I take it back,” she whispered, arching her back so that her body rocked against his. “You’re not scared at all.”

“No.” He ran his lips along her jawline. “But you better be. Because you’re going to pay for those remarks.”

“Tough words, Galahad.”

His fingers slid up the length of her thigh, just underneath the hem of her skirt where it brushed against the boot. It was a small expanse of skin by any real standards, but that only added to the appeal of it, especially when she hitched her leg up on the small bench seat along the back of the dressing room.

As his hand moved up, Whitney let out a low moan. He captured the sound quickly with his mouth, continuing his path up her thigh until he reached his destination. As always, she was ready for him, her lace panties slick with moisture. He slid a finger inside her, feeling a shudder of excitement hit him in the groin as her body tightened around him. Firm and hot, yet always ready for more—her responses were the biggest surprise in all this. She loved his touch, craved it even, begging for more, harder, faster.

She made him feel like a god.

Leaning down to capture one of her escaped nipples in his mouth, he slipped another finger inside. She bucked against his hand, and this time, the moan that escaped wasn’t low.
Crap
. He’d left her mouth free.

He tried to kiss her into silence, but it was too late. Someone outside the door must have heard because there was an awful knock at the door, sharp and concise.

Matt jumped back. Since he was the primary object keeping Whitney aloft, she stumbled to the ground, bringing the mirror down with her. Matt had just enough blood left in his brain to be able to catch one of them, and he went for the mirror, saving them both from getting showered in shards of glass. He half expected Whitney to rail at him for letting her fall, but she just rolled onto her knees, face to face with one of the hardest erections he’d had in his life, and started laughing.

The knock sounded again, this time followed by an even sharper and more concise voice. “Hello? Can I ask you to step out, please?”

There was a decidedly schoolmarm undertone to the woman’s voice—something all teachers perfected over time, Matt included. But instead of striking fear into Whitney’s heart, she only laughed louder, struggling to get up and shrug back into her shirt. Matt helped her up and tried to stifle his own amusement, but she wasn’t making it any easier.

“Uh-oh, Mr. Fuller. We’re in for it now,” she whispered between gulps of air. “I bet I’m going to have to buy at least four pairs of those flamingo pants.”

Matt drew a deep breath and willed his body to cool. Fortunately, chagrin acted as a fairly good anti-aphrodisiac, and he was able to pull the door open with his best composed, upstanding citizen-of-the-world look. He might have gotten away with it, too, if the woman standing on the other side of the door had been anyone but Natalie Horn.

Natalie Horn, whose family not only owned the entire chain of Great Golf stores, but who also headed up every local charitable and political organization in town. Natalie Horn, whose tall, wiry frame and freckled features had been an everyday part of his life with Laura, seeing as how the two were best friends.

“Matt! What are you doing?” she called, surprise softening her face just a little—though not enough to make him feel any better about what was to come. “Is this woman attacking you?”

Definitely not better. The moment those catastrophic words crossed Natalie’s lips, Whitney lost any and all of her ability to act like a mature adult. Giggling with mirth, her shirt hanging open, red-faced and not the least bit ashamed of any of the above, Whitney wasn’t exactly the kind of woman who made saving face even a remote possibility.

“Yes, Matt. Tell us,” Whitney managed. “What
were
you doing in there?”

If he’d been wearing a tie, he would have used this moment to straighten it, along with his stance and a firm mouth. As it was, all he had was a T-shirt that had moved up to show a sliver of his stomach and the sinking feeling that Whitney’s teeth had broken the skin along his neck, and he might actually be bleeding all over himself.

“Natalie,” he said, resisting the urge to swipe at his neck to check for damages. “How nice to see you again.”

He’d always liked Natalie, even if she was difficult to get to know. She’d been the maid of honor at their wedding, and he’d come home from work on more than one occasion to find her and Laura chatting in the portico. Although there was a good chance she’d been sitting in that portico, sipping white wine and smiling at him with the full knowledge that Laura was sleeping with another man, he didn’t harbor the woman any ill will.

It was clear the feeling was not reciprocated.

“I’m sorry, but were you...fornicating in my changing room?” she asked. At least her voice was low. It seemed they were drawing quite a crowd.

Whitney let out a snorting sound, and Matt kicked his leg backward, catching the shin of her boot. She let out a howl that was more laughter than pain.

“I’m really sorry, Natalie. My, uh, friend needed some help with her clothes.”

This was what came of putting pleasure before propriety. It would take all of an hour for this story to spread around town—and he knew exactly what the topic would be during the next teachers’ meeting.

Natalie refused to look at Whitney, directing all her attention to the space about one foot above Matt’s head. “I can see that. I hope she plans on paying for those.”

Whitney held a pair of flamingo-covered pants up triumphantly. “I’ll take four pairs. One in every color. You have no idea how good these pants make me feel. Or, I guess, uh, maybe you do?”

Natalie’s lips came together tightly, and Whitney leaned in to examine the purse of them, as if performing a medical examination.

It took him a second to realize that was exactly what she was doing.

“You know, my colleague Kendra has a cream that will do wonders for those perioral wrinkles—or, if you’re looking for a quicker boost, I do fillers that leave practically no marks.” She fumbled around in her purse, pulling out a pair of worn nylons and a handful of tampons before finally coming across a business card.

Natalie didn’t take it. She turned on her heel and marched toward the checkout line and, with one imperious wave of her hand, indicated they were to follow.

“Really?” Matt ushered Whitney toward the front of the store. She paused only to grab three other pairs of those god-awful flamingo pants in alternating colors of blue, green and yellow. “You thought now would be a good time to plug your business?”

“What?” she said with faux innocence, her dark eyes wide and flashing. “I was trying to distract her.” Then, more seriously, “Does everyone in town know who you are?”

“If they have kids under the age of twelve, yes.”

She paused before making her way to the checkout stand, where Natalie was whispering something in fierce undertones to the scared teenage clerk.

“Ma’am, I will thank you to take your business elsewhere next time,” Natalie said, looking up at Whitney with a death glare. “And Matt, I have to say that I’m really disappointed in you. This isn’t the sort of thing we expect from a man like you. Are you retaliating for what Laura did? Is that what this is about? I know you’re still hurting, and I know forgiveness is hard—”

Whitney interrupted her by slapping a credit card down on the counter. Her whole body straightened, taut with anticipation—and not the good kind. If Matt didn’t know any better, he’d say she was angry.

“Lady, if you’d been the one Matt recently had pinned up against the side of your changing room, you’d know damn well that Laura is the last thing on his mind.”

Matt laid a restraining hand on Whitney’s arm. She
was
angry. He could feel it in the tension coming off her skin and the clawlike grip she had on her purse. The anger itself wasn’t too surprising—this was clearly a woman whose blood ran hot—but the fact that the anger existed for his benefit was.