Chapter 21 #2
As he lifted his pant leg and pulled off his sock and sneaker, she asked about his meeting with Coach.
“I’m not going on the trip.” He wasn’t prepared to talk about the stunt Toby had pulled. Maybe Sam had misunderstood. And if he hadn’t, the sting and bewilderment were too raw.
She stopped, her big blues filling with concern. “Oh, Sam. I’m so sorry. You can’t even accompany the team for moral support?”
“Nope. Injured players don’t travel.” He grabbed the pillow from the table and punched it into a soccer-sized ball, his muscles flexing with frustration. He pulled three long breaths through his nose and handed the wad back to Angie. “Sorry. I’m better now.”
She held his gaze as she smoothed it out, a million messages reflected in her eyes. Probably shit like, “You’ll get there,” or “It’ll get better.” Sam wasn’t in the mood to hear platitudes she couldn’t back up. Nobody could back them up.
He lay down, his muscles softening in defeat, and tapped out an uneven rhythm on his chest. He canted his head.
“At least I still get to see my PT three days a week.” Under his breath, he added, “And every night.” He slid a hand over the edge of the table and squeezed a handful of her butt before she jerked away.
A pretty blush rose to her cheekbones. “Sam,” she warned.
“My bad.” He wasn’t sorry, though. There was a weird caveman thing roiling inside him, scraping along the jagged edges of his tattered psyche, and he wanted to shout out to the world that she was with him.
He wanted to be able to touch her in public, hold her hand or drop a kiss on her head, to stamp her as his.
“Sure you can’t come with me to the dinner tonight? ”
She shook her head. He got it, he did, but he couldn’t keep the roiling from getting more violent. “The guys will be going to the clubs after, so I guess I’ll go solo and see if I can find women willing to dance with me.”
Her icy eyes lasered in on him. “You do, and I’ll have to hurt you.”
Why that made happiness bubble inside him, he hadn’t a clue, but his spirits suddenly lifted out of the crapper. And he needed that, especially after a morning filled with bad news. “Maybe I’ll head home right after the dinner and find other ways to occupy myself.”
“Poor baby.” She palpated his ankle, then flexed his heel before working her fingers up his calf. “Or you could stop by my place.”
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “How about I pick you up on my way to my place?”
“Or how about I wait for you at your place so you don’t have to make a stop?” she replied without looking up. The sultry note in her voice gave him all kinds of ideas.
He picked up his phone and sent a text that pinged somewhere distant, like from a desk drawer. When she glanced up at him, he winked. “Just sent you the code to get in. I’ll make excuses and cut out early.”
At least he had Angie to look forward to.
The party depressed him more than it lifted him, and he was trying to psych himself up when he walked into his condo hours later.
The living room was awash in candlelight, dim, but not so dim that he couldn’t feast his eyes on the vision that greeted him.
Angie reclined on the sofa, her blond hair arranged in loose waves, her face glowing with a touch of makeup.
She wore white lace that revealed more than it covered, and her bare legs stretched in front of her, delicate silver straps wrapped around her ankles attached to spiked heels.
His jaw dropped.
A thin film of fabric draped over her creamy shoulders, and she picked up one end and slowly drew it across her cheek. “I thought I could help take your mind off your day.”
Stomach fizzing with anticipation, he yanked off his tie and prowled toward her. Lying before him was everything he needed. Everything he wanted. She was … everything.
He swallowed hard as he took a seat next to her. “You already have.”
Cupping his jaw, she pulled his head down and angled it until her mouth hovered a bewitching inch from his.
Then she kissed him, sucking first his bottom lip before lavishing the top.
Her tongue darted in, and the kiss deepened into something liquid and languid and soulful.
Soon he was lost in a sea of her sweet scent and silky skin.
He pulled back long enough to gasp, “Wow!”
She gave him a sly smile. “You obviously had something on your mind when you were mauling me in the clinic.” All he could do was nod. “Well, I thought we could explore those … ideas. How about you show me every single dirty thought right now?”
He knew what she was doing, and his heart squeezed. This woman had pulled out the stops for him, and his emotions swelled. “Angie, I …” love you. “Don’t know what to say,” he blurted. “You—you’re amazing.”
She swung her toned legs over the edge of the couch, stood, and held out her hand to him. “Follow me and let me show you how amazing you are.”
He stumbled after her like an eager puppy.
By the time morning brightened his bedroom, Sam was adrift on a blissful cloud, the troubles of yesterday a distant memory at the back of his mind—until he realized he was alone.
He reached for his phone to check the time.
It was past eight, and Angie was already at work.
A string of texts awaited him, and as he scrolled through them, his happy cloud shredded.
They were all from friends and family wishing him luck in round two, or from teammates telling him how sorry they were he wasn’t joining them.
Instead of cheering him, the wishes drew him down into a pit of self-pity, where his ankle throbbed more than it had before, reminding him why he lay in bed instead of sitting beside a teammate playing poker on the plane.
No matter how much he told himself Angie was a cure-all, even having her to himself twenty-four-seven wasn’t going to change his reality.