Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Cat
He laughed. Hysterically, grabbing at his gut as if I’d given him a shot of laughing gas. But it didn’t sound like a happy, joyful, ha-ha kind of laughing. No, from his eyes to his mouth to every hot tense muscle in his body, he mocked me.
“It’s not that funny.” I hated to say the predictable thing, the ineffective thing, but embarrassment enflamed me, making me question my own sanity. What the hell had I been thinking?
Okay, I know what I was thinking, but it was stupid, impossible, and even selfish. The man didn’t want to have a fling with the coach’s daughter. He’d touched me, but he’d backed off when I tried to wordlessly invite him to kiss me.
“It would be convenient. I’d know where you are at all times, I could keep you out of trouble, know who was coming and going, protect you from—”
“Who? You’re the only one I need protecting from.”
His leashed anger sent scintillating waves through the air.
There was no way he would be up for even a very discreet fling, under the radar and off the books.
The no-commitment, no-one-knows-about-it hot affair of my dreams. Not that it was my style to throw myself at a man for the sake of hot sex, but he did something to me, made me crazy and melty and hot.
Maybe I needed to see a sex therapist. Maybe I had a real problem.
He’d stopped laughing, but he gave me the kind of look that said he was my only problem. His stare sizzled with dangerous sensuality, the kind that made me shiver, which I did.
“You’re ridiculous. There is no way in hell that we could be roommates.” He walked toward the door, but when he passed by me I reached out and grabbed his arm.
“It makes perfect sense.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Why?” It was a dangerous challenge—acknowledging our sizzling chemistry was risky. But ignoring it was the most ridiculous, crazy thing to do.
Aiming an angry stare at me, he vibrated with pent-up passion, frustration, the kind that could explode in a temper or melt us both into a world of trouble.
Standing so close to Hunter Quintanna, I questioned the wisdom of opening that Pandora’s box.
Maybe I didn’t want to chance a secret fling.
Because it might be one of those things that would be impossible to cover up, the kind of thing that was so palpable it couldn’t be hidden.
“Tell me. Be honest.” I held my breath.
“You know the reason, Cat.” He growled and my instincts said to step back, but my simmering desire said to stay, urged me forward if I dared.
“Say it.
He let out a groan of real pain, like I’d stabbed him in the heart and I wanted to take it all back, leave him alone and be the professional he needed with no strings.
Ashamed of myself for putting him on the spot when he was trying to be good, to do the right thing, I wondered when the hell had I become the evil temptress?
“I’ll say it myself, then. We have a . . . connection.”
“What we have is damn cosmic fireworks between us.” He put his hands on his hips and backed away a step.
“I can’t even be in the same room as you without wanting to—never mind what I want.
It doesn’t matter. It’s a no-go. And don’t pretend you didn’t feel it too.
” He swiped at his hair, kept his eyes on me waiting for my confession. I had to give it to him.
I nodded. “I feel it. But—”
“No buts.” The loud angry words shut me up.
I had no idea what I would have said anyway.
That we could have a fling in secret sounded so .
. . sleazy right now, as if we were guilty of something.
The only thing we were guilty of was a case of mutual desire, combustible chemistry, sensual connection, whatever else you wanted to call it.
We had the hots for each other and what was wrong with that?
He could lose his career if he were found out, that’s what was wrong. Because there was no way in hell my father would stand for me with Hunter Quintanna. He’d made certain I knew it before I took on the responsibility as his handler.
I’d probably lose my job too, lose my place on my dad’s team forever. Lose his respect. That wasn’t something I could treat lightly.
“Forget I ever suggested it. Maybe I thought we could deal with our attraction like mature adults with self-control.” I thought no such thing, had no intentions of controlling myself, but I needed to salvage my poise. Pride was out the window, long gone.
He gave me a look that said he saw through me.
Then he took a step forward and I tensed as if he’d touched me, as if he were a live wire.
When he put his hand on my face again, caressing my cheek, I knew what it felt like to be branded.
My heart nearly stopped and then picked up, beating again like someone was tap dancing on my soul.
Leaning in, he whispered, “You think you have enough self-control to resist, Cat?” He moved his face close, his mouth near my ear, his breath fanning my skin.
I didn’t move, staring into his hooded eyes, everything in me throbbing, willing him to kiss me, waiting, without a thought to stopping him or backing away, no matter how foolhardy I was.
Once his mouth touched mine, lightly, the explosion of need began in earnest as if he’d turned on a switch to the furnace in me that I never knew was there.
The sheer heat and volatility of everything in me, the hard beating of my heart, the bouncing of nerves in my gut, the goose bumps on my skin, all conspired to make me powerless to do anything but kiss him back with everything in me.
I leaned into him, pressed against his lean length, reached my arms up around him, reveling in the feel of his knotted muscles under my palms.
The sound of his ragged breathing as the kiss deepened, his tongue invading, plunging, sent the throbbing to my pussy. I ground my hips against him, right up against his long solid cock.
The shock of it, of him so ready to take me with only this kiss, caught my breath. I made a squeak and pulled back. He let me go, taking his hands off me and stepping back, turning away.
“That’s why we can’t be roommates, Cat.” He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. I didn’t know why. Maybe he wanted me to get my head on straight before I faced him again. Maybe I ought to.
I wasn’t a reckless person, not really. Never had been, except when it came to my dad. He could always drive me crazy. And now there was Hunter.
But he was in a whole other league. What he did to me went way past crazy. I went to the kitchen sink and splashed cold water on my face, not caring if it ruined my makeup or my hair. God help me, I needed my head examined. I should be ashamed of myself.
But I’d gotten what I wanted—and a good scare in the process.
After a minute of deep breathing, I was ready to face him again.
Or as ready as I’d ever be. Wary, armored up to my teeth in fear of making a very bad mistake, but mostly anxious to redeem myself with him, to get his respect back.
Assuming I ever had it. Now it would be an uphill battle.
But he’d been right about one thing. I did like a challenge. And now it was clear.
My challenge was not to fall into bed with Hunter Quintanna while I saved his career.
I left my apartment, closing the door behind me, and took a breath when I saw him leaning against the wall, staring down at the floor.
His posture and everything about him looked so defeated, so discouraged, my heart squeezed in sorrow that I couldn’t hug him, console him, that I’d maybe been responsible for his seeming despair.
I had a lot to make up for. No way did I want to disappoint him.
“I’m ready. Let’s go. I’ll take you back to your hotel. We’ll resume our search tomorrow.”
He gave me a neutral nod.
After driving the whole way in knotted silence, I pulled up to the main entrance of his hotel and kept the car running. He reached for the door handle and wasn’t even going to say goodbye.
“Enough brooding,” I said. “We have to continue to work together. We need to establish a truce, a way to go forward without crossing any lines. I’m not expecting too much, but I have ideas about how best to repair your image.
It won’t happen overnight, but if you follow the plan, I promise you it will happen. ”
He nodded, his face poker-ready, silent. His default response. I filled the talking void.
“The team will pay for your hotel room for one more week. We have to work fast to get you a place. I’ll see you tomorrow after practice. What time do you think that will be?”
He put his big strong hand on the door and pushed it open.
“Ask your dad.” He gave me a dark evil smile, filled with irony and frustration and something else that looked and felt like longing. Or maybe it was me doing the longing. Still. I gave myself a mental slap.
He was gone before I thought of something clever to say back to him, or anything at all.
Hunter
I was f—cked. I didn’t know what made me kiss her—well that’s a lie. I knew what made me do it, I just didn’t know why I’d let myself slip, let all my self-control fly out the window for a damn kiss.
But it wasn’t just a damn kiss. It was a sizzling, deep-under-the-skin, shot-to-my-soul meeting of lips.
It was my undoing because now I knew what I was missing—or I at least had a taste of it—and I could imagine so much more with the mad hunger of a man starved all his life for something he didn’t know he was hungry for. And now I’d found it.
Great. I was super-fucked. Put her out of your mind Quintanna. Don’t be like your father. Be a better man. Remember the cautionary tale of his life, what he did to your mother, to his children by the wife no one knew about. The one he kept hidden away in Alaska.
Not a good time to be thinking about my dad. My head was messed up enough, my emotions running as if I were speeding down the edge of the sidelines trying desperately to stay in bounds, but getting shoved closer and closer to the line only yards away from the payoff.
My damn life was a f—cking nightmare come to the light of day, real and excruciating.
I let myself into the damn impersonal beige room, the kind of room where anyone and everyone stayed, anonymous, no personality, no vitality, a crypt to sleep in.
Stripping my clothes off, I knew I should take a shower, but if I did, I’d think of her and give in to a hand job.
It would ease the worst of the physical frustration, but it would leave me feeling like a first-class loser and I didn’t need that.
Didn’t need to feel worse about myself than I already did.
Naked, I dropped onto the bed and saw the message light on the room’s phone blinking.
Running through my head the possibilities of who might have called, I didn’t bother checking it.
My mother would have called my cell. Coach would have called my cell.
Any one of my siblings—now five since Mom took in Dad’s kids from his other marriage—would have also used the cell.
Falling back onto the pillow and staring up at the ceiling, my head hurt trying to figure out how he could have done it.
How he could have kept a second family all those years when he was away working, keeping Mom in the dark, pretending that he made less money than he did, that he had to work for longer stretches than he did, all so that he could live another life with another woman and their two bastard children.
How could he have gotten married to her while he was married to my mom?
He never said why, or not to my satisfaction anyway.
He told me a lot of things while he was dying.
Enough so I could let him go without strangling the life out of him for what he did to Mom.
To my sisters and brother. To his other kids.
My f—cking half brother and sister. Jesus.
I should be over it by now. But sometimes it hit me fresh.
When I was at my most vulnerable. Like now.
One good thing about thinking about dear old Dad, it cured me of my restless dick.
Until my cell rang and I fished it out of my pants, adrenaline kicking in to speed up my already quick movements. It was late for Mom to be calling. I swiped it on and put the phone to my ear without checking.
“Hunter here.” I said, trying to check the speed of my racing heart.
“Cat.”
Boom. In the silent tense pause that followed, my dick hardened, my head clouded, and my heart raced faster than it did in all my nightmares. I was headed out of bounds.