Time Out

4

RAINEY OPENED HER mouth to protest and Mark’s tongue slid right in, so hot, so erotic, she moaned instead. God, the man could kiss. How was it that he looked as good as he did, was that sexy, and could kiss like heaven on earth? Talk about an unfair distribution of goods!

Just don’t react, she told herself, but she might as well have tried to stop breathing, because this was Mark, big strong, badass Mark. The guy from her teenage fantasies. Her grown-up fantasies too, and resistance failed her.

Utterly.

So instead of resisting, she sank into him, and with a rough groan, he pressed her against the shelving unit, trapping her between the hard, cold steel at her back and the hard, hot body at her front. “Okay, wait,” she gasped.

Pulling back the tiniest fraction, he looked at her from melting chocolate eyes.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

“Guess.”

See, this was the problem with a guy like Mark. There was a good reason that his players responded to him the way they did. He didn’t make any excuses-about anything-and he knew how to get his way. Oh, how he knew, she thought as her hands slid into the silky dark hair at the nape of his neck. She pressed even closer, plastering herself to him, fighting the urge to wrap her legs around his waist as a low, very male sound rumbled in his throat. Her eyes drifted shut. He isn’t for you… He’ll never be for you.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” she panted, not letting go. So he wasn’t for her. She would take what she could get from him. But only because here, with Mark, she felt alive, so damn alive. “You still drive me insane,” she said.

He let out a groaning laugh, murmured something that might have been a “right back at you” and kissed her some more.

And God help her, she kissed him back until they had to break apart or suffocate.

“God, Rainey,” he whispered hotly against her lips.

“I know-”

“Maybe you should throw your clipboard at me.”

“Don’t tempt me.” She tightened her grip on his hair until he hissed out a breath, then it was her turn to do the same when he nipped at her throat, then worked his way up, along her jaw to her ear. She heard a low, desperate moan, and realized it was her own. She tried to keep the next one in but couldn’t.

Nor could she make herself let go of him. Nope, she was going to instantly combust, and he hadn’t even gotten into her pants. “I still don’t like you,” she gasped, sliding her hand beneath his shirt to run over his smooth, sleek back.

“I can work with that.” Turning her, he pinned her flat against the storage room door, working his way back to her mouth. Their tongues tangled hotly as his hands yanked her shirt from her jeans and snaked beneath, his palms hot on her belly, heading north. When her knees wobbled, he pushed a muscled thigh between hers, holding her up.

“Wait,” she managed to say.

His lips were trailing down the side of her face, along her jaw, dissolving her resolve as fast as she could build it up. “Wait…or stop?”

She had no idea.

He bit gently into her lower lip and tugged lightly, making her moan.

“Stop,” she decided.

“Okay but you first.”

She realized she was toying with the button of his jeans, the backs of her fingers brushing against the heat of his flat abs. Crap! Yanking her hands away, she drew a shaky breath. “Maybe we should go back to the not talking thing. That seems to work best for us.”

He ran a finger down the side of her face, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear before pressing his mouth to her temple. “Good plan.” His lips shifted down to her jaw. “No talking. We’ll just-”

“Oh, no,” she choked out with a gasping laugh and slid out from between him and the door. “No talking and no anything else either.” Tugging the hem of her top down, she gave him one last pointed glare for emphasis and pulled open the door before she could change her mind. She rushed out and ran smack into James and Casey.

“Whoa there, killer,” Casey said, steadying her. “How are you on the ice? We could use you on the team.” He looked at the man behind her. “Isn’t that right, Coach?”

Rainey felt Mark’s hand skim up her spine and settle on the nape of her neck. “Absolutely.”

She shivered, then laughed to hide the reaction. “I’ll have my people call your people,” she quipped, then made her escape to the women’s bathroom.

Lena came in while Rainey was still splashing cold water on her face, desperately trying to cool down her overheated, still humming body.

“This is all your fault,” Rainey told her again. “Somehow.”

“Really.” Lena’s gaze narrowed on Rainey’s neck. “And how about the hickey on your neck. Whose fault is that?”

“Oh my God, I have a hickey?”

Lena was grinning wide. “Nah. I was just teasing.”

“Dammit!”

“So does the coach kiss as good as he looks?”

“Yes,” Rainey said miserably.

Lena laughed at her. “Maybe you found him.”

“Found who?”

“You know. Him. Your keeper.”

Rainey shook her head. “No way, not Mark. You know he’s only got endgame in hockey, not women.”

“But maybe…”

“No. No maybe.” Rainey left, then stuck her head back in. “No,” she said again, and shut the door on Lena’s knowing laugh.

HOURS LATER, RAINEY left work and headed home. Halfway there, she made a pit stop at the string of trailers that ran behind the railroad tracks dividing town. Sharee and her mother lived in one of them, towards the back.

No one answered Rainey’s knock. She was just about to leave when Mona, Sharee’s mother, appeared on the walk, still in her cocktail waitress uniform.

When she saw Rainey, she slowed to a stop and sighed. “You again.”

“Hi, Mona.”

“What now? Did Sharee get in another fight while I was at work?”

“No,” Rainey said. “She walked into a door.”

Mona’s lips tightened.

“The last time I came out here,” Rainey said quietly. “You told me that you and Martin were separated.”

“We’re working on things.” Mona’s gaze shifted away. “Look, I’m a single mom with a kid and a crap job, okay? Martin helps-he should help. He’s an okay guy, he’s just stressed, and Sharee’s mouthy.”

By all accounts, Martin wasn’t an okay guy. He was angry and aggressive, and he made Rainey as uncomfortable as hell. “I think he hits her, Mona. If I knew it for sure, I’d report it. And then you might lose her.”

Mona paled. “No.”

“You tell Martin that, okay? Tell him I’ll report him if he doesn’t keep his hands off her.”

Mona hugged herself and shook her head vehemently, and Rainey sighed. The authorities had been called out here no less than five times. But Sharee wouldn’t admit to the abuse, and worse, every time she and Mona were questioned, Martin only got more “stressed.”

“There are places you can go,” Rainey said softly. “Places you can take Sharee and be safe.”

Mona’s face tightened. “We’re fine.”

Rainey just looked at her for a long moment, but in the end there was nothing more she could do. “Will you allow Sharee to stay at my place on the nights you’re working?”

Without answering, Mona went inside.

Rainey went home. She made cookies because that’s what she did when she was stressed-she ate cookies. Then she showered for her date with Kyle. It would be fun, she decided. And she needed fun. She would keep an open mind and stop thinking about Mark. Who knows, maybe Kyle would be The One to finally make her forget Mark altogether.

She heard the knock at precisely six o’clock. She waited for a zing of nerves. It was a first date. There should be nerves. But she felt nothing. She opened her door and went still.

Mark.

Now nerves flooded her. “What are you doing here?”

“We left a few things unfinished,” he said.

“We always leave things unfinished!”

A car pulled up the street. Kyle. Inexplicably frantic, Rainey shoved at Mark’s chest. “You have to go.”

He didn’t budge. “Hmm.”

Hmm? What the hell did that mean? She looked around, considering shoving him into the bushes, but he leaned into her. “Don’t even think about it.” With his hands on her hips, he pushed her inside her town house and shut the door.

“You can’t be here,” she muttered. “I have a date.”

He let go of her to look out the small window alongside the front door, eyes focused on Kyle as he walked up the path. “I want to meet this guy.”

“What? No.”

The doorbell rang, and Mark turned his head to look at her, his eyes two pools of dark chocolate. “You still have shitty taste in men?”

“I- None of your business!”

The bell rang again, and in sheer panic, Rainey pushed Mark behind the door and out of sight, pointing at him to stay as she pasted a smile on her face and opened the door.

Kyle was medium height and build, with wind-tousled brown hair that curled over his collar and green eyes that had a light in them that suggested he might be thinking slightly NC-17 thoughts. Rainey stared at him in shock.

He smiled. “Surprised?”

Uh, yeah. He’d grown up and out, and had definitely lost the buck teeth. Plus he had a look of edge to him, a confidence, a blatant sexuality that shocked her. Kyle Foster had grown up to be a bad boy. “It’s nice to see you,” she said, surprised to find it true.

“Same goes.” He looked her over. “You look good enough to eat.”

From behind the door came a low growl.

Rainey didn’t dare glance over, but she could feel the weight of Mark’s stare. “Let me just grab my purse,” she said quickly.

“What smells so good?” Kyle asked, trying to see past her and inside her place.

“I made chocolate chip cookies earlier.”

“I love chocolate chip cookies,” Kyle said.

Was it her imagination, or did Mark growl again? Oh, God. “Burned them,” she said quickly. Liar, liar, pants on fire. She had a glorious tray of cookies on her counter, to-die-for cookies, cookies that were better than an orgasm, but if she let him in, she’d be forced to introduce him to Mark. “Sorry. If you could just give me a sec.” She shut the door on his face and winced. Then she glared at Mark.

“Let him in,” he said. “You can introduce us.” He said this in the tone the Big Bad Wolf had probably used on Little Red Riding Hood.

She pointed at him. “Shh!” She ran into the kitchen, grabbed her purse and strode past the six-foot-plus dark and annoyingly sexy man still standing in her entryway, throwing off enough attitude to light up a third world country.

“Your top’s too tight,” Mark said.

“No, it’s not.”

“Then your bra’s too thin.”

She stared down at herself. He was right-Nipple City. “Well, if you’d stop crowding me.”

He smiled, dark and dangerous. He had no plans to stop crowding her. “And your jeans,” he said.

“What’s wrong with my jeans?”

“You have a stain on the ass.”

She twisted around first one way, then the other, but saw nothing. “I can’t see it.”

“I can. Not exactly date pants, you know?”

“Fine! Don’t move.” She raced up the stairs and down the hallway to her bedroom, tore off the jeans, ripping through her dresser for another clean pair.

Nada.

Dammit! She yanked open her closet and settled on a short denim skirt, which meant she had to change shoes, which also meant she had to redo her hair. Running back down the stairs, she came to a skidding halt at the bottom.

The front door was opened but Kyle was nowhere to be seen, and neither was his car. Eyes narrowed, she followed a faint sound into her kitchen, where she found Mark leaning back against her counter, Zen-calm, every muscle relaxed…eating her cookies.

“NICE SKIRT YOU’RE almost wearing,” Mark said, and swallowed the last of his cookie. He brushed his fingers off, ignoring the death glare coming at him from the doorway. Rainey had changed out of the sexy jeans and into an even sexier short denim skirt, revealing perfectly toned legs that he wanted to nibble. He wanted to start at her toes and work his way up, up, up past her knees, past her thighs… to the heaven between them.

Something she most definitely wasn’t ready to hear. “You’re good at cookies,” he said. “What else can you cook?”

She crossed her arms, which plumped up her breasts, and he revisited his thought. He wanted to nibble her all over.

Every single inch.

“Where’s my date, Mark?”

He popped another cookie. “Funny thing about that.”

Her eyes darkened, and she leaned against the doorway, arms still crossed as if maybe she didn’t trust herself to come any further into the kitchen. He didn’t know if that was because she wanted to kill him, or kiss him again.

He thought it was probably a good bet that it was the former. When he reached for yet another cookie, she let out a sound of sheer temper and stalked across the room to snatch the plate away from him. “Those are mine.”

Mark was aware that he was known for always being in control, for having a long fuse and rarely losing it, for being notoriously tight with his emotions. Rarely did he find himself in a situation where he wasn’t perfectly at ease and didn’t know exactly what he wanted the outcome to be.

But he was right now. He had no idea what the hell he was doing here.

None.

“Your date had to leave,” he said. “Unexpectedly.”

“Uh-huh. What did you do to him?”

In his world, people never questioned him. And it was a good place to be, his world. Apparently she hadn’t gotten the memo. “Nothing.”

Earlier, in the storage closet at the rec center, he’d stalked her, pressed her against the door. She did the same to him now, but this time her grip on his shirt wasn’t passion. “Tell me, Mark.”

The sound of his name on her tongue did something to him, something it shouldn’t. “He waxes.”

“What?”

“He waxes his body hair,” he said.

She blinked. Paused. “And how did you get close enough to notice that?”

“I wasn’t that close, I have excellent vision. He didn’t have any hair on his arms.”

“He’s a swimmer. So he waxes, so what?”

Yeah, genius, so what? “He had a look in his eye. He was up to no good.”

She gaped at him. “Tell me, was it like staring in a mirror?”

Well, maybe a little. But Mark had taken one look at the guy and seen a player. He’d asked the asshole what his plans were. Kyle had seemed amused by the question but had answered readily enough-candlelit dinner, dancing, capped off with a canyon drive to stargaze…

Bullshit the guy wanted to stargaze. No guy wanted to stargaze. Kyle wanted to get laid. In fact, Mark would bet his million-dollar bonus that the guy had a string of condoms at the ready. “I didn’t like him.”

“You didn’t like him,” Rainey repeated. “And I should care, why?”

“I’m an excellent judge of character.”

She made a sound of disgust. “The last time you scared one of my dates off, I told you to never interfere in my life again.”

He grabbed her as she went to pass by him. “The last time I scared off your date, it was because you were about six inches away from being raped.”

She jerked as if he’d hit her, reminding him of one fact-they’d never talked about that night, about what had happened when he’d finally caught up with her.

Never.

And apparently they weren’t going to do it now either, because she shoved at him hard and he let her go. She turned to her kitchen window, not moving, not speaking, just staring out at the backyard, her eyes clouded with bad memories.

Feeling lower than pond scum, he sighed. “Rainey-”

“Why are you here, Mark?”

“I…” He had no idea.

She turned to face him. “I agreed to go out with Kyle tonight because I’m looking for something. Someone. Or at least I think I am. I’m…not lonely, that’s not the right word. I love my life. But I want someone in it. It’s been a while for me and I’m ready. I want to be in a relationship.”

His gut hurt, and he had no idea why.

Her mouth curved, though the smile didn’t meet her lips. “And I’m guessing by the panic on your face that a relationship is the last thing you’re looking for.”

He wasn’t showing panic. He never showed panic.

“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I made up the panic. God forbid you show an emotion.”

“You think I don’t have emotions?”

“I think you’re miserly with them.” She gave a faint smile. “But I do sense the slightest elevation in your blood pressure.”

Now he rolled his eyes and she let out a low laugh. “Listen, I can’t be like you, Mark, that’s all. I’m not tough and cool as ice in any situation. That’s not me. I want someone to care about me, someone who wants to be with me. Now I’m all dressed up with none of that in sight at the moment, so unless you want to be witness to something as messy as an uncontrolled emotion, you need to go.”

“I would,” he said quietly. “But-”

“But what?”

“I don’t want to.”

At that, she dropped her head between her shoulders and let out a sound that was either another laugh or something far too close to tears for his own comfort. “Mark, you know what broke up our friendship.”

“Yes, you kicked me out of your life.”

She sighed. “I didn’t kick you out of my life. You left to go coach in Ontario, and I…”

“Stopped talking to me.”

“It was temporary-I was mad,” she said. “You remember why.”

He let out a long breath. “Something about me being an interfering asshole.”

“First, you rejected me. Then-”

“You were sixteen!”

“Then,” she went on stubbornly. “You followed me on a date and beat the guy up.”

“It wasn’t a date. He picked you up after you ran out of my place. And in the ten minutes it took me to find you, he had you pinned in his backseat and was pulling off your clothes!”

Remembered humiliation flickered in her eyes. “Okay, so I acted stupid and immature, but I was hurting.”

He blew out a breath and shoved his fingers in his hair. “It wasn’t your fault. What he did to you wasn’t your fault.”

“What he was doing was consensual.”

“You didn’t know what you wanted.”

“I wanted a friend and you turned into a Neanderthal.”

He stared at her incredulously. “Well, what the hell did you want me to do, let him take you? You were a virgin!”

She flushed. “I wanted you to stop interfering as if I couldn’t handle my own problems. I wanted you to listen to me. I wanted sympathy.”

He must have given her a what-the-fuck look because she shook her head.

“I wanted a hug, Mark. I wanted you to hold my hand and tell me I’d find someone else, someone better. I wanted understanding.”

He just continued to stare at her, dumbstruck. Not a single one of those things had ever occurred to him.

The sound that escaped her told him she was just realizing that very fact. Brushing past him, she moved to the front door and held it open. A clear invite for him to get the hell out.

“Rainey-”

“I want to be alone.”

Too damn bad. He slammed the door shut, hauled her up against him, closing his arms around her in a hug.

“It doesn’t count now,” she said stiffly, even as her body relaxed into his and she pressed her face into his shoulder. “Dammit, do you always smell good? That just really pisses me off.”

“You know what pisses me off?” he asked. “That all I want to do is this.” And then he pushed her up against the door and kissed her.