Love of the Game (7 page)

She lifted a hand to push her hair from her eyes, and startled when her fingers grazed her temple and discovered it was tender to the touch. Blood mixed with water trickled down her palm, and the smell of chlorine burned her nose.

The sight of her blood sent her head reeling and her stomach lurching. She lost her grip on the ladder and slipped backward.

But Axel had hold of her. “Steady. Steady.” His breath was warm on her skin. “You okay?”

“A little dizzy,” she admitted. “What happened?”

He kept his arm latched around her waist. He peered at her temple. “Looks like you scraped the side of your head against the cement on the way down.”

“Oh,” she murmured, annoyed at the wooziness, and alarmed at how rubbery her limbs felt. “Okay.”

In order to keep her steady, Axel pressed his hip against her butt for stability, and boosted her up the slippery ladder. Closing her eyes against the dizziness, she managed to belly flop onto the edge of the pool.

Grunted.

Rolled over onto her back.

Surprised at how heavily she was breathing, Kasha opened her eyes, her long wet hair clinging to her body like seaweed, and looked up into Axel's handsome face.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded. Or thought she did, but he looked so concerned that she wondered if she just imagined that she nodded.

“Kasha?” His tone was sharp, anxious. “Can you hear me?”

Uh-huh. She moistened her lips to tell him she was fine, but she was so mesmerized by those smoldering dark chocolate eyes of his, she couldn't focus.

She shivered, cold despite the heat of the direct sun. “F . . . f . . . fine.”

“You don't look fine.” He swore under his breath. “I shouldn't have played catch with you.”

“It was my fa . . . fa . . . fault.” A fresh shiver shook her spine.

“You're still bleeding,” he said. “C'mon, we've got to get you cleaned up.” He got to his feet, extended a hand to hoist her up.

She teetered as blood rushed to her feet and her head buzzed.

“Whoa there.” He put a hand to her back. “Are you—”

“Fine,” she said, struggling to get control of herself. “Stop asking.”

His lips pressed into a line that said,
Not believing you for a second
, and he took command, encircling her wrist with his thumb and forefinger and hauling her toward the house. Her wet shoes squished and squeaked against the walkway.

“Wait,” she said when they reached the back door.

“What?” he snorted.

“I can't go dripping water all over Rowdy and Breeanne's hardwood floors.”

“Don't worry, I'll clean it up later. We need to attend to that wound.”

She balked, digging in as she tried to kick off her sneakers on the welcome mat. “Wait, wait. Hang on.”

He snorted, but stopped long enough to let her
shed her shoes, opening the sliding glass door while he waited.

His feet were bare. He'd been wearing flip-flops, and he'd lost them somewhere along the way. His shorts were plastered against his skin, molding to the hard angles of his body, and through the wet material she could see the outlines of his impressive male package.

Oh holy guacamole.

She gulped. What was wrong with her?

“You've lost color in your face,” he said. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, her bare feet sinking into the nubby rubber mat, although she was feeling hot, and there was that darned dizziness.

“Kasha?” Concern tinged his voice.

She swayed. “Uh-huh.”

“You're about to pass out.”

“No, I . . .” She stumbled.

He caught her, swung her up into his arms.

“No, wait,” she said, fighting against the wooziness. “Put me down.”

“Stop struggling or I'll drop you.”

“Put me down.”

“Nope.” He hefted her up in his arms, and carried her over the threshold.

No guy had ever picked her up, much less carried her anywhere. “I'm too big for this.”

“I'm bigger.”

He was quite large, all sinew and muscles. The man made her feel petite, and that was a completely novel sensation. She probably shouldn't be noticing that right now. Not when his arms were cradling her backside, and he smelled so good and she was feeling a little spacey.

“Okay,” she said. “Let's get this over with.”

He carried her into the bathroom, set her down on the closed toilet lid, reached for a large bath towel from the rack, and bent over her to wrap it around her shivering body.

It was just the two of them in a small, enclosed space. She looked up as he raised his head and they were eye to eye. Nose to nose. Lip to lip. Her mind raced down uncharted terrains of lust and panic.

Axel leaned in, almost as if drawn by a strong magnet, pulling him toward her. Kasha felt her mouth soften and round of its own accord.

Instinct.

Nature.

His chest was heaving just as hard as hers, and he was as wet as she was and his hair was stuck to the side of his head in a totally adorable way.

And Kasha thought crazily,
If he doesn't kiss me first, I'm going to kiss him.

K
asha's lips were so close, so hot and tempting, that for one insane second Axel forgot that she was shivering and that blood was trickling down her temple and that they were in a bathroom, for chrissakes.

As if hypnotized, he couldn't stop staring at her, nor could he stop thinking,
I want to kiss her. Hard. Long. Hot.

He could already taste them, those lips. Smell the sweet tanginess of her lemon-drop breath. He ached to press his mouth to hers, explore the contours, shape, and outline. Nibble and taste and tease.

Her dark-eyed gaze was pinned on him, and her breathing was so shallow, he wasn't sure she was breathing at all. Was the wound on her head more than a simple scrape? Had she actually struck the edge of the pool? Could she have a concussion?

Then again, he was the one entranced. Maybe he'd hit his head.

All he would have to do in order to kiss her would be to lean forward by an inch and . . . Compelled, he leaned in, and a stream of water drizzled from his hair onto her nose.

She didn't react.

Axel shook himself, stepped back, and snapped his fingers in front of her face. “You still with me?”

“Here,” she croaked in a deep-throated voice that sounded damn sexy.

Feeling like a jackass for his caveman thoughts, Axel tacked on an easy smile. “You all right?”

“Yes, yes.” She sounded irritated.

He studied her a minute, not knowing what to tackle first, getting her out of wet clothes or attending to her wound. She shivered again, and her nipples beaded up so hard, he could see them through her bra, shirt, and the towel he'd draped around her shoulders.

The bleeding had stopped, and there wasn't a knot forming. Dry clothes first. First aid second.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

“What?” she asked on a soft gasp.

“Not with me standing here,” he amended. “I'm going. Leaving.” He gestured toward the door. “To take off my clothes. Alone. In the other room.”

She stared at him.

He was overexplaining, but he couldn't seem to stop, not when she was looking at him like that. “And then I'll get dressed and come back with something for you to wear. I saw some chick clothes in the front hall closet.”

Just shut the hell up, Richmond.

“Chick clothes?” She sounded amused.

“You know, dresses and lace and stuff. I don't know who they belong to . . .”

“My sister Breeanne.”

“Oh yeah, Rowdy's wife.”

Kasha's eyes glittered. She seemed to enjoy throwing him off his game. “So I'm supposed to sit here naked and just wait for you to come back?”

Fresh images of Kasha naked popped into his brain. “Um . . . here are more towels.” He took a stack from underneath the cabinet, set them on the counter. “I'll be right back.”

He rushed out of the bathroom, and he could have sworn he heard her chuckle. He let out a quick breath, and clambered upstairs. He changed and went to the hall closet where he'd seen women's clothing. He grabbed a blue flowered sundress and hurried to the downstairs bathroom where he'd left Kasha.

Heart thumping erratically, he knocked on the door with two knuckles. “You decent?”

“Depends on what you mean by decent.”

He opened the door a crack, shoved the dress through it.

“No underwear?” she asked.

“Sorry. I didn't think about it. I'll let you handle that after I tend to your head wound.”

“I can dress my own wound. I'm in the medical professional.”

“Not up for discussion. I'm going after the first aid kit, and when I get back I'm coming in.”

“Not if I lock the door.”

“Then how will you dress the wound? There's no medical supplies in that bathroom.”

“Just go get the kit.” She huffed.

Grinning, he went after the kit, and when he returned he announced, “Ready or not, I'm coming in.”

He opened the door to find her trying to zip up the back of the blue dress. Her hair was wrapped up in a towel to keep her wet hair off her shoulders. She looked gorgeous in blue, and cute as all get-out with her hair in a towel turban.

The dress fit snug across the breasts. Kasha's younger sister was not as well endowed as Kasha, nor was she as tall. The hem hit her high mid-thigh, when on her sister it would have been knee-length.

Her wet clothes, bra and panties included, were draped over the towel rack inside the shower. No
underwear. Beneath that thin cotton dress, she was naked.

“Here,” he said, moving inside, setting the first aid kit on the vanity and trying his best not to think about her nakedness. “Turn around.”

She squirmed as if to get away, but there was nowhere to go. The wall was in front of her, and he was behind her. She chuffed, still struggling with the zipper.

“Turn around,” he commanded.

She looked like she wanted to argue, but then she slowly pivoted to face the wall, exposing her back to him.

He put a hand to her waist.

She wriggled away.

“Hold still.”

She grunted, shook her head, but finally stopped moving. Good thing he couldn't see her face. He had a feeling she was glaring bullets.

He tugged on the bottom of the zipper with one hand, stretching the material taut, and reached up with the other to grab the zipper's tongue. His fingertips touched her bare skin, and he was happy to discover she was warmer. He finished zipping her up, and patted her shoulder. “All set.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

“Now sit back down.”

“If you're going to insist on bandaging me up, I'd rather stand.”

“Woman,” he said, “you are stubborn as the devil.”

Kasha grinned and he realized with a start that it was the first time he had seen an honest-to-goodness heartfelt smile on her face.

It was an electrical smile that transformed her
from aloof, exotic goddess to playful girl next door. She hid a lot from the world. Her eyes widened and her cheeks rounded and her chin dissolved into a sexy dimple.

“Now that's a treasure,” he said.

“What?”

“That rare grin.”

“What do you mean? I smile all the time.”

“Not like that. Not from the heart. Not like you really mean it.”

“What can I say? I enjoy frustrating you.”

He grinned right back. He'd been the one to make her smile like that. “Watch out, or I'll have to change your nickname from Sphinx to Smiley.”

“Don't you dare,” she said. “I've grown quite fond of Sphinx.”

“You like being mysterious.”

She lifted a shoulder as the smile slipped away, but that amazing grin lingered in his mind, a forever image he could call up in the future whenever he thought of her. “Not really. I'm just not a big talker or a fan of expressing my every emotion.”

“Huh? Most women love dissecting their feelings. Then again . . .” He met her gaze. “There's nothing usual or ordinary about you.”

“Are you saying I'm not feminine?”

“Not at all. You're a deep thinker who doesn't waste time on self-pity or self-indulgences.”

“Oh, I don't know about that,” she mused, her voice taking on a sultry sexiness. “I've been known to take a bubble bath while eating Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream straight from the carton. That's pretty self-indulgent.”

Terrific. Now he had a persistent mental vision of Kasha in a claw-footed bathtub surrounded by bub
bles while she licked melting ice cream off her lips, unbraided hair falling around her like a velvet curtain. He imagined crawling into the bath with her, and his body hardened all over again.

Ah hell. This would be so much easier if she wasn't so incredibly hot. He couldn't believe she wasn't married. What was wrong with the guys in this town?

Reining in his urges, he opened up the first aid kit, took out an antiseptic wipe to clean the area at her right temple. With her hair wrapped up in the towel and out of the way, it was easier to see the wound. He moved closer, used the wipe to dab at the wound.

She clenched her teeth, hissed in a breath.

“Sorry,” he said. “But it has to be done.”

“I'm not a very good patient.”

“No?” He gasped, feigning shock. “I would never have guessed.”

She stuck out her tongue at him, a sweet, sexy pink tongue that disarmed him completely.

Holy shit, he was in trouble.

Carefully, Axel cleaned the wound. No swelling, or immediate bruising, just a nasty scrape. Dylan had gotten plenty of skinned knees and elbows and he knew what to do.

Kasha lowered her eyelids and murmured, “You're surprisingly gentle.”

“Surprisingly? What? I can't be gentle because I'm a big guy?”

“It's not only your size, it's the sheer force of your personality. You're kind of overwhelming.”

“And yet you don't seem overwhelmed.”

“I didn't say I was overwhelmed. I said you were overwhelming.”

“Immune to my charms, huh?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why is that?”

Kasha rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Does every woman in the world have to fall all over you? Is your ego that big?”

“Are you trying to deny this spark we've got going on here?” He quirked up one corner of his mouth in a devilish grin that always worked.

“Are you trying to fan it?”

“C'mon, you know we've got chemistry.”

“Explosions have chemistry; that's not a ringing endorsement.”

“What's wrong with explosions?”

“They destroy things.”

“Ah,” he teased, “but what a way to go.”

“No!” She barked so harshly, his smile vanished. Her hands were trembling and her eyes went dark. “It's a terrible, terrible way to go.”

Whoa. He'd never seen her like this—anxious, angry, aggressive. Guilt flooded him. Had she lost someone close to her in an explosion? Crap, what if someone she loved had died in an explosive way. Damn his big mouth.

“Kasha . . . I . . . I didn't mean . . . I didn't realize . . .” He jammed a hand through his hair. “I'm such a dumb ass.”

“Gotcha,” she said lightly, as if she'd been joking all along, but her hands were trembling, and she couldn't completely bury the fear in her eyes.

“Whew,” he said pretending to be relieved, but still worried by what he'd seen. She had demons he knew nothing about.
So do you, buddy, so do you.
“The truth is, I don't feel sparks like this often. It's hard not to fan it.”

“I don't believe for a second that you don't feel like this on a regular basis. You must get tons of women
throwing themselves at you. My brothers-in-law are ballplayers. I've seen the groupies that hang around the bullpen. I'm not an idiot.”

“Just because there's a buffet doesn't mean I eat junk food.”

“Rrright. I'm certain if you put your mind, and that deadly wink of yours, to it, that you could charm the panties off just about any woman you wanted.”

He laughed.

“Something I said tickle your funny bone?”

“When I was a teenager I developed this eye tic that went into hyperdrive whenever I got nervous. And when you're a sixteen-year-old boy, asking a girl out is plenty nerve-wracking. My eye would start hopping and twitching and the girls thought I was weird and avoided me. Of course that made me more nervous, which in turn led to more eye twitching.”

“Vicious cycle.”

“Yeah.”

“So what happened?”

“My mother hauled me to a doctor who said all the energy drinks I was downing in order to keep up hours and hours of baseball practice was causing the tic. Mom didn't know I was drinking them, and she gave me an earful. I gave up Red Bull and the twitching stopped.”

“And girls have been lining up ever since.”

“Pretty much.” He chuckled again, brushing back a strand of her hair that had come loose from the towel, tucking it behind her ear. The touch, her skin, the intimacy of the small room, all served as a solid thump to his chest.

“Are you finished cleaning that yet?” she murmured.

“Time for ointment, and adhesive bandage.”

“I can take it from here.”

“You could,” he agreed. “But I'm already doing it, so you might as well let me finish.” He reached into the first aid kit for the antibacterial ointment, and when he turned back toward her, tube in hand, he couldn't help noticing the imprint of her nipples straining through the material of her dress.

For chrissakes, Richmond, stop looking down. Keep your eyes on her face.

Kasha seemed keen on not looking at him either. She stared over his shoulder as if fascinated by the seascape painting on the wall behind him.

He put a small dollop of ointment onto a cotton swab, touched it to her temple.

She flinched.

He took hold of her chin with a thumb and forefinger. “Hold still. It will be over in a sec.”

“That's what she said,” Kasha deadpanned.

Chuckling, Axel shook his head. “You look all serious and quiet and then you drop these little humor bombs so unexpected that they sail over most people's heads.”

“But not yours.”

He guided her face toward his until she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “Not mine.”

She held his stare without the ghost of a grin, joked, “That's what she said.”

Damn but he liked her. A lot. More than he'd liked anyone in a long time. Why did she have to be his physical therapist? “You're a sly one, Kasha Carlyle.”

She looked amused, and didn't deny it. “My mother calls it clever.”

“It's always the quiet ones.”

“Hmm,” she said. “That's a generalization if I ever heard one.”

“Why are you so quiet?” he asked, unwrapping the adhesive bandage.

“I've discovered that you can learn more by keeping your ears open and your mouth shut.