The Player Next Door (11 page)

“Holy shit,” he gasped as he suddenly collapsed onto her. The weight was nice, the feel of him still pulsing inside was even better. And she was grinning from ear to ear.

“Definitely,” she answered. Best sex of her life. She let her eyes drift closed. His face was pressed against her neck, his breath hot against her skin. Eventually it steadied. Eventually while she was still languid beneath him, he pressed into her shoulder. Then he whispered the best post-coital words in the world.

“I closed my eyes.”

She giggled. Her eyes had closed, too, but she wasn’t going to admit it.

Then he gently disentangled himself, sliding to the side. Then there were more moments of clean up and adjustment. He did it. She just lay there with a goofy grin on her face. And then he settled in beside her, tucking her tight to his chest.

“I promise to do better next time,” he said.

“Good,” she answered as she snuggled into his arms. “Because I’ve got some ideas, too…”

She fell asleep to the deep rumble of his laugh.

Chapter Eight

Mike woke to a persistent ache in his shoulder. The pain was enough that it throbbed all the way up to the back of his skull. There were other feelings as well. A warm female body pressed against him, the scent of lemon and sex, and a sweet languor that he hadn’t felt in a long time. But it was the shoulder that bothered him, and probably that pain which pushed him to consciousness at barely after dawn.

He tried to shift positions, but the pain sharpened enough that his eyes shot fully open. And then facts started to pile up in his brain.

Tori was sleeping on his shoulder. She was tucked tight against him to the point that his morning wood was already shifting happily against her bottom. As they were both naked, this could have been a very nice way to wake.

But the shoulder pain was growing exponentially now that he was alert enough to process it. Worse, his arm and fingers as they extended beneath her were numb.

Bad. Bad. Bad.

His hands were his life and he’d just cut off blood flow to them for God only knew how many hours.

His reaction was immediate. He didn’t think about it, he just did it and then apologized afterward.

He jerked his arm out from under her and sat up, waiting through the tingling and weakness as life returned painfully to his hand.

And he cursed the whole time.

“Well that’s a new way to wake up.”

He looked over at Tori, seeing her rosy cheeks, soft sleepy eyes, and bedhead. She was adorable and part of him wanted to try out his returning dexterity on her. But that was the lust-filled part, not the panicking part which dominated right now.

So he turned away and forced himself to mutter a half-surly, “I didn’t mean to wake you.” He shoved out of bed. “I’ll let myself out. You can sleep in.”

“No need,” she said as she pushed herself up to a slouching sit. She matched him perfectly, except she wasn’t rubbing her shoulder. “It’s summer break. I can sleep or not however I want.” Then she gave him a coy smile. “If I want to stay in bed all day—”

He cut her off before she could finish. “I’ve got PT and stuff. Sorry.”

Her gaze cut to where he was massaging his shoulder. “Can I help?”

“No,” he snapped. His hurt arm twitched as he mentally tried to put a leash on his temper. But it was too early in the fucking morning, and she was the reason he was in this position. His shoulder was screwed up because he caught her out of the air. It ached like hot coals because she’d slept on it all night. Who knew what other disaster she might perpetrate in his life?

It wasn’t rational, but he wasn’t in a thinking place right then. So he pulled on his pants one-handed. It was hard, which only made him more pissed off.

Meanwhile, Tori shifted to her knees, completely unconscious about her nudity. He didn’t want to look, but even his angry brain couldn’t resist the sight of the dawn light softening as it stroked her breasts with pale color.

“You’re really upset,” she said softly. Her head tilted to one side and her blond hair slipped down to curtain her shoulder. God, she was beautiful. And in that moment, a choice crystallized before him as stark and clear as if God had put two things in front of him and said, “Pick one.”

On the one hand, he had Tori. She was smart, funny, infinitely interesting and hot enough to boil his brain to mush.

On the other hand, he had his career. The demands of pro basketball were increasing and his body required more maintenance. It was a losing game. He was aging. Injuries came more quickly and healing took longer. There were always younger, faster, stronger men ready to step into his place. Which meant stuff that he could ignore ten years ago were now big deals. And Tori was the biggest deal of all.

He could lose a lot of hours with her. He could take risks with his shoulder, shave off training time, and even blow off a practice or two just to be with her. Hell, he already had in some ways. It’s not like roofing her house was on his list of recommended activities.

Which meant even a summer fling idea was toast. He couldn’t do it and rehab his shoulder.

So there it was: Tori or basketball?

“I’m sorry, Tori. I’ve got to go.”

She nodded, accepting it with calm. “Okay. Want to come over tonight? We still have lots of beer to try.”

He shook his head as he grabbed his shirt off the floor. “Thanks, but no. When I said I have to go, I…”

His voice trailed away because she’d stood up from the bed. Her breasts bounced and her sweet ass was within reach as she grabbed a tee and shrugged it on. He wasted precious moments watching everything jiggle. His morning wood was becoming more insistent, but he just stood there watching. And when she bent over to pull on panties, he broke out in a sweat.

What he wouldn’t give to step up behind her right then and thrust straight into heaven.

Answer: he wouldn’t give up his career.

It seemed like such a small thing. Sex with a hot girl for the summer. But athletics was a game of inches; a pro career was the sum of every single moment spent in training. Or not spent. And he couldn’t afford to let things slide. Even for a summer.

So he backed away from her.

One step, then two while she shimmied into her shorts.

He should have run because a moment later she turned around and smiled at him. The expression was sweet and open. He saw no ulterior motive in her look, no greed or lust or anything. Just a hello and I like you.

He liked her right back.

“I can’t,” he ground out, talking more to his own brain than hers.

“Okay. Not tonight. Tomorrow’s good—”

“It’s not good,” he said, his voice thick, his anxiety ratcheting up another degree. His shoulder pain had eased with the return of blood flow, but the pain throbbed in his mind like a drumbeat. It spelled
doom
over and over until he used it to strengthen his resolve.

“No, Tori,” he said as he finally straightened up to his full height before her. He wasn’t facing her down; he was squaring off with the steady hammer of fear in his brain. “I’m not doing this. I won’t. I have to focus on my career right now.”

“Of course—”

“Good-bye.” Then he turned and walked away. A steady march. One foot, the other foot. Keep moving. This was his life. He wasn’t going to give it up for a piece of ass. No matter how smart, sexy, or fun she was.

...

Tori watched Mike walk away, his body stiff, his hard tones still ringing in her ears. She wasn’t a good judge of character by any means. Not because she couldn’t put together the pieces, but because she usually didn’t care. She didn’t want anyone messing around in her emotions, why would she want to do that to anyone else?

But Mike was someone she wanted to understand, so she put her attention to the question of him. Why was he angry? Why had he left?

She recalled every moment of their interaction this morning and focused on his body actions, not his words. He’d been rubbing his shoulder and flexing his fingers. Okay, so that probably meant he’d been in pain. And since men were usually the less rational of the species, she deduced that he’d taken out his pain on the nearest target: her.

Well, that was disappointing, but very human. Plus, she’d done the very same thing to him yesterday when she’d been angry at her sister, so she could hardly throw stones. And on the plus side, he’d left as soon as he’d realized his bad mood so as to minimize the damage. That was very noble of him.

Next question: what was she going to do about it? When Edward was irritable, she would just ignore him. Eventually, he’d find something else to do other than pick at her. Sadly, she’d spent the last year of their relationship waiting for him to get over his problem and stop harassing her. She didn’t want to repeat that mistake with Mike. That meant she had to address her neighbor’s issue head-on.

What could she do about his damaged shoulder? Short of discovering a mystical healing spell, there really wasn’t much. And though she had a thorough understanding of various magical systems, she sucked at throwing spells. At least the ones she’d tried had never worked. Which left her go-to choice for improving a man’s mood. It was a two-pronged attack which began with making him laugh and ended in sex. Either one usually worked, but in combination, it was a sure-fire approach. Assuming, of course, she cared.

That was the biggie. Having finally ditched an unproductive relationship with Edward, did she want to start charming another man just for the hot sex?

Yes. Because it had been really, really hot sex. So good she hadn’t even thought it was possible. Which meant she was loath to give it up the morning after discovering it.

Ergo, she was willing to put some effort into charming Mike out of his bad mood. But how?

Stripping naked in front of him wasn’t going to work. After all, she’d been naked this morning, and he’d still made a beeline out the door. And since she didn’t have any other seduction tricks in her arsenal, she decided to focus on making him laugh.

Well that was easy. Everyone thought it hysterically funny when she proved herself to be clueless. She wouldn’t purposely make any mistakes. She detested women who hid their intelligence just to soothe a man, but she didn’t have to pretend anything. She was hopelessly out of her depth when it came to renovating her house. She just hadn’t cared because she’d decided to have at it anyway. So all she had to do was keep on as she’d been going and not hide her mistakes from Mike.

Easy peezy.

In fact, she’d start right now on her roof.

She was up there within a half hour, making sure to wear tight shorts and an easily stripped away crop top. She tied herself off, even cleared away the debris in her backyard so nothing would trip him up as he ran to her rescue. Then she started hammering.

And she did not make a mistake.

Well, hell. She was pretty damned impressed with herself, even as she was sad that Mike hadn’t come around to save her from idiocy.

No problem. There was always that afternoon. Surely he would run out to save her from dehydration or something.

Nope. Which was fine because she had plenty of water. She also had good footing so she never fell off the roof. Not to mention the smarts to rig a pulley system to help her haul those damned tiles up to her roof.

Wasn’t she clever? She didn’t need any man to come rescue her.

Which ended up depressing her a bit since it would have been lots more fun roofing with someone to talk to. Someone who laughed at her jokes and was sexy as hell with his shirt off. Or on, for that matter.

Damn it. Why hadn’t she thanked him for helping her on the roof? Maybe joined him up here yesterday? It certainly would have made the sweltering heat and the constant banging easier to deal with. Not to mention the shared shower they could take as a reward when they were done.

Hell.

For the first time in her life, she really wanted a man to help her accomplish something. Not because she needed it, but because it would be more fun to do it together.

Too bad Mike seemed to have misplaced his hero cape.

Now what?

Chapter Nine

“And do you know what she did yesterday? I swear to God I don’t know what to do with her.”

Joey narrowed his eyes, his gaze fixed on Mike’s arm as they went through some basic shoulder stretches. “Let me guess, she roofed her house.”

“No. Well, yes, but she busted her gutters while rigging a pulley system to haul up the roofing tiles.”

Joey gently eased Mike’s arm down, then slowly pushed it backward to test the resistance. “I thought she was a philosophy professor. ‘Ivory tower flake’ were your exact words.”

“She is.”

“Rigging a pulley system doesn’t sound—”

“She’s smart, okay? That’s not the point.”

Joey snorted. “Smart, sexy, roofs her own house—”

“And busts the gutters.”

“Inexperienced.” Joey gestured to Mike to start his regular exercises. “Sounds like a real loser.” His tone indicated anything but. “Tell you what, how about during your next barbecue, I mosey over to this gorgeous blonde loser and take her off your hands?”

Mike’s right side was aching like the devil, but there was nothing wrong with his left side as he accidentally dropped a barbell on Joey’s foot. Well, he tried. Sadly, the man was quick on his feet.

“Tori needs you like she needs a hole in the head.”

Joey just chuckled. “Well if you don’t want her…”

“I didn’t say that!” Except he had. Repeatedly. And he was still waiting for his dick to get the message. “Look, just because I’m not going to date her doesn’t mean I want her set up with a jerk like you.”

“Hey!”

“Look asshole, you use ’em and lose ’em faster than anyone I know. And considering the guys I know? That puts you deeply in asshole territory.”

“I can’t help it if there’re lots of them who want what only I can give.”

Mike looked for another barbell, but there wasn’t one close enough to grab. Besides, Joey was right. The women did flock to his dark good looks and I’m-a-jerk air of aloof charm. It made no sense, but basketball bunnies rarely did. His best guess was that they all thought they would be the one to break through to the man’s guarded heart. Wasn’t going to happen. As far as he could tell, the man only cared about money. Hence his job as personal trainer to the mega-rich. Good thing he was great at it.