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He cupped her face in his hands. They were large and surprisingly smooth against her skin. He tipped her head back slightly so that their eyes met and he looked into hers with an intensity that made her shiver. What was he looking for?
“No bribe needed,” he said, lowering his head and kissing her.
* * *
She smelled of some sweet flowery perfume and the sea. Dinner had been interesting. It had changed something that he didn’t think could ever be changed and now she was being so sweet. Telling him everything he needed to do to get what he wanted.
Just be smooth, he thought. But then he heard his assistant Asia’s voice in his head. Don’t be a douche.
He rubbed his thumb over Ferrin’s bottom lip. Her breath came out in a rush. Tiny trembles coursed through her body, and if he weren’t touching her, standing this close to her, he wouldn’t have known it.
There she was again, the shy woman he’d met at the coach’s house. Not the feisty woman who had boldly gone to dinner with an infamous football player. It was the contradictions that drew him. He knew that.
He hated things that were easy to pigeonhole.
“Are you kissing me or not?” she said.
He laughed.
“I am... I just don’t want to make the wrong move. My conscience—”
“I thought you were a player. I bet you blow through women like they are disposable tissues.”
“You’re not disposable, are you?” he asked. He knew she wasn’t. “You just changed the dynamic between us. You don’t want to bribe me into a relationship and I need to make damned sure I don’t take the easy path. That’s what got me into trouble the last time.”
She took a few steps away from him and began walking back toward the restaurant and her car. He knew he’d screwed up. He had a gift for it.
He took two steps toward her and caught her in his arms, softly, gently, the way he would a pass that was just out of reach. He cradled her softly and spun her, lifting her off her feet.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing a mistake,” he said.
He had to stop thinking.
Hadn’t Coach been the one to say that the only way to improve his game was to listen to his instincts?
He brought his mouth down on hers, not hard, because he had some self-control left. But softly. He rubbed her lips with his and tasted the coffee she’d drunk after dinner as she opened her mouth.
She twined her arms around his neck and tilted her head to the side, and suddenly he wasn’t worrying about the mistakes he’d made or the reasons why he was kissing her.
He couldn’t not kiss Ferrin. She was everything that he wanted and nothing that he felt he could allow himself to have. For the first time since Stacia...he felt something for a woman. Maybe it was the fact that Kingsley had settled down with Gabi de la Cruz or maybe—God, please—it was that he was close to finding out what had really happened to Stacia.
Maybe it was his usual need to conquer or maybe it was something more. Only time would tell.
Right now he didn’t need to know anything other than how soft and cold Ferrin’s fingers felt against the side of his face. How the way she kept running her fingertip over his light beard sent tingles down his neck and chest and straight to his groin.
How she softened against him and let him take all of her weight as the kiss deepened. He pulled his head back and looked down at her. Her lips were parted, her eyes half-closed, and there was a slight flush on her creamy skin.
He could push a little more right now. It wouldn’t take much for either of them to fall into bed together, but he wanted more than one night. He knew games were won by plays and downs. Ten yards at a time.
Sometimes faking out the other team was the way to gain more yards.
He set her on her feet. Tangled his hands in that thick gorgeous hair of hers and kissed her again even though he had decided not to. But really, what man could resist her, with her swollen lips and her sweet face looking up at him as if she wanted...well, what he wanted.
Damn.
Things just got complicated.
He couldn’t control himself around her.
When the hell had that happened? He’d always been a man of control. But with Ferrin...
He stepped away from her, turned his back to her and stared out at the sea with his hands on his hips. It had been a long six months since he’d had a lover...maybe that was it.
Please let that be it. The reason why he was having a hard time resisting her. A hard time not going back to her and scooping her up in his arms, carrying her someplace semiprivate and making damned sure that she didn’t lose that look in her eyes.
But he couldn’t.
Ten yards at a time.
Damn.
These ten yards hurt.
“Hunter?”
“I just don’t want to be that guy.”
“What guy?” she asked, walking over to him.
He noticed the strand of her hair that brushed over her swollen lips and wanted to touch it. Maybe wrap it around his fingers. But he knew if he touched her again he wouldn’t stop.
“The one you think I am,” he said. “The bad boy NFL player who has a different woman every week. I want to be more.”
“Well, that guy, the player, probably wouldn’t be here with me. Already things are different,” she said. “It must be hard for you to let your guard down.”
“It is. And I want something from you, Ferrin. Despite the money and the silver spoon upbringing, I’m the kind of person who isn’t above using whatever means I have to get what I want. I want to be better than that with you. But I’m not sure that I can resist the temptation of you.”
“I’m a temptation?”
“Dammit, woman.”
“Sorry, I’m not going to apologize for that. I’ve never been the type of woman to tempt a man or to make him want to be better.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he said.
“I’m invisible, Hunter.”
Never.
Three (#ulink_900fca96-494b-564d-ac85-212758024d1c)
In the clear light of day, waking up alone in his bed, Hunter wished he’d just brought Ferrin home with him last night. He rolled over, punching the pillow next to him, and then forced himself up and out of bed.
He was working a plan. He dropped to the floor and did fifty push-ups. His dad had said that staying focused was the only way to move past the tragedy. That’s what his family referred to Stacia’s death as. He knew they meant well.
They thought he and King should leave the matter in the past, but both of them knew they couldn’t. He finished his push-ups, got dressed for running and dialed King’s number as he went down the stairs.
“Dude, it’s early.”
“But I know Conner had you up early.” Kingsley’s son was two so he didn’t sleep late. There had even been times when Hunter had been woken by the kid, who also happened to be his godson. They were close and since Kingsley traveled so much, Conner had learned to use his iPad to FaceTime Hunter. Conner felt he could call at all hours to tell Hunter things such as when he read a new book at bedtime or saw something cool in the night sky.
“He did. That’s why I’m complaining. Just got him off to his playdate and Gabi and I are finally alone.”
Hunter laughed. “Sorry, dude. I’ll keep this short. Coach has had two strokes and a heart attack. He wouldn’t really talk to me or give me permission to go through his stuff. I’m working another angle.”
“What angle?”
“Coach’s daughter.”
“Coach has a daughter?”
“Yeah. She’s...smart and funny.”
“Pretty?”
Pretty? “She’s got eyes the color of the water around Aruba—remember that old wreck we went scuba diving in?”
“Yes.”
“Well, her eyes are that color.”
“Dang, Hunter, you sound—”
“Like an idiot,” he said. “I know. But she’s different, King. Not what I expected.”
“So you’re working her to get to the files?”
Was he? He had a plan. Seduce her and get what he wanted. Last night the plan had been screwed up by the wine and her defiant attitude in eating with him while gossips looked on. But this morning he was back on track.
“Yeah. It’s complicated, though.”
“Women always are. You want me to talk to her. That way you don’t have—”
“No. I’ll do this. When have I ever asked you to do anything for me?”
“Never. We each carry our own weight but we’re teammates. We’re like brothers, Hunter. I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks, King. Same. I got this,” he said. “I’m going for a run and then...how do you feel about hosting Ferrin and me for dinner?”
“Why?”
“I want her to know you and me. To understand that we’re not asking for the files for any reason other than to clear our names.”
“Okay. I’ll check with Gabi and let you know when we can do it.”
He hung up with King and went for his run. The mountain paths he ran on out here in California were very different from the “hills” near where he’d grown up in Texas. Back home, they had gently rolling slopes; he never used to strain when he went uphill the way he did here.
He rounded the last bend and ran up to his front door past a car he didn’t recognize. He stopped short on the bottom step that led to his porch. His interior designer had furnished the patio with two large California cedar deck chairs.
Ferrin sat in one of them. She had a foam cup in one hand, her sunglasses were pushed up on her head and she had her legs delicately crossed. She wore a pair of faded jeans—they looked soft. She had on a pair of flip-flops and her painted toenails were a deep red color.
“Hello.”
“Morning,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind but I thought maybe we could spend the day together.”
He ran through his schedule in his head. He had a meeting with his assistant this morning and a fundraising briefing in the afternoon with a local small-town peewee football league that he was sponsoring. They needed gear for the league.
“I’ve got a couple meetings, but otherwise I’m free,” he said. “Want to come inside? We can figure this out.”
“You work?”
He gave her a look over his shoulder. “My dad would disagree because I’m not out on the ranch helping him. But yeah, I work.”
“What do you do?”
“I run a foundation that encourages kids to participate in sports and funds sporting groups in low-income areas. Trying to level the playing field.”
“Wow,” she said. “I had no idea.”
“I know. My involvement in the foundation is low-key. It’s easier to give away the money if we don’t associate me with it.”
“That’s not fair. You were cleared of any wrongdoing back in college. I’d think that having a former NFL player would be something they’d publicize.”
“But that’s not how the world sees it,” he said, unlocking the door. Still, his work with the foundation made him feel a little less empty after everything that had happened surrounding Stacia’s death. “You coming in? You can wait on the deck in the back or in the kitchen while I take a quick shower.”
“I’ll wait on the deck. I like being outside. We don’t have to do this today,” she said.
“I want to. Spending the day with you is what we need.”
“We?”
“Yes, so you can trust that I’m not going to do something to hurt your dad. And so that I can remember the man I used to be.”
He went up the stairs two at a time. In the shower he pretended that her presence in his home fit his plan, but she’d thrown him. She was a linebacker he’d missed when he was running his route, and though she seemed like a lightweight, she was capable of bringing him down before he reached the end zone.
* * *
