Authors: Robin Kaye
Fisher smiled and handed her water. “Drink half of this. Slowly. It will hold you until we can get some electrolytes into you. It’ll help deal with the lactic acid buildup.”
“Yes, doctor.” Okay, so she was being a smart-ass, but she couldn’t help it. Pain made her cranky—although what Andrew called it was not so generous. She didn’t know what the hell Fisher did with his time, but if he ever wanted to get a real job, he’d make a great masseur.
Fisher gave her ass a pat and smirked. He had the kind of smirk that pissed her off and turned her on at the same time. The pissed-off part she attributed to her crankiness. The turned-on part she’d much rather forget—along with the early morning sex dream, and the déjà vu thing, and Fisher’s brush over home plate. God, it was a sexually frustrating hat trick. When he turned away, she found herself ogling his ass again. She’d be better off just pouring the whole water bottle over her head.
He returned a minute later with her purse thrown over his shoulder, bent down beside her, and before she could figure out what he was up to, picked her up.
Jessie let out a yelp and ended up spilling the rest of her water all over them. Her T-shirt clung to her sports bra, and the girls stood at attention. “What do you think you’re doing?” She pulled her wet shirt off her skin and tried to think straight. Not an easy thing to do when his hand rested just below her very wet, very cold breast, while she clung to him, her arm wrapped around his neck.
“I’m putting you in the car.”
“I’m not a piece of luggage. I can walk.”
“No, you can hop. I imagine it would be fun to watch, but this”—he gave her a squeeze—“satisfies my latent caveman tendencies. It’s a win-win.”
“I’m driving.”
“It’s a stick, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So… your left hamstring is not going to appreciate having to be on and off the clutch. I’ll drive.”
The man had skills. He could carry her after a hard run, open the door to her Mini Cooper, and set her in the seat without decapitating her. Fisher dropped her purse in her lap and closed the door, while she dug out her keys. He also drove like a race car driver. In less than a minute, they were pulling into the driveway of a clinker-brick craftsman cottage. “It’s beautiful.” There were flowers everywhere. “Are you a gardener?” That would explain his tan and his muscles.
“Nah, my mom did all this. She enjoys it.”
When he carried her through the front door, any hope she had that he didn’t live with his mother was dashed. Too bad, she was beginning to question her initial impression of him. The place had all the touches of a woman’s home. A mirror by the front door, a table below it to put a purse on, a soft throw over the back of the couch to curl up in, and a cozy armchair beneath a reading lamp close to the fireplace. This place was definitely not a bachelor pad.
“Do you want to put on a bathing suit or just soak in your running shorts? I know there are a few suits fresh out of the wash.”
“I’m not going to wear one of your girlfriends’ bathing suits.”
He stopped in the middle of the hall. “I thought we cleared that up. I don’t have a girlfriend. The suits are my little sister’s. She comes by and uses the hot tub whenever she wants.”
Okay, sure. She believed him. After all, it must be awkward having women over when you live with your mother.
He carried her into the kitchen, set her down on the counter, and grabbed a banana off the bunch hanging on a strange looking rack. He tossed it to her before opening the refrigerator. “Orange or lemon lime? I think I might have a blue one in here too.” He leaned into the refrigerator, and Jessie avoided staring at his ass again.
“Orange, please.” The blue was her favorite, but for some reason she didn’t want to have a blue tongue and lips around him. She peeled the banana, which didn’t help her stop thinking about sex, and took a bite. She was determined to look at anything that wasn’t part of Fisher. The kitchen was immaculate. Hers was clean, probably because she never did anything but reheat in it, but this kitchen literally sparkled. The sink shined like a car on the showroom floor for crying out loud. It wasn’t as if the kitchen didn’t look used—it did. It just looked used by a neat freak. There were no piles of junk mail, no odds and ends lying around the countertops. Heck, there weren’t even any grocery bags stuffed between the wicked cool fridge and the cabinets beside it. It was like a freakin’
Martha
Stewart
Living
kitchen.
Spices lined one wall on a stainless steel rack Jessie could swear she’d seen the last time she grabbed a quick bite at Dean and DeLuca in the city. Fisher’s mom must be one hell of a cook if she used even a quarter of the spices on the rack. Jessie hadn’t heard of half of them.
Fisher cracked the top of the Gatorade, traded it for the banana peel, and threw it in a porcelain crock by the sink.
“What’s that? The world’s smallest garbage can?”
“It’s for the compost pile. My mom’s garden loves it. Come on.” He helped her off the counter.
Surprisingly, her leg felt a lot better. She didn’t know if it was the banana, the Gatorade, or the massage that did the trick. She really didn’t care, but the next time she hit the Albertsons, she was definitely going to stock up on the two she could buy there.
“A nice soak and a couple of Motrin, and you should be back to normal in a few days.” Fisher kicked off his running shoes and carried them back toward the front of the house.
“You mean a few hours.” Jessie spoke to his retreating back. “I have a tennis date at ten.”
Fisher dropped his shoes by the door. “At ten this morning? No way. It’s almost eight-thirty now.”
“I don’t want to miss it.” She took a step and then toed off her shoes. “I’ll be fine after a soak in your hot tub. I’m feeling better already.”
Fisher grumbled something—she didn’t know what. The scary expression on his face and the tension she saw in his shoulders as she followed him down the hall, toward the back of the house, was enough to tell her he was not happy with her declaration.
Too bad. She’d never missed a game before. Besides, she wasn’t stupid—well okay, so she occasionally did not-so-smart things like pushing herself and him to see who would fail first. Still, she’d learned her lesson. She was not the bionic woman, and she was really not into pain. She’d take it easy and be careful.
He grabbed a few towels out of a wonderfully organized linen closet—yeah, definitely an OCD woman lived here—before stomping into a man cave. It had a huge flat-screen TV that took up an entire wall. Damn, she’d give her eyeteeth to watch a game on that behemoth. A computer, Xbox, and a Wii, rounded out the toys. Movies, games, and music all in alphabetical order, took up most of another wall. A deep brown leather couch, love seat, and chair provided seating with mission-style tables that you could set a drink or your feet on. The ceiling was dotted with recessed lighting, and Frank Lloyd Wright–inspired table lamps finished the room off, adding a golden glow.
A beautiful Navajo rug hung over the stone fireplace, and a larger version of the same rug covered the uneven, walnut hardwood floor. The walls were painted a rich maroon, and the windows were covered with blackout shades. Since the room faced due west, she figured they were a necessity if you wanted to watch TV in the late afternoon.
Fisher opened the French doors and stepped onto a deck sprinkled with clay pots overflowing with flowers and surrounded by gardens. He pulled off the cover of a large Jacuzzi hot tub that had to seat five or six adults. While he was busy, Jessie pulled off her T-shirt and running shorts. Heck, she had a sports bra and running underwear that covered her better than her racing bikini. She thought about soaking in her T-shirt and shorts, but she wasn’t about to sit on her leather car seats in chlorine-soaked clothes.
***
Fisher turned around to say something—what he couldn’t remember—when he saw Jessica wearing what looked like the world’s hottest bikini. Not that the suit was anything extraordinary, but the body it barely covered, well, that was an entirely different story. Jessica had a flat, firm, muscular torso and what looked like a very nice set of C-cup breasts. Her long, lean muscles were defined without being bulky. She looked one hundred percent female. She lifted her arms and showed off a set of guns Jillian Michaels would be jealous of. Raking her hands through her hair, she tied her ponytail into a knot at the top of her head, so that the ends fanned out and stuck straight up. She should look ridiculous, but it only made her look hotter. All his blood flowed south, and his mouth watered.
Jessica shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t want to get my shorts and T-shirt wet. It’s not as if I’m naked.”
Fisher saw naked women, or at least partially naked women, on a daily basis. Sure they were patients, but no one he’d ever seen, girlfriends, supermodels, or
Playboy
centerfolds when he was twelve, had the ability to throw him off his game before. Maybe it was because he hadn’t expected her to strip down like that. Or maybe it had been way too long since a woman undressed in front of him. Whatever the reason, it rendered him incapable of speech.
He pulled his shirt over his head, stalling for time and hoping to get the problem in his shorts under control. At least he was behind the hot tub. Of course he’d have to get into the damn tub too. He leaned over to adjust the jets and climbed in trying to ignore her, or at the very least, think of her like a patient. He’d never had this problem with a patient. Unfortunately, his dick knew Jessica wasn’t a patient, and if it had its way, she never would be.
He watched as she carefully climbed into the Jacuzzi. He could study the ripple of muscle over bone for an eternity, the way her ribs were defined when she bent over. The delineation of her spine as she stretched her back before sliding into the hot water made him want to run his hands over every bump and curve on her body. She moaned as she slid beneath the surface—the sound only added to his discomfort.
Jessica stayed on the opposite side of the tub, which was just fine with him. His mind was getting him into enough trouble without her being close enough to touch.
“God this feels like heaven.”
Inappropriate thoughts flew through his mind with the speed and clarity of fireworks, one more spectacular than the next, and he did his best to shut them down, or at the very least, ignore them.
Jessica laid back, closed her eyes, and soaked in the sun and the warm water. She hadn’t said anything, but then she was a woman of few words. He’d figured that out on their run. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, and it was nice just soaking without having to listen to someone run off at the mouth. Yeah, Jessica was not your typical female.
He checked his watch and was surprised to find they’d been soaking for about twenty minutes. “How’s the leg?”
“Good. Do you want to feel it?”
Did she just say what he thought she said? “Feel it?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. It isn’t as if you didn’t have your hands over every inch of my leg from ass to ankle less than an hour ago. What’s the big deal?”
She stood, the water cascading off her body, dribbling between her breasts and over her rectus abdominis, sliding down her transverse abdominis and external obliques. Unfortunately, thinking in Latin just made his problem worse. Did she really expect him to answer when all he wanted to do was catch the droplets of water running down her torso with his tongue?
She rested her foot between his legs. Thank God he’d turned up the jets. There was no way she could see how hard all the talk of feeling her up had made him. As if they had a mind of their own, Fisher’s hands wrapped around her slim ankle and slid to her calf, supple skin over tight, smooth muscle. No spasms there. His hands crept higher. There was no sign of swelling or bruising to indicate rupture, no apparent myofascial pain, or even tenderness. He ran his hand up the back of her right hamstring to compare the two and check for swelling. He found none. The only change he could detect was in her respiration. “Am I hurting you?”
“Um… no. You’re fine. I mean… I’m fine. I mean… no, it doesn’t hurt.”
He did his best not to smile, but damn if he didn’t feel a tic in his cheek.
Jessica backed away so quickly she slipped on the edge of a built-in lounge and landed in the seat with a splash. Her face flamed.
Something about her just tugged at him, making him leave his gentlemanly tendencies at the door. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s human physiology. It’s sexual chemistry—you’re just experiencing a normal reaction to physical stimuli. Don’t worry, it works both ways.”
“B… both ways?”
“I’m just as affected as you are.” He stood and almost laughed as her eyes just about bulged out of her head. There was no use trying to hide it, not that he could if he’d wanted to. “If you don’t want to miss your ten o’clock date,” he said as he handed her a towel, “you’d better dry off while we talk about what we’re going to do about it.”
She stood and wrapped the towel around her like a shield. If he didn’t pay close attention to the straps running up behind her neck, he could almost pretend she was naked. He never thought he’d admit it even to himself, but maybe his brothers were right. It had been way too long since he’d dated a woman. And the thought of this woman going on a date—even just for a game of tennis—didn’t set well with him.
Fisher was getting used to Jessica’s lack of conversation skills. Still, it didn’t keep him from wanting to give her a push. “So, what do you think we should do?”
“Nothing.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m going home, and you’re going to do whatever it is that you do.”
Fisher stepped closer, and her eyes widened. Still, she didn’t step back. He liked that about her. She was cautious, but not afraid. “Ignoring it isn’t going to make it disappear.”
“No, it won’t make it disappear, but ignoring you might do the trick.” Jessica smiled, but not the kind of smile he’d hoped to see—he wished he could trade the determined grin for a compliant one. Somehow he figured the word “compliant” was never used to describe Jessica. Willful, headstrong, and truculent, certainly—compliant, never.