The words jerked her from the brink of her self-pity pool. Amy Walters had torn ligaments in both knees after a spectacular fall during a race shortly before Cassie left the team. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, remembering how her friend had laughed with joy as she flew down the slopes. Cassie had always admired Amy’s daring, and her sense of humor. She had a little green troll doll she pinned to her jumpsuit for good luck. She loved to play practical jokes of people, and had once filled an opponent’s ski boots with shaving cream. “Is she able to ski at all anymore?”
“She probably could, but when the trainer told her she’d never race again, she hung up her skis for good. I guess it hurt too much to give up her dream.”
At least Amy had a dream, Cassie thought. All she had were fleeting interests and her fantasies of Guy. She turned to look out the window facing the slopes. If someone had hung a sheet behind the glass, it wouldn’t have looked much whiter than it did now. No one was going anywhere for a while, why should they? They had food and drink and a nice warm fire. It was the perfect romantic setting.
With the wrong man.
She popped the last strawberry into her mouth and bit down hard. As if Bob was the right man.
“This is good champagne.” Guy tipped the last of it into her glass. “I’m glad we didn’t let it go to waste.”
He turned back to the fire and she risked looking at him again. Maybe the champagne wasn’t the only thing that shouldn’t go to waste this weekend.
He turned around and caught her staring at him. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No. Nothing’s wrong.” She suppressed a smile. In fact, everything was suddenly very right. For once in her life, she was going to follow through on a fantasy and make it reality. She was going to seduce Guy Walters, or die trying.
4
“I KNOW WHAT YOU NEED,” Guy said.
You do? Cassie blinked. Had he somehow read her mind? Did he know she was thinking of making love to him in front of that fire? They didn’t have a bearskin rug, but what the heck, a blanket would do.
“You need something to take your mind off things.” He stood. “Why don’t we play a game?”
“A game?” Her voice quavered. “What kind of game?” Strip poker? Spin the bottle? Doctor?
He went over to the cabinet in the corner and opened it. “How about Scrabble?”
Scrabble? She stared at him, stunned. She was going to spend the weekend with a Greek god and he wanted to play Scrabble?
He laid out the board on the coffee table between them and began turning over tiles. She sat back, arms crossed over her chest. Scrabble. What could be more tame? More conventional. He wouldn’t have invited Sarah Michelle Gellar or Catherine Zeta-Jones or some other sex goddess to play Scrabble, would he? But good old Cassie Carmichael was obviously a Scrabble kind of gal. The more she thought about it, the madder she became.
He dealt seven tiles to each of them and studied his own selection, handsome brow furrowed in thought. Had she been horribly wrong? Was sex god Guy Walters even duller than Boring Bob? She glanced at her tiles. K, S, T, C, L, M, I.
“You go first,” Guy said.
My, wasn’t he a gentleman? But she didn’t want him to be a gentleman. And for once, she wasn’t interested in being a lady. She idly rearranged the letters on her tray until a word formed. Ah, now here was something. Grinning, she laid the letters out on the board. L…I…C…K…S.
“Licks?” Guy looked up at her.
Making sure he got the idea, she ran her tongue over her lips. “That’s twenty-two points.”
SHE HAD THE MOST luscious mouth…. Guy quickly looked away and shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable. How could someone who looked like an elementary school teacher—a very sexy elementary school teacher—be so seductive? If she kept this up, he’d have to go out in the snow to cool off.
He concentrated on the letter tiles in front of him. Selecting B, O and I, he arranged them over the L she’d played. “Boil,” he announced.
“It is a little warm in here, isn’t it?” Before he could offer to open a window or tamp down the fire, she stripped off her sweater, revealing some black satin confection obviously designed more to enhance than hide. He had an unimpeded view of smooth, ivory shoulders and the tops of full breasts. His mouth went dry and he jerked his gaze away, but his eyes didn’t want to obey and before he knew it he was looking at her again. He could clearly see her erect nipples pressed against the satiny material. He curled his fingers against his palm, fighting the urge to touch her.
“It’s your turn,” she said softly.
He looked down at the board. Without him even realizing it, she’d added a new word. “Naked,” he read. He swallowed, but his mouth was too dry for it to do much good. Anxious now to get this game over with as quickly as possible, he selected two letters and spelled the word nip.
Her eyes—they were a really pretty shade of green, he noticed—sparkled with laughter. She studied her letters again, head tilted so that her hair fell back from her neck, revealing a section of creamy flesh under her jaw. He’d like to kiss her there, to feel her pulse throbbing against his lips….
She leaned forward to place her letters on the board, her breasts straining against the satin lingerie. Did she know how wild that was making him? He glanced up and met her gaze, drawing him toward her….
“You look a little warm yourself,” she murmured, and reached across the table to unfasten the top two buttons of his shirt. She moved slowly, her fingers brushing against his suddenly feverish skin. She was right. It was burning up in here.
Obviously, Scrabble had been a bad idea. If he had any hope of keeping his hands off her, he needed to do something that would get him away from her entirely.
“I’d better get some more wood for the fire.” He jumped up and headed for the door.
“Wait! We’re not finished with our game.” Cassie rose up on her knees, as if to follow him.
“I just remembered, they lock the wood room at dark.” He grabbed his coat from the closet and was out the door before she could talk him into staying.
What had he gotten himself into? He’d tried to do the right thing, helping out a friend who’d just been jilted by a jerk. The problem was, his own attraction to Cassie kept getting in the way of his honorable intentions. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was the kind of man who’d take advantage of her distress.
At the bottom of the stairs he pushed through the door to the outside and headed for the woodpile at the edge of the trees. There were plenty of split logs in the wood room, which as far as he knew never closed, but he needed fresh air to clear his head and cool off his heated libido. One thing for certain—this was going to be a very long night.
CASSIE STARED after Guy’s retreating figure. So much for her career as a femme fatale. Could she help it if Scrabble wasn’t the most erotic game in history?
Sighing, she plucked her sweater from the chair and pulled it on. She didn’t have much experience at seduction, but she could have sworn Guy was really turned on for a minute there. What had happened to turn him off?
She went into the bathroom and studied her face in the mirror. Between the snow and the champagne and her fury at Bob, her makeup and hair were a little worse for wear, but she didn’t think she looked bad enough to drive a man out into the snow. No, something else had sent Guy running in the other direction.
She opened the medicine cabinet, hoping to find a bottle of aspirin. Champagne always gave her a headache. Why didn’t she ever remember that before it was too late?
A half-full bottle of