but she’d let self-preservation rule once more.
“So are you friends?” James asked her and Mark now. “Or…?” He waggled a finger back and forth between them with a matching waggle of his brow.
Mark gave him a single look, nothing more, and James zipped his lips.
Impressive. “Neither,” she told James resolutely, trying to wring out the hem of her shirt while ignoring how close Mark was standing to her, invading her personal space bubble.
“It’s been a long time,” he said. “You look…”
“All wet?” she asked.
His eyes heated, and something deep inside her quivered. Damn, he still had the power. He smiled, and she narrowed her eyes, daring him to go there, but his momma hadn’t raised a fool.
“Different,” he finally said. “You look different.”
Yes, she imagined she looked quite different than the gorgeous women she’d seen hanging off his arm in magazines and blogs.
“It’s good to see you,” he said.
She wanted to believe that was true, but realized with some horror that she’d actually leaned into him, drawn in by that stupid magnetic charisma. But she was nothing if not a pro at hiding embarrassment. Spreading her arms, she gave him a hug, as if that’d been her intention all along. Squeezing his big, warm, hard body close, she made sure to spread as much of the suds and water from her shirt to his as she could. “It’s good to see you as well,” she said, her mouth against his ear, her lips brushing the lobe.
He went still at the contact, then instead of trying to pull free, merely folded her into his arms, trapping her against him. And damn if her body didn’t burst to life, as if all this time it’d been just waiting for him to come back.
“Yeah, you’re different,” he murmured, doing as she had, pressing his mouth to her ear, giving her a shiver. “The little kitten grew up and got claws.”
When she choked out a laugh, he closed his teeth over her earlobe.
She gasped, but then he soothed the ache with a quick touch of his tongue, yanking another shocked response from her. “You said you were looking for Rick,” she managed to say, shoving free. “He’s in his office.” And then, with as much dignity as she could muster, she walked off, sneakers squishing, water dripping from her nose, and, she suspected, her shorts revealing a horrible, water-soaked wedgie.
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER CHECKING IN with his brother, Mark and his players got back into his truck, not heading back to the coast, but further up into the rolling hills.
Rainey Saunders, holy shit. Talk about a blast from his past. Seeing her had been like a sucker punch; her smile, her shorts. Those legs…
Once upon a time she’d been a definite sweet spot in his life. A friend of his younger brother, who always had a smile for him. He’d been fond of her, as much as any teenage guy could be fond of something other than himself. She’d hung out on the fringes of his world throughout school, and he’d thought of her as one of the pack. Until she’d changed things up by going from a cute little kid to a hot teenager.
The night she’d shown up in his college apartment had been both a shock and a loss. A shock because he’d honestly had no idea that she’d had a crush on him, at least not before she’d dropped her clothes for him without warning. Until then, she’d never let on, not once. And a loss because everything had changed afterwards. He’d never forget how she’d broken into his place and found him in the throes with a coed. By the time he’d caught up with her, she’d run off with the first guy she’d found.
And that guy had been a real asshole who’d nearly given her a birthday moment she hadn’t counted on. Mark had managed to stop it, and somehow he’d ended up the bad guy.
Rainey had wanted Mark to notice her, to see her as a woman, and hello, mission accomplished. Hell, he could still picture her perfect body—but he’d been too old for her. Even at twenty, he’d been smart enough to know that. Too bad he hadn’t been smart enough to handle the situation correctly. Nope, he’d screwed it up badly enough to affect their relationship to the point that they’d no longer been friends.
It’d taken him a shamefully long time to figure that out, though, and by then he’d been on his path and gone from the area. Leaving Santa Rey had been his dream. To go do something big, something to lift him out of the poverty of his upbringing. He’d spent the next few years climbing his way up the coaching staff ladder, working in Toronto, New York, Boston…finally landing back on the west coast with a coveted head coaching position at the Mammoths.
He’d seen Rainey several times over the years since, and on each occasion she’d definitely sparked his interest. As a bonus, they’d both been age suitable. But though she’d flirted with him, nothing had ever come of it. He had no idea what being with her would be like, but he knew one thing. It would be interesting.
The Mammoths were officially off season now and on vacation. Except for Casey and James, who were damn lucky to still be a part of the team after their stupid bar fight.
He and the Ducks’ coach had agreed to teach their players a lesson in how to be a role model by making them contribute to a struggling local community. Both coaches had chosen their own home communities, areas hit hard by fires and needing to heal. The players would be volunteer laborers at charity construction sites for most of the day, then after work they’d coach summer league ball. At the end of the summer league, the two rec centers would have a big game, with all the proceeds going directly to their programs. The community would benefit, the players could get their acts together, and everyone would feel like they’d made a difference.
All that was left was to tell his idiot players that they wouldn’t be summering in style, but doing good old-fashioned hard work.
“Uh, Coach? Aren’t we going home?” Casey asked from the passenger seat of the truck.
“Nope.” Their asses were Mark’s. They just didn’t realize it yet. “We’re staying in town.”
“Where? At the Hard Rock Café?” This from James.
“We won’t be at the beach.” That was the South District, and they didn’t need nearly as much help as the North District did. “We’re heading to the very northern part of the county.”
His two players exchanged glances. Mark smiled grimly and kept driving. He had a lot to think about—recruiting and trading for next season, not to mention hundreds of emails and phone calls waiting to be returned—but his brain kept skipping back to Rainey.
She’d grown up nice. The wet T-shirt had proved that. But it’d been far more than just a physical jolt he’d gotten. One look into her fierce blue eyes and he’d felt…
Something. Not even in the finals had his heart taken such a hard leap as it had when he’d realized who she was. Or when she’d touched her mouth to his ear.
Or when he’d bitten hers and absorbed the sexy little startled gasp she’d made.
“Come on, Coach. We’re sorry about the fight. We’ve said it a million times. But it was the big game, and we were robbed.”
Just getting to the finals had been a sweet victory, considering the Mammoths were only a five-year-old franchise. It’d been a culmination of grit, determination, and hard work, and even thinking about the season had a surge of fierce pride going through him. But the bar fight—now viral on YouTube—had taken away from their amazing season, and was giving them nothing but bad press. Mark had been featured on Sixty Minutes and all the mornings shows, trying to put a positive spin on things. He’d been flown to New York in a helicopter to recite the Top Ten Things That Had Gone Through His Mind After Losing The Stanley Cup. He’d been on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and had plunged Ellen into the dunk tank