Page 44 of Play for Keeps

“Do you like Chinese? Pizza? Hey, do you like Thai? I know a good place that delivers—”

“Go away, Ty.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t pee until you go away. Now, will you go away before I explode?”

The door rattled slightly, and she realized he’d been leaning against it. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

She closed her eyes and counted to ten, praying he’d actually walked away. Satisfied he had, she blew out a breath and let go.

A few minutes later, she’d washed her hands with the Midnight Magnolia–scented hand soap and finger-combed her hair into some semblance of style, wishing she had a tube of lip gloss at hand. Her lips were swollen from kissing and a bit chapped. She spotted patches of pink beard burn on her chin and cheeks, but she didn’t mind. Her eyes looked bright and shiny. Almost feverish. All these added up to proof that getting laid could do things for a girl a vibrator simply could not.

Taking a bracing breath, she spun away from the mirror before her attention strayed below the neck. No sense in undermining her self-confidence.

She reentered the great room to find Ty standing at the wet bar in almost the exact spot he stood the first time they kissed. Except now he was naked. Two tall glasses of water waited on the granite countertop. One with ice, one without. She offered a helpless shrug as she approached. “Sorry. Shy bladder.”

He gave her a nervous smile. “No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

She nodded to the glasses. “One of those for me?”

Again, a flush darkened his cheeks. “I didn’t know if you liked ice or not.”

The small smile tugging at her lips stretched into a grin as she reached for the ice water. “I can take it any way you want to give it to me.”

“Stop.”

He practically growled the word at her as he took the other and began to drain the contents in big, noisy gulps. Millie paused midsip, then slowly lowered her glass as she watched his Adam’s apple bob. The skin below the line of his beard was smooth and tan. A deeper brown than his chest. Her gaze fell to the line of demarcation spanning his narrow hips and she swallowed hard. “You know, I’ve never thought about whether African Americans tan.”

His dark brows arched as he lowered the glass. “I don’t need to ask if you do. You’re the same shade all over.”

“Milkmaid Millie,” she said, saluting him with her glass. “Wasn’t easy being so pasty in the tanning bed era of the eighties, let me tell you, but Halloween costumes were a breeze.”

“You’re beautiful.”

The cubes in her glass clinked as she took another sip. “You’re blinded by the white. Blink a few times.”

“Millie.”

With a single word, he sliced right through the smokescreen she was trying to set up. But she wasn’t subject to his intuitive skills. She had to give in to the pull. Placing the glass on the counter, she tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. “Tyrell.”

He smiled. “What would you like for dinner?”

The question gave her pause. He sounded so easy, but the question was more complicated than he could imagine. Asking what was for dinner was a couple question. Almost homey. Hell, the guy was barely back in town, the ink still wet on his divorce decree, and he was acting like the two of them hanging around in his house—naked—discussing their next meal was an everyday thing. And it wasn’t. Wouldn’t be. Not forever. This was some kind of fantasy land. Not the X-rated kind but more like the two of them were operating on separate levels. A parallel universe.

Pushing away from the bar, she tossed a throwaway smile in his direction and headed for the stairs. “You’re sweet, but I have a Lean Cuisine and a ton of work to do tonight.”

Her foot had barely touched the bottom step when he caught up to her. “Wow. Well, I can see how it would be hard for a guy to compete, but…come on, Millie. Why are you jerking my chain?”

She froze, her hand wrapped tightly around the polished wood banister. She couldn’t stand being accused of emotional gamesmanship. She might spin things in her professional life, but in her personal relationships, she made it her policy to be strictly forthcoming. Pivoting to look directly at him, she drew a calming breath. She told herself going off on him wouldn’t be fair. Ty didn’t know any better. But now the time had come to lay out the ground rules.

“I think we need to talk.”

He didn’t move or even flinch. The tension stretched between them to the point where the silence was almost funny, given the fact that they were both completely naked. Almost but not quite. “I guess I should tell you right up front I’m probably one of the few guys in the world who isn’t terrified by that sentence.”

“And I think I should tell you I won’t be bullied into having a relationship with you.” She tried to soften the statement with a smile, but the shock on his face told her she missed the mark. Still, she had a point to make, whether he liked what she had to say or not. “I get really touchy when people make presumptions on my time.”

His eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t aware you felt you were being bullied. I apologize.” He inclined his head in a sort of old-fashioned show of deference. A lump rose in her throat, and her chest ached. He gestured to the stairs. “If you aren’t interested in having dinner with me, then we’ll get dressed, and I’ll drop you at home.”

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