Page 4 of Play for Keeps

She managed to get the syllable out before he dipped his head and gave her a taste of the smoky scotch he’d downed.

Good God, his mouth was hot. Those full lips, soft but firm. The kiss was everything she’d ever thought locking lips with him would be. More, if you counted the contact buzz from the booze.

From his first day on campus, she’d entertained a few harmless, certainly never to be acted upon, fantasies about Wolcott’s most imposing Warrior. They were only something to give quality time with her vibrator some extra va-va-va-voom! She wasn’t supposed to be letting him rev her engines for real. The second he came up for air, she’d put a stop to the madness. He was vulnerable. These situations had rules, right? The problem was, this opportunity, this man, was too delicious to pass up.

He shifted but didn’t break the kiss. She caught his low groan as he angled his head, and she gasped when his tongue touched hers. A cannonball sailing across the bow. The second she weakened, he drove for the goal. She should have been repulsed by what she was doing. He was still technically a married man. But one masterful swipe of his tongue wiped the thought from her mind. She surely shouldn’t have clung to him, her fingers pressing dents into his biceps, her own arms shaking as she fought to stand her ground.

Despite having spent years as the spokeswoman for a Division I athletic program and claiming the nation’s premiere women’s basketball coach as one of her best friends, Millie hadn’t understood the power of a full-court press until his arms came around her. But now she did. Oh, sweet Jesus, did she ever.

The pressure was every bit as relentless as it was compelling. She tried to step up her game, take a bit of her composure back, but Ty refused to give an inch. He wound his arms around her, taking her hands with his and pinning them to the small of her back. She should have found the position uncomfortable at best, but the whole clinch was incredibly hot. Incendiary. She had to stop. And she would. Soon.

The velvet slide of his tongue over hers made her moan. Or maybe it was the way he drew lightly on her lower lip, then kissed her lingeringly. Like she was the one with the mouth dreams were made of, not him. She arched her back, pressing as much of her against as much of him as she could reach, but their heights were too damn disproportionate.

If we were horizontal, that wouldn’t be a problem.

Millie banished the thought as soon as it popped into her head. This was kissing, nothing more. He was a man whose wife had just left him. His ego needed redemption, and she happened to be the nearest female. She needed to remember where she was and what was happening. If she had any sense, she’d be offended even. Employ the SING method Sandra Bullock touted inMiss Congeniality. But she had no desire to jab him in the solar plexus or stomp his instep. His nose was long and straight and beautiful. And the last thing she wanted to do was cause any damage to this gorgeous man’s groin.

He drew back enough to press a lingering, little kiss to the corner of her mouth. She knew what the tiny, tender peck meant. Though his hold on her didn’t loosen one millimeter, he was waiting for her to give him the green light. And oh, she wanted to. More than anything, she wanted to let her knees buckle and drag him down to the floor. Horizontal, she could reach every bit of him, map ever muscle, kiss every—and she meantevery—inch of him.

But she wouldn’t, damn her ever-practical nature.

She wasn’t the kind of woman to allow herself to be swept along by romance, or even plain old down-and-dirty lust. No, she was the type to go in eyes open and head engaged long before she let her heart even consider entering the field of battle. She’d spent years building a reputation as the woman who could fix anything. The last thing she needed was to blow her hard work sky-high by getting entangled with a married man. No matter how much he needed her.

Ducking her chin, she dodged the next kiss. “Ty,” she whispered as his too, too tempting mouth landed below her cheekbone. But neither her admonishment nor her misdirection stopped him. He chuckled softly and started trailing sweet, somewhat sloppy, but still sensuous kisses along her jawline.

“I’ve thought about this for so long,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Thought about you.”

Bad. This was the bad part. He was saying exactly what anyone with half a brain cell wanted to hear. And she had whole brain cells, and though they’d taken a short sabbatical, her synapses were starting to fire again. Wriggling her hands free from his grip, she locked her knees and came at him from underneath. She refused to take note of exactly how firm his abs felt as she slipped both hands between their bodies. She didn’t even want to register the fact that his pecs were every bit as hard as the rest of him. His nipples were like chips of diamond beneath the smooth knit of his shirt—but she’d think about all these details later.

Much later.

After she’d done her job and he’d secured a divorce. Those had to be her priorities.

With a groan as heartfelt as his protest, she pushed away. They stood staring at one another, his gaze steady if a tad unfocused. His lips were wet and wonderful, but his thick, dark brows drew together in a V of confusion. Ty took several seconds to catch up, but she saw when reality clicked for him. She also saw the flash of hurt in those beautiful, golden-brown eyes.

“We can’t do this now,” she said, forcing a note of quiet calm she wasn’t anywhere close to feeling into her voice. She wasn’t rejecting him. Needing to make him understand, she risked taking one of his big hands between both of hers. “We can’t, Ty. I have work to do. You have things to sort out.”

He closed his eyes and blew out a breath. The force of the exhalation made him sway.

“Go home, Millie. I’m fine.”

Knowing one minute could mean the difference between repair and ruin, she nodded once, then headed for the sliding door. “I wanted to check on you.” The lock clicked as she released the latch. She eyed the wavering shadow in the darkness warily. “Answer your phone when I call, okay? I’m not cut out to be a cat burglar. But only answer for me,” she added. “No reporters.”

“Only for you.”

Not knowing exactly how to respond to that or to any of the events of the previous five minutes, Millie decided to let him have the last word. She slipped out the door and slid the heavy pane of glass closed behind her. Avoiding the patio furniture, she hustled past the dimly lit swimming pool and into the safety of the darkness beyond the skirting. She waited until her Jimmy Choos touched the plush, green lawn before allowing her steps to slow. Lifting her hand to her mouth, she pressed her fingertips to her lips, trying to seal those heady kisses in.

He had a career to salvage, and it was her job to help him. A public and possibly ugly divorce was in the offing, and she had to make sure he came out smelling like a champion and not a chump. And once all her job was done, when he was stone sober and seeing her in the harsh light of day, if he still wanted a woman six years his senior as the antidote for being burned by his much younger bride, well, then, they could talk about the possibility of acting on their urges. Reasonably. Rationally. And without any crazy expectations of romance.

Because Millie Jensen didn’t do romance. She didn’t believe in happily ever after. Hadn’t for the last twenty years, and she saw absolutely no reason to start now.

Chapter 2

The sound of the Marching Warriors blaring the school’s fight song, “War Cry,” filled the air, and Ty’s entire body went rigid. Instinctively, he reached into his pocket for his cell, but he came up empty. He groped blindly at the area around him. Nothing. Then, mercifully, the phone fell silent.

Ty felt the light pouring through the wall of glass before he even dared to crack an eyelid. It wasn’t the good kind of light, the sort that welcomed and warmed a guy. No, this was diabolical light. Light determined to leech the last of his life force right out of him. He could feel his liver shriveling. The roar of his own blood in his ears. The persistent throbbing of a brain counting down the seconds to implosion. His eyes remained glued shut. If he wasn’t mistaken, someone had cut out his tongue and replaced it with a swatch of suede.

The phone chirped to indicate a missed call, and he groaned. He wasn’t dead.

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