Page 74 of Nobodys Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars 3)

He couldn’t have found a clearer way to tell her he was finished with her. With a man like Cal Bonner, she realized, the game was everything, and once it was over, he lost interest. Heartsick and angry, she turned and headed for her room.

Moments later, she heard him drive away.

Chapter Thirteen

P leasant! She’d said it was pleasant! Cal sat at his favorite table in the corner of the Mountaineer and brooded. Usually there weren’t any empty seats around him, but tonight everybody’d seemed to realize he had a giant mean-on, and they’d given him wide berth.

No matter how easily she’d dismissed what had happened between them, he knew Professor Rosebud had never had a better lover than she’d had tonight. There’d been none of that nonsense they’d gone through before, with her pushing his hands away. No, sir. He’d had his hands all over her, and she hadn’t uttered a single protest.

But what stuck in his craw—what really stuck like a big old chunk of hard-boiled egg—was the fact that he’d just had some of the best sex of his life, and he’d never felt more unsatisfied.

Maybe it was his fault for getting cute. Why hadn’t he just grabbed her right there in the house, carried her upstairs, and romanced her in his bed with all the lights on and that big mirror overhead? He could have done his best work there, not that he hadn’t been pretty damn good tonight, but if they’d been in his bed, he would have seen everything he wanted to see. In duplicate.

He reminded himself this was the third time the tw

o of them had gone at it, but he wasn’t any closer to seeing her naked now than he’d been that first night. It was getting to be an obsession. If only he hadn’t turned off the dome light, he could have looked his fill, but despite that sassy mouth of hers, he’d known she was skittish, and he’d wanted her so much he hadn’t been thinking straight. Now he had to face the consequences.

He understood his nature well enough to know that the only reason he found himself thinking about her a few thousand times a day was because he still didn’t feel as if he’d really made love to her. How could he when he didn’t know what she looked like? Once he found out, it’d be over. Instead of growing stronger every day, this attraction he felt toward her would disappear, and he’d be his old self again, ready to roam the fertile fields of dewy young females with flawless faces and sweet temperaments, although he was giving serious consideration to raising his minimum age requirement to twenty-four, since he was getting tired of everybody baiting him.

His thoughts strayed back to the Professor. Damn, but she was one funny lady. Sharp as a tack, too. Over the years, he’d developed a certain smugness about the fact that he was smarter than most everybody else, but that razor-sharp brain of hers made it hard to sneak much past her. Instead, she marched right alongside him, her brain cells clicking away, matching him step for step and move for move. He could almost feel her peering into every dusty corner of his mind and making a generally accurate assessment of whatever it was she found there.

“Reliving those three interceptions you threw against the Chiefs last year?”

His head shot up, and he found himself looking into the face of his nightmares. Son of a bitch.

Kevin Tucker’s lips curled in a cocky grin that reminded Cal the kid didn’t have to spend thirty minutes standing under a hot shower every morning just to work the kinks out.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Heard this is a beautiful part of the country, and I decided to take a look. I rented one of those vacation villas north of town. Nice place.”

“You just happened to choose Salvation?”

“Strangest thing. I’d already crossed the city limits before it even occurred to me that this was where you lived. Can’t imagine how I forgot that.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine.”

“Maybe you could show me some of the local sights.” Kevin turned toward the bartender. “Sam Adams for me. Get the Bomber here another of whatever he’s having.”

Cal was drinking club soda, but he hoped Shelby kept her mouth shut about that.

Kevin sat down without an invitation and leaned back in the chair. “I didn’t get a chance to congratulate you on your marriage. It sure surprised everybody. You and your new wife must have had a good laugh over the way I took her for a groupie that night she came to your hotel room.”

“Oh, yeah, we laughed real hard about that.”

“A physicist. I can’t get over it. She didn’t exactly look like your standard groupie that night, but she sure as hell didn’t look like a scientist, either.”

“Just goes to show.”

Shelby brought the drinks over herself and gave Kevin the eye. “I saw you play fourth quarter against the 49ers last year, Mr. Tucker. You looked real good.”

“I’m Kevin to you, dollface. And thanks. The old man here taught me everything I know.”

Cal bristled, but he could hardly punch Kevin out with Shelby watching. It took her forever to finish flirting with Pretty Boy, but she finally left them alone.

“How ’bout cutting the bullshit, Tucker, and tell me why you’re really here.”

“I already told you. Just a little vacation. Nothing more.”

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