Chapter 4

ADDISON WAS USHERED INTO Harper’s oh-let’s-just-call-it-a-mansion-shall-we in Lake Forest, a wealthy water-fronting enclave just north of Chicago, by a woman dressed as French maid. This did not surprise her. Harper was known for her amazing parties and she always hired catering staff, but really, the French maid outfit was a tad much.

A long day meeting with the marketing team for her upcoming lingerie line had left Addison pooped. Relaxing in a hot, sudsy bath would be just the ticket, especially the claw-foot tub in the guest bathroom adjoining her temporary home for the next few days. Harper hadn’t blinked when Addison said she’d take her up on her offer to stay after all. Getting out of the hotel after what happened last night was imperative.

The greeter must have been told to take jackets. As Addison wasn’t wearing one, she merely flailed her hands and gestured to the salon. Yep, Harper called it “the salon” like she was Dorothy Freakin’ Parker reincarnated.

“You can go right—”

“Addy!” Harper bounded out so quickly that Addison had to check the petite blonde’s feet for skates. Her friend tossed sunny waves of hair over her shoulder and took Addison by the arm, gripping a little tighter than was comfortable. “A word, please.”

“Everything okay?”

Harper bit down on her lip. “Yes . . . and no.”

“Look, I’m really fine if the bean counter didn’t show.” She kept her voice in a whisper just in case he had shown and the news was worse than she feared. Such as he smelled like three-day-old cheese or sprayed saliva when he talked. “I’m not really in the mood to put on my first-date face.”

Not after last night. Her mind strayed to the fantasy-made flesh. She yawned, still tired after she’d lain awake all night, her feet itching to race to her neighbor’s room and see that initial orgasm to its logical conclusion: a hot-as-Hades stranger plunging into her over and over.

“That’s not the problem,” Harper went on, oblivious to Addison’s sexy and very inappropriate daydreaming. “You see, we have another guest and well, he just showed up. I’ve met him a couple of times, so I couldn’t really turn him away but . . .” She screwed up her face in a mix of embarrassment and disgust.

“But, what?”

“It’s Killer Callaghan.”

Killer who? Was that a WWF wrestler? Addison’s blankness must have been reflected on her face.

“Ford Callaghan,” Harper prompted, then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper that wouldn’t bounce off the marble-walled foyer. “Right winger for the Cajun Rage? The team that brought home the Cup a month ago? You know, your ex-husband’s hockey franchise.”

Addison tried to recall a face, a body, a head of hair, but nothing came to her. The Rajuns’ players all tended to blend together into one vast muscle mass. None of them had stood out during her three-year disaster-piece of a marriage, and if she had favored one with any attention, her ex would not have appreciated it. She’d always been a sports fan but after the split, with her ex taking hockey in the divorce, her interest had waned. Self-preservation had made that a necessity.

“Since the Great Escape, I haven’t exactly been keeping tabs on the team’s roster or their colorful nicknames. So there’s a hockey player at the dinner table. Is he house-trained or should we expect juicy belches and ball-scratching?”

“I can probably go an hour before I need to be walked.”

The ground yanked from beneath Addison’s feet.

That voice.

It couldn’t be, but she’d recognize it in . . . well, the dark. It was him, her hotel room neighbor, her dirty-talkin’ fantasy man. How could he have known she’d be here?

No. It was a coincidence, nothing more. A crazy one-in-a-billion coincidence. He couldn’t know she was the woman on that balcony, the woman who had turned into a wanton sexpot with very little encouragement. And he wouldn’t know it was her.

Unless she spoke. A little late to be concerned about that because he must have already heard her speaking to Harper. What had he said about her voice? A dead man’s dick would raise the lid of a coffin on hearing that voice of yours.

Oh. Shit.

Her heart jerked like a pinball around her body, her gaze following suit as she pivoted to meet the Panty Whisperer in the flesh. She had a sense of something big and blond and vaguely Viking pillaging her senses, and she quickly looked away as if that could make it all disappear.

Unfortunately the universe did not work this way.

She shot a look at Harper, trying to discern her friend’s knowledge levels. Harper didn’t give off smug or pleased, merely concerned.

Addison searched her brain for another explanation. Had he followed her? Was he a whacko nutjob after all?

Something clicked, locked, and knocked her on her ass.

This was the hockey player Harper had mentioned.

The one who had dropped by out of the blue for dinner.

The one who played for her ex-husband’s team.

Double—no, triple—shit.

Unable to avoid reality any longer, she turned to where he stood at the entrance to the salon, though “stood” was all wrong. More like “loomed.” She had underestimated his height. He was at least six feet four inches of brute strength, topped with shoulders as wide as a Buick, and further crowned with a head of dirty-blond hair that was a little on the long side. Plenty for her to hold on to.

Stop that!

“I don’t think we’ve met,” he said, all sexy-serious, and her body’s reaction to that voice confirmed his lie. Her body knew that voice like a snake knew its charmer.

And worse—as if there was possibly another level to this cluster—his lie confirmed something else.

He knew who she was, even before she’d uttered a single word.

He was here. For her.

Her mind raced, making connections, dismissing theories, drawing conclusions. Was this planned? He knew her name. Had called it out when he came last night.

After he made her—Oh, God.

Apparently, he’d met Harper before and while Addison’s friendship with the heir-in-waiting to the Rebels wasn’t exactly Taylor Swift plus insert current A-lister BBF here levels of notoriety, it occasionally made the society pages on Addison’s visits to Chicago. Primarily because she had a famous persona that pre-existed the connection to her ex-husband.

His boss.

“Miz Chayyyse!” A plaintive cry from the direction of the kitchen broke the tense silence.

“Never hire Bulgarians.” Harper turned to the friendly neighborhood hockey player-stalker. “Ford, Addison. Addison, Ford. Ford, get Addison a drink, will you, while I see what the hell’s happening to the food?” She click-clacked off, leaving them alone in the foyer.

They stared at each other while Addison tried to curb her racing pulse.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, once sure she could speak without her voice cracking. She couldn’t let him see that this was bothering her, or let anyone else present know they had history.

As of twenty-four hours ago.

“Last night,” he started, moving forward, his voice low and dangerous and damn him, so sexy, “I swear I had no idea who you were. I came to find you this morning, and you’d already checked out. Then I was talking about the Rebels with my brother and I realized it was Harper’s voice I’d recognized. I also remembered she’d said something about a dinner party, so here I am.”

Such a simple explanation.

“Here you are? Just like that?” She rubbed her fingers against her chest, an old habit when she was feeling trapped. She’d practically rubbed a hole to her heart in the last year of her marriage to Michael.

“I wanted to see you again.” He stepped in close, and God, his sheer size, and that sex-tinged voice in combination, made her knees melt. “I didn’t set out to meet Addison Williams, famous model, ex-wife of Michael Babineaux, who also happens to be my boss.”

Yes, those were all the niggling details, succinctly outlined in under one-hundred-forty characters. His strong brow creased above chocolate-brown eyes now darkened to an inky black. Was that anger? Frustration? Something else?

His reaction appeared genuine. He was as surprised as she to find out their true identities.

Fine. He was welcome to the benefit of her doubt. It shouldn’t make any difference because she’d had no intention of meeting him outside of her fantasy. Just because she knew who he was did not change that. If anything, it made last night’s decision to not take what happened any further especially prescient.

Of course, there was always the chance he wasn’t interested in seeing her again now he had actually seen her. Up close, in the size-16 flesh. Not every man liked a woman with a little meat on her, and now that neither of them could use the darkness as an excuse, she’d understand if he wanted to back away slowly.

No number of magazine covers could eliminate those big-girl doubts.

As for her opinion of him? The guy was smokin’. In another lifetime, she’d totally tap that.

In the moments it was taking her to gather her wits, he had moved to within inches of her. Smooth outside of the shadows as well.

“I’m not sure what you’re expecting here,” she said, increasingly overwhelmed by his presence as well as this situation. She was a large woman, and it took a helluva lot of man to make her feel like she could be picked up and put in his pocket.

“Just a nice dinner with a beautiful woman.”

She refused to enjoy the wriggle of pleasure in her stomach. He still wants me. Pathetic, you schizoid. You’re gorgeous. Ten million Instagram followers agree.

“Harper will be pleased you think so.”

That amused him. “Electing to play coy? After all we’ve meant to each other, Addy?”

Her name on his lips was like gasoline to the fire in her blood. The Addison Williams of yesterday had not been coy. She’d been vocal, demanding, honest. But then it was safe in the dark.

“There won’t be a repeat of last night,” she affirmed, as much to herself as to him.

“You’re right. I’m all about the variety. In the bedroom, in the foyer—or on the balcony.” He grinned and yowza, knock me over with the killer smile, why don’t you? “You look like you could do with a drink, Addy.”

“Lead the freakin’ way.”

Harper had assembled an intimate crew of twelve for her dinner party: several Chicago power couples, an environmental activist, a novelist of some repute (big ego, low sales), and the Chicago Rebels lawyer, Kenneth Bailey, who hung on each of Harper’s words like they were water to his thirst.

Then there was the hockey player and the accountant.

The bean counter’s combover was less creative Mohawk and more wispy strands that wouldn’t survive a gentle breeze intact. Swooping in from the back, angry, frosted tips stood to attention on the crown of his head. The style turned his forehead into a five-head. He was also shorter than her, by at least four inches.

How could Harper have possibly thought this guy might be a good match for her? Since Michael, Harper had tried to steer Addison to safer (read: boring) harbors. The women had become insta-friends one night, sitting in the owner’s box during a Rebels-Rajuns game. While the WAGs of other team owners looked down on Addison’s modeling career, Harper saw a business woman anxious to escape the bimbo image that inevitably plagued those who made a living wearing little or no clothing. After the divorce, Harper had been her biggest cheerleader as Addison reconstructed her life, reestablished her independence, and took tentative steps on her new path.

Out of respect for her friend, Addison would give Ben the Bean Counter a shot. She’d say one thing for him: he was very attentive, and not just to her cleavage as most men usually were when faced with Addison Williams, renowned full-figured lingerie model. (Please don’t call her plus-sized.) Although, his lack of leering might be directly correlated to the lack of cleavage on display. She had elected to cover up with a silk shell so her “date” wouldn’t get confused between her breasts and her face.

Meanwhile, her breasts were in a state of confusion all on their own. Should we point toward Ford Callaghan’s chest like hunk-seeking missiles? Or should we nipple-pop hard against this erotically thin fabric every time he casts a smoldering look in our direction?

“So, Addison,” Ben the Bean Counter started, “Harper tells me you’re designing your own line of plus-sized lingerie. That sounds interesting.”

“Don’t think they say plus-sized anymore, dude,” Ford said, catching her eye.

She scowled at him. Stow your phony support, Callaghan. These big-girl panties are locked tight!

“Oh, really?” Ben asked. “I didn’t know we’d become that PC.”

Addison directed her attention—and a brittle smile—to Ben. “We’re all models, only some of us are more representative of the market we serve. Full-figured, curvy women who prefer not to be labeled as whales and shunted off to a forgotten corner of the lingerie section of department stores or specialty boutiques. It’s hard for bigger gals to get breast support without sacrificing the sexy. Why not have both?”

Ben dipped his gaze to her chest and murmured, “Why not indeed?”

Okaaay. So he responded more to the verbal. She tried to refocus the conversation.

“The design part is my favorite. Picking fabrics, silhouettes, trimmings. But the business aspect is more fun than I expected. I like bargaining, trying to get my line into stores, bringing attention to something that makes a woman feel her best.”

Harper chimed in. “That shouldn’t be a problem with your pedigree. You’ve made other people’s bras and knickers look good. You’re a name to be trusted in the biz.”

Addison certainly hoped so. Her eponymous line, Beautiful by Addison, aimed at full-figured women, would be unveiled in time for the holiday shopping season. When a man went into Macy’s to buy his wife, girlfriend, or mistress a sexy gift, she prayed Addison would be the name on his lips. And if it was the name in his head when he uncovered his lady later, then so be it. Addison was fully aware of the fantasy she was selling with that balconette bra and barely there thong.

“So are you going to be modeling the underwear, Addy?”

Addison’s eyes shot up at the questioner: the hockey player wearing a completely serious expression. Irritation pitched her internal organs into a storm, though the warm way he said her name gave other parts of her anatomy a flutter of caution. He shouldn’t run his tongue over her name like he was tasting it—and her with it.

“Would you have a problem with that?”

Shit, she hadn’t meant to sound so testy or imply she cared if he cared. She meant men in general. Men such as her husband, who objected to her modeling as soon as he shackled her.

With this ring, I thee wed.

With this ring, thy career is dead.

Callaghan held her gaze, far too intimately for someone who had supposedly just met her. “Some guys don’t like seeing their woman showing that much skin to the public.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Trust a Neanderthal goon to have a brain as big as one of his nads. He truly was her husband’s man.

Ignoring the brawny lump, she turned to the accountant. “What about you, Ben? Would it bother you if your woman showcased her 38 Double Ds”—that’s right, boys, they’re real and they’re spectacular—“in sexy lace and silks to pimp her clothing line?”

Ben picked up his glass of wine and sipped, then gulped. She tried to imagine him between her legs, working her over with his tongue, while his frosty-tipped Faux-hawk bobbed up and down. Would it be stiff with hair product? Would it split apart to reveal a shiny pate if she grabbed it? Would he look up and surprise her because he wasn’t Ford Callaghan?

Stop it!

Ben set the glass down carefully. “My wife wouldn’t need to work.”

Ah, please fuck off forever, Ben.

Her eyes snapped to Callaghan and found a mischief she couldn’t appreciate in his dark caramel-hued gaze.

“Is that how you feel, Mr. Callaghan?” He smirked at how she addressed him, and even that was sexy on him. “Should a wife be hidden away, relying on her husband’s financial support, keeping her best lingerie for his eyes only?”

Just as her ex-husband had decreed. And to think she had listened to him as he insisted he’d “take care of her.” Remembrance of those days spiked her Irish, not because Michael had a warped view of modern marriage, but because she had allowed him to dictate the terms. She’d turned down lucrative contracts so he wouldn’t have to endure social media commentary about how his half-naked wife made her living.

She was to be his trophy, a prize for him alone.

“If my woman wanted to show the world how talented and beautiful she was, then she could be wearing a Snuggie for all I care. But if she’d rather do it wearing lingerie on a catwalk, I’d have no problem with that. Whatever makes her happy and fulfilled. If it contributes to our household bottom line, all the better.”

Evolved and annoying. He had deliberately poked her to set her up. Likely, he had heard the rumors about her ex-husband not appreciating his wife’s own efforts to contribute to the household bottom line.

She scowled again. Ford blasted her with a smile that made her furious. She was not enjoying this, not at all. Caught off guard was not a good look on her.

Harper coughed significantly. “Addy, could you help me for a second in the kitchen?”

“Sure!”

Harper double-frowned at Addison’s uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

Smiling like a clown at Ben and sparing not a crumb of attention for Callaghan, Addison followed her friend into the amazingly appointed kitchen where Harper had never cooked a thing in her life. The woman wasn’t really the “keep the home fires burning” type. As one of professional sport’s potentially most powerful business owners—if her father would loosen the reins and have a little faith—she would never have been satisfied playing meek housewife.

It wasn’t completely inaccurate to say that Addison wanted to be Harper when she grew up.

Addison opened her mouth to apologize, but Harper got there first. “I’m so sorry about Ford. This has got to be awkward, him being on Michael’s team and all.”

Girl, you have no idea.

“It’s fine.” Her voice pitched a smidge too high. “Really, I’m okay. Like I said, Michael and I are ancient history.”

Harper looked how Addison felt. Unconvinced.

“So what do you think of Ben? He’d make a good . . . lap dog?”

Addison laughed, then covered her mouth guiltily.

“He’s quite nice despite the throwback statements about his wife not needing to work.”

Harper waved that off. “Sometimes the nice ones are demons in the sack. No doubt he’d be working hard at the downtown station making sure the trains run on time. Would treat you like a queen, but grateful, y’know? He’d never stray, not with a hot mama like you warming his bed.”

“You’re really selling it. Alas, I’d crush him with my thighs.”

Laughing, Harper picked up a glass of wine on the counter and sipped it. She liked to leave spare glasses everywhere so she was never long without. Not judgin’, just sayin’.

“Ford called you Addy. Sort of familiar.”

“He’s got some nerve.”

Harper’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but instead of questioning Addison’s overreaction, she mused, “Pity about his connection to Michael because I think he might be man enough for you.”

That’s what she was afraid of. She couldn’t remember being so affected by such a masculine presence. For two years while married to Michael, she’d spent plenty of time at parties and events filled with strapping jocks and walking muscle factories. There was no good reason why this one should be different than any other.

Apart from the voice that teased an illicit orgasm from her.

But it wasn’t just what the voice unlocked or the inhibition it had dissolved. Addison would never forget the reverence. How special and beautiful and complete he had made her feel. Ridiculous, because she knew she was all those things, and didn’t need a man to validate her. But it had been wonderful to be the focus of this stranger’s attention. His wonder.

To be seen so intimately without being seen at all.

But now he was here in the light, and his focus no longer felt so liberating. She hadn’t liked how he’d watched her across the dinner table, those dark eyes filled with carnal knowledge, those sensuous lips goading her into a defense of her right to earn a goddamn living.

I know what makes you feel good, those eyes said. I know you like it a little bit dirty. A whole lot dangerous.

There was no safety in his presence. He had thoroughly seduced her without laying a finger on her body and now she was falling under his spell again. She needed to gather her wits and work up a plan that didn’t involve going ten rounds of foreplay with Ford “Killer” Callaghan.