CHAPTER NINE
It was dark, clouds forming a soft gray haze in the sky, when Waverly rolled off the comfort of her mattress to see a silhouette darting across the villa bedroom. “Aly?” she said around a yawn, twisting the knob on the nightstand lamp.
Dim white-gold light washed the room. No longer concealed by shadows, Aly froze—in the same jeans and floral-patterned bustier top she’d been wearing when she’d gone out the previous evening. “Okay. Let’s examine this. You have bed hair but probably didn’t get it sleeping.”
Aly shook out her hair, going over to her designated pajama drawer in the dresser they shared. “Why does it feel like you’re accusing me of something?”
“Not accusing. Observing.” Waverly cracked her neck and turned to smooth her bed linens, not so much to make sure she had a well-made bed to come home to but to give Aly privacy to change. Her sister wasn’t modest and had a particularly aggravating habit of throwing propriety to the wind whenever the mood hit. “Bed hair aside, it’s almost four in the morning and you’re just getting home.”
“Didn’t think you’d notice, since you were so busy getting dolled up for your date with that Sam guy. He was all Mom could talk about. Sam this, Sam that. Gag me.”
Waverly heard her sister flop on the bed with a sigh and knew it was safe to turn around again. “Mom pushed me into that date. It’s my own fault for letting her. But, Aly, I pay attention to you even when you think I don’t.” She got out of bed and gathered Aly’s strewn clothes off the floor and deposited the pile in the adjoining bathroom’s hamper. “Who’s the guy keeping you up all night?”
“Waverly, the better question is, why isn’t there a guy keeping you up all night?”
Refusing to be baited, Waverly made quick work of her early-morning ablutions, threw a loose purple crew-neck shirt over her sports bra and fitted shorts, then grabbed her running shoes and duffel from the closet.
Aly’s whisper sliced the silence. “About Mom and Dad. If they ask where I’ve been—”
“I’ll tell them I don’t know.” Waverly shrugged and turned off the lamp as she prepared to go. “It’s the truth, after all.”
“Right. If Walsh gives you a decent break today, why don’t you come by the stadium for lunch? You haven’t even seen my office yet. It has a window. With a view. I feel very important.”
“I might take you up on that.”
“Good. Then we can hash out why you turned down Maxim and still haven’t made a decision about Sports Illustrated. You should be all over this. It’s a chance to tell the world what you want to accomplish in sports training. And you’d get to show off your runner’s bod.”
“In what? A string bikini?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Waverly sighed. It wasn’t about shyness or camera fright. It was about the importance of what she had to say and how easily provocative photos could overshadow that, especially if word got out that Jeremiah Tarantino knew his way around her vagina. She was new on the professional sports scene, and her mother had warned her during the Villains’ team party that everyone was watching.
Everyone was indeed watching, yet no one could agree on who they wanted her to be. Magazines wanted her to be sexy. Her players wanted her to be a trainer who’d take their crap with a smile. Aly wanted her to be cooperative. Veronica wanted her to be careful. Her parents wanted her to be their statement. Jeremiah Tarantino wanted her to be…
She couldn’t be sure, especially after last night at his godfather’s casino. And that pissed her off. She needed to be clear where she stood with him. He said he didn’t want her around because he wanted her. How was she supposed to react to that?
“Say yes to Sports Illustrated,” Aly encouraged. “If you’re asked to wear a string bikini, so what? Rock it. Use it to your advantage. Give them a killer interview, and make Mom and Dad proud of you. Sometimes I think that’s your point in all this—getting their approval for once.”
She wasn’t in sports to please J.T. and Joan. In fact, she’d defied their wishes and the “more appropriate” paths they’d chosen for her. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to prove them wrong. They don’t think I can train our boys.”
“Or stand on your own without some guy they’ve cherry-picked for you.” Aly nuzzled her face into her pillow. No doubt her makeup smudged the pillowcase but she was evidently too tired and carefree to let it bother her. “We’re whispering in the dark, like children. As long as I live under their thumb, I’ll never grow up.” She yawned. “Go run. Good night. Or good morning. Whatever.”
◆◆◆
The Fiat was damp with drizzle by the time Waverly pulled onto NV-592 W. Fidgeting with the radio channel search button, she bypassed KNPR, which usually kept her company during her morning drive to Mount Charleston, and left it on a station playing talk-free hip-hop. Many people clung to this flavor of music; some found inspiration in the poetry of the words. But after a full set, she jabbed the power button and let in the quiet.
The music hadn’t helped her compartmentalize the thoughts and anxiety that surged through her mind like floodwaters. The pressure to protect her career and her parents’ team battled against her urgent need to make all the personal choices she wanted, screw the consequences.
As she drew closer to Mount Charleston the rainy darkness gave way to a foggy dawn. The stretch of road up ahead was still fairly visible and wouldn’t get in the way of her south-loop eight-miler. As a precaution, though, when she parked outside the closed-gated Cathedral Rock picnic area, she grabbed a slim flashlight from the glove compartment and jammed it into her waist pack along with her phone, drink bottle, lip balm, pepper spray and keys.
At this time of morning there were rarely any visitors, even in the areas that remained open twenty-four hours. There was nothing but the scent of rain-dampened foliage colliding with that of a doused forest fire’s lingering smoke, the scenic views of aspens peppered along the steep trail, the sounds of tiny creatures scurrying about in the underbrush and her shoes hitting the ground hard, the pounding of her heartbeat and the cool air against her damp skin as she ran at a steady pace.
Concentrating on the incline of the trail and the adrenaline flowing through her system, she pretended to outrun her worries about work and family and the man she couldn’t avoid—and didn’t want to. Made believe that she was alone and free. Imagined there wasn’t a grain of truth to Luca Tarantino’s “word of wisdom” last night.
You’re only as good as the worst thing you’ve ever done.
Waverly had never claimed to be “good” and didn’t find it fair that her career and her parents’ perception of her depended upon how perfect she could be…that the worst thing she’d ever done, no matter how irrelevant to her professional abilities, could cancel out what she’d done right.
“Deal with it, Greer.” And she ran faster.
About a mile later, at a sharp bend in the trail, she stopped for a stretch and a healthy sip of her flavored water. Fog moved around her and through the trees like translucent ribbons. Securing the bottle in her waist pack, she took off around the bend only to drop into a crouch at the sound of rocks and twigs crunching under someone’s heavy footsteps.
Pepper spray was good. Her uppercut—even better. Satisfied with that, she compensated for the limited visibility by focusing with her ears.
More footsteps.
She waited. Better not to break the jaw of a hiker or even just another runner.
“Waverly.”
Automatically she sprang up and let loose a series of expletives.
Jeremiah’s form parted the billowing fog. Arms raised, palms out, he took another step forward. In jeans and a wrinkled gray tee, he looked scruffy. “How much longer do you plan on screaming?”
“You scared the hell out of me, so, yeah, I’m entitled to a little screaming.” Waverly paused to inhale deeply because she’d apparently been holding her breath while evaluating the threat. “By the way, you came so close to getting a face full of pepper spray or my fist, and if either of those had happened, you’d be the one screaming. For mercy.”
Jeremiah lowered his hands, considering her words. “There’s something sexy as fuck about a woman who can fight for herself.”
She schooled her features into an impassive expression, not willing to let him throw her off guard. “It’s what I do best.” Around them the woods were quiet. It was unusual to encounter another visitor on this route at sunrise. “So. You hit the trails now? And here I thought you were a gym addict.”
“Weights at my place, but when I need cardio, I take it to the streets. I always figured the city was as good a place to run as any…” Jeremiah cast a glance upward at the scenic view “…but maybe I can get why this is your hideout.”
“A Vegas girl like me can appreciate some peace and quiet every now and then. This trail’s easy enough to handle before a full day’s work, and the best thing about it is that it’s practically a ghost town before the place fully opens to visitors. Every once in a while, my sister Veronica joins me. Usually it’s just me and the birds and occasionally the Palmer’s chipmunks.”
“The what?”
“Palmer’s chipmunks. Ascend high enough around here and you’re likely to spot one. They’re striped, typically stick close to the ground and consider this little region their hangout.” She leaned forward and smoothed a wrinkle on his sleeve. “Jeremiah, did I even tell you I run Cathedral Rock?”
“Last night at the casino, you mentioned driving way out here to get away from expectations. So this is what you do—come here at a crazy-ass time of morning to run, then hit the showers at Desert Luck? And before you ask, I know you shower at the facility every morning because your hair’s always wet and you smell like that flowery stuff you shampoo with at the end of training days. That fragrance follows you everywhere.… I heard a coach say the staff lounge has never smelled so good.”
“Rose hips and jojoba.”
“Powerful stuff. It could boost morale.”
“Doubt it. That’s more about player-to-player relationships, solid man management, and whatnot.”
“Then maybe it boosts only my morale.”
His heated stare fastened on hers the way his hands might pin her wrists to a mattress.
“Nice detective work,” she managed to get out. At least her voice was strong and not all swoony or shaky.
Jeremiah edged closer. “Still, it wasn’t easy to find you in the middle of all this. I lost time searching the north loop. I was about to give up when I saw your car outside the gates.”
“You interrupted my run for a reason. What is it?”
“Paparazzi crashed the Titanium Club minutes after you left. Camera flashes lit up the damn place like fireworks. People pulled out their phones. Those assholes were in my godfather’s private club on my brother’s birthday.”
Waverly straightened, ready to jump into defense mode. “Like you said, that happened after I left. I’m not friends with the paparazzi. Blame anyone you want—just not me, because I had nothing to do with it.”
“I know you didn’t, Waverly.”
It took a long moment before she absorbed the magnitude of his words. “Despite my showing up with a journalist and then having a not-exactly-friendly chat with your father, you believe me?”
“Yeah. But you can see how someone could interpret those facts as proof that you have an ax to grind and set this up. That someone being my father.”
“Fantastic. So by simply accepting his fiancée’s invitation to the club, I’ve given your father ammo to make even more outlandish accusations against my family?”
“No. I told him you weren’t involved in it. That I kept track of you.”
Waverly stilled. The memory of standing at the blackjack table with Jeremiah’s fingers pressed against her, his body hard behind her, stunned her with a burst of euphoria that was laced with frustration. Once again they’d begun something they couldn’t—shouldn’t, better not!—finish. “Did you tell him how you kept track of me? That you were dry-humping me at a blackjack table?”
“Saw no reason to get into specifics. Just know that he’s aware the paparazzi gaining entry isn’t your fault. I’ll admit he didn’t want to accept that at first, but I persuaded him.”
“You did that for me?”
A muscle ticked at his jaw. Clearly he was very carefully selecting his response, as if navigating a minefield. “It was the right thing to do.”
Waverly jerked her chin in a semblance of a nod. She could thank him and walk away or stay and find out if the desire she’d felt in his touch and voice last night was still alive in the light of a foggy day. Leave it alone, her saner self warned even as the words tumbled from her lips. “Do you always do the right thing?”
His gaze dragged over her, as erotic as a lick on bare flesh. “Not always.”
“You didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to find me here. We could’ve discussed this at camp.”
“Fuck camp.” His deliberate pause wasn’t lost on her, and the slow tilt of his mouth at her nervous swallow made it evident that he damn well knew it.
“Whose bed did you leave to come out here at such a ‘crazy-ass’ hour, anyway?” There, she’d asked in a sort-of-frank, sort-of-veiled fashion whether or not he was sleeping with someone. Because God, she needed to know.
“My bed. In an apartment that’s mine and mine alone. You’re not the only one with a hideout.” Jeremiah ventured closer. She held his gaze, slowly moving off the trail and deeper into the canopy of trees, and he was keeping up with her…joining her in the foggy semidarkness.
“And that journalist of yours. Where is he?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“When you were leaving, you looked back at me. If you were so into that guy, you wouldn’t have turned around at the exit. But you did.”
“The journalist isn’t mine, and I haven’t seen him since we said something to the effect of ‘Have a nice life’ in the Grimaldi parking lot and I drove myself home. I went out with him to please someone who can’t be pleased.” Waverly gripped the front of her waist pack tightly to keep her fingers from reaching out to slide along his angular jaw and over the hard muscles that lay beneath his shirt. “What do you want from me? Everyone wants something, and if what you want is something I can’t give, then you should know now.”
“I want to see you. Not trainer Waverly. Not the Waverly who dresses up for a man she doesn’t want to be with. I want to see you.”
“Breaking news. This is me.”
“Okay.” Keeping his gaze on hers—oh, God, it sizzled through her defenses—he reached behind her with one hand and deftly unlatched her waist pack. It met the ground in a soft thud, and there was nothing in the air but a dense mist and an unspoken dare she knew she wouldn’t pass up. “Then just answer this. Why did you look back at me last night, Waverly?”
The emotional face-off came raging forth. What to reveal? What to hold back? But in honesty she found escape. “Because I wanted to stay. With you.”
* * *
Waverly wasn’t lying to him. Jeremiah’s intuition told him she was for real. Tuned completely in to her, he sensed her boldness and hesitant trust. She wasn’t after a fantasy with some stranger. She was making a choice.
Despite what was at stake for both of them, they couldn’t seem to keep away from one another. Before, he’d told himself he had the excuse that he hadn’t known the identity of the woman he’d taken up to his suite at the Rio. But now he couldn’t pretend not to know. He’d gone after her. He knew exactly who she was, what she wanted and how finishing what they’d started at the Rio would be both his best and worst decision ever.
The plain, cold facts warred with hot lust in his mind, and he had to make a choice. Now.
Jeremiah hooked a finger into the elastic band reining in Waverly’s hair and drew it down until the dark honey curls tumbled free. He replaced the elastic with his hand, tunneling it through until he could cradle the back of her head. “Stay, Waverly.”
“Don’t…”
Immediately he started to release her, to back off.
She laughed lightly, using the back of her hand to mop away the shimmer of sweat on her forehead. “Don’t stop.”
React. That was all Jeremiah would do. There was no need to calculate or plot. There was only instinct and touch and demand. He went for her bottom lip, tasting the soft swell before penetrating her mouth with his tongue. Her groan vibrated in his mouth, and in turn he explored his fill—gently sinking his teeth into her lips, learning the texture of her mouth.
He let her go and she gasped sharply, crossing her arms protectively across her chest. He’d shocked her. Good. “Waverly.”
The naked joy that lit her face nearly brought him to his knees. Her arms fell, then swept up in a single graceful movement, the hem of her purple shirt tangled in her fingers. In seconds the shirt was floating to the ground and she was in front of him in a black sports bra, shorts, and an inviting smile.
She burrowed her anxious hands beneath his shirt, rediscovering the shape of him, her fingertips bumping along his abdominal muscles, then skimming up his back until her palms were pressed to his shoulder blades. “At the hotel…it was, I don’t know, unreal. But I never forgot your body and how you touched me. Did you forget?”
Fuck, no. He’d tried to, because forgetting would’ve made it easier to put things in perspective and manage working with her through hellishly long training days without fantasizing about losing his mind and kissing her on the practice field.
To answer her he stepped out of her embrace, peeled away her bra and slid his splayed fingers up her damp skin to cup her breasts. She closed her eyes only to open them again—wide—at the sensation of his mouth closing over one of her nipples.
The taste of her elicited a moan from him, heightened his senses and sensitivity to her touch when she scraped his scalp with her fingernails. He retaliated with a firm grip on her ass, bunching the mesh athletic shorts and tugging them downward even as she toed off her shoes.
Waverly dipped to shed her socks, then rose slowly, emerging from the swirling fog with that quirky, irresistible little smirk and dirty intent in her eyes. She was soft skin over toned muscles and lush curves. She went for his jeans, rubbing him through the denim, leaving it up to him to get rid of his shirt.
In the time it took for him to yank off the shirt, she’d unzipped his jeans and worked her hand beneath the waistband of his boxers.
Now she was the one shocking him, with her erotic, gritty promises and the way she raked her fingers up and down the length of his cock before baring his ass.
He sank, landing on his shirt and taking her down with him. Hovering over her with his pants halfway down his thighs, he fumbled for the condom in his wallet. As he searched her eyes for signs of retreat and found none, he pressed the condom into her hand. This wasn’t about a power struggle or manipulation or competition. It was about Jeremiah and Waverly, giving and taking, finding the rightness in a situation that seemed to be wrong in a dozen ways.
As she was occupied with tearing open the packaging, he took the opportunity to slip his middle finger into her pussy. She sighed, bowing up, opening herself further to his exploration.
He leaned, groaning into her hair at the tightness of her walls around his finger. Relentlessly he teased her until she clenched and dropped back in a series of spasms, and then he let her test the weight of his dick in her hand before she rolled the condom onto him.
Jeremiah stared at her beneath him, her eyes hooded, her body moving with his. “Your cunt feels so fucking good around me, Waverly. I don’t want to leave this pussy.”
Bracing his weight on his knees and one forearm, he grabbed one of her hands and pinned it to the ground beside her head. Then, with their moans blending and damp flesh meeting in rhythmic slaps, he fucked her until they both let go.
Jeremiah waited until she crawled away to gather her clothes before he righted his pants. There was an awkwardness to her movements. In a matter of minutes she’d gone from hotter than hell to colder than ice.
Shirt in hand, he walked slowly to her as she pulled up her shorts. He bent, pressed a kiss to the center of her smooth back.
“Jeremiah. We’re so fucked.”
He gathered a handful of her hair to expose her nape, kissed her there, and got a pleasured groan in response. “I know.”
It was hilarious and shattering at the same time that in spite of all the trouble that could come out of willfully crossing the line together they’d done it anyway. And wouldn’t mind doing it again.
Waverly finally moved away to finish dressing, all the way down to snapping the pack around her waist and chugging down a few swallows of her drink. “We’ve stirred up something between us, and it’s not going away anytime soon.” Distractedly, she offered him the bottle, unaware how sweet the gesture was. If either of them should slip and show affection like this in public, the coaching staff, the front office, the media wouldn’t ignore it.
“If you weren’t a Greer and I wasn’t a Tarantino, this—” he pointed at her, then himself “—wouldn’t be a problem. I could see you in a hallway and fuck you against a wall. I could eat you every day.”
“I want it.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
But they couldn’t have what they wanted. “Sometimes I goddamn hate that I’m a Tarantino, that blood loyalty is first in my family.” He gave her a considering look. “You probably don’t understand that.”
Waverly shook her head. “No, Jeremiah, I do. I’m not spoiled, okay? And I’m not perfect. I’ve made some stupid choices. Epically stupid. It was all in the name of getting my way and sticking it to my parents, which sums up my college experience.” She stiffened, as if stunned that she’d said as much as she had. “Anyway, it feels like too many people are waiting for me to fuck up again.”
He wanted to band his arms around her, touch her where she was most responsive until that worried frown melted into an expression of ecstasy. But he didn’t. “Waverly, when we report to camp today, will anything be different in the eyes of the team?”
“No, because no one knows.… Wait. Are you saying we can keep this between us?”
“Yeah.” He put on his shirt, glad that he had a spare in his duffel that wasn’t dirtied with telltale signs that he’d fucked a woman in the woods.
“But for how long, Jeremiah?”
“Until we’ve had enough and can put this aside.”
After a moment she nodded sharply. “Okay.” Then she took off in a sprint, yet the look she’d sent him under her lashes was drenched in skepticism and mirrored his thoughts.
What if I can’t get enough of you?