In Touch (Play On #1) (9 page)

Gillian looked at her watch again. Padraig was ten minutes late. She wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t show at all. They hadn’t spoken since Thursday night. She still had his gear bag in her car, and he’d made no attempt to get it back, through Del or Coach or anyone else.

It was a beautiful Sunday, though. Low eighties and a slight onshore wind from the lake. She’d still go for a swim one way or the other, but she really hoped he listened to Coach’s request. Not for his sake or the Blues, but for her. She’d mucked things up horribly and wanted to make it right again with him. She had gone about helping him the wrong way. She was the Blues PT, not their psychotherapist.

Another glance at her watch. Fifteen minutes late. She was certain she’d given Coach this exact location but hadn’t considered how Padraig would get here, or if he even knew how. She’d give him another ten, and then she was in the water.

The car metal was hot where she was leaning, so she grabbed her bag and headed for a picnic table just past the parking lot. The beach was busy, lots of families and tourists out for the day. She should have picked a more secluded spot, but that would mean a bit of a drive out of town and she hadn’t wanted to give him any excuse not to come.

Her bathing suit was crawling up her ass, so she tugged through her beach wrap and released the fabric.

“Brilliant.”

Gillian spun to see Padraig standing there with a towel in his hand. Behind him, perpendicular to the parked cars, Del waited in his banger. Her face flushed with heat.

Del waved. “G’day, Gill.”

“Hi, Del. Thanks for giving Irish a ride.”

“You okay to give him a lift home?”

“Sure, no problem.”

When he drove off with a wave, Gillian turned to Padraig. “Thanks for coming. For a minute there, I didn’t think you would.”

He walked past her. “I needed my gear bag.”

She followed. “I have it in the car.”

He pulled his flip-flops off and stepped onto the sand.

Gillian did the same and slipped hers into her bag. The apology that had been nagging her for days bubbled out. “I shouldn’t have brought your meds up. I shouldn’t have ruined the evening.” They started walking, seagulls dipping and circling above them. He remained silent so she continued, “It was nice. I had a good time.”

When he looked her way, she met his gaze and smiled. This was going much better than she’d imagined. And she had thought of little else since that night.

She led him to the far side of the beach where fewer sunbathers had laid claim to spots in the sand. “We can leave our stuff here.” She dropped her bag.

He pulled off his jersey and threw it and his flip-flops on the ground. “Me, too.”

“Yeah, leave your stuff here.”

“No, I meant I had a good time, too.”

“Oh, well, that’s great.” That’s great? A four-year-old could think of a more charming and witty comeback.

He was obviously confident of his physique as he stood waiting for her to undress. The bravado she’d summoned earlier to wear her two-piece was gone in the light of day and a public beach. She was supposed to be working, and a bikini wasn’t really professional attire. And unlike the rest of her wardrobe that consisted of blacks, grays, and browns, her bikini was a bright Kelly green, the same one she’d worn in high school. She should have worn her Speedo one-piece. Unless she worked in her hoodie and beach wrap, which would be stupid.

She undid her sarong and laid both that and her prescription sunglasses on top of her bag. Taking her hoodie off would reveal all, and so she stalled. “Have you had hydrotherapy before?”

He lifted his arm around to his back and stretched, his bicep muscle defining and shifting with the movement. Sweet divine. “Nope,” he said, popping the
p
sound at the end.

“Right, okay, well usually you do it in a heated pool, but the only public pool in Traverse City isn’t open on Sundays. But you can make your own arrangements during the week. One of these days, I’ll have a therapy pool at my practice… Did you want me to talk you through it?”

He smirked, almost as if he understood her procrastination, and jerked his head toward the shore. “In the water.”

“Righto, then.” She turned her back on him and sucked in a deep breath through pinched lips. Here went nothing. In one quick motion, she flung off her hoodie, grabbed her white plastic cutting board, and stalked toward the water’s edge.

A seagull flew over, calling out as it went. Two kids splashed and laughed as they pushed each other off an inner tube float. The breeze picked up the farther out she went. Or maybe that was the wind velocity from her speedy exit. She didn’t turn to see if he followed and didn’t stop until she was in the water up to her chest.

Normally, she would have eased herself into the cold Michigan lake. Storming the deep water as fast as a Napoleonic soldier hadn’t allowed for acclimation, and her nipples puckered just below the surface. Right. A bit deeper then. No giving him an eyeful of that.

She placed the cutting board in front of her chest, turned, and let out a squeal more girly than a tweener at a Bieber concert. He had followed close and was practically on top of her.

God, she needed to get herself together. Professional. Cool.

When he grabbed at the cutting board, she pulled it back to her chest.

“Planning on some cooking instructions along with your water therapy?”

“Ha ha. I’m going to use this for one of your exercises. Normally, the board would have slots in it to increase or reduce the amount of tension, but this will have to do for now.” When he didn’t speak, she rambled on. “I still have to buy a bunch of equipment so I’m improvising. Nothing’s perfect at the start…”

Anyone looking at them from afar would think they were intimate, he stood so close. She took a step back. “Okay, so first thing, just walk through the water slowly.” She pointed to an orange and white swim buoy. “To there and back.”

“Just walk?”

“Yep, but slowly. Go back and forth twice, and then twice again, but faster.”

He took off without another word. He was being really good about this whole thing, which was a bit of a worry. She should feel relieved, but there must be a catch.

On his way back, she realized she’d been staring when his gaze flicked up to hers. Caught by those blues again. But there was nowhere else to look. Nothing else to preoccupy herself, and when he turned to go back the other direction, she breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was so intense with him. Or maybe it just felt that way since years had passed since she’d been attracted to someone. Head down, study hard, work hard, make a difference. And of all people, a Blues jock just like her brother had been. Life was twisted.

On his last lap back to her, he seemed fixated on her person, but she couldn’t tell without her glasses until he got closer that he was staring at her. She squinted. He was staring at her chest! There were her boobies bobbing in the water in all their Kelly green splendor. When she relaxed, she had forgotten about the board in front of her and let it float to the side.

Before he reached her, she was babbling, with said board again in place in front of her. “So the basics. The buoyancy of the water”
—oh, ugh—
“supports your body weight and reduces the pressure through your spine and joints. Improving the malleability in your back will reduce stiffness and increase spinal movement. By easing the pain and making exercise easier, hydrotherapy can help you recover faster.”

“How long did you practice that for?”

“What?”

“Never mind. What else ya got?”

She was loath to give up her board, but she had to show him. And to do that, they’d have to go into shallower water. She led him in a few feet and demonstrated how to lean into one bended knee and use the board to push and pull water to and from his chest. She repeated the motion and then reluctantly handed over her only defense.

Gillian pretended it didn’t mean a thing and placed her hands on her hips, hoping the bravado rang true. “Go on, then. Give it a try.”

Without a retort or any snide remark, he did as he was told. When he was finished, she had him swap legs and showed him another direction to use with the board. He was doing it all wrong, so she dunked under the water and felt along his leg, repositioning as she went. When she popped back up, wiping water from her face, he laughed. “You could have just asked. Not that I didn’t like you copping a feel.”

Her face burned so she ducked under the water again in the guise of clearing her hair from her face. When she came up, she said, “Irish, I’m your physical therapist and here to help. That’s all.”

His brows pinched together. “Right.” But from him, it sounded more like “Royt.” He handed the board back to her. “I was just joking, like.”

He, like everyone else, thought she was uptight, that she needed to loosen up. All right. She could do this. Be professional
and
have fun. “Are you a floater or a sinker?”

Now his hands were on his hips. “What the fuck?”

“Can you float on your back or do you sink?”

“I can swim.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Fine. I’m a floater.”

She’d hoped for a laugh from him, but got irritable Padraig back instead. Hell, he was so up and down, she barely knew what to do. “Okay, well then lie on your back. This is another alternative to allowing your back muscles to relax and stretch before you start the other water exercises.”

He fell back into the water with his arms out like a cross. While sculling water with his hands, he struggled to keep his body lithe along the water surface. When the two kids in the inner tube ran into him, he swore and jerked to standing.

The boys moved away from him but not before one shouted, “You shouldn’t say that word!”

Gillian laughed through a pinched mouth, the reined chuckle tightening her gut and chest. “Well, I guess they told you.”

When he grabbed his head with both hands and looked as if he was about to explode, Gillian calmed him. “Move down here away from them a bit and try again. I’ll help you.”

He followed and then sank into the water up to his neck. He tried again, but his butt dipped and his head came up.

“The key to lying supine in the water, totally relaxed, is to keep your head back. Try again.” When he did, she pushed up his butt with her hand. He floundered, lashing his arms around, but then stilled. She laid the board on his chest to free up her other hand. Keeping upward pressure on his bum, she tilted his forehead back and then raised his chin. As he relaxed, she ran her hands underneath him, adjusting and lifting arms and legs, then settled again at his lower back. With his crotch right at eye level. A glance at his face confirmed he was looking up at the sky and not at her. Phew. “I think you got it.”

To be certain, she left her hands on his back, his skin smooth in the water. His chest hair had curled with the damp and his nipples had puckered with the cold. She stared at his ribs, mesmerized by the body in front of her. What would it feel like to kiss the hard planes of skin? Move her hands over his muscles like a car on a rollercoaster?

“I’m good.” He interrupted her musings, and she dropped back into PT gear.

“Yeah, just keep your head back. You might get some floats to help you at the pool.”

“What?”

She raised her voice since his ears were submerged. “Never mind.”

His body stilled until even a finger didn’t twitch. With quiet movements, she moved away from him and stood. His eyes were closed. Her throat tightened at the image—his long, strong body floating toward the shallows, the waves urging his body forward. His arms spread wide like a crucifix, his dark hair floating like seaweed around his head. And a white plastic cutting board on his chest. Ha. She smiled.

And it was then, in that moment, Gillian realized her path with Padraig was irreversibly set. There was no going back, only forward, as if the space behind her had closed over with vines and branches, messy, an entanglement too fierce to try to attempt, while the path forward was clear.

For now.

Padraig followed Gillian around to the driver’s side and grasped the door handle to open it for her. A gentleman to boot. He had proven her wrong in many ways over the last couple of hours, but she was still uncertain what to do about it. He was a Blues player, everything she didn’t want, but when she’d seen him standing nude in the locker room the other day, her thighs had gone up in flames. And she’d
never
experienced that before.

He swung the door open for her, and instead of ducking right into the car, Gillian turned to face him. She tried for nonchalance and rested one arm on the top of the door, the other on the roof of the car. Not exactly screaming seductress with the wet spots on her boobs and crotch where the damp from her bathing suit had leaked through, but she didn’t want the day to end. Something had to happen now, either one way or the other.

Padraig paused, half turned to walk away, probably contemplating what the hell she was doing. What the hell
was
she doing? Her mouth went dry, and the streetscape around her went fuzzy.

Padraig stretched, his jersey rising up his belly. “You ready, then?” He tapped on the car roof with his knuckles, but he didn’t move away.

Gillian ran her finger along the top of the door on the rubber seal, which was dry and cracked, some chunks completely missing. “Are you?” With that witty response, she’d give Shelby Fero a run for her money. Sweet Jesus, she was out of practice. If she had ever been
in
practice.

Padraig stood motionless for a beat too long, in Gillian’s opinion, but then stepped forward and withdrew her sunglasses slowly from her face. He folded the ears and passed them back to her. She pocketed them in her hoodie and left her hands there.

His hands replaced where hers had rested on the roof and door, joining them in a strange metallic connection.

Her heart raced, and a buzzing started in her ears, but she held his gaze, although his features were unfocused to the point his face had become abstract. No longer Padraig, but just a man. Water ran down the back of her neck from where she’d tied her hair on the top of her head. But if she moved, then she’d break the potential that harbored quietly in the moment.

He stood there looking at her, as if still contemplating the pros and cons of a simple kiss. If that was what this was.

Someone had to do something, so she did. Her mouth was so dry she licked her lips, then stepped into his space and kissed him, a quick peck on the lips. When she withdrew, he followed, stooped, and brushed his lips softly against hers again.

Gillian had learned in a physiology class how the human lips were the most exposed erogenous zone of the body, and even a light touch sent thousands of bits of information to the brain to decide whether a person wanted to continue or not. Was that going to be it? Was that his testing?

Her heart raced, very aware of his one hand that had moved to her waist, the other still resting on the top of the car. Gillian had decided what she wanted, but was still convincing herself she wouldn’t care if he wanted the same or not when he swooped to her mouth again. At first, the kiss was awkward as they both found their rhythm, lips open then shut, tongues dancing in and out. He drew her out and pinned her against the fake wood siding on the car.

In a fog, she could still hear the sounds of traffic, voices on the beach as they rose and fell in play. But she didn’t care a wink like she normally did. Absolutely no one would have caught her sucking face in public before. But his lips were thick and juicy, so much to suck on. He was patient with his tongue, waiting for her own movements before adding his own.

He pressed his hips into hers, grinding back and forth until she groaned. The ache swelled intense, strong…beautiful. As he began to move away, she grabbed his waist and pulled him back in. Padraig grunted when she slipped her hands over his ass and squeezed him closer. Their hips rocked together, the pressure building with each fusion of their bodies.

Right in the middle of the parking lot. But she was too far gone to care. This had never happened before. Her head had always been in control, and her body never a part of the equation.

He moved his hands under her hoodie, up her sides where his thumbs grazed the outside of her breasts before he slipped them down to her hips again. He caressed the skirt fabric up and down over her thighs, catching on the bikini strap underneath.

She bunched her fingers into his hair at the back, tugging hard, groaning into his mouth when he moved his right hand down, his fingertips grazing her center, then back up again to her hip.

Holy hell.

Pulling away from his lips, she stayed near to him, her cheek resting on his, and whispered into his ear. “Come with me.” Very bold, but this must be what other woman had talked about. The urban legend. The myth of fantastical proportions. The urgency and desire to get screwed as soon as possible. Not after she’d drunk five beers and felt horny. But an all-out cry from her body to consummate. That very minute.

Without waiting for an answer, she popped into the car and slammed the door. She squeezed the steering wheel as she waited to see what he would do. Maybe he’d knock on her window and motion for her to roll it down, to tell her it wasn’t a good idea, he’d get a cab. And she’d accept that. Her body, however, would not.

Instead, Padraig sprinted around the front of the car, banging his hip on the right bumper. She laughed when he swore and hopped the rest of the way, favoring his right leg. She hadn’t meant to. It wasn’t funny ha-ha. The laughter was a release of nerves.

She couldn’t define her excitement, not having felt it before. It was a bubbling effervescence of giddiness. Maybe it was like a drug high. She didn’t know, but she’d heard stories.

“In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel was playing when she started the car. How ironic. Padraig was so far removed from her usual type, and not for the first time, she wondered if she was doing the right thing.

She turned up the music. She didn’t want to talk to him. She couldn’t. It would have changed everything. And luckily, he didn’t speak either, only tapping his finger along with the music on the armrest of the door.

Gillian turned into the drive to the small nondescript brick building that hosted her start-up practice and living area in back. With the ticking of the cooling engine, embarrassment set in. Because really, she was trying to establish herself as a professional and taking home one of the players within a week seemed juvenile. Like the car engine, some of the heat from earlier had worn off, and doubt crept in like a spider up her leg.

“Well, come on, then.” She plastered on a smile and a look of confidence, she hoped, and took the lead to retrieve her beach bag from the backseat.

His presence behind her threw off her equilibrium when they approached the door. She fumbled the mail she drew from the box, leaflets and advertisements floating to the ground.

“See you like your number fives,” Padraig said as he stooped to collect the paper.

What did he mean by that? When he handed her the mail, she must have looked confused because he continued, “You know, I play number five and your address is number five…”

“Oh.” Her voice came out a breathy chuckle. “Right.”

She swung the door wide and stepped back to let him through, as much to see the look on his face as for courtesy. Did he still want this? Or did he want to run? Supposedly, he was a celebrity in Ireland, and her place was humble, to say the least.

Too late now. With a deep breath, she flicked on the lights, the strong halogens above causing her to squint. With a sweep of her hand, she introduced him to her small client space. “This is where all the magic happens.” She tried to joke, but he said nothing. The magic of a small desk and chairs, therapy table, and second-hand treadmill must not have been magic enough. “Through the back door is my place.”

After unlocking and leading him through to the apartment, she said, “Make yourself at home.”

He kicked off his flip-flops at the door. She had left the lights off so most of the kitchen and living room was in shadow. She wouldn’t make the mistake of turning them on. She was botching the romantic interlude badly enough as it was.

Gillian dropped her bag on one of the stools at the island that divided the kitchen and living room. She stood waiting as he scanned her personal space. The living area was divided by a couch and end tables. On the other side, she had converted a small dining area into an exercise room, small free weights were lined in order on the floor, her yoga mat rolled in the corner, her trumpet case off to the side. Thank God, she hadn’t left it out. Nothing like a brass instrument to scare Sex Jock away.

He nodded in clipped shakes of his head at her music posters on the walls, as though he was about ready to go nuts. Uh-oh. Time for intervention. She bit her lower lip. “Yeah, I meant to take those down last week. All except the one in the middle. She can stay. In fact, I might take them down now…”

As she was scooting by him, he reached out his arm to stop her. “Don’t.”

“All right, yep. You’re right.” His lingering hand on her arm drew her gaze to his. Her knees went weak with the intensity. “Probably not the time for it…”

“It’s a nice place, Gillian.” He picked up her Rubik’s cube. Andrew and she had fought over that damn thing for years. It had originally been her dad’s, but at some point when they were young, they both wanted it, and it had become a type of game. One would take the cube from the other and hide it like treasure. The other would find it and do the same. Back and forth until one day, Andrew no longer cared and it stayed in her possession, hidden in a drawer of feminine hygiene, her best hiding place yet. Gillian could have played the game forever. She had imagined them taking it into their adult years when they had kids of their own, searching each other’s homes when they visited for barbecues and birthdays. But that was never going to happen.

Padraig set the toy back down again. “Lots of throw pillows and candles, which I hear from my sisters is the epitome of comfort for a woman.”

Phew. “I’ll just light a few for us then.” She slipped from their slight connection to the kitchen where she rummaged in her top spare-everything drawer. No matches. As much as she had envisioned herself floating about like an ethereal spirit to light the candles, she only had a very unromantic child-proof plastic lighter thingy. It would have to do.

Barely. With each candle, she had to use one hand to press down the child safety mechanism, the other to click the lighter. Click-click-click. If he hadn’t lost his hard-on by the posters, Gillian was sure he was now as flaccid as a monk.

When she’d finished, Padraig was standing in front of the print of
Music, Pink and Blue No 2
, one of the few she’d had professionally mounted, and a stark contrast to the U2 and Duran Duran posters flanking each side. His hands in his pockets, he seemed to be studying the framed picture.

“Who painted this?” he asked finally.

“Georgia O’Keeffe.” She stepped up behind him. “She’s an artist that believed music could be translated into something for the eye.” Looking at the print over Padraig’s shoulder, Gillian noted how much the picture looked like a vagina. The folds pink and purple, but yep, very much a woman’s coochie. She’d never had a man in her apartment, so how could she have known how cringe-worthy it all was until now? She should have listened to Junette. He was going to think her a fruitcake. Which she was…

Taking a deep breath, she wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her chin on the middle of his back. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for an answer.

When none came, not even the removal of his hands from his pockets, she tugged gently on the bottom of his shirt. She’d come this far, and even if he was uncertain, even if she was confused, she would see it through. To do any less would have been worse. Would have been ridiculous. When she lifted his shirt over his abdomen, it got stuck at his shoulders, but he helped by pulling the jersey over his head. He turned, his shirt in hand, which she then took and let drop to the floor.

She traced her fingertips along his belly up to his chest and then over his shoulders to his arms. But she couldn’t look at him, concentrating instead on the movements her hands made along his skin.

When she finally worked up the nerve to meet his gaze, his face was serene, the flickering of the candles shifting dark spots to light and back again. A small faded scar ran the length of his chin.

Gillian trailed down his arm to his hand, tugged gently, and led him over to the large, patterned rug. She shifted the wood coffee table aside, then knelt and patted the floor. Now what? He’d barely said a handful of words since they’d arrived, and she was flying blind. All the heat and passion at the car was long gone, and she questioned again what the hell she was doing. If only he’d make a move or give a sign if he didn’t want to.

He grabbed a pillow off the couch, threw it on the floor, and lay down, the pillow scrunched under his head, his legs crossed at the ankle. He folded his arms behind him and closed his eyes as if tired.

She rose and removed her hoodie and beach wrap, then stood there, unsure what to do next. He lay motionless on the floor. Music to entice him? All she had available was the
80s Greatest Hits
or her meditation music that he hated. He was sure to run for the hills.