Rules of the Game (4 page)

“Interesting?” Parks shook his head at the word. “And did you?”

“Oh, yes, though I'd expected to be bored.”

“I didn't notice any particular enthusiasm in you,” Parks commented, remembering her calm, direct stare. “As I recall, you didn't move through nine innings.”

“I didn't need to,” she returned. “You did enough of that.”

Parks shot her a quick look. “Why were you staring at me?”

Brooke considered for a moment, then opted for the truth. “I was admiring your build.” She turned to him with a half smile. The wind blew the hair into her face, but she didn't bother to brush it aside. “It's a very good one.”

“Thanks.” She saw a flash of humor in his eyes that pleased her. “Is that why you agreed to have dinner with me?”

Brooke smiled more fully. “No. I just like to eat. Why did you ask me?”

“I liked your face. And it's not every day I have a woman stare at me as if she were going to frame me and hang me on her wall.”

“Really?” She gave him an innocent blink. “I'd think that pretty typical in your profession.”

“Maybe.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to meet hers. “But then you're not typical, are you?”

Brooke lifted a brow. Did he know he'd given her what she considered the highest compliment? “Perhaps not,” she murmured. “Why don't you think so?”

“Because, Brooke Gordon, I'm not typical either.” He burst out of the woods and onto the highway. Brooke decided that she'd better tread carefully.

The restaurant was Greek, with pungent foods, spicy scents and violins. While Parks poured her a second glass of ouzo, Brooke listened to a waiter in a grease-splattered apron sing lustily as he served souvlaki. As always, atmosphere pulled at her. Caught up, she watched and absorbed while managing to put away a healthy meal.

“What are you thinking?” Parks demanded. Her eyes shifted to his, disconcerting in their directness, seducing in their softness.

“That this is a happy place,” she told him. “The sort you imagine a big family running. Momma and Poppa in the kitchen fussing over sauces, a pregnant daughter chopping vegetables while her husband tends bar. Uncle Stefos waits tables.”

The image made him smile. “Do you come from a large family?”

Immediately the light went out of her eyes. “No.”

Sensing a boundary, Parks skirted around it. “What happens when the daughter has her baby?”

“She pops it in a cradle in the corner and chops more vegetables.” Brooke broke a hunk of bread in half and nibbled.

“Very efficient.”

“A successful woman has to be.”

Leaning back, Parks swirled his drink. “Are you a successful woman?”

“Yes.”

He tilted his head, watching the candlelight play on her skin. “At what?”

Brooke sipped, enjoying the game. “At what I do. Are you a successful man?”

“At the moment.” Parks flashed a grin—the one that gave his face a young, rather affable charm. “Baseball's a fickle profession. A ball takes a bad hop—a pitcher blows a few by you. You can't predict when a slump will start or stop—or worse, why.”

It seemed a bit like life to her. “And do you have many?”

“One's too many.” With a shrug, he set his drink back on the table. “I've had more than one.”

With her first genuine curiosity, Brooke leaned forward. “What do you do to get out of one?”

“Change bats, change batting stances.” He shrugged again. “Change your diet, pray. Try celibacy.”

She laughed, a warm, liquid sound. “What works best?”

“A good pitch.” He, too, leaned forward. “Wanna hear one?”

When her brow rose again, he lifted a finger to trace it. Brooke felt the jolt shiver down to her toes. “I think I'll pass.”

“Where do you come from?” he murmured. His fingertip drifted down her cheek, then traced her jawline. He'd known her skin would feel like that. Milkmaid soft.

“No place in particular.” Brooke reached for her glass, but his hand closed over hers.

“Everyone comes from somewhere.”

“No,” she disagreed. His palm was harder than she had imagined, his fingers stronger. And his touch was gentler. “Not everyone.”

From her tone, Parks realized she was speaking the truth as she saw it. He brushed a thumb over her wrist, finding her pulse fast but steady. “Tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Brooke laughed but spoke with perfect truth. “I don't tell anyone everything.”

“What do you do?”

“About what?”

He should have been exasperated, but found himself grinning. “About a job, for starters.”

“Oh, I make commercials,” she said lightly, knowing he would conclude she worked in front of the cameras. The game had a certain mischievous appeal for her.

“I'll be doing that myself soon,” he said with a quick grimace. “Do you like it?”

“I wouldn't do it if I didn't.”

He sent her a narrowed look, then nodded. “No, you wouldn't.”

“You don't sound as though you're looking forward to trying it,” Brooke commented, slipping her hand from his. Prolonged contact with him, she discovered, made it difficult to concentrate, and concentration was vital to her.

“Not when I have to spout some silly lines and wear somebody else's clothes.” Idly, he toyed with a lock of her hair, wrapping it around his finger while his eyes remained on hers. “You've a fascinating face; more alluring than beautiful. When I saw you in the stands, I thought you looked like a woman out of the eighteenth century. The sort who had a string of anxious lovers.”

With a low sound of humor, Brooke leaned closer. “Was that the first pitch, Mr. Jones?”

Her scent seemed intensified by the warmth of the candle. He wondered that every man in the room wasn't aware of it, and of her. “No.” His fingers tightened briefly, almost warningly, on her hair. “When I make my first one, you won't have to ask.”

Instinctively, Brooke retreated, but her eyes remained calm, her voice smooth. “Fair enough.” She would definitely put him on film with women, she decided. Sultry brunettes for contrast. “Do you ride?” she asked abruptly.

“Ride?”

“Horses.”

“Yeah,” he answered with a curious laugh. “Why?”

“Just wondered. What about hang gliding?”

Parks's expression became more puzzled than amused. “It's against my contract, like skiing or racing.” He didn't trust the light of humor in her eyes. “Should I know what game you're playing?”

“No. Can we have dessert?” She flashed him a brilliant smile he trusted less.

“Sure.” Watching her, Parks signaled the waiter.

Thirty minutes later, they walked across the parking lot to his car. “Do you always eat like that?” Parks demanded.

“Whenever I get the chance.” Brooke dropped into the passenger seat then stretched her arms over her head in a lazy, unconsciously sensual movement. No one who hadn't worked in a restaurant could fully appreciate eating in one. She'd enjoyed the food . . . and the evening. Perhaps, she mused, she'd enjoyed being with Parks because they'd spent three hours together and still didn't know each other. The mystery added a touch of spice.

In a few months, they would know each other well. A director had no choice but to get to the inside of an actor—which is what Parks would be, whether he liked it or not. For now, Brooke chose to enjoy the moment, the mystery and the brief companionship of an attractive man.

When Parks sat beside her, he reached over to cup her chin in his hand. She met his eyes serenely and with that touch of humor that was beginning to frustrate him. “Are you going to let me know who you are?”

Odd, Brooke mused, that he would have the same understanding of the evening she did. “I haven't decided,” she said candidly.

“I'm going to see you again.”

She gave him an enigmatic smile. “Yes.”

Wary of the smile, and her easy agreement, Parks started the engine.

He didn't like knowing that she was playing him . . . any more than he liked knowing he'd have to come back for more. He'd known a variety of women—from icy sophisticates to bubbly groupies. There were infinite shadings in between, but Brooke Gordon seemed to fit none of them. She had both a haughty sexuality and a soft vulnerability. Though his first instinct had been to get her to bed, he now discovered he wanted more. He wanted to peel off the layers of her character and study each one until he understood the full woman. Making love to her would only be part of the discovery.

They drove in silence while an old, soft ballad crooned on the radio. Brooke had her head thrown back, face to the stars, knowing it was the first time in months she'd fully relaxed on a date and not wanting to analyze why. Parks didn't find it necessary to break a comfortable silence with conversation, nor had he found it necessary to slip in those predictable hints about how he'd like to end the evening. She knew there wouldn't be a wrestling match on the side of the road or an embarrassing, infuriating argument when they reached the front door. He was safe, Brooke decided, and closed her eyes. It seemed things were going to work very well after all. Her thoughts began to drift toward her schedule for the next day.

The motion of the car woke her, or rather the lack of motion. Brooke opened her eyes to find the MG parked in her drive, the engine quiet. Turning her head, she saw Parks sprawled in his seat, watching her.

“You drive very well,” she murmured. “I don't usually trust anyone enough to fall asleep in a car.”

He'd enjoyed the moments of quiet while he'd watched her sleep. Her skin looked ethereal in the moonlight, ghostly pale with a hint of flush in her cheeks. The wind had tossed her hair so that Parks knew how it would look spread on a pillow after a wild night of loving. Sooner or later he'd see it that way, he determined. After his hands had tangled it.

“This time you're staring,” Brooke pointed out.

And he smiled—not the quick grin she'd come to expect, but a slow, unsettling smile that left his eyes dark and dangerous. “I guess we'll both have to get used to it.”

Leaning over, he opened her door. Brooke didn't stiffen or shift away from the brush of his body against hers; she simply watched. As if, Parks mused, she were considering his words very carefully. Good, he thought as he stepped from the car. This time she'd have something to think about.

“I like this place.” He didn't touch her as they walked up the path to her house, though Brooke had expected him to take her hand or her arm. “I had a house in Malibu once.”

“Not anymore?”

“Got too crowded.” He shrugged as they walked up the porch steps. Their footsteps echoed into the night. “If I'm going to live out of the city, I want a place where I'm not forever stumbling over my neighbor.”

“I don't have that problem here.” Around them the woods were dark and quiet. There was only the bubbling sound of the stream and the music of tireless crickets. “There's a couple who live about a quarter mile that way.” Brooke gestured to the east. “Newlyweds who met on a television series that folded.” Leaning back against the door, she smiled. “We don't have any trouble keeping out of each other's way.” She sighed, comfortably sleepy and relaxed. “Thanks for dinner.” When she offered her hand, she wondered if he would take it or ignore it and kiss her. Brooke expected the latter, even wondered with a drowsy curiosity what the pressure of his lips on hers would be like.

Parks knew what she expected, and her lips, as they had from the first, tempted him. But he thought it was time this woman had something unexpected. Taking her hand, Parks leaned toward her. He saw from her eyes that she would accept his kiss with her own sultry reserve. Instead, he touched his lips to her cheek.

At the brush of his open mouth on her skin, Brooke's fingers tightened in his. Usually she viewed a kiss or embrace distantly, as from behind a camera, wondering dispassionately how it would appear on film. Now she saw nothing, but felt. Low, turbulent waves of sensation swept through her, making her tense. Something seemed to ripple along her skin, though he never touched her—just his hand over hers, just his lips on her cheek.

Slowly, watching her stunned eyes, Parks journeyed to her other cheek, moving his lips with the same featherlightness. Brooke felt the waves rise until there was an echoing in her head. She heard a soft moan, unaware that it was her own. As hunger swept over her, Brooke turned her mouth toward his, but he glided up her skin, whispering over her eyelids so that they fluttered down. Drugged, she allowed him to roam over her face, leaving her lips trembling with anticipation, and unfulfilled. She tasted his breath on them, felt the warm flutter as they passed close, but his mouth dropped to her chin to give her a teasing touch of his tongue.

Her fingers went limp in his. Surrender was unknown to her, so she didn't recognize it. Parks did as he caught the lobe of her ear between his teeth. His body was throbbing, aching to press against hers and feel the yielding softness that came only from woman. Against his cheek, her hair was as silky as her skin, and as fragrant. It took every ounce of control to prevent his hands from diving into it, to keep himself from plundering the mouth that waited, warm and naked, for his. He traced her ear with his tongue and felt her shudder. Slowly, he brushed kisses up her temple and over her brow on his way to her other ear. He nibbled gently, letting his tongue slide over her skin until he heard her moan again.

Still he avoided her mouth, pressing his lips to the pulse in her throat, fighting the urge to move lower, to feel, to taste the subtle sweep of her breast beneath the black silk. Her pulse was jerky, like the sound of her breathing. High up in the mountains, a coyote called to the moon.