Seduced by the Game (25 page)

Cooper cast one last,
longing look toward the closed door, imagining Izzy all messy and ready for
sex. He wasn’t done with that woman yet. The night was young and the boat would
soon be docking. This party wasn’t over until the fat lady skated home, and she
wasn’t skating off the rink until he said so.

Chapter 5—Drop Pass

Izzy threw back her head
and started laughing when the guys ran out like the devil was on their tails.
She couldn’t help it. Those big, strong alpha males couldn’t handle a little
sisterly disagreement. How funny was that? Bethany joined in, both of them
laughing until their sides hurt. Finally, Izzy managed to gain her breath.

“We scared the crap right
out of them, didn’t we?” Bethany smiled, even though her eyes were still a
little dilated and her hands shaky.

Izzy turned toward her and
went on the offensive before her sister had a chance to state the obvious.
“What were you thinking, fooling around with a guest at a party? You know we
don’t do that.” She spoke calmly in her matter-of-fact, older sister, lecturing
mode. No one would guess what a screwed up mess she was inside with conflicting
thoughts bouncing around inside her head like a duck in a whirlpool.

“Really? And what were you
doing in here with him?” Bethany raised her eyebrows and tilted her head toward
the door the men had escaped through.

“We were dressed,” Izzy
shot back, trying to muster up indignance over something she had very well
planned to do if she hadn’t been interrupted.

Bethany walked over to the
dessert tray and made a show of clearing her throat. “I see you were in here
for a little dessert.” She popped a chocolate-covered strawberry in her mouth.

Izzy joined her and picked
up the small bite-sized cheesecake. “That’s right. Just dessert.”

“Us, too.”

“What the hell were we
both thinking?”

Bethany looked longingly
at the door. “He’s really hot, sexy, and a great dancer.”

“So’s Cooper.” Cooper
attracted her to the point that she’d been willing to ruin her new business,
destroy her reputation, and decimate her sisters’ respect. No man was worth
that.

Or was he? Obviously in
the heat of the moment, she’d thought he was, and so had Bethany. Yet, she
expected this behavior from the family wild child. No one expected it from the
practical older sister.

“You’re really hot for
him, aren’t you?” Bethany asked.

Izzy snorted and licked
some chocolate off her fingers. To think she could’ve been licking chocolate
out of Cooper’s belly button or off his—

“Isabella!” Bethany
snapped her fingers in front of Izzy’s face.

Izzy jumped with a guilty
start. “Sorry, he is hot, so frigging hot, I almost gave up everything we’ve
worked for just to screw his brains out one time.”

“Me, too.” Bethany tried
to look solemn, but she didn’t do solemn well. In fact, her lips twitched until
she gave into a full-blown bad girl grin. “Go after him. Even good girls need
to be bad once in a while.”

“I can’t. Not here.”

“Then go home with him.
I’m sure you’d be invited.”

“I don’t do one-night
stands.”

“By the look in his eyes,
it wouldn’t be just one night. The man was completely smitten.”

“You think?”

“I know. Trust me.”
Bethany turned on the lights, dug a compact out of her purse, and refreshed her
makeup. “Let’s go back out and join the world.”

Izzy grabbed her sister’s
makeup kit and did her own emergency makeover, but no amount of makeup covered
up lips swollen from Cooper’s kisses, eyes shiny with desire, and hair so messy
it looked like she did it that way on purpose.

Composing herself, she
walked into the hallway and ran headfirst into Ethan Parker. He put his hands
on her shoulders and set her back on her feet. “Isabella, I’ve been looking for
you.”

“Oh, I, uh, my sister and
I were discussing strategy.”

Ethan grinned. “As far as
I’m concerned, you’ve done more than enough. You’re off the clock. Enjoy the
party. It’s a rousing success and wouldn’t have been without you and your
sisters. The guys are dancing up a storm, talking to the coaches, making plans.
You’ve broken the ice, literally, and I can’t pay you enough for what you’ve
managed to accomplish.”

“Well, thank you.” It was
nothing that couldn’t be solved without having the team captain’s tongue down
her throat, hands on her ass, and lips in places they shouldn’t be.

“I don’t know how you did
it. The way those boys were scowling at the beginning of the night, I didn’t
think anyone would get through to them.”

“Thank you, Mr. Parker.”
Izzy smiled her most gracious smile.

“It was our pleasure,”
Bethany added in total innocence.

“Call me Ethan. Great job.
You’ll be getting a bonus for this, and I’ll be recommending you to all of our
friends.” He grinned as Lauren came up beside him. “Stop by the team office
next week, and I’ll have a check waiting at the front desk.”

“I will, and thank you,
Ethan.”

Ethan grinned at his
fiancée and headed outside to the deck.

“We did it.”

“We sure did.” Izzy should
have felt on top of her world, and she did to a point, but there was still the
little problem of Cooper and wanting to see him again.

“Let’s get back to the
party.” Izzy almost broke into a jog, but something solid stopped her progress
as she rounded the corner.

Cooper’s sold chest filled
her line of vision. She lifted her face upward. Judging by the thin, angry line
of his lips and his hard jaw, he’d heard every word of her conversation with
Ethan.

And he wasn’t happy.

* * * *

Cooper had made up his
mind. He wasn’t going to let this woman get away. Sure, he wanted to sleep with
her, but it was more than that. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time, and he
wanted to explore that heady feeling of being with a woman who intrigued him
beyond the bedroom.

So he’d gone in search of
Izzy to do the right thing and ask her out like a proper guy would do for a
classy lady. Surely, the bathroom incidents were aberrations. They’d never
happened to her before, but it was this intense chemistry between them—the same
crazy feelings he felt—that drove her to do something she would never normally
do.

At least that was what
he’d wanted to believe.

Until he’d overheard her
talking to Ethan Parker.

Humiliated and feeling
like all kinds of fool, he rounded the corner with both guns blazing. She’d
used him and used him quite nicely. He’d let down his guard for one night,
believed in a woman for the first time in years, and this was what happened.

Her eyes opened wide as
she spotted him in all his indignant fury.

“Are you going to be
okay?” Her sister gave her a pat on the arm.

Izzy gave Bethany a curt
nod to dismiss her. “I’m fine. Cooper and I need to talk.”

Without another word,
Bethany scurried away, glancing over her shoulder one last time before she
disappeared back into the party.

“How much did you hear?”

“All of it.” Cooper ground
his teeth together, expecting his jaw to shatter any moment or at least for his
many implants to be ground to dust.

“I can explain.” She moved
toward him, but he held his hands up to keep that mesmerizing body out of his
personal space.

“You were paid to do me.”
Beneath the anger, he sounded pathetic and betrayed, even to his own ears.

“That would make me a
prostitute, wouldn't it?” Now her annoyance matched his. She propped her hands
on her hips, stood straighter, and pulled her shoulders back, inadvertently
drawing attention to those nice breasts of hers, the same ones he’d been
enjoying several minutes earlier.

His mouth went dry, and he
licked his lips. “Uh, that's not what I'm saying.” No, he didn’t believe she
screwed for money. Not deep down inside. Maybe his instincts hadn’t always been
the best when it came to women, but something rang true in her words and her
previous actions. Her out-of-control attraction couldn’t have been an act, any
more than it had been with him.

“Then what are you
saying?”

He didn’t know what he was
saying, had no clue what he was accusing her of. His anger turned to confusion.

“Ethan paid us to make
sure this party was successful.”

“And to be successful, you
had to have me on board.”

She nodded, her own anger
fizzling out. She clasped her hands together in front of her and wrung them.
“That’s true, but I never planned on it going as far as it did. I just wanted
to get you to dance, have a good time. It was never supposed to be sexual.”

“And I’m supposed to
believe you didn’t plan on using every means you had.”

“Believe what you want.
That’s not what we’re about.” She stared at her feet, obviously embarrassed.
“It got out of hand. Something about you just made me forget every rule we
had.”

“I’m supposed to believe
that?” Cooper ran his hand through his hair, frustrated and confused. “I don’t
know what to believe.”

Izzy sighed, looking as
sad as the beagle he’d had as a child with those big brown eyes that could melt
the hardest heart. Only Izzy wasn’t his trusted, loyal childhood friend. She
was a woman with a job to do, and that job had involved using him to reach her
goal. Whether it included actual physical acts with him or not, he didn’t know.
His heart didn’t want to believe it did, even though his head screamed
“sucker.”

Cooper shook his head.
“Know what? I was looking for you to ask you out on a date like a gentleman
asks out a lady. That’s what an idiot I am.”

“Cooper, I—I’m sorry.” Her
face crumpled, she looked ready to cry, and it took every ounce of
determination he’d honed over years of scrabbling and fighting in the toughest
of sports not to give in to those beautiful brown eyes.

“I’m not. I’m ashamed of
you. I thought we had something, and you took advantage of my stupidity.
Goodbye, Izzy.” He turned and walked away, grateful the boat was docking, and
he could get the hell off the damn thing before he lost his resolve and caved
to his baser needs.

He could get that from any
number of women, but he’d thought Izzy could give him more, thought she’d stave
off the loneliness of a single man, give him a reason to like this new place
that’d been forced upon him.

Now he’d get none of the
above.

Chapter 6—Delayed Penalty

Izzy held it together
until she’d dropped off her sisters and shut the door to her little apartment.
When she snapped the deadbolt shut, something snapped inside her.

She threw herself down on
the ratty living room couch and cried her eyes out, not caring that her makeup
ran or if her expensive dress wrinkled beyond repair. Her tears gushed like a
broken water main. Her sobs drowned out the sounds from the freeway next to her
apartment. Her heart cracked wider with each second that passed.

She should be thrilled.
Ecstatic. On top of the world.

Her company had just
pleased a very wealthy client and was on the verge of something big. Really
big.

Right now, none of that
mattered. It would tomorrow or the next day when the shock of all these crazy
feelings wore off and eased the humiliation of being branded a prostitute.

Had she done everything
she’d done just for the money? Because if she had, then she deserved that
title. God, she’d been a fool over a man who didn’t care one damn bit about
her. He’d used her just like she’d used him.

Only it hadn’t really been
like that. Not for her. She’d felt something more, a seed of something that
could’ve blossomed and grown into a beautiful flower, but instead of nurturing
it with mutual trust and affection, she’d fed it with lies and behaved
irresponsibly.

Cooper was right about
her. She should be ashamed of herself. She had taken advantage of their initial
attraction, even though she never planned on it going as far as it had, never
dreamed she’d lose her mind looking into those deep blue eyes, and shed her
scruples as quickly as she shed her clothes for him.

Shame on her.

He’d wanted to ask her out
on a real date, show her the respect she didn’t deserve after her inexcusable
and unprofessional behavior.

She’d been an idiot on so
many levels.

Sitting up, Izzy wiped her
face with tissues, blew out several deep breaths, and blinked the tears away.
This was stupid. She barely knew the man. He was gorgeous, ripped, and a great
dancer. So what? She called forth her practical side, that side which poo-pooed
such bullshit as falling hard for a guy she’d only known three hours.

She’d learn from this
mistake. Never again would she enter into any kind of a physical relationship
with a party guest, not that it’d been a problem before, but it would not be
again.