Skintight (16 page)

He laughed. “Man, you don't give an inch, do you? I'll call you as soon as I can.”

And before she could muster a single reply, he pulled her to him for another hard kiss, then turned and strode away.

She watched him disappear through the glass doors then wandered back to the area where they'd been waiting. She was almost there before she realized Carly was no longer in her seat.

“Did they finally call her?” she asked, flopping into the chair beside Ellen.

“Yes, once I had a little talk with the triage nurse about this hospital's so-called fast-track policy for the less acute care patients.”

“You are so amazing. How do you know all these things?”

“A million years' worth of swimming through the public library system. I know how to research and I worked with the general public for so long that I've gotten pretty good at dealing with problems.” She smiled. “And the fact is that Carly should have been sorted to the fast-track area the hospital's so proud of when she first came in. Only the E.R. had several things hit at once around that time, so she sort of got lost in the shuffle.”

“But I talked to a nurse not too long ago, and she took a look at Carly's wound. Shouldn't she have directed us to the right place?”

“Apparently after she checked her out she did see to it that Carly's chart was moved to the right stack. I just got it moved up a little.”

Treena slumped down and rested her head on the smaller woman's shoulder. “You're my hero.”

Ellen laughed. “And my rates are reasonable, too.” They were quiet for a few minutes, then she said softly, “Speaking of which, you said something intriguing yesterday about your preference for foreplay over sex. Would you care to tell Dr. Ellen what you meant?”

Treena slowly sat back up while she battled a knee-jerk impulse to say she'd rather not. The fact was, though, she truly
would
like to talk to another woman about it—and as close as she was to Carly it was just too embarrassing to admit she wasn't all that crazy about one of the very things her friend professed to love most. Maybe if she'd come clean about it years ago, she wouldn't feel so awkward admitting it now. But she'd let the omission go on much too long, and now she didn't know how to confess without sounding like an idiot. Or worse, like a big, fat liar.

With Ellen, on the other hand, she didn't have more than a decade-long history of dodging the truth. Plus, the older woman was the least judgmental person she knew, and she turned in her seat to face her. She opened her mouth, then closed it.

“This is embarrassing,” she muttered.

“Ah, darling, no.” Ellen patted her hand. “The last thing I want is to embarrass you.”

“Oh, trust me, you haven't. I embarrass myself.” She shrugged. “I'm thirty-five years old and presumed by many a man to be the last of the red-hot mamas. That has more to do with me as the dancer than me as the person, I know. But still. When men take me out, they think they're going to get the night of their life. In reality, I stink at sex.”

 

M
ACK CAME TO AN
abrupt stop.
Whoa. This is not a conversation I want to be involved in.
Glad he'd come in through the main hospital entrance and not the E.R. doors where the two women would be more likely to spot him, he stepped back to put a pillar between himself and their line of vision. He watched Ellen reach for Treena's hand as he tried to decide whether to leave, make a noisy entrance or wait them out.

“Whenever I hear a woman claim full responsibility for bad sexual relations,” Ellen said drily, “I have to wonder if she's truly at fault, or if it's simply her choice of partners that stinks?”

“Probably a combination of both,” Treena admitted. “I've certainly run into my share of guys who immediately expect stuff from me that I might be willing to do if I knew them a little better. But mostly it's me, I'm afraid. Like I told you yesterday, I love the kissing and the petting part. But when it comes to the main event, well, I'm sort of a control freak.”

“You like to tell them what to do?”

Treena made a sound that was half snort, half rueful laugh. “No, they'd probably get off on that. I really, really dislike
losing
control. No doubt my unwillingness to truly cut loose is rooted in all manner of Freudian crap that would single-handedly put some shrink's kid through college. But I already know the underlying reason.”

“Which is?”

“I learned young that in order to get where I wanted to go, I had to depend on myself. I guess I'm afraid if I ever put myself in someone else's hands everything will go to hell.” She shrugged. “The bottom line is I
slam the brakes on whenever I feel like I'm too close to losing command of my senses.”

She swivelled in her seat to face Ellen. “But you know what? I have a feeling that it might be different with Jax. Things are already…different.” Color washed up her face. “He makes me feel things I didn't think I was capable of feeling. And he sure makes me forget about keeping the lid on. In fact, if Carly hadn't called when she did this afternoon—” she hesitated, slanting a peek at Ellen “—well, let's just say this conversation might have been moot. Long story short: he'd just given me one of the greatest moments of my life. And we were about to test my He-could-be-the-exception-to-my-freezing-up-in-the-main-event theory. Instead he ended up with the short end of the stick.”

Okay, way too much information.
Mack took a step forward with every intention of announcing himself and stopping this. It was too discomfiting by half to listen to, too close to overhearing the details of one of his daughters' sex lives for his peace of mind. He stopped himself, however, because he knew Ellen would put a halt to it at any minute. And there was no use embarrassing the two of them with his presence.

But all she said was, “Is that why he lit out of here so fast when I got here? Was he upset about being left hanging?”

“No. I mean, that's what I thought at first, too—that maybe, even though he'd been such a rock for us, he was secretly resentful. But he insisted it was strictly because he had to get ready for the first day of his tournament, which starts tomorrow. But, Ellen? For the first time in forever I'm seriously toying with the idea of get
ting down and dirty with a man. This is a big step for me, and God knows I've got enough other problems in my life already to make me think twice. So am I crazy to be considering taking a chance on him?”

Mack folded his arms over his chest, prepared for Ellen to tell Treena to keep her knees together, to save herself for marriage.

“Well, let me see if I have this straight,” the former librarian said. “You had an orgasm today? And that's unusual for you?”

What are you, nuts? You don't query young women about their orgasms!

“Yeah. At least of a partner-induced variety.”

“Then, darling, I'd say you'd be crazy if you
didn't
take the chance.”

He felt his jaw sag.

Treena leaned closer to the petite woman. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Sure. I've been prying like mad into your personal life—I think it's only fair to reciprocate.”

“What do
you
think of sex? Like, um, what was it like with, you know, your husband?” She made a sound of disgust. “Good God. I sounded less like a stammering adolescent when I actually was one.”

“Probably because you hadn't yet been disappointed in that department and so had nothing to lose. But as for your question, sex with Winston was fabulous. He could be a real stick-in-the-mud in day-to-day matters. But close those bedroom doors and he was a wild man. God, I miss making love with him. He wasn't my first, but I knew from our initial time together that he'd be my last—at least until death did us part. Have you ever
heard that lady in the drawing room, whore in the bedroom adage? Well, Winston was my banker in the living room, stud in the bedroom. I loved the juxtapostion of those two sides of his personality.

“Lord, that man introduced me to positions and—well, you don't want to hear that. But if I had only one wish, Treena, it would be that you experience something even
half
as wonderful. So my advice? You go for it with your Jax.”

“I just might do that.” Then Treena giggled, a sound Mack didn't think he'd ever heard out of her before.

Ellen smiled at her fondly. “What's so funny?”

“Well, I was just thinking. Mack seems to have this image of you as some stereotypical librarian. I'm not sure where he got it, because you only have to spend an hour in your company to know it's about as far from the truth as a person can get.”

“Not to mention an insult to librarians everywhere,” Ellen said acerbically.

“Still, wouldn't you just love to be a fly on the wall if he could hear you now? You have to admit you're much stiffer around him, but if he ever heard the real you I bet he'd have a heart attack.”

His head thunked back against the post, and he rubbed his hand over his chest.
Close enough, kid,
he thought.

Close enough.

T
HE HUGE BALLROOM
that the hotel had allocated for the tournament was in its familiar state of first-day madness when Jax arrived the next day. The games were scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m., and a roar of voices bombarded him when he sauntered through the doors at five. All seats were drawn at the beginning of a tourney, and officials were still in the midst of calling out names over a loudspeaker, which someone then posted on a big dry-erase board. With the number of tables they had to fill, it was a time-consuming procedure.

Most of the noise filling the room came from the players milling about waiting to see what their table assignment would be, which position they'd draw, and who'd they be playing their first game against. Anyone able to pay the ten-thousand-dollar entry fee could play, and hundreds of professionals and amateurs did. The latter group in particular had grown in leaps and bounds in the past few years, thanks in part to the popularity of televised tournaments on cable TV.

At the moment the room sounded like the Tower of Babel, but Jax knew once the games began, it would quiet down. At the end of each day's play, tables would be eliminated and physically broken down and removed
until, eventually, the defining games of the tournament—the ones that the public usually saw on television—would be moved into a smaller room. It was the coveted inner sanctum that each and every one of them aspired to reach.

Looking at the number of players that had turned out, Jax knew that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. The tournament ran five days, and it would take the first four to weed out all but the final table. And since he wasn't one to speculate on what the future had in store, he'd simply live with the current noise level. He avoided in particular any conjecture about where he'd be at the end of the tournament. Fortunes could and did turn on the flip of a card.

He went over to check out the board to see if his first table had been posted. When he didn't see his name, he wound his way through the crowd to get a cup of coffee from the courtesy table set up against the far wall.

Sipping his drink, he moved a few feet away and leaned against the back wall to watch the crowd. A kid who was probably in his midtwenties but looked considerably younger stood a few feet away, sweating profusely as his glance darted from face to face and table to table like a hummingbird on speed. He appeared to be seeking something, but his gaze never rested on any one thing for long. A young woman postured down by the end of the table, assuring all who would listen that they might as well toss their money into the pot right now and spare themselves the humiliation of being beaten by a girl.

He'd lay odds neither would progress beyond today, but then again, you never knew. It didn't pay to under
estimate the competition. Anyone could knock you out of the game at any time. He'd blown pros out of the water as an amateur himself, and he knew it could damn well happen to him if he didn't give the game and every player he played against the respect they deserved.

Hell, it could happen even if he did.

Anticipation began building in his gut. God, he loved this game. Winning was the goal, of course, but win or lose, he enjoyed damn near everything about poker. He loved the logic of its mathematical probabilities and the capriciousness of chance. He loved the occasional bluff when his brain insisted he should fold but his gut had other ideas and he enjoyed even more manipulating his opponents' bets toward a larger pot when he was dealt a solid hand.

He was ready for the games to begin.

Two large bodies suddenly appeared against the wall on either side of him. He knew those ugly faces and with a silent curse he waited for Moscow's version of Elvis to appear. “Hello, Sergei,” he said calmly, even though he didn't yet see the man.

“Hello, Jax.” Kirov materialized in front of him, resplendent in a silver-shot navy jumpsuit, a white silk scarf draped around his neck. Like any great star, he pretended not to notice the curious stares that were sent his way. “You are ready for the tournament?”

“Yeah. I was just thinking how much I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some cards. You?”

“The same. Just as I am looking forward to taking possession of my baseball.”

Shit.
His gut began to roil, but he regarded the other man with his most noncommittal poker face. “Do we
really have to go through this routine every time we run into each other?”

“Of course not. Was just thinking—it would be a shame if something happened to—oh, I don't know…your hands, perhaps…should you—how do you say it?—go back on deal.”

The ape-resembling Ivanov brothers on either side of Jax each took one of his hands in their own. The movement was subtly executed, but the end result was no different than if they'd muscled him for the entire roomful of people to see. The pressure they exerted on his thumbs sent pain radiating up his arms. Breathing shallowly, he had to concentrate in order to say calmly, “When have you ever known me to default on a bet?”

Kirov gazed at him a second. “Never,” he finally admitted and gave the merest of nods.

His henchmen dropped Jax's hands and stepped away.

“Good luck in the game,” Sergei said. And with a spin that made his scarf flutter, he walked away, his ever-present goons flanking him.

“Yeah, you, too, asshole,” Jax muttered, massaging his hands. What he really wished for the Russian at this moment involved hot irons and castration tools, but he'd give the guy this: his little show of force highlighted the fact that Jax had been handed the perfect opportunity to look for the baseball last night, and he'd let it slip right through his fingers.

He was in big, big trouble, but what had he done after he'd left Treena at the hospital? Gone straight back to his room exactly as he'd said he would even though it had been an ideal chance to go through her place. Carly's phone message had so rattled Treena that he was
pretty sure she hadn't even bothered to lock up. She'd simply raced off to her friend's apartment, and he'd followed.

And what was the story with that? All of his plans were turning to shit, and the reason for it could be placed squarely on the fact that he was getting much too involved with a certain redheaded dancer.

That wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to be fascinated by Treena or her merry little band of friends.

Yet somehow he was.

Involvement wasn't his strong suit because he'd always felt different, as if he didn't quite fit in. He'd given it his best shot in the early years and played nice with others, but it had never seemed to get him anywhere. Maybe things would have been different if he'd stayed in one place long enough, but the old man's restlessness after his mother's death had taken them to whatever town hosted the current failing company Big Jim had bought. They'd stayed just long enough for his dad to rebuild and sell it, then they'd move on again. They hadn't landed anywhere permanent until Jax was twelve and a half and attending his second high school. That's when his dad had suddenly, inexplicably settled on Las Vegas.

By then, however, Jax had given up trying to fit in. He'd skipped too many grades, had too little in common with his peers, and he finally admitted he was one of those people who simply didn't belong. Anywhere.

Yet when he was around Treena, it was as if she
made
him belong. And it felt good.

And that had to be all wrong. He decided the sexual pressure was getting to him. She was playing him,
and sucker that he was, he was falling right in with the program.

Yet he wasn't all that sure anymore that she had the boundless sexual experience he'd first assumed. He'd questioned it last night on her couch, and her covert glances and uncertainty in the E.R. had made him even more unsure.

A true player would have solidified her position with him. He'd let her know he'd won more than a million dollars in France—a gold digger would have rushed to fuck his brains out and let Carly go hang. She sure as hell wouldn't have dumped her potential sugar daddy on his butt and left him with a raging hard-on while she went to play Nurse Nancy with someone who quite frankly had all sorts of alternate people she could have called for help. He couldn't figure the woman out at all. His instincts said she was just what she seemed. Sexy, yeah, but also nice. Maybe even special.

But his brain, which had made its mind up ages ago, insisted she was something else entirely.

Either way, he'd gotten himself into one mother of a mess, and the only way out was to get his hands on that ball. Kirov's thumb-bending demonstration had driven home the fact that he'd better get his act together. Not only would his professional reputation be in shreds if word got out he'd defaulted on a bet, but his continued physical well-being was clearly in a precarious position, as well.

The idea of stealing from Treena, however, no longer felt so hot. Not that it was really stealing, he reminded himself with a scowl. He was just retrieving what was supposed to be his.

The situation, which hadn't exactly been wonderful
to begin with, was beginning to have No Win written all over it in big neon letters.

He'd have to put it out of his head for now, though, if he was to play his best today. He couldn't afford to dwell on something that he hadn't the least chance of controlling—at least not until today's leg of the tournament was over.

He might as well go check out the board one more time to see if his seat assignment had been drawn yet. The microphone had fallen silent, he realized, so the officials should be finished. And not a moment too soon, if you asked him.

He needed to get his head in a place where he had some confidence he actually knew what the hell he was doing.

 

T
HE LAST PERSON
Ellen expected to see on her threshold later that evening was Mack Brody. So when she answered the summoning knock to find him in the corridor outside her door, she was momentarily dumbstruck.

He stood there with a hip-shot, cocky posture, his shoulders slanted and his left thumb tucked into the key pocket of his jeans. His right hand was hidden from sight behind his back. It was such a cock-of-the-walk stance that her lips started to curl up in an involuntarily appreciative smile.

It died a quick death when he snarled, “What the hell are you doing answering the door without checking your peephole first? Haven't you listened to a
thing
I've told the girls?”

She swallowed a sigh. Just once it would be nice not to start off on the defensive with this man. Last night when he'd shown up at the hospital shortly after her
heart-to-heart with Treena, he'd seemed different. He'd been quiet and low-key, and she'd caught him a couple of times gazing at her with a thoughtful expression on his face. Not a single negative word had passed his lips, and it had been a really nice change. For a short while she'd been treated to the sweet personality he normally reserved for Treena and Carly.

But here he was, reverting to type once again. Yet even now, before she could form, much less utter, a single response, he managed to confound her once again.

“I'm sorry,” he said gruffly. “Believe it or not, I didn't come to pick a fight.” Whipping his arm out from behind his back, he thrust a colorful bouquet of flowers at her. “Here. I came to give you these. And to apologize.”

At first she was too surprised to take the proffered flowers. The little surge of shock quickly passed, but even as it faded she decided she deserved a tiny bit of fun at his expense. Tipping her head to one side, she suctioned her palm against her ear. “I seem to be hearing things. It almost sounded as if you said you came here to—” She raised her eyebrows at him inquiringly.

“You're going to make me repeat it, aren't you?”

A smile of pleasure wanted to curl her lips but she rubbed them together to suppress it. “Indeed I am,” she said primly once she was certain she wouldn't grin at him like a loon. “You say you're here because you want to…?” She twirled her hand, encouraging him to fill in the blanks.

“Apologize. Okay? I came to apologize.” He pushed the flowers against her midriff. “Would you take the damn things?”

“You're such a charmer.” But she accepted the flowers, gathering them in to cradle against her breasts as she watched him run the fingers of his freed hand through his curly steel-colored hair. It stood up messily in their wake.

To her surprise, he nodded briskly and said, “I know. Sometimes I find myself saying things I had no intention of saying. Words just seem to come out of my mouth before I give them any thought.”

Gee, you think?
But she bit her tongue against voicing the flippant thought. “Only sometimes?”

“All right, with you, I'm guilty of messing up all of the time.” He rolled his burly shoulders in a tough-guy shrug. He looked her in the eye. “Maybe you intimidate me—you ever think about that?”

“Oh, sure, often.” She would have snorted if she hadn't been raised to be a lady. But it was at times like this that her upbringing had its drawbacks.

“Yeah, well, maybe I am intimidated. I'm just a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy—not a man of culture like the ones you're probably used to.” Hooking his thumbs in his jeans pockets, he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Look, the fact of the matter is, you and I got off on the wrong foot pretty much from the first day we met—and that's my fault.” He nodded at the bouquet. “The flowers there are my way of saying I'm sorry, and that I'd like it if we could call a truce. Maybe try to start over again as two reasonable adults or something.”

Her heart picked up its pace at the thought, but she gave him a suspicious glance. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“A number of things. I've said some stuff to you I'm not proud of, behaved with a rudeness that I've never shown another woman in my life. Plus, watching you with the girls last night made me realize how wonderful you are with them. I'm amazed you never had kids of your own.”