Skintight (8 page)

He emitted a rude sound. “You didn't get that body drinking thousand-calorie drinks.”

“Hey, I burn a lot of calories in my line of work. It's when I quit doing this for a living that I'm going to have to start watching what I eat. That's one of the reasons I'm having so much trouble keeping up with the troupe now—because I was away from it for almost a year.”

They hit the street and were immediately swept apart by the pedestrians crowding the sidewalk. When they came together again at the corner, Treena laughed. “Whew. You'd think this place would be a ghost town in the summer, wouldn't you? But not even bake-your-brains-out heat can slow the Vegas tourist machine.”

He stared at her, all easy in her skimpy leotard and hip-hugging shawl, grinning up at him with those golden brown eyes the color of honey in the sunlight, while a trace of perspiration began dewing on her upper lip. His own body felt stiff and jerky as he abruptly turned away. He stepped to the curb, thrusting his arm in the air when he saw a taxi cruising down the strip.

Celine Dion's voice soared in the air as the cab
veered over to the curb, and Treena's head came up as she sauntered over to join him. “Oh, look,” she said, “it's the fountain show at Bellagio.” She gave a good-natured shrug. “Well, it's the tip of it, anyhow. What is that, the theme song from
Titanic
? I
love
that song.” She began to sing along as he held the door for her.

Jax stared at her. Her left thigh appeared through the widening gap in her shawl while she slid across the seat, but it was her complete lack of self-consciousness that really grabbed him.

He'd worked like a dog to weed self-consciousness out of his own system, but it was something that never completely left him. While he'd come a long way from the days when his father's constant pushing propelled him into extreme shyness, he would never in a million years burst into song in a less-than-perfect voice on a crowded city street.

His expression must have been as poleaxed as he felt, because she bent that slight smile on him and said, “I know. It loses a certain something when I sing it.”

“No, you sound great.” But inside he was shaking his head. Jesus. What was his problem? Shoving away the old familiar sense of inadequacy that had surfaced full-blown, he told himself it was allowing the sight of a little female flesh to turn him into a fool that sent uneasiness gnawing at his gut.

Yeah. That was it. He didn't usually act like a hormone-crazed adolescent when presented with a glimpse of leg.

There was sure as hell no mystery why his old man had fallen for this woman, though. She was a walking, talking aphrodisiac.

He had to remain immune to her charms. “So tell me about this trouble you're having keeping up with the troupe,” he invited after she'd given the driver their destination. The cab took off like a rocket, and he settled into the corner to give her his full attention. “Did you keep eating like a trucker without your show to keep you in fighting trim or something?”

“No, I actually did order short, skinny, hold the whipping cream then. But my husband took sick early on, so I didn't go back to work after the honeymoon like I'd planned. And I wasn't able to take the classes I needed to stay on top of my game.”

His heart thudded the way it always did whenever he thought of his father battling cancer. “How early on are we talking?”

“Pretty much immediately.” She was quiet for several minutes, then shrugged as they pulled up in front of the coffeehouse. “He tried to hide it at first, but it soon became apparent he was very ill.”

Jax wasn't very proud of himself for wondering how his father's illness had affected their sex life. But he was discovering that he didn't like the thought of her getting naked with the old man. His feelings were most likely some competitive, knee-jerk juvenile thing he hadn't entirely outgrown. Or maybe they were simply brought on by watching the ends of her shawl shimmying around her legs as he followed her into the coffeehouse.

He swallowed hard.

She grabbed a table while he placed their order with the barista. Fingering the tiny jeweler's box in his pocket as he waited for the drinks to be prepared, he
wondered if he should give the necklace to her now or wait until this evening. Giving it to her now seemed like a good idea, because then she'd have the rest of the afternoon and part of tonight to consider all the myriad ways she could show her appreciation.

The instant he brought her Frappuccino and his cup of coffee to the table, however, he found himself returning to their previous conversation. “Help me understand why not taking a bunch of classes while you weren't working made such a big difference.”

“It's the use-it-or-lose-it principle. I imagine you need to play poker on a regular basis to stay competitive, right? Well, I was away from a show that I was accustomed to dancing in five nights a week—four of which had twice-nightly performances. That's nine times a week, Jax, not counting classes and practice sessions like today's when there's a new routine to be learned. And as it's been pointed out, I'm not as young as I once was.”

“You know my feelings on that.”

“Yes. And flattering as it is to have you believe I'm in as good of shape as a twenty-five-year-old, the sad truth is I'm not. I fatigue easier, I wind easier and I've gotten more injuries since I've been back than I've ever had in my life. I'm taking classes almost daily, trying to catch up, but I'm scared to death it's not going to be enough and I'm going to fail the annual audition week after next.” Then she straightened in her seat and gave him a big, bright, stage-worthy smile. “But you don't want to hear my problems. So. Tell me about your work.”

He
didn't
want to hear her difficulties. Hell, he hadn't thought she could even have problems, and her unexpected vulnerability shook him up.

The last thing he could afford around this woman was to feel sympathetic.

Still. He was passing himself off as an urbane man, and at the very least she probably expected him to know how to segue into a few amusing tales of life on the pro circuit smoothly enough to forestall her embarrassment.

But while he had all sorts of usable talents and excelled at a number of skills, human relationships that weren't basically superficial had never been his strong suit. He merely touched his fingertips to her free hand and said clumsily, “I'm sorry you're having a rough time.”

She gave a choked laugh and set the cup she'd been about to sip from back on the table. “Oh, God. You are so nice.”

“No, I'm not,” he said flatly to counteract the unfamiliar feeling crawling through his gut.

Guilt.

She blinked at his tone, and he modulated it when he said, “Believe me. I'm not.” Then he changed the subject. “So I'm guessing you didn't get to take the classes you needed because you were busy taking care of your husband?” Damn. Was it possible he'd misread the situation from start to finish?

“I do sound like a martyr, don't I? Saint Treena.” She snorted. “No, we had a nurse to help. It's just—”

The guilt disappeared, and he tuned out the rest of what she had to say. Of course they'd had a nurse to do the real work. Treena had probably been too busy shopping to concern herself with the now-lamented classes or a pesky little thing like a dying husband.

Who was it who'd said there was a sucker born every minute? It wasn't the first time he'd caught himself
being manipulated by her. Hell, it wasn't even the second or third time. Shelving his misplaced self-recrimination, he began mentally laying down plans for tonight's date. He'd had enough of this waiting around for her to give him permission to act bullshit.

It was time to turn up the heat.

E
LLEN THREW HER
towel over the back of a lounge chair, dropped her key on the table next to it and walked over to the pool. It was the height of the afternoon heat and like mad dogs and Englishmen, she didn't have the sense to stay out of the sun. She simply loved to swim, and through trial and error with various other forms of exercise she had discovered that it also benefited her most. Climbing up on the low spring board, she took two steps out into the broiling sun, bounced on the third, and then dove in. The water was lovely and cool as it closed over her head.

Slicing like a javelin through aqua silence, she surfaced halfway down the pool. She hadn't, she assured herself stoutly as she headed for the shallow end with smooth, steady strokes, picked this particular time of day because she knew Mack Brody would never choose the hottest hour of the afternoon to clean the filters or do whatever it was he did that kept the pool functioning problem-free. It had nothing to do with that.

Really. Nothing at all. He didn't intimidate her.

Reaching the end of the pool she performed a shallow racer's turn and headed back toward the other end. Midway through her lap, she caught a blur of movement
whizzing overhead as she turned her face to the side to draw in a breath, and for a moment she faltered. A second later something hit the water with a huge splash, and she scrambled to get out of the way.

“Rufus, no!” Carly yelled. “Oh, Ellen, I'm so sorry.”

Dropping her legs to tread water, Ellen turned to see Rufus paddling like mad in her direction, his black and brown fur sleek from the water, his mouth open in a big doggie grin. She had to smile at the sheer joie de vivre he managed to project.

Clearly, Carly wasn't as amused. “Heel!” she yelled. “Dammit, you worthless mutt, come here!” When Rufus continued to ignore her, she leaped into the pool after him.

Ellen laughed aloud. Carly's skimpy workout gear was the next best thing to a bathing suit, so she couldn't truthfully say her young friend had jumped into the pool fully clothed. Carly had, however, forgotten to kick off her little canvas ballet slippers.

Life was so much more interesting than it had been before she'd moved into the complex and met Carly and Treena. She adored both of the young women, and was tickled on a near daily basis by their impetuosity, their friendliness and their easy laughter.

And as a diversionary tactic, Carly's gambit worked spectacularly. With a joyous woof, Rufus changed direction midpaddle, making a beeline for his mistress. The showgirl laughed and sidestepped his furiously churning paws. Grabbing him by the scuff of his neck, she guided him over to the side of the pool and with a hand under his belly boosted him up onto the concrete apron.

“You really are worthless,” she said fondly, and hiked
herself up to sit on the tiled edge, water squishing out of her soaked workout gear. “Great,” she muttered as the dog shook chlorinated water all over her. But she gave his head an affectionate scratch when he flopped down beside her.

“What's going on here?”

Recognizing the gruff voice calling out the question, a dirty word flashed across Ellen's mind. It was such a truly nasty one that never before in its entire long, misbegotten existence had it made its way into her vocabulary—and for a moment she was ashamed. But just for a moment. Because of all the bad luck! She'd thought she'd been able to avoid Mack Brody this afternoon.

“Are you letting that mangy mutt swim in my clean pool, Carly?”

“Sorry, Mack.” She smiled wryly. “It wasn't intentional—he just got away from me.” She slung an arm around Rufus's neck. “He's a stubborn little cuss—aren'tcha bud? Or maybe headstrong is a more accurate word.”

“Try brainless.”

Carly laughed. “Oh, yeah. That's a definite possibility. However you define him, he's taking longer to train than any dog I've ever had.” She gave the mutt a tender look, and Rufus panted up at her with happy, clueless devotion in return. “But he'll get there. It just takes longer with some.”

Ellen shot the sweet young woman and the older man surreptitious glances. Carly, even in her bedraggled wet clothing and ruined slippers, looked fresh and sexy, but Ellen would give Mack credit for never once look
ing at any of the young females in this building with even a hint of old goat lasciviousness.

Still, there was no way she intended to get out of the pool in front of him while the pretty dancer was there. Mack had a way of making her feel like a sexless old crone at the best of times. The last thing she thought she could bear was a comparison between Carly's perfect figure and her own month-and-a-half-away-from-her-sixtieth-birthday body.

She resumed her interrupted Australian crawl to the deep end of the pool.

Stiffness rendered her strokes awkward at first, but once she'd performed the flip-turn at the blue-tiled wall she lost her self-consciousness and settled down to swimming some nice steady laps.

Still, it wasn't until Carly and Mack's voices had long faded, leaving nothing but the lap of water against her ears and the whisper of wind through the palms that she swam to the ladder and pulled herself up. Pausing on the top rung, she tilted her head to tap water out of her ear.

“About damn time you finished.”

She jerked around so violently she nearly slipped off the ladder. Peering into the shadows beneath the palms, she saw Mack sitting on the same lounge chair where she'd dropped her towel. He scowled at her and raked her from head to foot with his deep brown eyes.

She wanted desperately to sink back into the water to avoid his insolent inspection, but pride got her moving. Her heart skipped a beat as she hauled herself the rest of the way up and stepped out of the pool onto the apron. Painfully aware of the lost muscle tone of her inner thighs and the slight rounding of her tummy be
neath her navy swimsuit, she raised her chin to meet his stare head-on.

Mack was every bit as old as she was, if not older. How woefully unfair was it then that he looked so much fitter in his neatly pressed khakis and white polo shirt? There was simply no justice in the world.

She swallowed the bitter fact, however, and managed a courteous nod. “My apologies, Mr. Brody. I didn't realize I was holding up your work.” Biting back a satisfied smile at the irritation she saw flash across his eyes when she used his last name, she tried to tell herself it was petty to be so pleased at his aggravation. Yet she didn't plan to deprive herself of the pleasure. “If you'll just toss me that towel, I'll get out of your way.”

He snatched the towel up off the hard plastic seat and rose to his feet. Striding over to her, he thrust it out. “Here.” His dark eyes gave her another quick up-and-down. “Cover up. You're dripping all over the damn place.”

She caught his gaze lingering for the briefest second on her small breasts. God. Men. Even when they thought someone was a dried-up old prune, they couldn't resist ogling the goods.

Well, let him look. That was one attribute that was still reasonably perky. A primitive urge washed over her with abrupt white-hot intensity. Thinking of all the insulting assumptions he'd made since the day Treena had introduced them, she had a sudden wild urge to demonstrate exactly how misguided he was about the sexuality of librarians in general and her own in particular.

She did no such thing, of course. Plucking the towel from his outstretched hand, she wrapped it around her
waist, thanked him sedately and, stopping only long enough to collect her key, she headed for her unit with all the dignity befitting an almost-sixty-year-old.

 

S
TANDING BACKSTAGE
later that evening as they waited to go on, Treena laughed at Carly's story of Rufus in the pool. The mutt's antics delighted her, but hearing Ellen and Mack mentioned in the same sentence brought back memories of Mack's behavior in her apartment. She recalled the thought she'd gotten at the time watching them. “So, what did Mack and Ellen have to say to each other this time?”

“Nothing.” Carly looked at her in surprise. “I mean, Ellen just went back to doing the laps Rufus interrupted, and I'm not sure what Mack did after that. I talked to him for another minute or two, then I took Idiot Dog in and changed out of my soggy clothes.”

“He was still there when you left, though?”

“Yeah. I think he sat down to wait for her to finish so he could, I don't know, clean the pool or something.”

“Uh-huh.” Treena's hunch strengthened, and she shot her friend a wry glance. “Because he does that so often in the middle of hundred-degree afternoons. You wanna know what occurred to me today?”

Carly raised her brows in assent.

“I think he's got the hots for her.”

“Get out!” Carly laughed, but sobered when Treena's immediate response wasn't to crack up. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I am.” Pulling her right knee up and hugging it to her chest, she slowly straightened her leg until it stretched straight up, toes pointed, over her head. Bal
ancing on her left foot, she flexed the right one and told her friend about that morning's exchange in her apartment. “You should have seen his face, Carly, when I came down on him for his behavior.” She lowered her leg, then repeated the hamstring stretch with the left. “I have a feeling, though, that it wasn't my wrath that got to him. I think it was knowing that he'd genuinely hurt her feelings.”

“I think those two get off on hurting each other's feelings.” Then enlightenment dawned. “Ahhh. Shades of junior high school, you think?”

“Yes. The old switch and bait—tweak the braids of the girl you wanna kiss, so she doesn't figure out she's got the power.”

“Yeah, they hate it when a woman's got her hand firmly on the joystick, don't they?” Carly said. She laughed. “Well, actually they like that part. It's knowing she has control of it—and therefore of them—that makes 'em crazy.”

Treena nodded, although she couldn't truthfully say she had an abundance of experience with that particular power. “I'm not sure what Ellen's feelings are in the matter. She plays her cards much closer to the vest than Mack does.”

“Yes, she gets a lot of mileage out of acting all cool and refined, which probably contributes to the driving him bananas factor.” Carly grinned. “She loosens up a lot more when it's just us girls, I've noticed.”

“Yes, I've noticed that, too.” The audience out in the auditorium laughed at the comedian's closing joke, and thunderous applause broke out. “Sounds like Harry's in even finer form than usual tonight,” she observed as the
two of them walked over to join the other dancers lining up in the wings. “So, what do we do? Anything?”

“Well, I'll tell you right now that I'm not willing to tackle Mack.”

“I know. Even thinking about saying, ‘You dying to do the hootchie-kootch with Ellen, Mack?' makes my mind—” She shook her head in hopeless bafflement. “God, makes it simply…”

“Boggle,” Carly supplied.

“Big time.”

“You'd think it would be easier with Ellen, though, wouldn't you?” Carly demanded. “I mean, what woman doesn't want to hear some guy's hot for her? But—”

“It's that generational thing.”

“Exactly! I sure can't conceive of telling
my
mother that some guy's itching to get his hands down her shorts.” Her laugh went a little wild. “But then you've met my mom—we both know she'd prefer to pretend I was delivered by the stork…with none of those messy, undignified bodily fluids involved.”

“Whereas my mother's grounded firmly in reality. Sex, however, is not a subject to be discussed with one's daughters, as far as she's concerned. I think the sum total of The Talk with me and my sisters was, ‘Boys only want one thing. Don't let them have it.'”

“Ellen is a lot more approachable, though,” Carly said.

“Yes. Definitely.”

“So…”

“You and I will stay as far away from her and Mack's sex lives—or the lack of one—as we can get. Am I right?”

“Oh, yeah. Right as rain, toots.”

“Okay, then.” The comic exited stage left, and the
music introducing the troupe swelled. The chorus line began moving forward as those in front swept onto the stage. Treena turned to give Carly one final look before she ran toward the spotlight. “Sure glad we got that worked out.”

 

S
HIT
.

Jax looked around the popular nightclub and shook his head. This hadn't been one of his brighter moves; that was for sure. The place was upscale, and God knew it was jumping. It had a reputation as one of
the
top Las Vegas clubs. Lights were low, voices were loud—and the hip-hop music currently blaring out of the speakers had him on the verge of a headache.

He and Treena sat in the spacious main room, not far from one of its two bars and its sunken, circular dance floor. By taking a professional out to dance when he himself was far from the suavest dancer in town, he'd intended to show her what a good sport he could be. Not to mention get his hands on her during the slow dances.

But now he realized his plan was just plain nuts. There hadn't
been
any slow dances, it wasn't a quiet place by any stretch of the imagination and it sure wasn't romantic. Hell, it wasn't even new to her. The bouncer at the door had recognized Treena and waved the two of them to the front of the line…and then added insult to injury by giving them the locals' discount on the cover charge when he'd planned to impress her by buying the VIP package.

He looked at her across the table. She seemed happy enough with the place, jiving in her seat and sipping a Cosmopolitan as she watched the frenetic action out on
the dance floor. When she glanced away from it and caught him staring at her, she grinned.

His mood instantly lightened, and he couldn't help but grin back. Still, he leaned across the table. “It's too loud in here!”