in her veins at all times, and it begged to be explored.
She wanted to explore him.
Plus, she'd spent too much damn money on basketball lessons, and the cheapskate in her wouldn't let it go to waste. With all its might, her body hoped learning good basketball meant him having his hands all over her.
A lot.
No matter that her brain maintained that was a very bad idea…
10
Jack jogged down his front steps to meet Sam. 'Uh-oh,' he said, and tugged on her hand until she got out of the car. 'You have a certain look on your face.'
'Look?'
'Like you can't decide whether to run away or not.' He tightened his grip on her fingers. 'But I've got you now.' He took her tennis shoes-with the rolled-up socks sticking out of them-from around her neck and tucked them under his arm as they started up the steps.
'This place is huge.'
'Yeah, I like having lots of room.'
'It's the size of a small country.'
'Just about.' He opened the front door and put his hand on the small of her back, mostly because he wanted to touch her, partly because he wanted to do a hell of a lot more than just touch her. 'Ready for some hard work?'
'Work? Is that what basketball is to you?'
'Was.' He smiled. 'Today, you get to work, and I get to have fun.'
She eyed the foyer, which soared to the second floor. 'What do you do in here?' She lifted her gaze, studying the huge, open space with all the window lights and fancy glass that lit the place so beautifully. 'Play basketball?'
'Nah, I'd break the windows and then my decorator would kill me.
She just looked at him, and he let out a little laugh. 'I'm kidding. Well, sort of. Heather decorated this place for me, and now that I think about it, she probably would kill me if I broke something. So do me a favor and don't touch anything.'
That made her smile, and he smiled, too. 'Much better,' he murmured and pulled her in for a hug. 'Can't play basketball unless you're smiling. That's the first rule.'
She hugged him back. 'What's the second?'
'If I said you had to take off all your clothes, would you believe me?'
Laughing, she pulled away. 'No such luck.'
They walked through a large living room, then the formal dining room he never used and into another open area where there was soft, sink-your-feet carpeting, a big-screen TV, three of the biggest couches on the market and a help-yourself bar. 'The great room,' he said. 'The hang-out room.'
She nodded, taking in the warm butter-colored walls filled with pictures and collages of his friends and family and the events in his life. 'This is nice.'
'Thanks.' He pointed to an envelope of photos lying on the coffee table. 'Cole was kind enough to take pictures of me falling all over myself learning to surf, and then even kinder to give them to me.' Opening the envelope, he flipped through the humiliating shots of him tumbling into the water, being tortured by the waves, and pulled out the one he loved. 'This one is going on the wall soon as I get it enlarged.'
She stared up at him and then took the picture. 'It's of us.'
'Yep.' It'd been taken after surfing, so he wore only his swimming trunks, and Sam was in that black bikini he had an extremely soft-make that hard-spot for. When Cole had lifted the camera, Sam had started to pull away, but he'd slipped his arm around her. Turning back to him, she'd offered such a sweet, beautifully affectionate smile his heart had melted, and he'd offered her one back. Cole had snapped the shot.
'You're going to put us on your wall with all your friends and family?'
'What, you're not my friend?'
Her mouth shut, and with a frown, she stared down at the picture. 'I thought…'
'What?'
She handed him back the picture, and turned her back. 'Playing. We're playing. I taught you to surf, now we're going to play ball. Where's the hoop? I'm sure you've got a state-of-the-art one somewhere in here.'
So she wanted to go at it like that, like they had nothing going on here, nothing at all. Fine. But suddenly he was far less happy with this no-commitment thing than he'd imagined. 'Out here.' Through the kitchen, the laundry room and outside to the backyard, where beyond the Olympic-size pool was a basketball court.
She stared at the asphalt, which had cracked last year and now had a few daisies popping up here and there. Then she looked at the regulation-height hoops draped with baskets, one of which had torn in his last fierce battle with some friends. 'This is like… street ball.'
He grinned broadly. 'Yeah. Don't you love it?'
'But… where's the expensive wood floor, the custom paint job, the fancy baskets and hoops?'
He stepped close, tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and then cupped his fingers around her jaw until she looked at him. 'I didn't grow up in a house like this, you know. I grew up in a regular neighborhood, playing basketball in the street. I like to play it that way. This way.'
'Oh.' She smiled, but it slowly faded. 'Jack…'
'No.' He shook his head. 'You're not changing your mind.'
She closed her eyes. 'I don't want this to end. But if I stay, if we play, we're not going to stop there. And then tomorrow, it'll all be over.'
'I'm confused.' He ran a finger over her creamy shoulder. 'How will it be over?'
'Because I'll be tired of you. I'm always tired of a guy after sex.'
He grinned, and shook his head. 'But you haven't had sex with me.'
'Jack-'
His grin faded. 'You're serious. You want to leave now so that we won't have sex and you can keep seeing me.'
She nodded miserably.
'We each have a past,' he said slowly. 'A lot of yours is tragic, and I wish I could change it for you, but as far as past relationships, none of them should factor here. This thing between us is different. Original.'
'And scary.'
'And scary,' he agreed. 'But I don't care, and I'm surprised you do.'
'What does that mean?'
'It means I thought you had guts and determination and grit, from that first night. I looked at you and saw-
'A beach bum?'
'A woman I wanted to get to know more, and as I did, I learned how strong you were, what a beautiful outlook you had after that crappy hand Fate dealt you. You played anyway, and won.' Stepping close, he put his hands on her arms and ran them slowly up and down as if he could warm her, soften her. Make her see what he saw. 'You won. I love that about you, Sam. You live as you are, as you want. Damn, if that isn't one of the hottest things about you. You bid on lessons with me because you wanted it. You wanted me. If you've changed your mind because you've lost your nerve, then I don't know you at all.'
That got a rise out of her. 'Is that right?'
'Yeah. Now are you in or not?'
She took a long look around and then met his challenging gaze. An ironic smile touched her lips. 'You have a way of putting things.'
'Don't I?'
'Well, it would be stupid to waste all that money.'
