Wild for You (Hot Jocks #6)(3)

“Sure thing.”

We head back inside the private dining room and say good-bye to those still lingering around tables.

“Ana, call me tomorrow,” more than one of the girls say to her with a worried expression.

I’m wondering if they know something I don’t. It sets off a feeling in my gut I don’t particularly like. Clenching my hand into a fist, I take another deep breath.

Outside, I hand my ticket to the valet. Ana and I wait quietly side by side on the curb. I’m not one for small talk, but she doesn’t seem bothered by this. Most woman chatter too much for my liking, but Ana is quiet too.

When my black sedan is pulled to the curb and the valet hops out, crossing around the front to open Ana’s door, I’m momentarily dumbstruck. It’s been years since I’ve been on anything even remotely resembling a date. And while this is most certainly not one either, it’s the closest thing I’ve had in a long fucking time. I have a moment of uncertainty where I wonder if I’m supposed to be the one to open her door.

But it’s too late. The valet beats me there, and then she’s slipping inside the car.

I climb in too and watch as Ana fastens her seat belt. When I shift into drive, it occurs to me that I have no fucking idea where she and Kress live.

I clear my throat. “Where am I headed?”

Ana lets out a breathless sound. “Oh, right. Belltown. We live at Bell Street and Seventh. Little brick apartment building on the corner.”

“Okay,” I say, turning onto Bell.

“Thanks for doing this, Grant. I’m sorry again for any trouble I might have caused you.”

“It’s no trouble,” I say, hoping she can’t tell that’s a lie. It is a little bit of trouble.

The last thing I want to do is get involved in a lover’s quarrel when it involves one of the guys on my team. Especially considering that player is already a handful, without him being pissed off at me for getting in the middle of something I shouldn’t have.

I take the turn onto Seventh and keep my eyes on the road ahead, and definitely not on the way Ana’s dress slides up on her shapely thighs in the seat next to me.

“We’re just about there,” she says from beside me, waving one slender hand. “And then you can go back to whatever it is you had planned.”

I can see her smiling from the corner of my eye. Smiling, like she knows something I don’t. Smiling, like I had something planned for tonight besides sweatpants and sports highlights on the TV.

I pull to a stop at the corner, put the car into park, and turn to face her. She smiles at me. A warm, tender smile that I feel all the way down low in my stomach.

“Thank you again.”

I frown and clear my throat, and her pretty smile falls. “Let me see your phone.”

With an uncertain look, she reaches into her small clutch and produces a sleek smartphone.

I take it from her and program in my number. “This is my cell. Call me if you need anything, okay? No matter the time.”

She hesitates for a second before accepting the phone back. “Okay.” She slips out of my jacket and unbuckles the seat belt.

When I watch her climb from the car and walk away, I let out a huge breath and scrub my hands through my hair.

Okay. It’s time to get home, get this suit off, and forget all about the gorgeous Ana.

And the fact that she’s the first woman I’ve given my number to in years.





2




* * *





Tense Times





Ana



Digging my fingers into my client’s skin, I seek out the knotted muscles I’ve come to know intimately. My thumbs work in unforgiving circles, knowing exactly how much pressure is just enough to keep Fred Winslow coming back for more every week. He groans on the table beneath me, a sign for this particular client that I should lighten up.

“You’re in a mood today,” the older man gasps out.

I feel that familiar flash of discomfort that I get whenever a stranger acts like he knows me. But I remind myself that he’s a regular.

Some people prefer the anonymity of silence and professional distance, but this client is the kind who prefers to pretend he has a close relationship with his massage therapist. I know he sits at a desk for most of the day, managing databases for a car rental company. I know he sneaks yogurts both before and after dinner, much to his wife’s annoyance.

I don’t mind knowing these things. I just don’t like him knowing anything about me, necessarily.

“And how is your mood today, Fred?” I ask, using my best massage therapist voice. It’s low and buttery, like the voice my mother used when she’d snuggle under the covers with me to read a bedtime story. Sometimes it’s spooky how much I sound like her.

“Oh, you know,” he mumbles, barely audible against the table. “My wife thinks I need to cut out dairy . . .”

I only listen to Fred ramble as long as I need to, long enough to feel safe in my own thoughts. But Fred might be right. I suppose I am in a mood today. The banquet last night was a disaster. I knew it would be, since Jason had spent the afternoon griping about his life as a professional hockey player. And yet I still went.

“I’m not taken seriously,” Jason growled, shoving his arms through the sleeves of his suit jacket as we were preparing to leave. “I know those fucking pricks talk about me behind my back.”