It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars #1)(50)

Her lips parted and he plunged inside her warm mouth, but he wanted more. He caught her hard in his arms, felt those cream whip breasts spread against his chest while rockets shot off in his head. And then he had one hand on the sweetest curve of beautiful ass he’d ever touched in his life, and he deepened the thrust of his tongue, but even that wasn’t good enough because he wanted to curl it around her nipples and slide it between her legs and lick the sugar right off her. He was hard and crazy and his hands were all over her, his lunacy fed by the throaty moans she was making and the frenzy of her movements against him.

He wanted her to touch him. He wanted her on her knees, on her back, straddled, spread, any way he could get at her, right here where the heat from their bodies would burn up the floorboards and send them plunging straight down to the fiery center of the earth.

He could feel her wildness matching his, her maniac hands digging into his arms, her hips pushing and thrusting against him, grinding. She was crazy, as crazy as he was, and just as needy. And those sounds, almost like fear, almost like . . .

He went rigid as he realized that she was trying to get away from him, and he was holding her against her will.

“God damn!” He pushed himself away, knocking over a chair in his haste.

Her mouth was swollen and bruised from his kisses. Her breasts heaved and her hair was tousled, as if he’d plunged his hands through it, which maybe he had because he sure as hell didn’t know what he was doing anymore. As he looked into her stricken eyes, he felt sick. He’d been with a lot of women, and this was the first time he’d ever had any trouble sorting out no from yes. The accusation in those tilty-up eyes made him feel like a criminal, and that wasn’t right because they’d gone into this together.

“I’m not apologizing again, goddammit!” he shouted. “If you didn’t want me to kiss you, all you had to do was say no!”

Instead of arguing with him, she lifted her hand in a small, helpless gesture that made him feel like the world’s biggest bully. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Phoebe . . .”

She grabbed her purse and ran from the kitchen, from his house, from the dangerous heat of two bodies on fire.





11


Phoebe felt muzzy and depressed as she sipped her first cup of morning coffee. Slowly swiveling in her chair, she looked out through her office windows onto the empty practice fields. It was Monday, “Bumps and Bruises Day,” when the players picked up the grade they had been given by the coaches for their performance during the game, had physical checkups, and looked at films. They didn’t practice again until Wednesday, and she was grateful she wouldn’t have to spend the day watching Dan run up and down the sidelines in a T-shirt and shorts, yelling and screaming and throwing clipboards as if he could propel his team to football glory through the sheer force of his will.

Why had she let him kiss her last night when she’d known that she wasn’t woman enough to see it through? She couldn’t blame him for his anger; both of them knew she had gone into his arms willingly. But when she had heard the hot rasp in his breathing, felt his strength, and known she couldn’t control him, she had panicked.

She looked down at the body that made up the lie of who she was. If her outside matched her inside, she would be flat-chested, scrawny, brittle from lack of moisture. What good were curvy hips and full breasts if she couldn’t let a man caress them, if they would never bring a baby into the world or nurture its new life?

She didn’t want to be this way anymore. She wanted to go back to those moments before her fear had taken over, when Dan’s kiss had sent fresh new blood pulsing through her body. She wanted to go back to those moments when she had felt young again and infinitely female.

She heard a knock and the door of her office opened. “Now, Phoebe, don’t get upset.” Ron crossed the carpet toward her, a stack of newspapers in his hands.

“An ominous beginning.”

“Well, as to that . . . I suppose it depends on your outlook.” He spread the newspapers in front of her.

“Oh, no.”

Color photographs of Phoebe in her hot pink carwash dress and rhinestone sunglasses glittered on the pages of the assorted papers he spread in front of her. In one of the photographs, she had her knuckles pressed to her mouth. In another, her hand was resting on her waist and her breasts were outthrust so that she looked like a World War II pinup. Most of them, however, showed her kissing Bobby Tom Denton.

“That headline is my particular favorite.” Ron pointed toward one of the papers.

STARS’ OWNER COMPLETES FORWARD PASS

“Although this one has a certain poetic quality.”





BOBBY BUSSES BOMBSHELL BOSS


Phoebe groaned. “They’ve made me look like a fool.”

“That’s one way to interpret it. On the other hand—”

“It’s good for ticket sales.” She no longer had any trouble reading his mind.

He took a seat across from her. “Phoebe, I’m not certain you understand how dismal our financial picture is right now. This sort of publicity is going to fill seats, and we need to do everything possible to generate revenue immediately. With that brutal stadium contract we have—”

“You keep mentioning our stadium contract. Maybe you’d better fill me in.”