City of Champions (20 page)

"It's not my fault that no one is doing it for me."

"Except Wyatt," Tea said, then immediately started sipping so hard through her cocktail straw that her cheeks had hollowed.

"Shut up about Wyatt."

"I knew it!" Aubrey exclaimed, pointing at Jenna. "Wasn't I right, Tea?"

"Of course, Brey, it's
kind
of obvious."

"What is?"

"That you want to jump Wyatt's Latin-Irish bones, and you're mad at yourself for it," Tea explained.

"She's right Jenna," Aubrey added. "I think you should go for it with Wyatt. I mean other than your nighttime solo fun, you are practically celibate."

"Nighttime fun?" Tea asked eagerly.

"Oh yeah, Jenna has been having sexy dreams recently. In fact, they started ever since that Denver game."

"Hmm, I wonder what that means," Tea said, with a laugh, and then she swooned a bit before continuing. "Uh-oh, guys I think I'm too drunk, maybe I need to go home."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Aubrey answered.

"Let's take a cab to my place," Tea said.

"Awesome," Aubrey cheered in agreement. "Are you coming, Jenna?"

"Oh, I'd love that, but I really need to get home. You guys head on without me. I have to take care of stuff there in the morning."

Thank God we're all drunk and they believe me, because my excuses are terrible.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm just going to go to the bathroom and then get my own cab."

"You aren't going to go and be all mopey, are you?"

"No way. I'm wrecked. I think I'll eat some ice cream at home and pass out," she answered, the words slurring from her lips.

"Okay, sweetie," Aubrey said. They put on their coats and kissed her good-bye.

Jenna snuck away to a particularly plush corner of the casino and plopped down heavily on an overstuffed love seat. Her tiny dress was hiked up and she couldn't even be bothered to pull it down to cover more of her thighs.

Jenna didn't care about propriety or doing the right thing. Point was, she was tired of saying no to everything. Maybe it was time to try out "yes" for a change.

She took out her phone and stared at it. The touch screen was a little blurry and wiping it off didn't help. It was no problem. She didn't need to write a sonnet. She just needed to text a booty call. It had been years since she'd done anything so brazen. It wasn't like Jenna had lived the life of a virgin, far from it. She just planned every detail of her life and avoided all risks. Wyatt was like an entire whiskey bottle full of trouble.

I'll probably regret this. What if it all goes badly? But, I don't have all the time in the world. None of us do.

She was ashamed to admit she knew his schedule. He'd had a Thursday night game, so he should be home now.

Is he with someone already? Is he alone and thinking about me? Stop it, woman!

Before she lost her nerve, she typed out a message and hit send.

Wyatt opened the door to his home and helped Jenna stumble on her high heels into his foyer.

"Thanks for picking me up, Wyatt," she said to him, turning and sliding her coat down her arms, revealing her smoking-hot body in a tiny, clingy dress. Letting the coat fall to the floor, she looked at him intently, her eyes smoldering into his. She was clearly wasted, so it was more like a squint alternating with a wide-eyed stare. It didn't lessen how desirable she was, though.

Their kiss by her car had made him want to find her and rip off all her clothes, whether it helped his career or not. He figured it hadn't had the same impact on her because she'd been completely ignoring him for days.

Now, she was standing by his front door and seemed suddenly to have a very different attitude about the wisdom of them becoming physical.

"Of course I came to get you, Doc. I figure if you were asking for
my
help, you must really need it."

"Don't be like that," she slurred out, and he finally heard that thick Georgia accent he'd suspected she'd been hiding underneath her flat, professional tone. Jenna began sauntering closer to him. "I have a lot of people I could've called to help me get home. I didn't want to go home. I wanted to be with you."

"Oh, yeah?" he asked, swallowing deeply and wishing he had something cooler to say.

"Yeah."

"And why's that?"

Damn, this woman makes me stupid.

"Well," she said, crossing the space between them in long, slightly wavering strides, "I've had a lot of shit in my life. A lot of things that felt like shit. But, you make me feel good…when I'm with you…and I want to keep feeling good…with you. Okay?"

"That sounds great. But what happened to you being careful and reviewing all the evidence, or whatever, before taking this step with me?"

"Yeah, right now, that seems like a dumb idea. I think it makes much more sense for you to kiss me again," she said, while leaning toward him, her legs wobbling on the stilts on her feet.

"Doc, maybe you should lie down for a bit."

What am I saying? That dress is so low-cut and so damn short. Her legs are endless. Shut up, asshole,
he thought angrily to himself.
I've imagined those legs wrapped around my waist so many times, and now I'm going to say no? Of course, I have to say no. After I've already lied to her so many times, taking advantage of her is just so fucking wrong. So, this is what it feels like to have a conscience? I don't like it. Fuck!

His anger at himself grew more intense when he watched her beautiful face fall — the curved lines of her brows and cheeks suddenly descending into a look of shame and sadness.

He'd imagined being with Jenna plenty of times, and in each of those fantasies, he never turned her down, which made the words he had just said all the more unbelievable to his own ears.

"Lie down?" she demanded with a stomp of her foot, jarring him from his silence. "You've been chasing after me,
harassing
me all this time. I finally come here…throw myself at you, and
you
tell
me
to '
lie down
?'"

Her face wasn't downturned in sadness now — no, she was blistering with rage, and it was all focused on him.

"Doc, you're drunk, I think a little rest will do you good."

"Oh, you do, do you?" she said. After a moment she lowered her voice and tried a new tactic, this time leaning toward him with pouting lips. She ran one finger back and forth across his chest, making his pulse quicken. "So that's your game, is it? You know what you are, Mr. Wyatt McCoy?"

"No, what's that?"

"You, sir, are…a…tease."

"Me?
I'm
a tease?"

"Yes, you led me on and then when I'm here ready for you, you say 'no.' Is it some power thing for you? Turn the blonde doctor into a begging pile of goo or something? Unless it's that you're chicken? Is that it, Wyatt? You're chickening out?"

Jenna removed her finger from his chest and started to make chicken wing motions with her arms, adding in a loud, "Bock-ba-ba-bock."

"Wow, you are a charming drunk. I think that's about enough, young lady. You need to go sleep it off."

"I am not going to sleep!" she shouted, stomping her high-heeled foot more firmly, in a completely adorable way. "I'm a grown woman, and I want you to do dirty things to me. Right. Now," she added with another pout, this time poking him in the chest, hard.

"Okay, that does it," Wyatt growled. Leaning forward, he grabbed her waist with both his hands, and then threw her over his left shoulder.

"Put me down, right now, you asshole!" she shouted, kicking her legs and punching at him with her fists.

"You're a scrappy one, Doc. But you need to make up your mind. Am I a tease, a chicken, or an asshole?"

"All of the above, and I'm just going to get more scrappy," she moaned, lifting up his shirt and rubbing her chest against him as she licked his back, and then pinched the top of his butt. Wyatt was close to laughing, but suppressed it.
Is she for real right now?
A man only has so much patience when a woman was close to dry-humping him into blue ball hell.

The little sounds coming out of her were almost his undoing. He had to take a deep breath, fighting back the desire to put her down and flip her on to her back just to shut her up. But he knew what he had to do, hard as it may be. At the heart of it, Jenna seemed pretty emotional and carrying her around like a curvy sack of potatoes was probably enough mortification for her for one night. He made it to his bedroom and laid her down on the bed as carefully as her still-writhing body would allow.

She glared at him, crossing her arms, her hair splayed out across his pillow. He could tell she was trying to fight her exhaustion, but he imagined that last burst of exertion had taken most of the energy out of her. Wyatt came toward her and sat down next to her on the bed.

Ignoring the indignant harrumph that escaped her throat, he gently stroked her hair and watched her eyes flutter shut softly for a moment.

"Mmm, that feels nice," she slurred out quietly.

"That's good, because I'm not being chicken, Jenna. I would love to say yes right now, but I'd rather not give you another reason to hate me tomorrow, okay? So let me do the right thing."

She breathed in slowly and gazed at him through hazy, unfocused eyes. "I don't hate you, Wyatt," she whispered, and curled her warm body into the crook of his arm, almost purring against him as he stroked her silken hair for several more minutes until she fell deeply into sleep.

Wyatt took the chance to study her pretty face. She was so often trying to seem strong or serious, or bust out with a witty quip, that he rarely got the time simply to look at her.

Long eyelashes curled and fanned across her ivory cheeks and her lips were plump and slightly open in sleep. His eyes moved down to her beautiful, full breasts, showcased deliciously in the provocative, silver slip of nothing she was wearing. He was torn between loving the sexy little number and furious that who knows how many other men got to see her in it before he came to collect her from the casino.

He'd put so much effort into trying to win her over and get her on his side, that it seemed like it would never work. Yet, when her defenses were down, she'd come running to him. It did feel powerful, she was right about that. It also made him think he may actually convince her to change her diagnosis — that being around him, hooking up with him, and caring for him would make her come around.

Yes, it sounded awful, he knew, but he was desperate and he really did want to touch her. He could almost convince himself he wasn't doing anything wrong — it wasn't a betrayal to give her more time to reconsider her decision. She would come to see he really could take care of this issue without surgery, and if the morning went as he hoped, she'd have some fun in the process. It was one thing to take advantage while she was drunk, which he would not do, another was to lay her flat on that pretty back of hers in the morning while she was sober.

Wyatt's gaze suddenly landed on the gold locket around her neck. She'd worn it every time he seen her before. It was clearly old and he worried that a drunken night of tossing and turning in her sleep might ruin it. Delicately, he removed his arm from underneath her, smirking at her sleepy grunt of displeasure, and unclasped the necklace, placing it on the bedside table.

Just as carefully, he removed her dress and tried his damnedest not to stare at her in the bra and panties she had on underneath. Instead he turned, laying the dress across the back of a chair and pulling out his favorite old University of Texas Longhorns tee shirt. If he was going to stick to his guns, he needed to cover her up, and fast.

When she was halfway decent, Wyatt leaned forward and removed her bra — a skill he was still proud to have, ever since he learned it in high school. He pulled the tiny lacy garment off her through the tee shirt, careful not to touch her — too much.

Finally finished, he kissed her lightly on her forehead.

"Good night, belleza," he whispered against her warm skin, smiling at her happy answering sigh, before leaving his own bedroom to sleep on the living room couch.

Even though he'd been a gentleman because she was plastered, he had every intention of a very different outcome when she woke up the next morning.

CHAPTER TEN