Love is a Battlefield: Games of Love, Book 1 (3 page)

He wore a pair of black athletic pants and a fitted gray T-shirt that skimmed plane after plane of muscular flesh. From where she stood, Kate could see he sported a tattoo of black stripes extending across his biceps and up into the sleeve of his shirt, an alternating series of zigzag lines and dots.

And those forearms.

Kate almost swooned. There was something about a solid pair of forearms, muscles intertwined with ropy veins, flexing and twisting with each twitch of the fingers, that made her want to rub herself all over a man.

“Well, hello,” Jada cooed, her own thoughts obviously taking a similar course. “We’re so sorry—we didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“This area is clearly marked,” the man said, dropping the hammer to the ground with a heavy thud. He pointed to a perimeter set up with rope and a few stakes. It was hardly the stuff of high-security enforcement, but Kate got the message.
The man with the hammer makes the rules.

His friend, a scruffy blond whose neck was the same width as his head, came up behind him and interrupted with an easy smile. “Don’t you mind Julian here. I just killed him in the hammer throw, and it always makes him pissy when he loses.”

As if to punctuate his statement, he slapped a meaty hand on his friend’s back.

Although the blow could have felled a tree, the man named Julian didn’t even sway, his gaze unwavering from where Kate stood. She cursed inwardly. Why
hadn’t
they done something with her hair?

“Is there something we can help you with?” Julian asked.

“We don’t normally get a lot of visitors,” the blond man offered, his exuberance almost palpable. He offered them a wink. “And you’re not dressed for normal park activities—you know, running, jumping jacks, yoga…”

“Throwing giant weapons through the air?” Jada interjected, her head tilted.

“It’s the hammer throw,” the blond explained. He puffed up as he spoke, his chest filling with air and adding a visible swell to a body already heaped with them. “Next to the caber toss, it’s my strongest competition. I promise you’ve never seen a real man in action until you’ve seen him hurl a tree across an open field using nothing but the strength God gave him.”

“God and a few well-placed anabolic steroids, you mean,” Jada teased, perfectly at ease with herself even in the face of such a behemoth of a man. Kate had yet to even find her tongue. Or air.

“Not at all,” Julian said firmly. “The SHS is strictly regulated—our guys don’t use any performance enhancers. We just work hard.”

“I’ll bet you do,” Jada said. Julian looked at her with a quizzical expression, as if he didn’t quite understand the degree to which she was turning on the charm.

“So what does SHS stand for, anyway?” Jada added. “Slow, handsome savages? Super-human strength?”

“Scottish Highland Society,” Julian offered, his smile forced.

“The hammer throw,” Kate said aloud, realization dawning. She’d seen the Scottish Games on television before. All those men in plaid skirts, flexing muscles and showing more leg than she would on a third date—it was an incredible sight.

Jada laughed out loud. “You’re kidding me, right? You’re the least Scottish-looking man I’ve ever seen.”

With his features and tribal tattoo, Kate was inclined to agree, but she kept her mouth shut. The way he stared indicated it wasn’t a topic he took lightly.

“There’s more to it than an accent and red hair,” the man’s friend offered in a warm tone, calling their attention back to him. “Now, since no one intends to do any introducing around here, allow me. The name’s Michael. Michael O’Leary. I’m not a Scot, either, so if that’s a problem, we can go ahead and settle it the old-fashioned way.”

“The old-fashioned way? I sure would love to hear more about that.” Jada moved forward like her body was propelled by a series of coils.

“Well, now, that’s top secret,” Michael confided, leaning forward until his eyes were almost parallel with Jada’s chest. “But I can tell you it involves a pile of hay, a fifth of whisky and a willing woman.”

“A willing woman?”

“A Scottish staple. As vice president of the local SHS, I assure you the women must always be willing. And they usually are.”

“I’ll bet. My name’s Jada, by the way.” She nodded at Kate. “My friend, Kate. We’re here to take a survey of the park.”

Oh, right. The park. Kate had completely forgotten their errand. “Do you guys practice here very often?” She gestured over the fields. “It’s not very…scenic.”

Julian followed her arm, taking in the scrub brushes and weeds without blinking. “We’re pretty much the only ones who ever use it.” He shrugged. “But if you’re worried about a few weeds, there’s an open grassland out by the bluff.”

“Maybe you should show her the bluff,” Jada suggested. Kate kicked a rock at her. “What? You’re always saying how much you love dangling precipices. Kate loves things that dangle.”

The man didn’t even bother to register Jada’s remark. “There’s a second parking lot through that way that connects to the bluff,” he said, pointing back the way they’d come in. He looked Kate over, taking in her appearance from top to bottom, lingering on the soft-soled satin flats she’d pulled on before leaving the house that morning. “You may want to drive.”

The day was already hot, the late July sun causing beads of sweat to break out on Kate’s brow, but she might as well have been nearing the center of hell the way every last bit of her body heat came rushing to the surface, embarrassment and full-bodied pleasure coming together as one. She wasn’t used to such a concentrated amount of attention from a man like this one.

“C’mon, Jules, escort the lady,” Michael prodded. His own gaze swept appraisingly over Jada, though his eyes definitely didn’t linger on her feet. “We were about done practicing anyway.”

To Kate’s surprise, Julian nodded and took a few long strides across the field. When she didn’t immediately follow, he turned back and swept her a huge, ironic bow. “Will you allow me to escort you?”

“No, thanks.” She was willing to give Jada a little alone-time with her new friend, but not if that meant inviting mockery and condescension. Even from a man who looked like him.

Julian put an arm out, crooked at the elbow.

Kate looked at it curiously. “What?”

“It’s fine. I’ll take you. There’s a shortcut if you cut through the field, but it’s steep.”

She didn’t move.

“I don’t bite, I promise. Take it.”

She took his arm. It wasn’t her fault—there was such a level of command in his voice she couldn’t help but comply. It was what she did, following orders, falling into line. At least this one came with the full pleasure of the man’s touch. Even as her mind told her it wasn’t a good idea, her body registered the hot, hard surface of his forearm on a purely visceral level.
What could it hurt?

“Is your friend always like that?” Julian asked as they walked away, falling easily into conversation. He’d shortened his strides to match hers and held his arm firmly out to the side to provide her with a better support system.

“Who?” she asked, still flustered by such close contact with this domineering yet strangely gentle man. “Jada?”

He looked down at her with both eyebrows raised. Kate fought the urge to inform him she wasn’t normally this inane. She really had been around men before. And she really could talk and walk and think at the same time.

“If you mean inappropriate and obvious, the answer is yes,” she said, trying for a light, teasing tone. She suspected it fell a little short of her goal.
Still.
It was progress. “When we were in college, she once flashed a pair of priests just to see what their reaction might be.”

“Michael’s often tempted to do the same,” Julian deadpanned.

Kate smiled. She could almost believe it.

“So…what was their reaction?” he asked. “The priests?”

She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Well, the young one seemed like he wanted to cry, but he couldn’t look away. The older one smiled and shook his head. But, you know, now that I think about it, I don’t think he looked away, either. You could hardly blame him. Jada is rather mesmerizing.”

Julian gave an abrupt and appreciative laugh, the rumble starting low in his belly and working up through his broad chest. It was all the more powerful because of its suddenness, resonating through her own body and drawing them closer together, a symbiosis of sound and sensation.

“Jada doesn’t mean half the things she says, though,” Kate said, warming to the topic and to the man. It was sometimes difficult to explain her friend to people meeting her for the first time. Jada did take some getting used to—she was a woman who not only embraced life by the horns but rode it, bucking and charging like Lady Godiva through the streets of Coventry. And to someone like this, well, she probably seemed silly. They both probably did.

“Most of it’s for show,” she added.

“It usually is,” Julian said cryptically. He pointed over a small rise to where a collection of trees broke up the severity of the land. “That’s where the park starts to get better. There’s a big, open field the state park workers take pretty good care of and some ruins from an old stone mansion that used to be there. I played in it a lot as a kid.”

He seemed sincere—human, almost. She craned her neck to look up at him, but it was difficult to read anything in his face. If his body was as hard as a rock, his expression was even more so. But she found herself wanting to know more about him. His life. His childhood. It seemed almost surreal he’d had one.

“You grew up here, then?” she asked.

He let go of her arm as they entered the small copse of trees, the only trail leading in too narrow to permit them both side by side. She tried not to notice the way her body shivered the moment he let go, like it had been deprived of an integral source of heat.

“Yeah. You?”

“No. I’m from Seattle originally. I left as soon as I graduated from high school. Couldn’t get away fast enough, you know?”

“No, I don’t know.” His words were firm, but there was a kindliness about them. “I’m close to my family. I hate leaving them.”

“Do you leave a lot?”

“More than I care to.”

“Military?” It made sense. He looked like he could single-handedly take down a village.

“No,” he said with a soft laugh. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, considering I throw hammers for a living, but I’m really very peaceable.”

Kate nodded and refrained from pressing further. It was obvious he enjoyed his reticence, and that was fine with her. For all her practice in Regency small talk, she was never very good at engaging people she barely knew—and she sincerely doubted Julian cared to discuss the appropriate number of flounces on a debutante’s gown.

They fell into a comfortable silence as they walked through the trees. Although Julian didn’t insult her by looking back to make sure she was keeping up, he did hold one or two branches up and out of the way until she passed through. His painstaking care put her at ease in ways it probably shouldn’t have, but Kate comforted herself with the thought that Jada was only a shout away if her instincts proved wrong.

“Most people don’t know about this trail. You have to be pretty careful through here, but I think the view is worth it.”

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, considering I’m wearing a dress,” Kate said, repeating his words with a laugh, “but I’m tougher than I look. A traipse in the woods isn’t going to kill me.”

“No, but
that
might.”

They’d emerged from the line of trees when Julian stopped abruptly. Kate hopped forward over a large tree root, hoping to see what he was indicating, but he lifted her up and into his arms before she even got both feet off the ground.

“What the…?”

He swept her off her feet. Her head spinning, Kate realized Julian had pulled her up against him, cradling her body so they were face to face, his arms providing the perfect frame to keep her aloft. One of his forearms—one of
those
forearms—tucked underneath the back of her thighs, bare but for her thin silk shift dress. His breath came short and fast.

“I told you to be careful,” he said, his voice coming out in a whoosh of air. He nodded his head behind him, where the ground broke off into a straight drop to the river below. “One stumble and you’d have been launched over the edge.”

“Oh,” was all Kate could manage. He still hadn’t put her down, and her own breath wasn’t functioning very normally. He held her easily—lightly, as though he could stand there all day with his arms wrapped around her, watching as the sun set over the Spokane River. But if he took any pleasure in holding her close, the emotion was buried far below the surface.
Typical.
Kate was literally swept into a man’s arms and still unable to bring forth even a hint of a smile.

A bird flew overhead, its warning caw snapping Julian back into action. He took a few quick steps away from the cliff’s edge before depositing her on the ground, his hand briefly touching the small of her back to ensure she was steady on her feet.

But she didn’t feel steady. Not on her feet. Not anywhere. This man was strong. He was strong and hard all over—marble, chiseled to perfection and placed on an altar right there for her to worship.