No strings attached (6 page)

“I’d like it if you’d get rid of everything,” he said, and then he approached, stopping only when his bare toes brushed the tips of hers. He shoved his own hands down into his back pockets, mirroring her stance and, in the process, giving his shoulders an exceptional breadth.

Except at this near intimate proximity, Chloe was not as caught by Eric’s shoulders or stance as she was by his eyes. They were the blue of Paul Newman and of poetry, yet flowery compliments had never come easy and too often seemed like a big waste of words.

Besides, what Eric’s eyes made her feel was beyond
her ability to describe. The beat of her heart echoed in her ears, drowning out the words wanting to be said. Even a backhanded compliment might get her into too much trouble. But they’d been standing still here so long now that she had to say something.

And so she did. “Are your eyes really that blue, or do you wear contacts?”

For a moment Eric didn’t have an answer, then he tossed back his head and roared. “Oh, princess. And here I was hoping that this time you weren’t yanking my chain, that we were getting serious.”

“Such a nice way to tell me to put up or shut up.”

He looped an elbow around her neck and turned her toward the volleyball court. “That’s because I’m such a nice guy.”

Chloe could hardly disagree. Especially when she knew that any other guy would have insisted she do one or the other.

Warmed by the weight of Eric’s arm, warmed further by the bright April sun, she shivered, reluctantly forced to admit that Eric wasn’t any other guy.

And that scared her half to death.

“G
OT IT
!”

Bouncing from foot to foot in the back left corner of the court, Chloe maneuvered into position beneath the incoming serve. The ball popped against her wrists, shot up perfectly, came down for Eric’s set and Jason’s spike.

The ball sliced over the fist of the receiving forward and hit the sand on the opposite side. Whooping it up with the rest of Haydon’s Hammers, Chloe rotated to the left front, while Lizzy, one of Eric’s waitresses, stepped back to serve.

Two more of Eric’s employees made up the rest of the team of six, which had managed to win their first two matches. This third game of the third match was the last of the afternoon and would determine the tournament winner.

Having breezed through check-in, though she had no real connection to Haydon’s, Chloe still wasn’t clear on the rules covering what qualified a person to play in a competing team. Who knew what story Eric had told the officials when he’d added her name to Haydon’s roster?

And, actually, she didn’t care how many lies he’d told the tourney organizers because, though she wasn’t about to admit it to Eric and give him any sort of satisfaction, she wouldn’t have missed today for the
world. She was having a blast, more fun than she’d had on a date since, well, since she could remember.

Of course, today wasn’t really a date, because she and Eric weren’t really dating. But, one friend to another, he was definitely showing her a good time. And, damn the man, she thought, catching his wink from across the court, he knew she was enjoying the game and his company.

“Heads up,” Jason called as Lizzy’s serve sailed across the court. Pass, set, hit, and the ball skimmed inches above the net, right into Jason’s block and back down to the sand on the other side.

The Haydon’s team cheered the point and Lizzy readied for her second serve. The opposing forward slammed the return and Eric went flying as he reached for a save. The ball hit his wrist at an awkward angle and popped toward Chloe before she could blink.

Reflexes and adrenaline kicked in and, knees bent, she stepped forward, swung her arms up and jumped, pulling her fist back, swinging her elbow forward, making contact high above her shoulder and…
smack!

Awkwardly, she spiked the ball, but spike it she did and, in the next second, she registered the point she’d scored and the cheers going up from her teammates.

Wow!
How totally cool was that? Especially since spiking had never been part of her game. Jason met her midcourt for a high five. Lizzy shot her a grin and a thumbs-up.

And Eric. Oh, Eric.

Chloe couldn’t take her eyes off his approach. His smile was crowing and wide. Sweat soaked the neck and chest of his dark navy T-shirt. His eyes flashed with excitement. His stride ate up the ground, long and powerful and determined.

The rush that sent her blood pressure soaring had nothing to do with a player’s high over the point. This was about her body reacting to the look in Eric’s eye, to his predatory approach, to the reality of being his prey, and the wrenching desire to be devoured.

How unfair that he’d discovered her weakness, her longing to be the light at the end of a man’s tunnel. Unaware that he’d done so, he’d tapped into her fantasy of being the only thing a man had eyes for.

She barely had time to catch a breath or wipe the perspiration from her forehead before he was there and his arms were around her waist and she was airborne, her hands on his shoulders for balance as he twirled in a circle.

“Eric! Stop!” She dug her fingers deeper, gouging his muscles and loving the feel of his strength beneath her hands, loving even more the tickle and the warmth of his mouth nuzzling the bare skin of her belly. “You’re making me dizzy. I’m gonna lose my breakfast all over your back if you don’t stop.”

Eric laughed. And he stopped, letting Chloe slide the length of his body to the ground, keeping her close and holding her tightly. “I doubt you have any breakfast left to lose, the way you’re playing. You’ve burned off more than a few stored calories.”

Her hands still on his shoulders, she looked into his eyes of beautiful blue. Her breasts tightened in response to his randy grin and the hunger his smile failed to contain. Pressed as she was to his chest, she could hardly hide her body’s reaction. “Are you saying I’m fat? That I have an excess of stored calories needing to be burned?”

“Chloe, I swear. You could drive a marble statue to take up the bottle. I’m complimenting your play,
princess. But if you can’t take it, I see no point sticking around…though the points you’re making there beneath your top are just about enough to convince me otherwise.” He left her with a wink and jogged back to position.

Chloe stuck out her tongue at his retreating back.
Men.
Totally worthless species. Here she was, more hot and bothered over the feel of Eric’s hands on her body than the physical exertion, and what did he do? Left her breathless and went back to playing his game.

And what did you expect? That he’d take you down and rip off your clothes in the sand?
This was hardly the beach scene out of
From Here to Eternity.

Ridiculous, really, how her thoughts about Eric seemed to be forever turning to sex. She was wondering too much about what he’d be like in bed, when sleeping with him would ruin any fun they might have. She so despised mornings-after.

So she, too, got back to the game, her concentration once again snagged by the strategy and the play. She kept her eye on the ball, on Lizzy’s serves, Eric’s blocks, Jason’s passes, the rest of her teammates’ sets and spikes.

Her feet never stopped moving. She bounced, she shuffled, she jumped. She scooted through the sand. She dived. She assisted, she scored. She sweated until the salt stung her eyes and burned her parched lips.

Then came the final play. She approached the net, crouched, judged her timing and shot into the air for a game-saving block. Scuffed leather hit her palms. Her feet hit the ground.

The ball barely cleared the net and, with the total lack of momentum from her puny impact, fell short of the outstretched hands on the opposite side and
plopped into the sand. Cheers went up from her teammates, and Chloe couldn’t help but grin.

Yet for one brief moment she saw nothing but the past—her father in the bleachers, cheering on the sons he’d come to watch play, the sons who’d made him proud, who’d earned his affection with their sportsmanship skills.

And Chloe had sat at his side, the fingers of her right hand clapping against the palm of her left, a good little beauty queen, the perfect daughter, smiling…the dam of her clenched teeth holding back a flood of resentment.

Unladylike resentment she’d buried deep in her heart for fear of losing what attention her father did show. She’d taught herself not to care, told herself she wasn’t missing a thing.

Oh, but she’d been wrong.

This was exactly what she’d missed, this feeling of shared accomplishment, of belonging.

And even more so, this amazing feeling of being true to herself, of damning propriety and going for broke. Her teammates descended and she couldn’t help but smile, her smile broadening at the pride-filled gleam in Eric’s eyes.

Daddy! Look at your little girl now. Dirty and sweaty and a hell of a mess.

And happier than she’d been in ages.

C
HLOE HAD NEVER BEEN
to Eric’s house.

And it was a house, a real house, she noted with approval, setting her knapsack on the antique telephone table in the entryway. Not a condo or a loft or anything equally trendy, though the two-story, wood frame structure was situated in a renovated historical
district bordering Houston’s downtown, and qualified as urban chic.

For some reason, she’d always pictured him living closer to Haydon’s, as that area of the city drew young urban singles like flypaper. She liked that Eric wasn’t just another fly, that he was, from all appearances, one of a kind.

Her mind wandered to the upstairs shower and a singularly spectacular soapy body…. Chloe blinked back her lust. So what if the man was built? It wasn’t like she’d never seen abs before. Or like Eric didn’t have an equally attractive brain.

Individuality was an appealing trait, and usually meant a fresh approach, a unique outlook, a sense of contentment, and conformity be damned. Eric seemed to have managed resisting the lemming mentality that made clones of men who might otherwise have potential.

He was also the only man in recent memory who took her crap and dished it right back. Which meant she was working harder than ever to top his wit.

But Eric’s choice of a traditional home, a place where he’d invested a lot of money, a place where he obviously intended to stay, revealed more about his self-assuredness than anything Chloe had learned spending time in his company. He was confident in who he was, and she envied that.

He’d also been the first man ever to convince her to participate in sports of any kind, though not without resorting to a consensual kidnapping as the means to his end. Considering how she felt about sports and why, that was saying a lot.

For seven years—three during junior high, four during high school—she’d brought home forms for her
father to sign giving her permission to play volleyball, to compete at the interscholastic level.

For seven years he’d refused, but that had never stopped Chloe from giving her all during intramurals and busting her ass to learn the game. Neither had it stopped her coaches from beseeching on her behalf.

Her father had put his foot down, insisting men preferred their women cultured and genteel, and no daughter of his was going to spout that feminist equality bullshit and display the aggressive nature of a man.

That insistence had stolen her chances for a sports scholarship. And once in college, where she’d pursued a degree in fashion—a feminine calling that met with her father’s approval and terms for tuition—that insistence had hardened her heart toward the opposite sex.

It had hardened her heart, as well, toward anything and everything having to do with sports. Athletic competition represented opportunities lost, reminded her of a dream she’d been forced to abandon.

Until working with Melanie and the other girls at Starbucks during their shared senior year, Chloe had wondered often what was the point…of anything.

She’d kept up her grades to keep her father and his checkbook happy, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to attend a single sporting event during her four years at the university.

Now Eric actually had her playing. And he had no idea what he’d done.

He hadn’t automatically stopped at his place following the volleyball tourney. He’d had the courtesy to first ask if she would mind. He needed to clean up and head on to Haydon’s, to relieve his assistant manager before the onslaught of Saturday night’s madness, he’d explained.

He’d offered to take her back to her car, no problem, but since he lived between Stratton Park and Haydon’s, stopping for a quick shower first would save him time. He’d left the decision up to her.

And, as she had nowhere to be and was more than curious to see where he lived, she’d done her best to hide her nosy nature and told him to feel free. And now that she was here, with Eric upstairs in the shower, she was the one feeling free…to snoop around his first floor.

The house was large and the layout airy, as if Eric had remodeled a maze of smaller rooms into a windowpane design with four main rooms of near equal size. What Chloe supposed were areas to be used for formal living and dining were remarkably plain.

Both rooms faced the street, the front door acting as a divider between. A staircase rose to the second story from the main hallway cut down the center of the bottom floor. The furnishings were of good quality, but could easily have been purchased from the showroom floor of any department-store display.

Eric had breathed no hint of life, none of his self into either room. That made Chloe curious, even as she recognized that the kitchen and the fourth room were the ones that told her the most about him.

In what had to be the space where Eric spent most of his time, the only room on the first floor that looked lived in, a plush sectional in brushed blue corduroy formed a half-moon in front of a big screen TV.

The walls displayed a dozen framed prints, brightly colored abstract visions of sports figures in action, computer enhanced to simulate motion. Copies of
Sports Illustrated
and
Men’s Health
were fanned haphazardly over the surface of a low, square coffee table.

Behind the curve of the sectional sofa was what had to be Eric’s home gym. A space-age treadmill and all-in-one weight-and-resistance apparatus faced a massive stereo system. Chloe smiled, because she could so relate. Blasting music made it a hell of a lot easier to force the body through the burn.

But the kitchen where she now stood wasn’t what she’d expected to find in the home of a guy Eric’s age. Though, for Eric, the stainless-steel luxury made perfect sense. She knew he was responsible for a lot of the specialty items served on Haydon’s menu, though he continually tried to talk everyone he knew into doing his cooking for him. So, picturing him in this room, slicing and dicing, simmering and frying, required no stretch of the imagination.

It was a chef’s wet dream—gleaming silver-toned appliances, cabinet and drawer fronts in shiny black, countertops in white marble. It was also unbelievably spotless. Chloe wasn’t sure even her kitchen would measure up, though she rarely used the grand space she did have for more than toasting bagels and chopping fresh veggies. Her food routine could use a little shake-up; she just never seemed to have the time.

She’d have to see about talking Eric into cooking for her one of these days, she thought, peering into his refrigerator to check out the contents. She had skipped lunch, after all, burning the energy of a carb bar while on the volleyball court. A little nourishment wouldn’t hurt. Especially with her body screaming, “Feed me!”