Down by Contact - A Seattle Lumberjacks Romance (34 page)

She poked her head in the film room and
waited for her eyes to adjust. A few guys were sprawled in the
chairs, but she couldn’t make out Zach’s dark head and broad
shoulders.

Brett Gunnels walked toward her heading for
the door. She smiled at him and he smiled back. His eyes opened
wide, as if surprised she acknowledged him. Poor guy. As a backup,
he was used to being ignored.

“Hey, Brett, have you seen Zach? I brought
him dinner.”

Brett opened his mouth, closed it, opened it
again. He glanced around as if looking for a way out, like a man
who knew a secret he wasn’t going to reveal. “Uh, no, I haven’t
seen him for a while.”

The cold knife blade of dread cut through
her, though she couldn’t explain why. “When did he leave?”

Brett shrugged and shifted his weight from
one foot to another. He refused to make eye contact. This didn’t
look good.

“Have you seen him lately?”

“Uh, not for a few hours. He probably went
with some of the guys to talk strategy.” The man was a crappy
liar.

A couple defensive backs skirted past them,
but Kelsie was faster, she cut off their exit path. “Have you guys
seen Zach?”

Bryson, a lanky corner grinned at her.
“Zach’s never here on Tuesday nights. Says he prefers to spend his
Tuesday nights at home. Can’t say I blame him.”

“Thanks, I must have just missed him.”
Never here on Tuesday nights.
Kelsie put on her best face
and smiled at them, even as her world spun on its head and dumped
her off the wild ride flat on her ass.

Zach wasn’t spending his Tuesday nights at
home, and he wasn’t spending them here. She felt like she’d taken a
physical blow by a heavyweight fighter right to her gut. She forced
herself to stand up straight when all she wanted to do was double
over in pain.

Despite how innocent his actions might be,
he’d withheld the truth, which made him guilty in her book. She’d
thought Mark had hurt her, but it was nothing compared to how this
felt, Brett must have noticed the stricken look on her face. He
patted her arm like a big brother would. “Hey, I’m sure he’s home
by now.”

Right. She was sure he wasn’t. “Are you
hungry?” She’d be damned if Zach was getting one bite of this
chicken.

“I’m always hungry.” Brett chuckled. Kelsie
briefly wondered why she couldn’t have fallen for a nice guy like
him.

She thrust the dinner in his hands. “I’d
hate for this to go to waste.” Because where she really wanted to
put it was in Zach’s sneaky, lying face.

Without another word, she turned and ran
from the room and then the building. She didn’t stop until she was
safely ensconced in her car. She pressed her forehead against the
steering wheel and gulped for oxygen, but her lungs froze and left
her gasping for air.

Then the dam broke and the tears gushed like
water from a broken water main. Yet the part of her who’d survived
years of disappointment peeked out and insisted there had to be a
logical explanation. Zach wasn’t a cheater. He was one of the few
good guys.

Bryson’s words repeated in her head. Tuesday
nights. Kelsie thought back. For the past several Tuesday nights,
Zach hadn’t come home until after ten. He’d seemed even more quiet
and thoughtful than usual, and also a little more content. With his
intensity, rarely did he come across as content or anything
resembling relaxed, yet Tuesday nights came close.

Another woman stood out as the logical
choice to keep an average man away from football for a few hours,
yet the only thing Zach made time for besides football had been
sex. With her. Until now. A little pinprick of jealousy stabbed
Kelsie’s heart at the thought of Zach with another woman.

But Zach wasn’t an average man. Zach was
loyal and honest and straightforward. In bed, he treated her like a
princess. Considering the tender, affectionate, and passionate way
he held her, how could he be seeing someone else?

He couldn’t be. Just couldn’t be. So where
did he spend his time on Tuesday nights? Kelsie swiped at her tears
and started the car. She aimed to find out.

* * * * *

Zach pushed open the door of the training
facility’s viewing room. Brett Gunnels, a good guy—for an offensive
player— looked up as Zach sank into the plush, oversized chair.

“How’s it going with Harris?”

“As good as expected.” Brett and Zach shared
a mutual dislike for Harris, though the quiet Brett rarely said a
word about the man. Like most perpetual backups, he went about his
business, did what he could to contribute to team wins, and kept
his mouth shut about stuff he didn’t like. Too short for an NFL
starter, he’d been pegged as a backup from the first day he walked
onto an NFL practice field. Traded from team to team, he’d never
played more than a few games in the NFL, but decent games at that.
The guy had an arm and was insanely accurate. He never complained,
but Zach felt he’d gotten a bum rap because of size, and had the
misfortune of playing behind the best QBs in the league. He’d only
start if Harris had an injury. At twenty-nine, he’d been with the
Jacks for two years and was now in the first year of a new two-year
contract.

Zach knew him from a brief stint with Zach’s
old loser—now winner—team.

Brett looked at him kinda funny. “Did Kelsie
find you?”

“When?”

“She came by a few hours ago looking for
you. She looked pretty damn good if I say so myself. You’re one
lucky man.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her you were probably headed home.”
He stared at Zach pointedly. “Obviously, you weren’t. Man, if I had
a woman as hot as her, I’d be home every chance I got.”

Odd, she usually texted him when she
couldn’t find him. He checked his messages and found one from her.
He texted back.
Be home in a few hours.

It was more than a few hours later when he
drove up the wet city streets of Queen Anne Hill. It was late,
really late, and he was dog-assed tired. After Kelsie’s manners
lessons and meeting with Harris, he’d worked out for a few hours,
and went to the see the kids at the shelter. After that he watched
game film until his head swam and everything ran together in a
jumble. He and Bret were the last ones to leave the practice
facility.

Kelsie met him at the door, hands on hips,
fire blazing in her eyes, and not the type of heat he normally
liked to see, but an angry flame that’d nail any man’s ass with one
lick of its furious heat. Zach avoided angry females like he
avoided Brussels sprouts and chopped liver. Only Kelsie wasn’t
chopped liver. Hell, he was the chopped liver, and she was prime
rib. One-hundred-percent prime.

She seemed pissed, like a real wife would be
because her husband wasn’t where he said he’d be. Guilt tugged at
his heart, even as her mistrust irritated him. In their current
arrangement neither of them had the right to pass judgment or
control the other’s actions. Even if he did accept responsibility
for not being straight with her. He couldn’t quite say why he
didn’t tell her about his work with the kids, maybe because it was
deeply personal to him, the last wall he erected around his fragile
heart. If he told her, he’d be giving her a piece of himself that
he’d never given anyone. He wasn’t ready to do that yet.

He brushed past her, hoping she’d drop it
after reading his stay-away body language.

She didn’t. She followed him into the
kitchen. “Hungry?”

“Uh, yeah, a little.”

“I brought dinner by for you earlier. You
weren’t there. In fact, you’re never there on Tuesday nights.
According to your teammates, that’s the one night a week you spend
with me.”

Ah, okay, that’s what this was about. She
thought he was screwing around on her. She should know him better
than that, arranged marriage or not, he honored his promises until
divorce do them part. And more and more he didn’t want to part. He
wanted to keep her so why the hell didn’t he open up about his
Tuesday night obligations?

“Yeah, seems I missed you.”

For a moment her expression froze. “You were
there?”

“An hour or so after you left.”

“Where were you when I stopped by?”

“I thought this was a marriage in name only,
a convenience for both of us. So why does it matter?” He pushed,
needing to know the answer, needing to hear from her own sweet lips
that it did matter. That he mattered. That
they
mattered.

She seemed to grapple with the answer and
sucked her lower lip into her mouth. Zach wanted to take care of
the chore for her, toss her on the kitchen counter among the
canisters of flour and sugar and next to the basket of fruit. He
sucked in a breath, his eyes glued to her lips, momentarily
forgetting what they were arguing about.

“We promised we’d be faithful, marriage of
convenience or not.”

“I am faithful.”

“That’s not what the guys think. I could
tell by the looks on their faces.”

“Is that all there is to it, Kelsie? Is that
all you care about? Just appearances?” Zach advanced on her,
pushing her, wanting—hoping—to mean more to her than a method to
advance her business, a man to mold into her idea of a man, a
challenging project instead of a husband. Damn, he’d be happy to be
both a project and a husband.

“This was a business arrangement.” She
swallowed and backed against the counter.

“With benefits.” He hemmed her in with his
bigger body and pressed his hips against hers, his hands on either
side of the counter.

“Yes, with benefits, and we’ve both
benefited every night. And while those benefits are still in force,
I expect you to be faithful.”

“I am faithful.” He rubbed his crotch
against hers, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her pink tongue
darted out of her mouth and circled her lips. He leaned in closer
and inhaled the honey-sweet, sexual scent of her. His sweet Kelsie.
He’d like to drown that verbal agreement of theirs in kisses, burn
the fucking business arrangement in a fire of passion-stoked
flames. Convince Kelsie of what he already knew. That she was
his—and his alone—for today and all their tomorrows. Wishful
thinking from a desperate man who’d never given up the dream of
Kelsie loving him and him alone.

“Do you believe me?” He teased her with his
mouth on her neck right below her ear, finding that spot which sent
her to heaven. He liked driving her crazy because driving Kelsie
crazy drove him crazy every minute of every hour of every day. He
wanted her to be as nuts as he was.

“Yes,” she spoke in a breathless gasp.

“Yes, what?” He slipped his hand under her
shirt and slid it up to squeeze the mound of her breast.

“Yes, I believe you.” Her breathy voice made
his dick jerk. Kelsie stared at him with glazed eyes. She slid her
hands under his T-shirt and along the sides of his rib cage, her
caresses light and sensual, like a silk scarf fluttering against
his skin.

Zach angled his head and lowered his face to
her lips, ripe and slightly parted, as ready for him as he was for
her. He touched his lips to hers, as soft and careful as his hands
on her skin. Despite the lust surging through his body, he wanted
more than just a hard, rowdy fuck, he wanted more than her body,
and he wanted to show her that she was more than that to him.

He wanted her to trust him without needing
proof of that trust but because she believed in him.

Holding her face between his hands, he
kissed her and let all the feelings he’d kept bottled inside too
long rise to the surface. She pressed against him, kissing him
back, attempting to push the passion higher, but he didn’t want
wild passion tonight. He’d settle for nothing less than her soul.
Her heart. Her love. Because he’d always loved her and always
would—the former mean girl and the once socially inept jock. What a
pair. But maybe they’d both changed enough that the thought wasn’t
so outrageous after all.

They had a chance if Kelsie wanted to play
ball.

* * * * *

Kelsie melted like wax dripping down a
candle. Zach’s mouth tasted sweet and tender, all those things she
didn’t associate with sex, because in her experience sex with Zach
was passion-ignited and hot, heavy breathing. This tender side of
Zach left her off-kilter and more than a little turned on and
wanting a lot more.

He’d distracted her by pulling her into his
big strong arms. Those arms should’ve scared her, stifled her, made
her run like hell for fear of being controlled and belittled, made
to feel less of a person. But they didn’t. Instead, she felt
precious, safe, and content. She’d never felt those things with any
other man, especially not Mark.

Zach made her feel like a person of
value.

She pushed his T-shirt up his chest, and he
complied by lifting it over his head and discarding it. Kelsie’s
body burned with need, but she followed the slow, gentle pace set
by Zach. She took her time, perusing his body in the bright kitchen
light which didn’t conceal a thing. Zach’s body was beautiful just
as it was. Each scar told a story, and someday he’d tell her each
one of those tales. She’d know him more intimately than she knew
herself.

Someday?

She didn’t know if they had a someday. For
now she’d be satisfied with today.

He groaned into her mouth and unzipped her
jeans. She shrugged them down her legs and kicked them aside. The
panties followed. Wrapping his arms around her waist, Zach lifted
her onto the counter.

“I think something’s cooking in the
kitchen.” He grinned at her. His smile wrapped around her like a
warm blanket just out of the dryer.

“I’m pretty sure I’m simmering.”

“Hmmm. You smell like the best thing in
here.”

“Am I making you hungry?”

“Starved. But I think you’re a ways from
done.”

“Perhaps a master chef might be able to
bring me to a boil.”