Inside Heat (3 page)

Christopher’s smile said it all. Normally pale, his cheeks were tinged with pink and his blue eyes were saucers as he hung on Jeff’s every word. Roxanne acknowledged Megan’s entrance with a subdued smile. The gleam in her eye told Megan how much Roxanne appreciated this brief moment of happiness in her son’s otherwise bleak life.

Jeff was good. His attention never wavered from Christopher when Megan entered the room. The two were deep in a discussion of the Mustangs playoff prospects, and their chances of making it to the World Series. They came to some sort of agreement, and Christopher finally took his eyes off Jeff for a moment.

“Nurse Megan,” Christopher cried out. “Come see! It’s Jeff Holder!”

Megan stepped closer. “I see. How wonderful for you that he came by today.”

“Nurse Megan,” Jeff said. “I was just telling Christopher about the trick I played on you when you came to get my autograph for him.” He winked at Christopher, which set the child into a fit of giggles. “He said I owe you more than a dinner for such bad behavior.”

“Oh, no,” she protested. “Dinner was more than enough, and you coming here…well, that’s more than I ever imagined. No, you don’t owe me a thing.”

“He brought you tickets, Nurse Megan! He said they’re right over the Mustangs’ dugout – where all the girlfriends and wives sit!”

“I…”

“You can’t say no, Nurse Megan,” Jeff pleaded. “I promised Christopher a set too, when he gets sprung from this joint.” He shared a guy look with Christopher that made Megan’s heart flip. Damn, did the man not have any flaws? If wanting to get well was a miracle drug, Christopher would be out of here tomorrow.

“But I don’t know anything about baseball,” she argued.

“I can tell you all you need to know,” Christopher said. “We can go together.”

God, she hoped that was true. She’d sit through every game the Mustangs played for the next year, if it would make Christopher well. The kid loved baseball, and he deserved a chance to go to a game, or better yet, to play. “Then why don’t we plan on that?” She exchanged glances with Jeff. “We’ll go together sometime, and you can teach me about the game.”

“It’s a deal!” Christopher looked at Jeff. “If that’s okay with you, Mr. Holder?”

“That’s fine, Christopher.” His smile turned to a frown. “Hey, what’s with the Mister stuff? We’re friends now, so call me Jeff.”

Megan didn’t think Christopher could be any happier. If he hadn’t been anchored to the bed by monitors and an IV, he’d be floating on the ceiling. He practically bounced with excitement. As wonderful as it was to see, she had to get what she came in for and get back. No telling what kind of trouble Jason had gotten into while she was gone.

“I hate to interrupt, but your brother said you had some publicity stills?”

“Where is Jason? I told Christopher he could meet the best catcher in baseball, and the National League homerun leader.”

“You brought someone else with you?”

Christopher and Jeff looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “Geez, she really doesn’t know anything, does she?” Christopher said to Jeff.

“I’m sure she knows lots of stuff, just not baseball stuff,” he said, his gaze shifting from Christopher to Megan. “Jason is the best catcher in baseball, and he currently leads the National League in homeruns,” he explained.

“Oh, well…this paragon of baseball is in the day room with some other patients. He sent me to get the photos from you.”

Jeff dug a stack of photos from the bag at his feet and handed them over. “Just make sure he comes by here when he’s done, and if the kids aren’t tired of baseball stories, I can stop in to see them too.”

“That would be great. I’ll go see how he’s doing, and I’ll send him this way when he’s done.”

Megan heard Jason’s deep voice a few steps before she reached the day room. She glanced around the doorframe and had to fight back tears for the second time in less than an hour. The television was off, and Jason Holder sat on a large beanbag chair, surrounded by adoring kids, reading to them. She recognized the book. The kids all loved the popular kid wizard, and there were several copies of the series in the hospital library. She stood for a moment, listening to the timbre of his voice, noticing the way he gave personality to the individual characters.

As distractions went, this was the best kind for the kids. There was nothing more important than being treated as if there was not a thing wrong with them, and Jason was doing an excellent job. She waited until he reached a stopping point before she interrupted. The chorus of groans subsided when she produced the publicity photos and explained that Jeff Holder had offered to visit with them too. Jason signed photos and autographed a few IV bags before he excused himself to go see Christopher, promising to send his brother back to see them.

“You were great in there.”

“What?” Jason feigned shock and disbelief. “You thought I wasn’t up to the task?”

“Honestly, no. We get a lot of celebrities through here, but they usually bring along a photographer, take a few pictures with the doctors, and leave. Taking the time to do something as simple as reading to the kids means a lot. You get points for that.”

“I wasn’t looking for points,” he said, a touch of real anger lacing his words. “I did it because one of the kids asked me to.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you, it’s just…”

“Just that you don’t know me.”

“I guess that’s it. I don’t know you, but if what I just saw was any indication, you’re a good man, Jason Holder.”

“I try. It’s tough to see these kids, but I know what it’s like to be stuck in one of these places.”

“Hey!” It was Megan’s turn to be offended.

“I didn’t mean it like that. This is a great facility, and if all the staff is as concerned as you are, then these kids are getting the best care possible. I was referring to the confinement, the uncertainty, the fear. It’s hard for a kid, no matter how great the hospital is.”

“You sound like you have some experience.”

“You could say that. I spent a lot of my childhood in a hospital bed.”

Megan stopped, dumbstruck by Jason’s admission. They’d reached Christopher’s room, and Jason didn’t spare her a backward glance, but she noticed he squared his shoulders and put on a big smile as he stepped into the room.

Chapter Three

She really didn’t know why she had agreed to meet Jeff and Jason after the game. She was dead on her feet, and she had to work the early shift tomorrow. The only place she should be going was to bed. Hers. Alone. Instead, she was waiting in a restaurant for two men she hardly knew. They’d been so good with the kids this morning that when they insisted she meet them after their late afternoon game, she’d have sounded rude and unappreciative to have turned them down.

They were great with the kids, and it would be wonderful if they became regular visitors. Besides, she wanted to ask Jason about the comment he’d made about spending a lot of his childhood in hospital beds. Nothing in his online bio referenced anything about a childhood illness. But if it were true, and he’d overcome it to be the star player he was now, his story could be an inspiration to critically ill children everywhere. It seemed impossible that the media hadn’t picked up on the story and exploited it already. According to her research, the Holder brothers had been in the upper echelons of the baseball world for several years.

A gust of hot, humid air lifted the edge of her skirt as the outer door opened. Megan smoothed her hem down and stood when she recognized the two men entering. They were in a good mood, laughing together at something. Jeff and Jason stopped when they noticed her standing in the small entryway. She’d seen interest on men’s faces before, but these two looked at her like she was the last slice of cherry pie, and they were starving. The look they gave her was enough to make her blood pressure skyrocket, and her insides melt. If she hadn’t been tongue-tied by the sight of the best-looking man she’d ever seen in her life, times two, she might have scolded them for it. Jeff moved first, stepping up to place a friendly kiss on her cheek.

“Thanks for coming,” he said, stepping back to let Jason have a turn. “You look great.”

“She looks like a million dollars,” Jason said. “Glad you could make it. I hope we haven’t kept you waiting too long.”

“No. I just got here. I didn’t leave my apartment until the game was over.” The hostess waved them to a table in the back. Megan followed, hyper-aware of the two testosterone towers a step behind her. It was late, and the restaurant wasn’t crowded, but heads turned as they wove through the tables. Jeff held a chair for her before he and Jason took the ones on either side.

“You saw the game then?” Jason asked. Megan almost wished she had. Jason’s enthusiasm was so real it was contagious.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t get home in time to see the whole thing, but I did see the last few minutes.”

“Then you saw Jeff’s save.”

“I saw him throw a few pitches. Is that what you mean?”

“Leave her alone, Jase. She’s not a baseball fan. Not yet anyway.” The waiter brought a bottle of wine and Jeff poured for all of them.

“Do you eat out a lot?”

“Yeah. Neither one of us cooks, so in order to stay alive, we eat out,” Jeff explained.

“You live together?”
Cute.

“We always have,” Jason said. “When we first started out in the Minors we couldn’t afford two places, but now it’s become a habit.”

Bit by bit, Megan relaxed in their company. They had a way of telling stories that was amusing to watch. One would start, and by some secret cue, the other would continue. It was as if their brains were sync’d by an invisible cord. Prepared to find something to dislike, she chastised herself for categorizing them before she knew them.

Jeff insisted on dessert, and they lingered over the mountainous chocolate cake and another bottle of wine. They were nearly through when Jason spoke. “Why don’t we take some chocolate cake home. Then we can smear it all over each other and lick it off – real slow.”

Megan wasn’t used to drinking more than an occasional glass, and at first, she attributed what she’d heard to the three glasses she’d consumed tonight.

“What?” She closed her eyes and forced her brain to focus. Surely, she’d misheard Jason’s comment. She was long past trying to deny her attraction to the pair, but conjuring up propositions went way beyond fantasizing. It bordered on drunkenness and possibly, insanity. “Would you repeat that, please?”

Megan mentally congratulated herself for sounding rational when she was working with seriously compromised judgment.

Jeff touched her lightly on the arm and she turned her now pounding head in his direction. “Jason can be a bit crude sometimes. I apologize for his behavior.” He shot his brother a look that said, "Way to go, asshole," then turned his attention back to Megan. “What he meant to say, was, we’d like for you to come out to our house this weekend. We want to get to know you better, and give you a chance to get to know us.”

That sounded more rational. Megan tore her gaze away from Jeff, and risked a glance at Jason. His smile made her insides warm, or maybe it was the wine. Jeff’s fingers still rested lightly on her forearm, not demanding, but conveying a message all the same. She jerked her arm off the table and twisted her hands in the cloth napkin in her lap.

“No pressure,” Jeff said. His voice vibrated along her nerve endings. “We like you, a lot. And we think you like us. We want to explore that further, to see if perhaps you might like a lot more from us.”

“I think I’ve had too much to drink. What exactly are we talking about here?”

“This isn’t the place to go into details, but I think you know. We want you, Megan. Both of us. We’d like to find out if it’s something you’d be interested in. We don’t expect you to answer right away. That’s why we want you to come out to our place. You can see the way we live. We can discuss the details then, if it’s something you think you might want.”

She didn’t know what to say. It seemed she had heard Jason correctly. He’d asked her to go to bed with them, tonight. More specifically, he’d suggested licking her body – all over – and allowing her to do the same. It hadn’t been her overactive imagination, spurred on by too much wine. As appealing as that sounded, and she wouldn’t lie to herself, it did sound appealing; she wasn’t into that kind of thing. At least she didn’t think she was. She didn’t do no-strings-attached-kinky-ménage sex.

“I’ve got to go.” She jerked her purse off the back of the chair as she stood. Her head swam, and this time, she knew it wasn’t entirely the fault of the alcohol. She was off balance, but she couldn’t blame it on drinking – not entirely. She made it as far as the front door, and turned to ask the maitre d’ to call a cab. Two towering males blocked her way.

“We have a car waiting. We’ll take you home.” Jeff slipped an arm around her waist while Jason signaled to a car parked down the street. The sleek black town car pulled to the curb, and a moment later Megan was in the backseat, flanked by the two sexiest men she’d ever seen. Jason asked for her address, relayed it to the driver, then closed the partition, sealing them off from the world.

One hot hand skimmed her thigh, sneaking under the hem of her dress to stroke dangerously close to her throbbing parts. Another slipped around her neck, long fingers massaging her nape as the thumb stroked her jaw, gently turning her face in the opposite direction from where the other hand had come from. She found herself looking up into Jeff Holder’s eyes. Before she could form a protest, he bent his head and took her lips in a kiss that loosened every muscle in her body, and did serious damage to her moral fiber. The hand on her thigh tugged, and her legs slid open. Fingers stroked a path to her core, and she groaned against Jeff’s lips as another set of fingers joined the fray. Her thighs spread wider in silent invitation.

She fell under their sensual spell. A strobe of traffic and streetlights flashed against her closed eyelids as the car glided through the near empty streets. Jeff’s lips coaxed and promised. Together, their skilled hands opened, explored and pleasured her beyond anything she’d ever felt before. Soft words of encouragement whispered across her consciousness, urging her on toward the peak of pleasure. When at last she found it, Jeff swallowed her scream, then gently laid her head back against the seat.

Her skin flamed, and goose bumps formed where it was exposed to the cold air of the air-conditioned car. She fought her way back to the real world, slowly realizing how thoroughly she’d given herself to them. Megan slid first one leg, then the other off the masculine thigh it had been resting on. How her legs had come to be draped over their thighs, she had no idea. Their hands slid from beneath her skirt as she squirmed back into an upright position. She used the minutes before the car stopped in front of her apartment to smooth her skirt down, perhaps a few hundred times more than necessary. Neither man spoke, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at them.

She had to admit, they argued a good case in favor of a relationship based on physical gratification. She’d had little enough of that in the last few years. But hadn’t she told herself she wasn’t going to settle for less than what she wanted in life? And what they were offering was a whole lot less than love, a home and a family.

Against her protests, both men accompanied her to the door. Jeff took her keys from her hand and unlocked it. Before she could step inside, Jason pulled her tightly against him and kissed her. It wasn’t a goodnight kiss. No simple I-had-a-nice-time kiss. It was carnal, seductive, and left her knees trembling. Jason released her, smiled as if he was going to eat her up, then turned her around. His hands rested on the curve of her hips and brought her hard against his front. She couldn’t mistake the ridge at her back, or the one at her front as Jeff pressed himself against her, sandwiching her between them. Befuddled, seduced, and aching, she didn’t protest as Jeff took her mouth in a kiss every bit as carnal as his brother’s.

* * * *

“Do you think she’ll come?” Jason asked as the car sped along the interstate toward the home he shared with Jeff outside of Dallas.

“I don’t know. I hope so. Are you as interested as I am?”

“Yeah, I am. Damn. Did you feel her come? She was like a volcano erupting, all hot and wet and…shit, she’s a screamer.”

“I noticed,” Jeff grinned at the memory. “I was afraid Carl would hear her and drive us to the police station instead of her apartment.”

Jason chuckled. “Did we push her too hard for the first time?”

“Maybe. But she wasn’t exactly saying no. She could have stopped us at anytime with just a word.”

“True.” Silence filled the compartment. At last, Jason spoke. “I want her to come next weekend. I want to show her the house, show her what it would be like.”

“Me too. She’s smart, and compassionate, and beautiful, inside and out. I hope we didn’t scare her away. We’re a lot to handle, especially for one woman.”

“We can do this. I know we can, but you saw her first. If you want me to back off, I will.”

“No. I did see her first, but I wasn’t ever thinking of her for me alone. We work together, you and me. We’re a team. We always have been.”

“Yeah, well it’s damned hard to find a woman who’s a team player too,” Jason said.

“I’m not ready to throw in the towel. Are you?”

“I guess not. At least Megan was screaming good things. She wasn’t screaming for help.”

Jeff smiled. “Yeah, that’s a good sign.”

“Okay then. Maybe we should send her some flowers or something, let her know we’re thinking about her while we’re gone.”

* * * *

Megan admired the giant bouquet at the nurses' station. They didn’t often get flowers for patients on this wing, and when they did, they were usually accompanied by balloons and teddy bears. This one was filled with yellow roses and several other exotic flowers Megan couldn’t name, but she knew they didn’t come cheap. Just as she decided the arrangement had been delivered to the wrong floor, one of the volunteers came around the corner.

“Someone has an admirer,” she said.

“Who are they for?”

“You.” She pointed to the small envelope held in the grasp of a plastic pick. “You’re the only Megan on this floor.”

“There must be a mistake,” she said as she reached for the card. “I’m not the only Megan in the hospital.” It took both hands to slip the card from the holder without toppling the arrangement. Her heart rate kicked up a notch as she pulled the card from the envelope and saw the neat masculine scrawl. The message was short, and signed by both Jeff and Jason.

“Well, who’s it from?”

Megan’s fingers trembled as she slipped the card into the envelope and tucked the whole thing into her pocket. “A friend.”

“Must be a very good friend,” she said with a wink.

Megan responded with a weak, “Yes,” and picked up the chart she’d come to get. She had no idea how good a friend either Jeff or Jason were, but if what they’d said and done last night in the back of the town car was any indication, they wanted to be very, very good friends. The big question was, did she want the same thing? She was still a little shocked by the proposition. And that’s what it was, a bold proposition. After they guided her inside her door last night, told her to lock up, and then called goodnight when she slid thrown the deadbolt, she sank into the first chair she’d come to. Dazed and confused, she ran the entire evening over in her mind, and came to the unmistakable conclusion that Jeff and Jason Holder had propositioned her. By morning, she’d convinced herself it had all been a joke, but the flowers, and their accompanying note, said otherwise.