Love Storm (7 page)

Although she had packed a swimsuit of her own in case she’d
wanted to make use of the hot tub, she had a feeling that her simple black one
piece wouldn’t have quite the same effect on Ryan as the skimpy red
bikini.
 
Even though she was still
determined not to be the one to make the first move, she didn’t see anything
wrong with providing Ryan with a little incentive.
  

Now, seated on the sofa once again, she deliberately rolled
her shoulders a few times and then reached up to massage the side of her neck
with her right hand.
 
As she’d hoped,
Ryan noticed.

“Sore?”

“A little,” she said, continuing to massage the area for a
moment, and then moving her hand to her shoulder blade.
 

“Yeah, riding like that can take its toll on the upper
body.”

She nodded.
 
“I think
I might take a quick soak in the hot tub, see if I can relax a few of these
knots before dinner,” she said, her tone purposely without inflection as she
tilted her neck from side to side a couple of times.

Ryan cast a quick glance at the television.
 
The Patriots were up forty-two to seven over
the Saints.
 
“That’s not a bad idea,” he
said as he grabbed the remote and switched off the TV.
 
“In fact, I could go for a nice long soak
myself.
 
You don’t mind if I join you, do
you?”

“No, of course I don’t mind,” Brooklyn replied, her
expression purposely indifferent as she rose from the sofa.
 
“I’ll just head upstairs and change and then
meet you out there.”
 
Turning toward the
stairs, she called to Ryan over her shoulder, “I’m sure Wade has some swim
trucks in the bedroom closet if you need to borrow a pair.”

“That’s okay,” he called back.
 
“I brought a pair with me.”

Fifteen minutes later, after she’d changed into the red
bikini and did a quick touch up on her legs with the electric razor she’d
fortuitously brought along, Brooklyn pushed her arms into her knee-length,
white terrycloth robe, belted the sash, slipped on her slippers and then headed
downstairs.

When she opened the back door, she saw that Ryan had removed
the cover from the hot tub and was already seated in the hot, bubbling
water.
 
She also noted the wineglass he
held in his hand.

“I made us a snack to tide us over until dinner,” he said,
motioning to the silver serving tray that sat on the edge of the tub.
 
It held a bottle of white wine, a second
wineglass, and a wooden cutting board with an assortment of crackers and cheese
slices on it.

“Good thinking.”
 
Kicking off her slippers, she stepped onto the bottom step and then
unbelted her robe.
 
Shrugging it from her
shoulders, she then casually tossed it onto a nearby chair.

Although Ryan hadn’t turned on the back porch light, the
glow coming through the family room windows and the tall French doors leading
out to the back deck, provided more than enough light for him to get an
unhindered view of Brooklyn’s little red bikini as she shucked her robe and
tossed it aside.
 
Taking in her trim
waist, long legs and lush feminine curves, she looked almost too good to be
believed.
 
Damn
, he had the sudden feeling that he was in big trouble.

Brooklyn didn’t miss the slight widening of Ryan’s eyes as
his appreciative gaze swept her from head to toe.
 
Stepping up to the top step and then down
into the steamy water, she felt a tingle of satisfaction.
 
At five-foot-eight and one-hundred and
twenty-five pounds, she wasn’t stick thin, but her body was well-toned and her
ample-sized c-cups were well-proportioned in relation to her tall, slender
frame.
 
Turning to the tray he had so
thoughtfully set out, she gave Ryan a quick view of her backside as she nibbled
a cracker and then picked up the empty wineglass and filled it to the top.
 
Then, sitting down directly across from him,
she sighed in pleasure.

“Oh wow, this feels amazing,” she said, as she leaned back
against the curved seat.
 
Taking a sip of
wine, she eyed Ryan over the top of the glass.

“I’ll say.
 
This is
just what the doctor ordered,” he replied, lifting his own glass to his lips
and taking a long drink.
 
“Thirty minutes
in here and a couple more glasses of this delicious wine and I’m guessing that
our sore muscles will be long forgotten.”

“It was definitely worth it though, wasn’t it?” Brooklyn
said with a warm smile.
 
“I had a blast
this morning.”

“You bet it was worth it.
 
That’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time,” Ryan answered truthfully.

“Really?”

“Why do you look so surprised?”

“I don’t know.
 
I
guess I just thought that…well…considering your lifestyle-”

“My lifestyle?”
 
He
cocked an eyebrow.

“You know what I mean.
 
You’re a professional athlete, not to mention incredibly rich and
famous.
 
I’m sure you must do fun and
amazing things all the time.”

Ryan laughed.
 
“I
think you’d be surprised at just how normal my life is.”

Brooklyn eyed him dubiously.
 
She recalled the picture of he and Michelle Reese on the cover of People
Magazine, walking down the red carpet at the Academy Awards, just a few months
prior to their breakup.
 

“Seriously, it is,” he insisted.
 
“When I’m not playing ball, I spend most of
my time just hanging out at home, working out, maybe spend a little time with
the guys on the golf course, or visiting my family and friends back in
California during the off-season.”
 

She cocked her head to the side and continued to eye him
somewhat doubtfully.

“Come on, Wade’s in the NFL.
 
Don’t he and Kate lead a pretty normal life outside of the football
stadium?”

He had a point, but then again, it wasn’t really the same
type of situation.
 
Wade was a totally
different person than Ryan.
 
Ryan was a
gorgeous, California-born golden boy who made game winning plays on the field
and dated actresses and supermodels off the field.
 
Wade was a small town, average looking farm
boy who’d grown up in a small Nebraska town and played on the defensive
line.
 
He’d met Kate when they were both
juniors at Colorado University, and they’d gotten married the same year that
he’d been drafted into the NFL.
 
She
didn’t point out the obvious differences to Ryan though.
 
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said, more to sound
agreeable than anything else.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m convinced.”
 
She
tried to sound sincere.

He leaned forward, eyeing her with a look of mock
intensity.
 
“So do you believe me when I
say that I
did
have more fun today
than I’ve had in a long time?”

She nodded because he looked so earnest.

“Nodding isn’t good enough,” he countered playfully.
 
“Tell me you believe me.”

She couldn’t help smiling.
 
“Yes, I believe you.”

“Good, I’m glad we got that cleared up then,” he said,
relaxing back against the seat with an easy grin.
 

But a moment later, watching as the steam swirled around
Brooklyn in delicate whirls and the soft, almost ethereal light of the moon
cast her in its luminous glow, his thoughts began to take a different
turn.
 
Damn
, she was so breathtakingly beautiful, and when she smiled at
him like she had just a minute ago, it made him feel something he couldn’t
quite put a name to, something he’d never really felt before.
 
It wasn’t just physical attraction, for
Brooklyn had so much more to offer than that.
 
She was intelligent and warm, playful and funny, adventurous and
self-reliant, and so, so many other things.

“Is something wrong?” Brooklyn asked, curious as Ryan’s
expression grew serious and his mood seemed to suddenly turn pensive.

He simply looked at her for a time, the little voice inside
his head telling him to be careful, that his thoughts were leading him down a
potentially dangerous path.
 
Hesitating,
he recalled Wade’s voicemail and his friend’s subtle warning.
 
Was he willing to risk jeopardizing a
long-time friendship with Wade if things with Brooklyn took a wrong turn?
 
Then again, Brooklyn wasn’t an innocent young
girl who needed protecting anymore.
 
She
was twenty-two now, and definitely old enough to make her own decisions.
 
Who knew what the future held, he certainly
didn’t.
 
But, if there was the slightest
chance that she still felt even an inkling of what she’d felt for him four
years ago, he wanted,
no
, he
needed
to know.
 

“Brooklyn, can I ask you something?”

She twirled the stem of her wineglass between her fingers,
eyeing him inquisitively.
 
“Yes, of
course.”
 
He looked so serious all of the
sudden.

“Did you believe me, when I told you that sending you away
that night was one of toughest things I’ve ever had to do?”
 

She felt her breath catch in her chest, and for a moment she
could only stare at him in stunned silence.
 
“I don’t know,” she responded truthfully, once she found her voice.

“You were barefoot,” he began softly.
 
“You had on a pink, knee-length tee shirt
with different colored candy hearts all over the front of it.”

Brooklyn gazed at Ryan in wonder, her blue eyes wide.
 
Her parents had sent her that nightshirt for
Valentine’s day, shortly after they’d moved to Florida, along with a huge box
of chocolates, a pair of fuzzy penguin slippers, and a note telling her how
much they loved and missed her.

“Your hair was pulled forward over your right shoulder, and
just a little longer than it is now, and when you leaned forward to whisper in
my ear, you smelled like strawberries and champagne.”

“But, you…” her voice trailed off as she tried to make sense
of what he was saying.

“You were eighteen and I still had a hell of a wild streak,”
he said wryly.
 
“Wade would have killed
me if I’d touched even a single hair on your pretty little head.”

A faintly uttered “Oh,” was all she could manage.
 
Her head was suddenly spinning.

“You looked so hurt, and I felt like such an ass for sending
you away, but I knew that it would be a mistake to go after you right then and
try to explain.”
 
His expression was
tender.
 
“The next morning, I wanted to
apologize and tell you why we couldn’t…you know…but when I got up you were
already gone.”

She’d fled the house at first light, leaving a note for Kate
that she’d gone over to a friend’s house for the day, terrified of running into
Ryan after making such a fool of
herself
.
 
“I couldn’t face you,” she admitted, her
voice whisper soft.

He nodded understandingly, and for a long moment, they
simply looked into each other’s eyes.

Brooklyn summoned her courage.
 
“So if I’d been, let’s say, twenty-two at the
time?”

He pinned her with his steady green gaze, a wicked smile
suddenly tilting up the corners of his lips.
 
“I would have tossed you into that bed and made love to you until dawn.”

Her heart seemed to skip a beat.
 
Ryan Landry had just made the first move.

Brooklyn wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, but one minute
she and Ryan were sitting across from one another holding their respective
wineglasses, and in the next he was beside her, her glass plucked gently from
her hand and placed onto the serving tray behind them alongside his.
 
Even so, as Ryan looked into her eyes, and
then raised his hand to her cheek, she could sense his hesitation.

Brushing his thumb along the line of her delicate cheekbone,
Ryan fought against his conflicting emotions.
 
What if he was making a big mistake?
 
“Brooklyn, I-”

Brooklyn leaned into him and pressed her lips softly to his,
cutting off whatever it was he’d been about to say.
 
She didn’t want to give him time to think,
time to change his mind.
 
Here, now,
this, it all felt so right, and she didn’t think that she had ever wanted
anything more in her entire life.

As soon as her lips touched his, Ryan was lost.
 
He couldn’t have stopped, even if he’d wanted
to, and he certainly didn’t want to.
 
Sliding his hand to the back of her head, he pulled her closer as his
fingers delved into the thick strands of hair at the nape of her neck.
 
He kissed her softly for what seemed like a
very long time, his lips molding themselves to hers as she leaned into him, her
fingers moving lightly along the naked planes of his chest, to rest for a moment
along the tops of his shoulders, and then finally to the back of his neck where
they then remained.