Time Out (18 page)

“What?” she asked. “That’s what you do for an injury. You ice it, right? It eases the pain and swelling.”

“This is not the kind of pain and swelling I need you to manage for me,” he grated out.

“Are you sure?”

He drew another deep breath and gained some of his color back as he walked stiffly past her. “I’m fine.”

“I’m just trying to help. Offer a little TLC.”

“Tell you what,” he said. “If you really want to get your hands on my cock again, then—” He broke off at her surprised gasp. “Oh, sorry, we never did decide what you deemed an acceptable term for that particular body part, did we?”

She lifted her chin. “Clearly, you’re feeling better.”

At that, a hint of amusement came into his eyes. “Yeah. But any time you want to kiss it and make it all better, you know where I’m staying.”

A FEW NIGHTS later, the Mammoths were scheduled for an exhibition game for a huge local charity event at home in Sacramento against the San Jose Sharks.

Rick drove Lena and Rainey to the game. Rainey didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t to sit with the players’ girlfriends and wives, with a crystal-clear view of the ice and an even better one of the Mammoths’ bench.

Mark was there with his players, of course, wearing his hat low, mouth grim as the tight game stayed tied all the way to the end, when his team pulled a goal out of nowhere in overtime.

Rainey was pretty sure she never took her eyes off Mark, not even when Casey was body checked into the end boards or when James took a flip pass to the head. Afterwards, Rick took her and Lena to the team room. There was a huge spread of food, reporters and players. Everyone was eating, relaxing, speaking to the media…having a good time.

Mark was in his big office off to the side, a large wall of glass revealing him standing at a huge desk, on his phone and laptop at the same time.

“Post game crap,” Rick said, handing her a drink. “The Mammoths are working on their media coverage.”

She nodded and continued to watch Mark in his element until he lifted his head and leveled his gaze unerringly on her.

She caught his surprise in the slight widening of his eyes before he left his office and came to her.

“You didn’t know I was here,” she said when he stood directly in front of her.

“Rick is a sneaky bastard.”

“We had great seats,” she said. “Usually I sit way up in the nose bleed section—” She broke off, but it was too late. Her secret was out. She met his gaze, his eyes full of laughter.

“You come to the games,” he said.

She sighed. “Sometimes. But mostly I watch them on TV.”

“To see me?”

“Well let’s not go overboard.”

“Admit it.”

She sighed again. “Sometimes I really hate you.”

His grin widened, and two players across the way gawked at him. So did the members of his coaching staff. In fact, everyone near them stared.

Apparently he didn’t grin like that very often here at work.

“You don’t hate me,” he said, not paying the people around them any attention whatsoever. “You like me. And you know something else?” He leaned in. “You want me again, bad.”

His mouth on her ear made her shiver but he was laughing, the bastard, his body shaking with it. She gave him a shove and stalked off to the food table. She needed meaningless calories, and lots of them.

Because yeah, she wanted him.

Bad.

She ate with Lena and Rick, then watched the team gather together and shove a present in Mark’s hands.

“Just a little something from us, Coach,” Casey said with far too much innocence. “To protect you when you’re coaching the girls.”

Mark gave him a long look and opened the box.

As his players hooted and hollered, he pulled out a jockstrap.

Mark’s laughing eyes met Rainey’s and heat bolted through her.

He’d rather have a box of condoms.

He didn’t say it out loud, he didn’t have to, but she felt her face heat. Because she wished he’d gotten a box of condoms too....

TWO DAYS LATER, Mark gathered the teenagers in the rec center parking lot. They’d had two home games so far, and had won one, lost the other. Today they were heading to their first away game against a neighboring rec league in Meadow Hills, twenty-five miles east of Santa Rey.

The guys took one bus, the girls another. Mark boarded after his last player, then stopped short at the sight of Rainey, sitting next to the driver.

“I try to go to as many of the away games as I can,” she told him. “Especially the first one, in case a coach can’t handle it.”

He raised a brow. “Pretty sure I can handle it.” He turned to take a seat but she pointed to the iPad in his hands. “What’s that for?”

“I have stats I want to go over with the girls before the game.” He pulled up a file for her. “See?”

She stared down at the numbers. “These stats aren’t for our team.”

“No, they’re for the team we’re playing today.”

“How did you get them? We don’t keep stats in our league. It’s a noncompetitive league.”

The word
noncompetitive
wasn’t in Mark’s vocabulary. “I had someone to go out and watch their games this week.”

“You had…” She stared up at him for a full minute. “Okay, maybe you didn’t get the memo. This is a
rec
league, and for
fun.
”

“There’s nothing wrong with being prepared.”

“Mark.” She appeared to pick her words carefully, and he let her, mostly because he was still standing over her and had a nice view right down her shirt.

“You can’t coach these girls with the same fierce intensity you coach your players,” she finally said.

He liked her pink lace bra. And he was pretty sure he could see the very faint outline of her nipples—

“Are you listening to me?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I stopped listening to you after you said noncompetitive.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re a control freak.”

Yeah, and it took one to know one. He was just about to say so when there was a tussle in the back of the bus between Sharee and Kendra. He strode down the aisle, eyes narrowed, but by the time he got to them, everyone was quiet and angelic. The bus began to move, forcing him to sit where he was—right in the middle of the team.

From her comfy seat up front all by herself, no kids near her, Rainey gave him a smirk.

The sexy tyrant…

“You need to switch over to thongs,” Tina said to Cindy. “No VPL. Guys like that.”

“VPL?” Cindy asked.

“Visible panty lines.”

Mark shuddered and turned his head, only to catch another conversation.

“Ethan is such a jerk,” Kendra was saying to Sharee on his other side, their earlier fight apparently forgotten. “He goes crazy when guys talk to me, and whenever I go out with anyone, he shows up.”

To Mark, the guy sounded like a punk ass stalker. Except…

Except he’d essentially done the same to Rainey. Twice.

“What do you think, Coach?”

He blinked at Sharee.

“Should Kendra dump Ethan’s sorry possessive butt?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Boys are like drugs, just say no.”

Sharee rolled her eyes. “More like boys are like candy—yummy and good to eat.”

Mark groaned. He was so far out of his comfort zone. “Aren’t you fifteen?” he asked Kendra.

“Sixteen.”

His mind spun, placing Ethan as one of the guys banned from the rec center. They’d been causing trouble in town, vandalizing, partying it up. From what he understood, most of the girls were scared of them. “
No
dating Ethan.”

“You’re not my dad.”

“No, but I’m your coach. I control your field time.”

Kendra narrowed her eyes. “That sounds like blackmail.”

“Call it whatever you want. Date someone who’s not an idiot.”

Mark desperately tried to tune out all the chattering going on around him.

It didn’t happen.

“Aiden is way hotter than Trevor,” Tina said behind him.

“Definitely,” Cindy agreed. “Aiden has facial hair. It means he’s…mature.”

“Mature how?” Tina wanted to know.

“Well, you know what they say about big feet, right? They say it about facial hair too. If he’s got facial hair, he’s got a big—”

Mark jammed his iPod earphones in his ears and cranked his music, feeling like he was a hundred-year-old man. Jesus. These girls lived in a shockingly grown-up world for their age. They were already jaded, sarcastic, and in some cases, like Sharee, in daily danger.

He and Rick had grown up poor, but they’d been lucky to have Ramon’s hardworking, caring influence. Some of these girls didn’t have that, or any positive role model other than what they found at the rec center or at school in the way of coaches and teachers. That made it difficult, if not impossible, for a good guy to gain their trust.

He needed to try harder. He shut off the iPod and opened his eyes, then nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Pepper staring at him.

She’d slid into the seat next to him. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi. You okay?”

“Yeah.” She looked down at her clasped hands. “But my, um…friend has a problem.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The guy she likes finally asked her out and they went, only now he’s pretending she doesn’t exist. So I’m wondering what could have happened. Do you know? Why he’d suddenly act so weird toward me—I mean my
friend?
”

Mark stared down at her bowed head.
Shit.
Yeah, he knew exactly why a guy would do that. Probably she hadn’t put out, the bastard. He felt his heart squeeze with affection and worry. “The ass doesn’t deserve you. Forget him.”

Pepper held out her hand. Mark sighed and reached into his pocket for a dollar.

“Ryan likes you, Pepper,” Sharee said. “Why don’t you go for him?”

“Or stay single,” Mark said desperately.

“She’s not going to lose her virginity staying single,” Sharee said.

Dear mother of God. “Abstinence is perfectly acceptable,” he said firmly.

They all looked at him.

“Were
you
abstinent during your high school years?” Sharee wanted to know.

Fuck.
He shoved his hands through his hair, and when he opened his eyes again, Pepper was once again holding out her hand. He’d said the word out loud. He fished in his pocket for another buck, but Pepper shook her head.

“The F-bomb is a five-dollar offense,” she said.

He shoved a ten in her hand. “Keep the change. I’m going to need the credit.”

10

AFTER WATCHING MARK coach the girls to a hard-earned win, Rainey went home and made brownies. Then she drove to the Welcome Inn Motel.

She wasn’t quite sure what her goal was.

Okay, that was a big, fat lie. She knew
exactly
what her goal was. She was just conflicted about it. She’d watched Mark on that bus with those girls, completely out of his element and still completely one hundred percent committed.

It’d made him so damn attractive.
Too
attractive. Sitting in her car outside the motel, she called Lena. “Tell me to turn around and go home.”