After Hours

But her experience had been different. Suddenly, when she’d gone out for the high school team, she was resented. She’d made it because she was so good, but all the guys had looked at her funny. She’d cost one of their friends a place on the team. She had long hair and breasts and odd plumbing. She was just different with a capital D.

Instead of the camaraderie that someone like Troy had with the team, she’d battled sexually aggressive glances and felt bad because she couldn’t share the same locker room, causing no end of logistical problems.

But she’d stuck it out. She’d won everyone’s respect, however grudging. She could kick a decent field goal, run like the wind and would tackle anything that moved. The problem was, admittedly, that her body weight didn’t stack up to a six-foot, two-hundred-pound male’s.

Still, by the end of her senior year, she’d been practically the team mascot, carried on their shoulders when they won the district championship with her field goal.

Peggy would always proudly carry that moment in her heart, no matter what had happened later when she’d fought her way onto her college team. Nobody could take the district win away from her, not even her father’s absence from the stands at the crucial moment.

Impulse struck again. “Marly, you’re going to kill me, but I promise you a deep-tissue massage if you’ll change the image on the screen.”

“You’re right, I am going to kill you.” Marly straightened and glared at Peg.

“Please can you paint over the man butt and put a kick-ass woman there, instead? She’s triumphant. She just kicked a field goal that won a big game.”

“Why do I have a feeling that this kick-ass woman should have long red hair?” Resigned, Marly was already whiting out the other picture. “Get me a hair dryer, will you? It’ll speed us up. I’m not staying here all night.”

“Even if I make whiskey sours?”

“Okay, I’m staying all night. But you have to give me dinner, too.”

“Deal. You know I wouldn’t ask you to do this if you weren’t so fast and so good.”

“Yes, you would.” Marly aimed the hairdryer at the wet paint, since trying to white out the wet image had just made a nasty smear on the wall. “So, um, Peg? How’s that impulse-control thing going? I can see you’re making huge strides.”

5

TROY WIPED THE SWEAT from his temple with the sleeve of his T-shirt and reflected that there were more fun ways to get this hot and dirty. Redheaded ways.

He cast the thought out of his mind and bit back a smile as Derek mirrored his movements. They’d pulled every rotten plank off the back porch of his house; Derek had helped him measure all the new planks; and Troy was in the process of repairing the structural beams underneath.

He’d had professionals come in and replace the sagging porch roof, making sure it was done to city code. He’d have done it himself, but he didn’t want the damn thing flying off or peeling back during the next hurricane to torment South Florida.

He and Derek were filthy, mosquito-bitten and tired, but the kid radiated happiness and a somewhat disturbing hero-worship that Troy felt he didn’t really deserve. But he loved the boy’s companionship and the fact that he inspired him to be a better person with a better attitude toward life. Derek somehow relieved his cynicism about the world and brought a smile to his face.

“Want a beer?” He ruffled the kid’s hair.

Derek’s eyes widened. “For real?”

Troy quirked an eyebrow and climbed through the back door, a little more difficult without the benefit of a porch floor. He returned with two cans and tossed the one marked A&W to his nephew.

The look on Derek’s face was priceless: half relieved and half disappointed. “I thought you meant—”

“Last time I checked, you were eleven, not twenty-one.” Troy grinned. “You’ve got ten years before I throw a Budweiser or a Spaten your way.”

“What’s a Spaten?”

“A good German beer.”

“Oh.” Derek popped the top on his root beer and said, “I don’t really know why anybody thinks real beer tastes good. I’ve tried it before when nobody was looking. It’s nasty.”

“I’m so glad you feel that way.” Troy popped the top on his own can and drank deeply. Water would be better in this heat, but he couldn’t resist the cold, bitter foaminess pouring down his parched throat.

“Hey, Uncle Troy?”

“Hey, what?”

“I was wondering if—” Derek broke off and twisted the aluminum can in his hands 360 degrees. He looked at it fixedly. “Um.”

“Come on, just say it.”

“Well, I’m s’posed to wait till Mom asks you, but it’s really hard. Would-you-consider-coaching-our-Pop-Warner-team-’cuz-Mister-Vargas-quit.” He said the last few words so quickly that Troy could barely understand them. “Mrs. Vargas has to have an operation and he’s gotta take care of her, so he had to.”

Troy blinked. Oh, gee. What a promotion. I’m gonna go from coaching college ball to peewee….

He hesitated. I’m not qualified. I know nothing about kids except how to practice making them.

Then curvy little Peggy’s face flashed into his mind. But if that redheaded gal can coach the girls, then I can coach the boys.

He gazed down at the freckled, upturned face of his nephew, so eager and so hopeful, and knew there wasn’t any question of what his answer would be.

“I’m sorry to hear about Mr. Vargas’s wife,” he said. “We’ll have to send her a get-well card.”

Derek nodded, but waited with bated breath. Finally Troy took pity on him. “And yes, kiddo. I’ll coach your Pop Warner team.”

Derek whooped and pumped his small fist in the air. “Yesssss!”

Troy grinned and tried to remember back to his own Little League days, but couldn’t dredge up much. He sent up a silent prayer to the big quarterback in the sky. Surely there was some kind of a coach-the-kids instruction manual out there on the Internet?

By sundown they’d laid all the new planks on the porch and secured them with screws. Troy ordered pizza for himself and Derek and then dropped the boy off with Samantha again, slipping him twenty bucks for his help.

Troy had the perfect excuse to see Peggy Underwood again Tuesday night. He’d go to Danni and Laura’s powder-puff practice, cheer them on and also gather some clues about how to handle a large group of kids himself.

Every muscle in his body ached after the day’s sweaty workout, and he wished like hell he were seeing Peggy tonight, for that hot stone massage. God, did that sound good!

He frowned, though, as he headed for the shower. Peggy wouldn’t be doing the hot stone massage—some woman named Margaret would do it, even though he’d asked for Peggy and been flexible in terms of scheduling. She’d been booked all week, according to the receptionist. No, sorry, Miss Underwood didn’t have any openings early next week, either.

Miss Underwood, he thought, had engineered things this way. And that intrigued him. Why didn’t she want him on her table again? She’d looked at his chest as if she wanted to lick it. Miss Underwood, that delectable redhead, was avoiding him. Well, not for long!

Troy wasn’t used to women avoiding him. They usually went out of their way to find an excuse to call him or see him again. And these were women with whom he didn’t have anything in common, like football and a relationship with his nieces and admiration for Dan Marino.

On Tuesday he drove the Lotus to the practice field, where it wasn’t hard to spot twenty-seven prepubescent girls running around in pink jerseys.

Peggy wore a faded pink T-shirt that hung loosely over her breasts and gray athletic shorts, her hair pulled into a ponytail and then threaded through a white baseball cap. Her muscular legs were covered with ginger freckles and her small feet laced into top-of-the-line cross-trainers.

“Hi, Peggy,” he said, the sight of her making him feel like a horny caveman. Hmm, that ponytail was the perfect instrument for dragging the woman off to his cave and having his wicked way with her. Here, ugg, ugg. Let me show you my big club….

She whirled and stared at him, her expression unreadable behind mirrored sunglasses. Her lips parted. “Hi.” She tugged at the brim of her hat and crossed her legs one behind the other, as if self-conscious about them. “I didn’t, um, expect to see you here.”

He smiled at her. “Oh, I just wanted to check on the twins. See you gals in action.”

Danni spied him then, and came rushing over. “Uncle Troy!” She launched herself at him and gave him a bear hug, hitting him in the solar plexus.

“Oooof. Hey, Danni-girl! How ya doing?” She smelled of laundry detergent and grass and sunshine. So did Laura, who almost tripped over the last tire in the agility exercise and sprinted over to hug him, too.

His sister Samantha wasn’t there; they’d come with an after-school carpool. But several mommy heads turned, sending admiring glances his way.

“This is our uncle,” said Laura to Peggy. “He used to play for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and he’s going to be coaching our punk little brother’s Pop Warner team.” Laura’s eyes narrowed accusingly as she said this. “How come you’re not coaching us?”

Whew, nothing like a little sibling rivalry to make things uncomfortable. Troy said calmly, “Because you already have a great coach in Miss Underwood, and Mr. Vargas needs someone to step in for him.”

Peggy handled things beautifully. She winked at the girls. “Really,” she mock-whispered behind her hand, “it’s because your brother and the boys need the professional help. You girls are at the top of your game.”

Danni laughed. “Yeah, the boys are pretty lame. I can kick a longer field goal than Derek can, and he knows it.”

Troy didn’t like the fact that she was right, since most of the girls were more developed at this age than the boys. His competitive streak reared its ugly head. I’ll be changing that, ladies. You can bet on it.

Peggy nodded. “Okay, girls, get back out on the field. I need two more laps from each of you, and then we’ll practice tackling and blocking before we play.”

“Yes, ma’am.” And the twins were off and running, leaving Troy and Peggy by themselves.

“So, you’re awfully booked up for the next two weeks at the spa,” he said casually.

She pressed a button on the stopwatch she wore on a cord around her neck and then turned to face him with a passable imitation of sincere regret. “I know, isn’t it crazy? Everyone and her dog coming in for seaweed wraps and cellulite treatments.” She shrugged as if to say, “What’re you gonna do?”

“Bathing suit season approaches,” he offered. Hmm, the thought of Peggy in a swimsuit was intriguing….

“Exactly.” Her attention diverted again to the field, she yelled, “Pick up the pace, ladies! Sprint into the homestretch!”

“So, do you go back to the spa after this?”

“Get those knees up, girls! I want to see them almost to your chests!” Peggy turned back to him and nodded. “Yeah. I just arrange to take two hours off in the afternoons on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. We schedule around it and Margaret picks up those appointments.”

“So is Margaret as cute as you?” Troy asked, deliberately baiting her.

She turned to face him, and he saw his own smirk doubled in her mirrored sunglasses. “Now, how am I supposed to answer that?”

His smile widened. “Truthfully.”

Her attention went back to the field. “Okay, walk and stretch!” Then she said to him, “Margaret is a very capable and skilled massage therapist.”

Troy chuckled. “Yeah? Good to know, but that’s not what I asked.”

Peggy said stiffly, “She’s very, uh, cute. In a manly sort of way.”

Alarm bells went off in Troy’s head. “What, does this woman have a beard? Hairy knuckles?”

“No! And by the way, your question is not appropriate. We hire people based on their qualifications, not their looks.”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Troy said. “I don’t think that this Margaret person could possibly be as qualified as you, Peggy. And as the customer, I demand top-notch service.”

She lowered her sunglasses and aimed a level look at him. “What kind of game are you playing, Barrington?”

“Game?”

“Margaret actually has two years’ more experience than I do, and I think you’ll be very happy with her services. Now, I’m sorry, but will you excuse me?” She nodded politely at him and then jogged out onto the field, blowing an earsplitting whistle and gesturing to gather the girls around her.

Troy folded his arms across his chest and admired her rear view as well as her cool. He really was starting to wonder what flavor her freckles were.

THE SALON WAS LESS CROWDED this evening without the Fab Four, but just as wacky.

“Carnations!” Nicky hissed into his cell phone. Not for the first time, Peg thought he looked like Princess Di in drag—with much louder taste. Today he wore formfitting black overalls with a teal muscle T and a wide black leather cuff on his wrist.

“Yes, the tasteless little cheapskate sent me carnations…. Can you believe it? And I took him to a nice place, too!” Nicky stamped his foot, which was expensively shod in Italian leather.

“Well, what other dating sites are out there for us? Wait, let me get a pen….”

Peg tuned him out and went up to the front desk, where she was greeted with the unwelcome news that Margaret had gone home sick.

“You can’t be serious!” Peggy stared at Shirlie and groaned. “Margaret is never sick. She can’t be, and especially not today of all days!”

Shirlie shrugged. “She is. Left an hour ago. Food poisoning from that taco place she loves. Uh, used to love. Her skin was as close to green as I’ve ever seen on a human being, and Alejandro had to drive her while she hung on to a wastebasket.”

Poor thing.

“So you’ll have to take her appointment this evening, and it’s Troy Barrington.”

Peggy closed her eyes. Troy Barrington, naturally. The guy who had slipped naked into her subconscious every night since she’d met him. The guy whom she really couldn’t go near again, especially nude under a sheet, or she didn’t think she could be held responsible for her actions. “Listen, Shirlie—I can’t do it.”

The receptionist looked at the appointment book. “Yes, you can. You don’t have anyone coming until Pilar Morales at nine-fifteen.”

“I, uh—”

The door opened and in walked Troy, with windblown hair and a slight sunburn on his nose. He looked edible, and those weird butterflies swarmed into her stomach again. She couldn’t chalk them up to hunger this time. No matter how hard she fought against it, she was attracted to a football player, a species of man she’d sworn never to allow into her life.

“Hi,” said Shirlie brightly, while Peg aimed a tight smile in his direction. “I’m afraid Margaret has gone home sick, so Peggy will be doing your hot stone treatment.”

A devilish glint entered his eyes. “Is that so?”

Peggy cleared her throat and shot a Death Stare at Shirl, promising to get her later. “Ah, yes. I had a last-minute cancellation. How are you, Mr. Barrington?”

“Even better than when I saw you two hours ago on the practice field, Miss Underwood.” He managed to say her name as if it were code for something deliciously dirty.

Underneath the pristine white lab coat, Peg’s body went nuts, thrilling to every ion of his presence. The vibrations of his voice even played at the base of her spine.

He turned to Shirlie and gestured with his thumb at Peg. “She’s got great legs, doesn’t she?”

“Absolutely!” While Peggy turned red, Shirlie picked up the ringing phone and smiled. “After Hours, may I help you?”

You’ve been no help to me at all, thought Peggy darkly. And what happened to your nervous babbling? Of all the times to be perky and quick-thinking…

“So,” said Troy, looking at his watch. “Massage, right?”

“Right. Follow me to the treatment room,” said Peggy in wooden tones. Barrington thinks I have great legs? A shiver of pleasure went through her, even as she told herself not to be gullible.

“I think I’d follow you pretty much anywhere,” Troy said, “because the view is so nice.”

Should she ignore him or get in his face about the personal comments? She damn sure wasn’t going to giggle and say thank you. Peggy settled for snorting. “God, and here I thought I’d left the cheese in the refrigerator.”

“I guess I should be happy you’re not calling me a dumb cracker.”

She groaned. “He walks, he talks, he makes bad puns. Lord help me, what do I do with him?”

“Personally, I think you should go out on a date with him,” Troy announced, whipping off his shirt. “If he asks you.”

Peggy froze and then noticed what he’d done. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Can you please keep the clothes on until I leave?”

“That’s no fun at all.”

“And I don’t date clients.” I especially don’t date football players.

“Ah. Good thing the client hasn’t asked you to date him yet.”

Peggy choked. “Good thing.”

“So, same drill, right? I shower, towel off, hang my robe on the hook, cover up Mr. Happy?”

She nodded and backed out of the room, feeling utterly discombobulated. Barrington was a big flirt. Problem was, she really wanted to flirt back. And it was ever so bad an idea. Her own personal goals aside, there were a hundred reasons not to ride the Troy Barrington roller coaster.

Peggy went to the kitchenette and got a glass of water for him and a glass of cold Arizona green tea for herself. She gulped some down and then pressed her chilled hands against her hot cheeks.

Inner calm. Balance. Mind, body and spirit in harmony. She took a deep breath and then exhaled; she repeated this three times. Then she walked down the hallway toward the treatment room as if going to her doom.

Troy was lying on his back, his arms folded under his head, his eyes open and amused. He flashed very white teeth as she entered the room again, his gaze following her every move.

“Water?” she asked him, adjusting the volume on the stereo. She had put on another soft, new age CD that was all instrumental.

“Thank you.” He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the table and accepted the glass from her. She looked anywhere and everywhere in the room except at his broad shoulders and sleek, muscled chest.

Why had Margaret had to get food poisoning on this particular day?

She took a sip of her tea, set it down and then drew a rolling side table closer to him. He emitted some kind of aura, a force like a magnet. She could feel it, and instinct told her to go no closer.

Unfortunately her job required her to go closer to Troy, touch him, slide her fingers across his warm, damp skin and gently knead his flesh. But somehow she knew that if she did, there would be no turning back.

Peggy had dealt with creep clients and their pickup lines before. She’d sidestepped unwelcome advances and had no problem whatsoever refusing to work on someone who made her personally uncomfortable.

But the discomfort she felt around Troy wasn’t due to any creepiness on his part…it was all about her primal response to him, the way he sprawled there with the sheet draped casually across his lap—and those seawater eyes inviting her to come sit in that lap.

She found her voice and was amazed that it sounded normal. “Want to get started? Why don’t you lie down on your stomach?”

Troy shook his head. “No, I’ll lie on my back. I want to watch you while you work.”

Great. Just great. “All right.”

He swung his powerful legs back onto the table, careless of the sheet that slipped dangerously low on his hips.

Peggy’s mouth went dry as her gaze flew automatically to a dusky crevice exposed by the movement, and she jerked the sheet over him before her brain could even process what she’d seen. Dark curls and thickness. He was well-endowed in the diameter department, that was certain.

She stood next to him and looked down at him as he lay prone, memorizing the little details of his human terrain. The swells and valleys, the faint creases in his neck, his perfectly formed nose and lips. His eyebrows grew a bit wild, which only added to his manly appeal.

He raised an arm a little as if he wanted to curve it around her, but then stopped. If he hadn’t, then nothing further would have happened between them.

But he did stop, seeming to remind himself that it was she who’d do the touching; that anything else was inappropriate and out of the question. He flattened his hand on the sheet and waited.

Peggy scooped massage cream out of a jar and warmed it in her hands before putting them on his shoulders and applying it in effleurage, the term for the gentle stroking that initiated a body treatment.

Troy closed his eyes briefly and sucked in a breath. Then he opened them and stared into hers. Her hands stopped without her even realizing it. Abruptly she began again.

She wanted Troy to touch her. She’d never, ever wanted a client to do that. But he was different. His skin was hot beneath her fingers, his breathing as shallow and quick as her own.

No matter how she tried to tell herself that this massage was like any other, nothing personal, just business—it was a lie. She poured herself into this treatment as if she were making love to him, slowly, thoroughly and deeply.

She rubbed oil into each of his arms, silently stunned at the hardness of the muscle, the ropiness of the veins that stood out in clear relief against them. Steroids? She still wondered. Or just an intense daily workout for years upon years of playing football, basically from the time he could walk?

He wasn’t puffy and bulky the way Eddie had been, especially toward the end when she’d left. Troy was hard and solid but streamlined. He looked like a man of endurance, patience and intensity.

How could just a single arm turn her on like this? But Peggy felt her breasts grow heavy and insistent against the cups of her bra. A trickle of perspiration ran down the small of her back, even though it wasn’t hot in the room.

She reached Troy’s wrist and then his hand, working the oil into his palm and wrapping her hand around each of his fingers in a warm, pulsing cocoon. She dipped into the valleys between his fingers, too, and the contact between them grew more intimate without a word or a move on his part.

It was just that she could sense his response, long before he curved his hand around hers and then interwove his fingers with her own, riveting her with his eyes while he did so.

Peggy froze, and after a moment he slipped his hand from hers.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to do that. It just…came naturally.”

She nodded without speaking and moved to the other arm, smoothing the oil down it in one long motion. His skin glistened with it under the light, glowing like temptation itself. She traced one of his visible veins from elbow to wrist and tried to break the mood with conversation.

“You work out a lot.” She said it as a fact, not a question.

He nodded, then reached up and laid a finger across her lips, whisper-soft.

She could have gotten angry—after all, who was he to give her orders, even if they were nonverbal? But she understood perfectly, and when he traced her bottom lip with that same finger, she felt the sensation at her core.

Slowly, not believing she was doing it, she took his index finger into her mouth and sucked the tip of it while he exhaled, his eyes riveted to the sight.

Mind, body, spirit. Impulse control.

But she knew sleeping with this man was inevitable. Her body didn’t give a rip about her mind or her spirit right now—it had taken over. To hell with impulse control!

She moved her hands to his chest and lightly rubbed her thumbs over his nipples while his pupils widened in shock. She swept her hands over him, raking over his rib cage and following the indentations of muscle at his abdomen. She spread her fingers over his lower belly, diving slightly under the sheet and tickling the strip of hair that led down, down, down.