After Hours

For this reason, we must regretfully inform you that the girls’ football program has been eliminated for the season. We realize that this may cause disappointment to both you and the young ladies affected by the decision. We look forward to the program resuming at some point next year, when the work on the athletic fields has been completed….

“What?” Peggy shouted aloud to the absent principal. “I don’t see anything about the boys’ program being eliminated!” It was the perfect ending to an already miserable evening: her pet project, meant to empower girls and teach them that there were no limits to what they could do, was being flushed.

12

TROY MADE SURE that Samantha’s attorney filed a restraining order in the morning. He tried to get her to take the day off, but she insisted on going to work while he dropped the kids off at school.

Then he coolly took Mr. Creep’s Dodge Ram to Home Depot and purchased another door, since the Lotus wasn’t much use for hauling supplies. He figured the jerk was still sleeping off his hangover somewhere, and would never know. When he got back, he left a window down and the keys in the ignition. It wasn’t his problem if the truck got stolen, and he didn’t want his brother-in-law breaking into the house to find them.

He had popped the original door off its hinges and was hauling it around the side of the house when a bright blue Mini Cooper zoomed up, red hair flying out the driver’s-side window. Peggy popped out of the munchkin-mobile like a cork from a champagne bottle—but her mood was anything but celebratory.

“Bastards!” she spat. “Chauvinist pigs from hell! Stupid assholes!” She waved a crumpled piece of paper at him, and then her eyes fell on the new door.

“Did Derek and the twins get any sleep? Sam? They doing better? The jerk didn’t try to come back, did he?”

Troy absorbed the change of focus and emotion with calm amusement. “Derek slept. So did Sam. Danni and Laura not so well. But I’ll make them take naps this afternoon and go to bed early. No, the jerk did not come back. Did you sleep? Judging from the purple bags under your eyes and the yawn that’s pulling your mouth over your head at this moment, I’d say no. Now, what has you in such a lather?”

“I didn’t sleep because I got this!” She waved the paper again, and he took it from her hand while she continued to rant. “You haven’t received the notice from the school? That they’re moving all the athletic teams to the youth center for practice and games?”

“I never opened my mail yesterday. Why are they doing this?” Troy started to read.

“They have canceled the girls’ football league for the season! Because there aren’t enough time slots at the center to go around! But do they eliminate the boys’ program? Oh, no. Just the girls’!” Peggy was beside herself, practically hyperventilating. “It’s just powder-puff, so it has no significance. It’s expendable!”

Oh, boy. He finished scanning the letter and gave it back to her, frowning.

“They can’t do this!” she said.

“Unfortunately, they can. A private school gets no state or federal funding, so they’re not subject to the same rules that public schools are. What other teams got cut? Girls’ softball? Any boys’ activities?”

“I don’t know—I haven’t had a chance to look into it yet.”

“Well, do me a favor. Help me get this door lined up so I can drop the pins into the hinges and then lock it. Then we’ll go back to my place and make some calls.”

“What about the back door?” she asked. “Does the creep have a key to that?

“He doesn’t have a key to anything anymore. Sam had the locks changed. I’ll drop off a set of these to her on the way over to Coral Gables.”

Peggy helped him line up the hinges on the new door, and dropped in the bottom pins while he got the top one in. Troy had to plane the wood slightly so that it would open and close easily.

She watched him as he worked, muscles in his arms flexing and sweat trickling down his back, disappearing into the waistband of his low-slung jeans. She traded in some of her anger for pure female appreciation and lust.

Troy’s hair was still mussed from the previous night and he hadn’t shaved: sawdust particles clung to some of his beard bristle, and even in his eyelashes. She resisted the urge to wipe his face for him—he probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

He finished planing the door, opened and closed it with satisfaction, and then grabbed a broom to clean up the mess. She took it from him. “Let me do that, and you can put away your tools.”

He raised a brow. “You’re going to clean up after me? Hey, wanna do my laundry and make me some brownies, too?”

Peggy whacked him in the butt with the broom. He turned, grabbed it and used it to pull her toward him. “I was only kidding,” he said against her mouth. Then he kissed her, sending sexual electricity shooting through her veins. She lost herself in his kiss for a while, as he stroked her tongue with his and explored every crevice of her mouth. She almost forgot her anger.

He smelled a little ripe, but she didn’t care. His scent was all he-man, macho and competent. She didn’t know why it turned her on that he could fix doors and replace porch floors, but it did.

Not that she had to get all girly about it. She was sure that she could nail planks to a deck and pop a precut door into a frame, too. So there. She broke the kiss, irritated with herself. I can do anything he can.

An irrelevant thought popped into her head. “Do you leave a toothbrush here at Sam’s?” He’d tasted of mint.

“Not exactly.” A smile crept onto his face. “I used Derek’s after he left for school.”

“Ugh!”

Troy shrugged. “It was better than dragon breath, and I figure what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. You’re not going to give me away, are you?”

“Depends.”

He still had his hands on her shoulders, and they tightened in mock menace as he squinted down at her. “Depends on what?”

She thought about it for a second and then grinned impishly. “On your performance back at your place.”

“My performance?”

She twisted away and ran laughing for her car, slamming the door and locking it just before he got to the driver’s side.

He leered at her through the glass, his hands on his hips. “If you’re brave enough to show up at my house after that little challenge, I’m gonna teach you something about performance.”

“Ooooh, I hope so.” Peggy turned the keys in the ignition and sped away. In her rearview mirror, she saw him sprint up the steps to lock Sam’s door and then sprint back to the curb to get into the Lotus.

SHE WAS NAKED in his pool when he arrived and began to strip off his clothes purposefully. “You better watch out, little girl,” he said. “Shark’s almost in the water.”

She turned to climb out as he dove in, but he was too fast. He caught her neatly by the ankle and jerked her backward. She shrieked and landed with an almighty splash, feeling his arm snake around her and then his hand between her legs. She surfaced sputtering, pushed the hair out of her eyes and said, “You don’t wait for an invitation, do—oooh—you?”

“Oh, I think you issued that before you took off in that little munchkin-mobile of yours, honey. Excuse me, what was that?”

“Aaaaaahhh. Ohh, yes!”

“You’re so agreeable all of a sudden.”

“Not a munchkin—haahhhh—mobile!”

“It’s no bigger than a doughnut,” said Troy, flipping her onto her back and capturing a nipple in his mouth. He squeezed her breasts together and licked back and forth at the tips, while she almost came on the spot. She tried to wrap her legs around him, but he wouldn’t let her.

He raised his head and pushed her through the water over to the dual metal handrails on one side of the pool. “I think you’d better hang on to those, babe.”

A little alarmed at his expression, she did. He pulled her body straight, so that she was floating on her back in the water. Then he parted her legs and walked between them. He cupped the cheeks of her bottom in his hands, squeezing gently and looking right at the core of her, which she found embarrassing in the bright sunlight. She wriggled and tried to move back so she could pull her knees together.

The cool water slapped at her sex, which felt divine. Everything was freer, more sensual in the water, cleaner.

Troy wouldn’t let her budge more than six inches. “Where’re you trying to go?” He growled. “I see something I want to eat.”

A flash of heat streaked through her, causing the little bud at her center to throb almost painfully. The thought of his mouth on her, tongue flicking skillfully, suction applied just right…

He grinned at her wolfishly. “You want me to kiss you there, don’t you?”

She swallowed and didn’t reply, just closed her eyes halfway and willed him to do it.

“You want me to treat you like an ice-cream cone. Lick all around the edges, catch any drips, maybe take a little bite off the top now and then.”

She was going to come from him just talking to her.

He dipped her down into the water and it lapped against her, coolness sliding and swirling along her hot flesh. She gasped and opened her thighs even wider, helpless under the promise of more pleasure.

Troy sank into the water so that the backs of her knees rested on his shoulders. She almost dug her heels into his back to urge him forward, but she was too inhibited. He wasn’t her sex slave, after all! But heaven help her, she wanted him to be.

His hands moved all over her ass in the water, stroking and squeezing, fingers dipping into the cleft of her bottom and then moving along her inner thighs. She jerked to the side once or twice so that he’d touch her where she wanted to be touched, but he just laughed and moved quickly out of the way.

“You’re torturing me,” she said, her voice sounding plaintive to her own ears.

“You catch on fast.”

“Please, Troy…”

“Please what?”

“Touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

She lost all shame and did dig her heels into his back. His only response was to chuckle softly. He lifted her bottom to the surface of the water and moved a little closer to her. Close enough to blow warm air there, while she arched her back mindlessly and tried to reach him.

He let her twist in the wind.

“Please,” she moaned again.

“Please what? Say it. Say, ‘Troy, I want you—’”

“Troy, I want you,” she repeated hoarsely.

“To eat me.”

She balked at that. “I can’t say that, it’s too dirty!”

“You can’t say it, but you want me to do it.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Like this?” He licked her from the bottom of her sex to the top.

She gave a strangled cry.

He stabbed his tongue inside her, making circular motions, and she whimpered with mindless gratitude. Then he fastened his lips over her clitoris and sucked.

She came absolutely unglued, thrashing and crying out as wave after wave of sharp, tingling pleasure hit and crested over her.

He entered her on the last crescendo, in one stroke, and impossibly she came again, this time from somewhere deep inside, spasm after spasm while he drove into her, until she felt like a rag doll…and then felt nothing at all except for the blunt tip of him sliding in and out of her, the fullness, and finally his own frenzy as he built to climax. His strong fingers dug into her hips as he came, and she took pleasure in his pleasure as he jerked within her, guttural sounds coming from his throat.

He wrapped his arms around her and opened his eyes to look down into hers. “You are something else, woman.”

“You’re, uh—” she fingered his collarbone and touched a mole that grew next to it “—you’re passable yourself.” She grinned at his outraged glare, his dropped jaw.

“Passable?” He looked up and addressed the trees. “The little vixen says I’m passable. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears!” Troy got down to the serious business of tickling her while she shrieked.

“Stop! Stop! I didn’t mean it,” Peggy panted, trying to get away from him.

“Repeat after me—‘Troy, you are a sex god.’ No, ‘Troy, you are the sex god!’”

“Aaaaiiieeeee!” she squealed, “stop it, stop it, stop it! Troy, you are the sex god!”

He gave her a momentary breather. “Now say, “‘Troy, you are the best I’ve ever had!’”

She blew out a breath and thumped him in the forehead. “Yo, stupid. You don’t have to tickle me to get me to say that.”

“Oh, yeah?” His chest swelled.

She nodded. “But don’t puff up like that and get arrogant, or I’ll take it back.”

“I’m the best she’s ever had,” he said to a lizard that darted out from behind a terra-cotta pot on the pool deck. The lizard blinked at him and swelled his little neck. “But that goes without saying. Because of course I am the best there is.” He took a bow.

“Puh-lease,” said Peggy, rolling her eyes and getting out of the pool. Water dripped off her body and she attempted to wring out her hair. The sun felt wonderful on her naked skin, though she knew she couldn’t stay out here long, or she’d become a lobster.

“It’s true,” said Troy, winking at her. He pushed off from the side of the pool and floated on his back, arms under his head.

“Your big head is getting swollen,” she told him, “but your other one doesn’t look anywhere near so impressive now…oh, yikes!”

He jumped out of the pool and came after her. Peggy ran, but her legs were no match for his longer ones and he caught her within seconds. She tried to twist away, but he caught her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder, caveman style.

“Hey! Put me down!”

He ignored her and walked over to his jeans, which lay in the grass. He toed them up, fished out his keys and smacked her sharply on the bottom when she pounded a fist into his kidneys.

“Ow!”

“You hit me first. Behave.” He unlocked the back door and made his way inside with her, locking it behind him. He deposited her on the kitchen table after sweeping off a couple of stray Cheerios with his arm. “Don’t think we’re done yet, darlin’.”

“We’re not? I don’t think I can take any more!”

“Then you’d better not make comments about things not being impressive.”

She looked between his legs. Oh, my. “What, do you have a helium pump or something? Where the hell did that come from?” His cock jutted at her, ready for business. “I guess you, uh, never used steroids.”

“I wouldn’t touch that stuff.”

She shrugged.

“Not with a ten-foot pole.”

She looked at his pole and smirked. “You men are such exaggerators. That’s not ten feet and you know it.”

“You’ve got a real mouth on you, Peggy-Sue,” he said, shaking his head. But he laughed. “Now, why’d you ask me about steroids? Was that another charming habit of your fiancé’s?”

She nodded.

“So he gave you a CZ and you didn’t get much action? What did you do, go to www.Losers.com and order one up special?”

Peggy choked. “Something like that.”

“Well, I hope they didn’t charge you too much. Now, you just lie back and let Uncle Troy and his assistant give you a little massage. It’s your turn today.”

Uncle Troy’s assistant turned out to be a plastic squeeze bottle of honey, shaped like a bear. He liked to sit in the microwave for short periods of time, during which he got all warm and gooey.

Then he liked to be squeezed so that honey ran all over her breasts, at which point Troy had to step in and clean up the mess. With his tongue and a lot of suction. Peggy went ahead and let Uncle Troy and his assistant have their way.

But she also insisted on returning the favor, taking his erection into her mouthful of warm honey and doing a little torturing of her own. It wasn’t her favorite thing in the world, but she loved the power she had over him as her lips slid up and down, and his eyes closed and his fists clenched on his knees. He groaned and murmured her name and opened his fists to bury his hands in her hair and stroke the back of her neck.

Finally he pulled her up so that she straddled him and sank down onto him. Her breasts rubbed against the rough hair of his chest, and he took them into his hands, squeezing gently, playing her nipples with his thumbs. The rhythm he set this time was slow, languorous and sweet. He kissed and caressed her, stroking gently with hands, tongue and cock until orgasm rolled over her unexpectedly and she relaxed into bliss.

He gave one last thrust, pulling her bottom down hard, trying to wrest every last iota of pleasure from their lovemaking, while she collapsed onto his shoulder and breathed in his scent. She could get far too used to this.

Peggy sat up at the alarming thought, twisting her hair into a wet knot on the top of her head. Troy’s eyes were closed and he was still embedded in her, his hands still warm on her skin.

What exactly did she think she was doing? What had happened to her year alone? And impulse control? And finding a mind-body-spirit balance? Just when she’d decided to devote herself to things like inner peace and aromatherapy and even a little meditation, along came a hot man and she forgot about herself and her personal goals to focus on him. Were women genetically programmed to do this? Screw up their lives in the hopes of a little…pollination?

I am not screwing up my life. Just because I’ve had a few sexual encounters with this man doesn’t mean I’ve signed over my life to him! And he’s an ex-football player, for God’s sake. Unmarried for a reason—he likes to play the field.

“What’s the matter, Peggy-Sue?” Troy asked the question lazily.

“It’s just Peggy.” Her tone was sharper than she’d intended for it to be.

“O-kay. What’s wrong then, Just Peggy? You starting to obsess again about the powder-puff team being eliminated?”

Actually, she was horrified that it had flitted out of her mind so completely. “Yes. We can’t let them do this!”

Troy sighed.

“Don’t just sit there, Barrington, like it’s a done deal. If enough of us go and raise a ruckus, we can change their minds.” She slid off his lap and paced across the kitchen.

“Peggy, stop for a minute. Please understand that I am not trying—not for a second—to minimize the importance of girls playing sports. Softball, soccer, volleyball, basketball—those are great for girls. But football? You and I both know that it’s different, even if you don’t want to admit that.”

Her heart stopped. “What do you mean, Troy?” she asked carefully.

He passed a hand over his face. “Look, I know you’re going to get pissed at me for saying this, but football is a contact sport. And maybe girls are bigger and more agile than boys at this age, ten to twelve, but within two or three years that’s no longer true. What’s the future for a female player then? Getting mowed down by a guy twice her body weight? I’m sorry, but no amount of skill or determination is going to change that.”

Peggy tried to control her instant rage, but it didn’t do much good. “I just slept with Cro-Magnon man! I don’t believe this!”

“Why does speaking the truth make me primitive? Why?”

“Because your truth is slanted and ridiculous and shortsighted! First of all, a quarterback or a kicker or a cornerback doesn’t have to have the same body weight as an offensive lineman, and you know it.”

Troy snorted. “Kicker is one thing. But the day you have a female quarterback on a mixed team is the day they ice-skate in hell.”

“Oh, really? Would that be why there are female fighter pilots, female boxers, a female secretary of state?”

“When was the last time you saw a secretary of state running for her life from someone that outweighs her by 150 pounds, bench-presses three times her weight and runs a 4.7 forty? And now, your pro quarterbacks—and hell, even division one quarterbacks—are at least six-two and weigh minimum 215 pounds. They have to—in order to withstand the beatings they take at the hands of these gigantic linemen and linebackers!

“For Christ’s sake, Peggy, I’m not arguing that women aren’t competent or lack commitment. I’m arguing that physically most women just don’t have the stature to take the step to the next level. And even if that wasn’t true, the male culture of football, as a sport, would never accept a female quarterback.”

“And that male culture is exactly what needs to change, damn it!” Peggy whirled and kicked one of his kitchen cabinets.

“Hey!”

“Rat-bastard male culture! No, it won’t ever change, will it? I should know.” She kicked the cabinet door again, succeeding in splintering it down the middle panel.

“Hey!” Troy was up and gripping her arm now. “Get ahold of yourself. I don’t care about the cabinets—I’ll be replacing them, anyway—but you’re out of control.”

“Let go of me.”

He took a step back and raised his hands, palm out.

She dropped her hands to her thighs and leaned on them, trying not to hyperventilate.

“Where is all this rage coming from, Peg? What did you mean, when you said that you should know?”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t want to bare her soul to him, and she didn’t want to be physically naked in front of him any longer, either. She stalked to the kitchen door and wrenched it open, emerging into the hot sun to get her clothes.

“Peggy? Answer me.” He’d followed.

“I don’t have to answer to you.”

“No, you don’t. But you’re upset and I’m concerned about you and I wish you would talk to me.”

She pulled her skirt on, then her panties, bra and top—all with her back to him. She hunted for her shoes.

“Peggy, why did you leave your college team? It had nothing to do with your official statement, did it?” For some reason, dread grew inside him. This girl wasn’t a quitter. Whatever her reasons had been for leaving the team, they had to have been big.

13

SHE SPUN AROUND to face Troy again. “How the hell do you know what my official statement was?”

“I own a computer. I know how to log on to the Internet. It’s pretty rare for a woman to be a starter on a college football team.”

“You went snooping.”

“I was interested in you. If you call pulling up a newspaper article snooping, then so be it. I pulled up your biography and stats on the Bryce University Web site and then clicked on a link to an article. So sue me.”

She jammed one foot into a shoe, then the other.

“The article said you left the team to focus on your studies. That’s not true, is it? Peggy…your anger today…” He hesitated. “Were you raped?”

All her blood seemed to rush to her head and pound at her temples. She wrapped her arms around her body as tightly as she could. She shook her head. Then she said slowly, “They tried.”

“Jesus,” he said. He took a step forward.

“Want to know the gory details?” Peg asked, her voice brittle. “Sure, why not? Three of them got me after practice one day, in a special locker room the university had had to construct just for me. You know, just another pain-in-the-ass aspect of having a girl on the team.”

Troy didn’t say anything, his gaze boring into hers.

“Anyway, I came out of the shower in a towel just as the door opened and there they were, all three of them. I almost choked on my own spit, I was so scared. I backed into the shower again and grabbed my razor—my Daisy shaver—like I was going to be able to do anything with that.” She laughed humorlessly, and Troy winced.

“They crowded into the shower with me and one of them pinned my wrist, razor and all, against the wall. The look on his face…I tried to kick another one in the nuts, but he just grabbed my ankle and wrenched it to the side while he tore off my towel.”

“Look, I don’t know if I want to hear this—”

“You asked to hear it.” Her voice to her own ears was low and deadly.

He shut up, his face half anguished and half furious.

“The one holding my wrist grabbed my breast in his other hand, and the one with my ankle grabbed my crotch. The one in the middle unzipped and pulled out his dick….” Her voice broke.