Fire And Ice

Jena finally paused for breath, resting her forehead against his as she laughed huskily.

Tommy slid his hands toward her slick flesh, stopping mere millimeters short. “Now that’s what I call a welcome.”

“I aim to please.”

“I know.”

She glanced over his shoulder at his duffel. “How long you in town for?”

He followed her gaze to find a blond boxer sniffing around the perimeter of the bag. “A couple of days.”

Her provocative smile sent shivers down his spine. “That should do.”

He chuckled as she unwound her legs from his hips and began to slide down. Her foot hit his knee brace.

“Here, let me help,” he said, easily grasping her hips and putting her down on the floor.

“What’s that?” she asked, feeling his brace through the loose denim of his jeans.

He shrugged, following the ends of her silky dark hair with a fingertip. “Let’s just say I’m in need of some primo T.L.C.”

She twisted her lips as she made a production out of looking him up and down. “I don’t know how tender or loving it’s going to be, but if it’s a workout you’re looking for…”

“That’ll do.”

“Good.”

He grinned.

She took his hand and began leading him back, presumably to her bedroom. Halfway there, she halted. “Wait a minute.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Well, you’re going to have to, unless you want a devil on four legs drooping on your face while you sleep.”

“Who said anything about sleeping.”

“Oh, a man after my own heart.”

Tommy sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

“Don’t ask.”

He watched as Jena comically chased the puppy around the living room then finally nabbed her next to a large potted plant that teetered ominously. He’d never have guessed that Jena was a dog person. Then again, it appeared the role was a new one. He watched her lead the puppy to the kitchen as if the pup were the boss instead of her. She held up one finger to Tommy, then disappeared into the other room. The rustling of paper, the murmur of Jena speaking to the dog, then she was again in front of him, the kitchen door firmly shut.

She slid her tongue over her lips. “Now, where were we?” She smiled. “Ah, yes.”

She took his hand again and picked up where she’d left off, namely en route to her bedroom.

He eyed her firm backside as she swayed her hips in front of him. Oh, yeah. Exactly what the doctor ordered. Not his doctor, but the one lurking in the corner of his mind. The truth was, he’d missed this spitfire. Some would argue that he didn’t even know her. He would tell them that he knew her better than he had any other woman in his life outside his mother and four older sisters.

But, of course, no one would argue anything with him, simply because no one knew about Jena McCade or the night they’d shared together. No one knew where he was now, either. They had the number to his cell phone. That was enough. And even that he’d turned off as the taxi had pulled up to the apartment building he’d found via a simple check of the phone book. He’d spent the past seven weeks going to physical therapy sessions and various sports doctors and he’d had enough of all of it. He didn’t want to talk about his career and where it went from there, especially midseason and it was looking like he wouldn’t make it back until next season, if then. This morning when he’d woken to the sound of his sports agent calling to remind him of his physical therapy session, all he could think of was getting out of L.A. And Jena was the first person who popped to mind. The person who had been on his mind constantly since before his injury during the game against the Detroit Red Wings seven weeks ago when he’d taken a stick to the skates and done the equivalent of an acrobatic twist a full fifteen feet in the air before landing in an inhuman position on the hard ice. Initially the dozen or so doctors the team had called in had wondered if he’d ever be able to walk on his shattered knee again, even after surgery. Their opinions reinforced the uncertain prognosis he’d given himself. Now…

Well, he didn’t want to think about now in connection to his knee and what his own medical background told him might or might not happen. Not when Jena had entered the darkness of her bedroom and was tugging off her nightie, tousling her sexy hair all the more.

Oh, no, he didn’t want to think of any of that. All he wanted to do was touch and be touched.

Jena tucked her fingers into the waist of his jeans and tugged him toward her.

And, oh boy, had he ever come to the right place to do that.

The injury he would survive. But as Jena kissed him again, he briefly wondered if he’d survive her…

2

HOT AND SALTY AND one-hundred-percent male. That’s what Tommy’s skin tasted like against Jena’s tongue. As the early morning sunlight slanted through the vertical blinds cutting slashes of light across her black lacquer bed, she slid a little closer to the man sleeping next to her, allowing for a fuller taste of the skin covering his broad shoulder.

Tommy made a sound deep in his throat, making her smile. She felt so thoroughly…sexed. Every inch of her sang and ached and longed for even more of the man who had taken her again and again and again through the night—with only one brief pizza break. The scent of his sex, their sex, mingled together, tightening the ball of desire accumulating in her belly yet again and pebbling her nipples where they brushed against the crisp hair of his arm.

She propped herself up on one elbow and gazed down at the man who had occupied so much of her thoughts over the past ninety days…and who now blissfully occupied her bed. Everything about Tommy “Wild Man” Brodie was…manly to the nth degree. Even in sleep, his features were strong and broad and handsome, his skin tight and tanned despite his spending so many hours on the ice. An almost blond lock of hair, lighter than the brown of the rest of his hair, teased a thick dark brow. She reached up and brushed it back only to watch as it shifted back over his brow again. She sighed softly, wondering what he’d looked like as a boy. Had that shock of hair always been stubborn, no matter how often his mother tried to spit-comb it back?

Her gaze drifted down to his full, well-defined lips. Oh, what that decadent mouth was capable of. Just when she was determined to keep some secrets to herself, he’d fasten those lips around the core of her and give a little tug that made her open like a brand-new book eager to be read. His jaw was set even in sleep, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

Then there was that body…

Jena had dated many athletes in the past. She loved the solid feel of a man who looked after himself. The washboard abs. The hard muscles. At around six-foot three, Tommy’s build was as solid and mouth-wateringly hard as they came. Each and every muscle was defined and honed and ready to touch. She lightly rasped the side of her hand down over a finely developed pec, over a dark nipple, then down the ripples of his abdomen and his waist to where the black top sheet was draped across his narrow hips. Then she slid her fingers under the soft material, seeking and instantly finding the long, thick ridge of his soft arousal underneath. She smiled as that softness transformed into a throbbing, steel-hard erection.

A low sound rumbled in Tommy’s chest. “You didn’t tell me you were such a pro at greetings.”

Jena blinked up at him and smiled naughtily. “How do you mean?”

“Well, there was last night when I arrived. I don’t think a man in the world could have asked for a, um, warmer welcome.” His chocolate-brown eyes reflected amusement and heat as his right hand slipped down to cover her fingers, squeezing them against his flesh. “And if this isn’t the best ‘good morning’ I’ve ever gotten, then it’s a close second.”

“I’ll settle for best,” she murmured, giving a squeeze of her own making.

She watched his throat work around a thick swallow. “Hmm.”

She released him and folded back the sheet so she could get up.

“Whoa. Just where do you think you’re going?”

She smiled over her bare shoulder. “To get ready for work.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then his eyes narrowed. “We’re going to have to work on your follow-up.”

She laughed quietly and started to lift herself from the bed. He wrapped a hand around her wrist and hauled her back to him. She gasped. He grinned and waggled his brows at her.

“Surely you have five minutes.”

“Not even two.”

“Good, because one’s all I need.”

“Spoken like a true man.” She laughed, wriggling against him, the crisp hair of his chest teasing her sensitive nipples. “Yes, well, I happen to need more.”

“Think so, huh?”

“Know so.”

His hands disappeared for a brief moment as he sheathed himself with one of the condoms he’d tossed to the bedside table the night before.

“Tommy…”

“Shh.”

He rolled to his side then positioned her so that her bottom fit against him, snaking a hand around her hip and down to the V of her thighs. She gasped as he lightly pinched the flesh there then parted her to his attentions. In one smooth stroke he filled her from behind, pressing on her pulsing flesh from the front. Amazing even herself, Jena reached climax right then and there.

She fought to catch her breath even as he slowly rocked into her again.

“Told you,” he whispered into her ear.

“Smart-ass.”

He curved his fingers over her bottom. “Sweet ass.”

She began to wriggle away.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To shower.”

“I still have fifty-five seconds.”

Jena swallowed hard, the sensation of his thick flesh filling hers, the evidence of her own desire lubricating his strokes, heightening the chaos beginning to roll in her belly all over again.

“Oh, God,” she murmured between clenched teeth.

“Oh, Tommy,” he said in her ear.

Jena halted his fingers from where they tunneled in her curls then gave his hips a shove with her bottom until he was lying prone against the mattress. She followed, staying in the same position so that she straddled his hips with her back to him. Supporting herself with her hands between his legs, she moved up, then down, the length of his shaft, wishing she could see his expression, but getting immense satisfaction from the raspy sound of his breathing.

Up and down she moved, slowly, then more quickly, with each stroke stoking the flames licking through her body. Tommy grasped her hips, not halting her movements, rather enhancing them, his thumbs moving toward her bottom then parting her further.

His low groan sounded like he’d dredged it up from his chest. The sound wound around her, quickening her breath and her movements until skin slapped against skin, moans mingled with soft cries. Jena’s muscles suddenly contracted so violently she froze. Tommy kept up the pace with his hands, pulling her down, then up, then down again, drawing out her crisis until he stiffened, thrusting deep inside her, joining her in the red cloud of sensation that had descended over her.

They stayed like that for long moments, neither of them in a hurry to emerge from the tranquil aftermath. Then Tommy slowly repositioned her until she lay flat against him, her back against his front, his arousal still filling her.

“I think you should call in sick,” he murmured, absently stroking her breasts.

Jena nodded. “I think I should, too.”

FOR TWO STRAIGHT DAYS Jena tried to escape the apartment. And for two straight days Tommy found inventive ways to stop her.

He leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his jean-clad legs at the ankle, listening to the sound of the shower in the other room even as he stared at where Caramel had taken up residence at his feet. Did he dare try for a third day? He could climb into the shower with her as he had done yesterday, work her up into a lather in more ways than one…

He downed the rest of his orange juice then rinsed the glass in the sink. No. Jena was a shrewd one. She might get caught off guard once, but never twice by the same situation.

No, he’d have to come up with something else.

He caught himself grinning. Oh, yeah. Coming to Jena McCade’s had been one of the smarter decisions he’d made in a while. Back in L.A. right now he’d be staring out at the Pacific outside his window, watching joggers with perfectly good legs eat up the beach and wondering just how in hell he’d gotten where he was. Yes, he knew. The problem was he’d begun to suspect his injury wasn’t the only motivation behind the thought. Instead he’d begun to look at his life in a different light. Without the day-to-day busyness that went with being a hockey player, the workouts, the practices, the scrimmages, the games both on and off the road…well, he’d come to the conclusion that he had too much time on his hands.

Time Jena knew all too well what to do with. With Jena, he didn’t have to think about whether or not he wanted to sit restlessly on the bench as the rest of his team played. Or worry that his knee might never feel the same again. He just…was.

And, oh, what a “was” it was, too.

Unfortunately it looked like that “was”…well, was coming to an end. Life was intruding with Jena going off to work. And, he reluctantly admitted, maybe it was time he let some of his own life back in. He’d known this brief interlude was meant to be brief. Yet he didn’t want it to end just yet, whether Jena went to work or not. After all, she had to come home at some point, right? And when she did…

Caramel pulled him out of his reverie by making a sound at his feet. He considered the fur ball. The two of them had come to a truce early on. He didn’t mess with her; she didn’t mess with him. He could, however, do without the smell that seemed to accompany her presence.

He fished his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and reviewed his voice mail. Five messages from his agent. Two from his physical therapist’s office. One from his mother. He chose his agent first.

“Jesus H. Christ, man, where have you been? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you forever. It’s like you dropped off the edge of the Earth, Brodie.”

Tommy rubbed his brow. Maybe calling Kostas Volanis back hadn’t been the greatest idea. His time could be better spent coming up with ways to get Jena back into bed.

He envisioned her smooth, clean skin under the spray of the shower and his mouth watered.

“Tom?”

“I’m here.”

“And where exactly is there?”

Tommy grinned. The question might appear innocent to others, but others didn’t know Kostas the way he did. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yeah, me and twelve other people. Hell, guy, you picked a helluva time to up and take off, you know? You’ve got the team owner wanting a status report on your rehab. Only the team doc said you didn’t make your appointment yesterday. Then there is the sports equipment contract. You know they start shooting the commercials next month, don’t you? That is, if you don’t land on the permanently injured list. Did you take off back to Minnesota? You did, didn’t you?” He sighed. “You’re at least keeping off the knee, aren’t you? Doing the exercises the therapist prescribed for you?”

“I’m taking care of it.” Tom caught himself absently rubbing the knee in question and grimaced. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t been looking after it as diligently as he should have, and given his own background in medicine, the sin was doubly inexcusable. He heard the hair dryer click on in the other room, dimming his chances of getting Jena to stay home again today. Okay, so maybe even he could do with a brief break from their bedroom activities. Bum knee aside, he swore muscles hurt that he hadn’t known he had, fortifying his accredited knowledge that sex was one of the most strenuous physical workouts known to man.

“Look, Kostas, I’ve got to run.”

“Figuratively, right? You mean that figuratively. The doc said no running until—”

Tom chuckled. “Figuratively.”

“So I call your parents if I need anything, right?”

Well, that explained the message from his mother. Likely mother hen Kostas had called Helen Brodie and made his disappearing act sound like a major event, which he supposed for all intents and purposes it was. He’d never taken off like this before without letting anyone know where he was. And given everything that had happened over the past couple of months, it was only natural that his agent and others would be concerned about him.

He just wished they’d stop.

“No, call my cell.”

“So you’re not in Minnesota then?”

“Talk to you later, Kostas.”

“Wait, Tom—”

Tom clicked the phone shut then tucked it back into his pocket. He’d wait until later in the morning to call back the doctor’s office and his mother.

The hair dryer switched off.

He grinned. Ah, Jena.

He hadn’t quite known what to expect when he’d shown up three days before, but what he’d gotten had blown even that out of the water. He’d somehow forgotten how utterly hot she was. And he wasn’t talking just in the looks department. Between the sheets, up against the wall, in the shower, Jena was thick, molten lava, metamorphosing to fit whatever role she had in mind.

Personally, he liked the wildcat the best. When Jena took charge, ordering him around, telling him to touch her just so, move like this, thrust like that, he was like a man gone insane. He hadn’t let his injury hinder him in the least. Only problem was his knee was letting him know that now.

He opened the refrigerator door and stared at the slim pickings. Yesterday afternoon while she was napping he’d hit a nearby supermarket to stock up on the basics. Protein and complex carbs and plenty of them had been the order of the day. Plucking up the egg substitute carton and a package of turkey bacon, he turned toward the stove and started breakfast.

He didn’t so much see Jena come into the kitchen as smell her. He breathed in the scent of her spicy perfume and said without looking, “Good morning.”

“Bah humbug,” she said, though her tone was lighter than the words implied. “What, no coffee?”

“I don’t drink it,” he said. He turned, taking in the neat, sexy lines of her short skirt and business jacket. “Neither have you for the past two days.” He reached around where she was filling the coffeemaker with grounds and water. “Try some OJ.”

“That, too.” She switched on the maker then took the carton from him. Without breaking stride, she opened the top and drank straight from the carton.

Tommy lifted his brows and chuckled. “You’re kidding me, right?”

She shrugged and put the carton back in the fridge. “Why dirty a glass?” She smiled at him. “See. I got my vitamin C and saved on the water bill. Environmentally friendly, me.”

Tommy gently grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her to him. He wiped a drop of juice from the corner of her mouth. “Sloppy you.”

She made a face and he kissed her.

“Hmm, citrus.”

“Hmm, I’m late.”

He chuckled and brushed his fingers through her silky hair, watching as the raven-black strands swayed back into place around her enchanting face. “What are the chances of talking you into staying home again today?”

Jena pretended to consider the question, then said, “Oh, I don’t know. Between slim and none, maybe?”

He lowered his hands to her collarbone, pressing a thumb gently against her pulse point. He was rewarded with a small leap of her heartbeat. “Need I remind you that’s what you said yesterday?” He placed a kiss to her temple then softly blew into the perfect shell of her ear. “And the day before that?”

He heard the click of her swallow. “Yes, well, I didn’t have anything pressing on tap. Today…today, I have to go to the county jail to meet with a client.”

“Hmm. Sounds ominous.”

“Not if I get her out.”

How was a guy supposed to compete with that?

As if of their own accord, his hands slid down her elegant back to her pert tush then brought her up against his growing arousal.

Behind her the coffeemaker stopped make spitting sounds. “Um, my joe’s ready.”

“Your joe isn’t the only thing ready.”

Her husky laugh heightened his desire along with the feel of her pressing against him. “Do you ever stop?”

“Do you want me to?”

She looked at him intently and he stared back. Her tongue ran the length of her lower lip. “Um, no.”

But she did wriggle free from his grasp, then rifled through the cabinets and the dishwasher for an enormous travel cup. She filled the plastic to the rim with the coffee, then snapped on the lid. “Will you be here when I get back?” she asked, her back to him.

He noted the tension in her shoulders. He hadn’t thought about it, really. He’d assumed he’d probably stay at her place, but hadn’t considered her not being in it at the time. In fact, he hadn’t given much thought one way or another regarding his trip to Albuquerque time wise, except that he’d eventually leave again. He’d merely hopped on a plane and was there an hour and a half later.

“Depends.”

She turned toward him. “On what?”

“On whether or not you want me to be.”

A shadow passed through her violet eyes. He grinned. Ah, a woman who liked to wield her power in bed but didn’t want to call the shots outside of it.

That was okay with him.

She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what bothers me more. The thought of leaving you alone in my place, or your not being here when I get back.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

She tilted her head slightly. “You know, you never did say why you were in town. Is there, um, a game or something?”

“Or something.”

Her gaze drifted to his knee. “There isn’t, is there?”

“Are you asking me whether or not I came here to see you?”

She considered the question for a long moment. “Yes, I am.”

“Then yes, I did.”

Her expression of surprise was the last thing he expected.

“When do you leave?”

“Depends.”

She twisted her lips, but didn’t ask the question she had the last time he said the word. “I’ve got to go. A girl will be stopping by every two hours to take Caramel out for a walk. She has her own key, but you may want to let her know you’re here or she’s liable to call 911.”

“Whoa,” he said, catching her around the waist. “At least have some breakfast.”

“I don’t do breakfast.”

“Most important meal of the day, you know.”

She smiled. “No, I didn’t.”

Tom kissed her. Hard. Not releasing her until the question she hadn’t asked vanished from her eyes and her body melded to his.

“You better get going,” he said. “Someone’s freedom hangs in the balance.”

“Umm, freedom.” Realization seeped back into her sexy eyes. “Oh, God, I am so late.”

She started to pass him. He reached out and swatted her soundly on the bottom. She gasped then laughed, half turning as she made her way toward the door, Caramel nipping at her ankles. “I, um, guess I’ll see you later then.”

“Later.”

She practically ran out the door, stopping before she closed it to grab her coat from a rack in the foyer. She shot him one last smile then disappeared, this time closing the door quickly to stop Caramel from getting out after her.

Tommy stood staring at the empty air for long moments, then shook his head. An enigma. Pure and simple.

Caramel’s nails clicked on the floor as she gave up on Jena and the door and instead plopped down to consider Tom.

“Well, fleabag, looks like it’s a table for two for breakfast.”

3

JENA SLID HER CASE FILE into her briefcase and snapped the flap closed. In four short hours she’d accomplished more at work than she had in the past four weeks. She leaned back in her office chair and stretched her hands behind her neck, noting how good she felt. No, good was far too tame a word. Fantastic. Terrific. Well sexed. And even hungry for more of what Tommy “Wild Man” Brodie had to give.