Fire And Ice. Tori Carrington
sisters.”
“I always wondered what it would be like to have siblings. Brothers. Sisters. Didn’t matter.”
“Living hell.”
“Being an only child wasn’t exactly heaven on earth,” she said quietly. Especially when you lost both your parents at the same time and ended up alone.
“You said that in the past tense.”
She realized she had. She shrugged, trying to adopt an air of nonchalance. In truth, she hadn’t spoken about what had happened to her parents in so long, she’d forgotten the stories she used to come up with to explain their absence to strangers. Car accident. Plane crash. Anything that made the loss less painful, less real. Anything but the truth. Only Dulcy and Marie and a few others knew that. And not even they suspected that she needed to take on the Glendale case as a result of that truth. “Yeah. They died. A long time ago.”
“Aunts? Uncles? Cousins?”
“One aunt. She moved to Washington State a few years ago.” She shook her head to move her hair from her eyes. “You?”
“Both parents still alive and kicking. They live in the same house they bought thirty-five years ago. My four sisters are in various stages of engagement, marriage and divorce. All of them live within a mile of my parents in Minneapolis.”
“How did you end up in L.A.?”
“They matched my price.”
“Ah.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled in a way she found irresistibly sexy. “Yeah, ah.”
“Do you miss them? Your family, I mean.”
“Sometimes. But I try to get home at least once a month. I was just back there for Thanksgiving.”
“And the knee brace?”
He fell silent although his expression didn’t change. “Injury, eight weeks ago. It put me out of commission.”
“So you haven’t played since then?” Jena asked, her brows rising.
“Nope.”
She considered that. What would she do if something happened and she wasn’t able to be a lawyer for two months? “How do you feel about that?” she asked quietly.
His grin made her curl her toes against the kitchen tile. “Like picking you up and continuing a nonverbal conversation in the bedroom.”
Jena laughed. And it felt so good to do so that she continued doing it until she discovered that Tommy had stopped chuckling and was watching her through suspicious eyes.
“Careful or you’re liable to give a guy a complex.”
“A big jock like you?” Jena reached for her plate only to find she’d demolished the fruit he’d put on it. He held out another piece, but waved her hand away when she reached for it. She leaned forward and opened her mouth, waiting until he slowly put it inside. She drew her lips along the length, then took it full in along with his fingers. His gaze fastened on the movement, he slowly withdrew his hand. She took her time chewing, watching his face as he watched her. His eyes darkened. His jaw tensed. And a restless kind of energy seemed to emanate from him and reverberate off of her.
“A big jock like me still has an ego, you know,” he murmured, blinking up into her eyes.
“Trust me, baby, you don’t have a thing to worry about in that department.”
His grin was just this side of completely wicked. “I know.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re also bigheaded?”
“Depends on which head you’re talking about.”
She rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling, but before she could make a jab about his adolescent remark, he was sweeping her off her feet and up into his arms. She automatically clung to his bare shoulders, feeling his broad, hard chest against her side.
“Now, how about I go and show you just how bigheaded I can be?”
“Sounds like an idea to me.”
4
TOMMY STRETCHED LANGUIDLY across the empty bed, aware of the morning light filtering through his closed eyelids. How long had it been since he’d slept in? Right after his injury bed rest had been the order of the day, but by six every morning he’d been wide-awake, cruising through the news channels and absorbing every word in the newspapers and medical journals while eating the breakfast the visiting nurse delivered.
Now Tommy squinted at the bedside clock, surprised to find it half past nine. He picked up a note propped against the lamp. “See you at five” was scrawled in barely legible letters along with a capital J. He put the note back down then joined his hands behind his head and grinned.
Coming to Albuquerque to see Jena had been his best idea yet. No Greek-American sports agent who spoke a million miles a minute knocking down his door. No physical therapists telling him what he was doing was all wrong for his knee. No team owner telling him via the coach that they needed him back on the ice now. No one but him and Jena and the sexual playground they’d made out of her ultra-modern apartment.
He glanced around, having gotten used to his surroundings remarkably quickly. His own place in L.A. was done in pale woods with wood-framed furniture covered in overstuffed brightly colored pillows and cushions, the walls dotted with framed old movie posters. Bogart was a favorite of his, as was Spencer Tracy. And, of course, you couldn’t go wrong with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, although their posters were a little more recent. Growing up with the long winters in Minnesota, there seemed to be little more to do than go to the movies or play hockey. He’d preferred the matinees where they still showed the old films, while his sisters attended the new runs at night. And while he’d taken to hockey, Jamie, Sandie, Mandie and Lainie had trained as figure skaters.
He rubbed the stubble along his jaw and wondered what Jena had done at the same age.
He remembered her two friends from the bar. Childhood friends, Jena had said. The blonde—Dulcy, Jena had told him later—had looked like she’d needed some lightening up, while Marie…well, if he’d had a younger sister, he guessed she would have looked pretty much like her. Cute and hungry, appearing not to know what part of life to bite off first, and too scared to try.
But Jena… He couldn’t quite figure her out. Which was likely the reason he was so drawn to her. So many people he could pigeonhole in two minutes flat. But he’d spent the past four days with Jena and still didn’t have a clue what she was all about. A daring wildcat in bed, and remarkably bold during conversations, it wasn’t until much later that he’d realized she hadn’t revealed a bit of herself while she’d gotten him to tell her his life story.
Most guys probably wouldn’t question her behavior. Hell, they’d likely celebrate it. What man wouldn’t want a woman with apparently no past who wanted you and didn’t have an agenda when she jumped into bed with you?
She’d said her parents had died….
Tommy dry-washed his face with his hands. Had she mentioned how they had died? Or how old she’d been at the time? If she had, he couldn’t remember. He’d been too busy concentrating on her decadent mouth as she devoured first her pizza, then inadvertently inhaled the fruit he’d fed her. And, of course, he’d been busy answering the questions he was now afraid were meant to distract him.
He pushed up to sit, gingerly moving his leg over the side of the bed and doing a few stretches before standing on it. He checked the brace, then grabbed a pair of skivvies from his duffel before heading for the bathroom, intending to catch a shower before responding to the soft whining on the other side of the kitchen door. He had a good half hour before twelve-year-old Paula showed up to walk Caramel. Maybe he’d leave a note for her and see to the task himself. He could use exercise that didn’t include a mattress. And perhaps the cold morning air could help clear