Game for Anything

  Ty said. "I think you've already met the owner. Dominic was working out at the gym with me. He spoke to you, made you laugh."

  Julie cocked her head to the side, thought for a moment. "Hmm ... I'm getting a picture of a really gorgeous man with black hair and green eyes."

  Something that looked suspiciously like jealousy crossed Ty's face. "He's a great guy."

  "He's not my type."

  Ty visibly relaxed, and sat beside her on the soft outdoor couch.

  "Good. Because I'd have to rip him apart with my bare hands if he ever touched you."

  Julie didn't know what to say to his surprisingly touching declaration. It was nice to know that they had an unspoken agreement of monogamy for their time together. She certainly couldn't have dealt with him even looking at another woman. Not while they were sleeping together.

  Although, if she was honest with herself, it was just as hard for her to think about Ty dating someone else when her contract with the Outlaws came to an end.

  She looked back out over the water, let herself soak up the beauty, the small waves rippling across the lake onto the shore. Inhaling the sweet pine scent, she softly said, "I'm having a great time with you, Ty."

  She didn't look at him; didn't want to see if he felt the same way, or if he was trying to hide pity at how quickly she'd fallen for him. But at the same time, she wanted him to know that she was happy. And that she was pleased with the work he'd done thus far to clean up his act.

  "I'm glad," was his response.

  There was so much warmth in the two words that her fears instantly disappeared. What was she thinking? They were evenly matched, both in spirit and accomplishment. There was nothing but lots more fantastic sex, along with laughter, in their near future.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The next day, they headed for a children's football camp in Palo Alto. "This is my favorite place to be all summer," Ty told Julie as they pulled into the Camp Cougar parking lot. Several football fields stretched all around the parking lot, with a brown-shingled building directly to their left. "Come on, I'll introduce you to the guys who run this place."

  It was bear hugs all around inside camp headquarters.

  "Everyone, this is Julie." Ty wasn't embarrassed about needing an image consultant, but he wouldn't have minded letting his friends think they were an item for five minutes.

  Julie, of course, didn't feel the same way. As she shook hands she said, "I own an image consultancy, and the Outlaws hired me to work with Ty."

  "I hope we're not supposed to act surprised," Tony said with a grin. Now in his sixties, he'd been running this camp since Ty was a ten-year-old on the field, kicking ass and taking names. "Ty always was a wild one--although we loved him anyway."

  "What have we got this year?" Ty asked, not in the mood to discuss his past. Things were so good with Julie that he didn't want her remembering what an ass he'd been in high school. "Any standouts?"

  Tony nodded. "One kid, Jack, reminds me a lot of you. He can play any position, offense, defense. Nothing fazes him. Plays like he's sixteen, not ten."

  Julie sat down on the corner of a desk and crossed her legs. Damn, she had some sweet thighs, Ty thought.

  "Does being so good, so young, ever lead to resentment from the other kids?"

  Julie's question was a good one, and Ty struggled to focus on football rather than what was beneath her panties. "Sometimes there are problems, especially if one of the kids has an attitude. In most cases it isn't really their fault, though. It can be rough when your folks have been building you up to be the next Payton Manning."

  Tony nodded. "This kid, Jack, is real friendly, just like your client here. Attracts people like a magnet."

  Ty took the compliment in stride and looked out the open sliding glass door, scanning the field. It wasn't hard to spot the future superstar. He threw like a high school kid, not a fifth grader. He was quick and seemed to have an instinctive understanding of the game. While the other kids had to stop, think, then decide which way to turn, Jack was two steps ahead.

  "You ready to meet this year's group? They've been talking about you since yesterday."

  Ty nodded. "Can't wait."

  If someone had told Julie that she'd thoroughly respect Ty Calhoun, she would have said they were completely nuts. But somewhere along the way, she'd developed a newfound appreciation for Ty's charisma and charm, not only at the handful of charity functions they'd attended together throughout Northern California, but also from watching him interact with these kids.

  She'd called a photographer and several sports writers to let them observe Ty working with the kids. By the time her assignment was through, people were going to remember him for the great things he did, not for cavorting with strippers.

  Sitting in the shade of an oak tree, she sent one final email and dropped her BlackBerry back into her bag.

  Ty was showing the kids how to hold and throw the ball, and they were eagerly taking in his every word, every movement. As a group, they picked up their footballs and tried to mimic the way he turned and cocked his arm, the perfect spiral the ball took through the air. For the most part, it was a ball-flinging disaster, and Julie quielty giggled. The boy they'd been talking about, Jack, was the only kid in the bunch who made it look easy.

  In so many ways, he was a smaller version of Ty. Dark hair, tanned skin, effortless grace on the field. If she and Ty had a child, would it be a boy who looked like Jack? Or a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes?

  Her hand went to her mouth as she gasped. She hadn't actually just imagined having a child with Ty, had she?

  She was letting herself get in way too deep. She took a deep breath, working hard to rebuild the wall around her heart. How could she have let herself forget, for one single moment, what he'd done ten years ago?

  Julie's eyes blurred as she watched Ty run across the grass to pick up a football. All at once, she was back in that yacht with the eighteen-year-old boy she'd just given her soul to.

  Grad night on Ty's borrowed yacht was an endless dream of pleasure. Hour after hour, Ty continued to kiss her, lick her, and caress her, and she returned the favor in every way she could. She wanted to memorize every muscle, every sinew, the way his abs tightened when she swept her tongue across his nipples and then marked them gently with her teeth.

  Sated and overwhelmed by all of her orgasms, hardly able to believe how close she felt to a boy she'd never talked to before that night, Julie lay half-awake inside the stateroom until the light outside the tiny window changed from moonlit black to gold.

  "It's morning," she whispered and Ty answered by pulling her closer against him, his eyes still closed. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed that she was sailing across the Bay. The wind was in her hair and it was a perfect, sunny day. But then she saw Ty piloting an oncoming yacht that was just about to crash into her. She cried out for him to change course, but all he did was laugh at her. His friends were on board his ship and they were all laughing too, like they knew some dirty little secret about her.

  Julie woke up just as the ships were about to hit. She was disoriented on so little sleep, but she was pretty sure she heard stomping on the deck above them. Had the owners come back early to claim their boat?

  She sat up, covering herself with the sheet. But even though she was petrified about being discovered having sex on a stranger's boat, she couldn't help but admire Ty's incredible physique, tanned and toned from the ankles up.

  His eyes opened and his lips curved in a sexy grin. "Come lie down again," he drawled, but she couldn't ignore the feet that got louder with every passing second.

  "It sounds like someone's on board," she whispered.

  He cocked his head at the ceiling. "Sure does."

  She knew her eyes had to be wild, her hair and makeup unfixable. "Shouldn't we get dressed and get out of here?"

  He sat up, utterly unconcerned with his nakedness. Julie didn't think she'd ever learn to be so comfortable with her body, not if
she had a hundred years to practice.

  "I'm not too worried about it," he said, "but I can go out and take a look if you really want me to."

  She nodded. "That'd be great."

  While he was gone, she'd put her dress back on and use the tiny bathroom to assess the rest of the damage. After all, she was going to have to sneak back into her parents' house soon. Although they were both so self-absorbed, she doubted they'd notice that she'd been out all night and hadn't called.

  He zipped up his black dress slacks, picking up her discarded panties and shoving them in his pocket.

  "Just to make sure you don't try and leave before I get back."

  Almost at the door, he turned, came back to her, and kissed her hard. "Thanks for a great night," he said, grinning as he let her go and opened the door.

  Julie blankly watched the door close behind him. How had he meant that? Were you supposed to thank your lover after a night of great sex? Or was he trying to tell her they were done now?

  She took a deep breath. When he came back down she'd talk to him so that she'd know if they were officially dating now. He was going to USC on a football scholarship, but his school was only an eight-hour drive from Stanford, so they could see each other several times a month pretty easily if they really wanted to.

  She was working on the zipper on her badly wrinkled dress when she heard laugher. Her spine tingled with alarm. Who was Ty laughing with? And what was he laughing about?

  He couldn't be laughing about her, could he? Not after what they'd shared. She'd given him her virginity. He had to know how special he was to her--that she wasn't like the girls he usually slept with.

  She finger-combed her hair and quickly looked in the mirror over the tiny sink to make sure she didn't have mascara on her face. She told herself that she trusted him to tell her the truth when he came back down. Even so, she picked up her heels and tiptoed down the hall and partway up the stairs, just to the point where she could see some faces and hear what they were saying.

  One of Ty's teammates poured something golden into a shot glass and handed it to Ty. "Dude, you need to tell us who you're here with. Everyone's been wondering."

  Ty tilted his head back and drank, then held out the small glass for a refill. "Trust me, she's hot."

  Julie's face flamed and she nearly dropped her shoes. How could he talk about her like she was just some random girl he'd picked up at a party? Even if, a voice inside her admitted, that was exactly what she was.

  "Samantha? Ellen? Melissa?"

  Ty laughed and did another shot. "I'll see you guys later. Got to get back to the fine babe I've got stashed away."

  Julie hated the way he called her a "fine babe," even though she knew lots of girls would be flattered.

  "What's that in your pocket?" one of his friends said, grabbing her underwear. "Hell yeah, you've got another pair of panties for your collection!"

  En masse, Ty's friends dropped to their knees. "We bow down to the master."

  Ty made no move to get her underwear back. Instead, he inclined his head to his friends as if he was the king and they were his servants.

  He'd taken her panties to give to his friends as a prize.

  Cold, bitter anger filled Julie. She walked back down the stairs and pushed open the stateroom door. Eyeing the rumpled bed with distaste, she sat down on a firm upholstered chair in the corner by the built-in armoire.

  A few minutes later Ty returned, his eyes glazed over enough to make her wonder how many more shots he'd pounded.

  "Miss me?" he asked, but his expression made it perfectly clear that she had to know how lucky she was to be his chosen grad night screw.

  "Not really," she forced herself to say in a steady voice. "I'd like my underwear back now."

  He shook his head and moved toward her. "Not so fast. We've got hours before the owner comes back. Don't you want to make the most of it?"

  Self-disgust washed through her. Had she really let him touch her all over? Go inside her? He was just a cocky jerk looking to score.

  "I don't want to keep you from your friends. I'll bet they missed you last night."

  He shrugged. "Not really."

  "Funny, that's not what it sounded like from here."

  He kneeled in front of her on the expensive carpet, at least acting like he cared. Considering how drunk he probably was, he moved pretty fast. She'd heard his dad was a drunk too. Like father, like son.

  "Forget what you heard," he said. "It's just stupid guy stuff."

  "Screw you."

  He grabbed her hand. All night long, his touch had inflamed her, driven her crazy with desire. Now her fingers remained as cold as icicles.

  "It was just guy talk. They wouldn't understand about you."

  She didn't give a crap about his pseudo apologies. She couldn't let herself believe him.

  Julie pulled her hand out of his warm grasp, then stood and stepped into her shoes as if she didn't give a damn that he was on his knees staring at her.

  He stood up too, and she hated how dwarfed she felt by his height, his broad shoulders, as if he was lording his size over her on purpose.

  "I said I was sorry, but you're not going to listen to what I have to say, are you?"

  She stared straight back at him. "I hate you. I'll always hate you. And I never, ever want to see you again."

  He reached for his shirt and grabbed his shoes. "Fine by me. Have a nice life."

  He left her standing in the middle of the boat. She hadn't even been able to get away first. It was the final blow.

  Julie's eyes refocused on the football field as Ty laughed and picked up one of the smaller kids. He spun the little boy around to celebrate what she guessed was a perfect spiral.

  How could she go back to putting up walls when he acted like that?

  It had been a great day. Ty was clear on what he wanted to do when the time came to retire. He wanted to run a place like this, teach kids the joy of the game, how everything you needed to know about life was right there with you on the field. Teamwork, respect, how to win, and how to lose.

  Football was hard on a body. Either you were forced to retire injured or you left willingly while everything still worked. Ty was hoping for the latter.

  As he helped the boys clean up the balls and nets on the fields, he looked over at Julie. She had her head bent over her BlackBerry, good little worker that she was. He was hit with the memory of taking her naked up on that balcony in Napa and he had to look away, trying to get his mind off of her curves, the way the pulse in her neck jumped when she threw her head back and came. He was about to turn around and head for the clubhouse when he heard a man's rough voice boom across the field.

  "Jackie boy, I hope you kicked some ass today."

  Jack's face flamed and he ducked his head and fumbled a ball on purpose so that he could run after it. Away from the man that Ty assumed was his father.

  The ruddy-faced man stumbled in Ty's direction. He slapped Ty on the back and stale whisky fumes poured out of his mouth as he said, "That's some superstar I've got out there, isn't it, Ace?"

  Ty worked to repress his revulsion. It wasn't Jack's fault that his father was a worthless drunk.

  "Sure is. He's a great kid."

  The man scowled. "All I care about is that he's great at football. We didn't come here this week for him to make friends. Win at all costs--that's what I've been teaching him. I don't care who he has to crush along the way. He hasn't been a sniveling baby out here today, has he?"

  Ty had gone cow tipping a few times with his buddies as a kid in Marin, and he was sorely tempted to poke this guy's overinflated chest and watch him fall to the ground, his thick legs flailing heedlessly in the air.

  But he wasn't here to tell guys like this where to stick it. All he could do was help their kids on the field, teach them the right way to act, and hope they remembered what he'd told them when push came to shove.

  Ty said, "He's doing great," and headed across the field toward Jack. He
squatted down and covered Jack with his back, making sure his father couldn't see either of their faces.

  "I met your dad."

  The kid's eyes shuttered, so different from how open and receptive he'd been all day. "It's no big deal. I can handle him."

  Ty nodded. "Sure you can." He paused. "He reminds me a lot of my dad. Says the same kind of stuff."

  Jack looked up in surprise. "You're kidding, right?"

  "My dad put a lot of pressure on me too. Winning was the only thing he cared about."

  Jack screwed up his face. "But isn't winning what matters most?"

  Ty reached into his pocket, pulled out paper and a pen, and wrote his cell number on it. "Sometimes it does. Other times you just go out there and play the best game you can." He handed the scrap of paper to Jack. "You need anything, you give me a call."

  Jack looked down at Ty's cell number, his mouth open. "Wow."

  "Even if you just need to talk, call me. If I can't pick up right away, I promise to call you back."

  They both heard Jack's father coming and the boy shoved the paper into his pocket before his dad could see. Ty knew damn well how his own father would have reacted to having the personal telephone number of a pro player way back when. He would have gone straight to the bar to buy everyone a round to celebrate. Before the night was through, that number would have been passed into every stranger's hand.

  Ty watched Jack and his father walk away, wondering if he'd just made a mistake, when Julie appeared at his side.

  "You look serious," she said, following his gaze to the parking lot.

  He shook off his dark mood. One thing he had no intention of ever discussing with Julie was his father. She knew he'd been a drunk--shit, everyone in town knew, and once he'd gone pro the press had told the world--but it still wasn't something he talked about much. Over the years, the more games he'd won, the more people left his past alone. And that was exactly how he liked it.

  "You're looking at a future superstar," he said, changing the subject.