“Gee.” Bo shook her head and took a drink of beer. “It’s bleeding like he hit an aorta.”
“Your aorta is in your heart. Not your head,” Jules pointed out.
“Yeah. I know that, numb nuts.” Bo set her beer back on the table. “It’s called overstating something to make a point.”
“It’s called stupid.”
“Stop it! How old are you two, for God’s sake?” Faith put her hands flat on the table. “Ty has just sustained a gash to his head. This could be serious.”
Bo shook her head again. “It’s not that bad.”
“They’ll have him fixed up and on the ice by the third frame,” Jules added as Ty and the trainer stepped from the ice and headed into the tunnel.
“I don’t think so.” If she’d been hit like that, she’d need a full night’s stay in a hospital and lots of painkillers. Ty wasn’t as big a baby as she was, but there was no way he could come back after receiving such a gash.
But Jules was right. When the front-line offense took the ice in the third period, Ty was with them. The corner of his eye was only slightly swollen and was taped with white strips. Blood stained the front of his white jersey, but he skated his shifts.
In the closing minutes of the game, the score was 4–3 in favor of Detroit. Coach Nystrom pulled the goalie and loaded the ice with his first-line players, but despite a hard effort, it was Detroit’s night, and they won 5–3, scoring on an empty net in the last ten seconds of the game.
“We’ll beat ’em in our building Monday night,” Jules predicted as they all three left the bar.
The drive from the bar to the penthouse took about fifteen minutes. Pebbles wasn’t around, which meant her mother was already in bed. Faith brushed her teeth, washed her face, threw on a Looney Tunes T-shirt, and went to bed herself. The wine and excitement of the game had taken its toll and she went out minutes after her head hit the pillow. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep when the telephone beside her bed rang and woke her up. She reached for the receiver in the dark and hit herself in the forehead. “Ouch. Crap. Hello?”
“Did I wake you?”
She blinked. “Ty?”
“Yeah. Are you alone or is that dog in your bed?”
“What?” She felt around and her fingers touched fur. “Pebbles is here.”
His soft laughter filled her ear. So rare it poured through her and woke her up inside. “That must mean my dad’s there.”
“He must have snuck in after I went to sleep. Did you want to talk to Pavel?”
“God no.”
She licked her lips. “Then why are you calling?”
“I’m not quite sure.”
She turned her head and looked at the glowing numbers on her bedside clock. “Do you know what time it is?”
There was a pause and then, “Three fifteen.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in my car. Sitting in front of your building.”
She sat up and pushed the cover aside. “You’re kidding.”
“No. We just landed a half hour ago. Did you watch the game?”
“Yeah.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed. “How’s your eyebrow?”
“I got five stitches.”
“It looked like it hurt.”
“Like a son of a bitch. You should come down and kiss it better.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not dressed.”
“At all?”
Through the darkness, she glanced down at her Looney Tunes T-shirt. “Completely naked.”
He cleared his throat. “Throw on a coat. I promise I won’t look.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Looking isn’t what gets us into trouble.”
His voice lowered and he said, “You like trouble. Apparently, so do I.”
She did. She liked it a lot. “What kind of trouble were you thinking we should get into?”
“The kind that has you naked and in my bed. Since you’re already naked, maybe you should just come on down and go the rest of the way.”
She shouldn’t. Really shouldn’t. “That would be inappropriate.”
“Very.”
“And you don’t regret what happened the other night?”
“Not yet, but I’ve got a few twisted positions with your name on ’em. I figure that after tonight, we’ll be filled with enough shame and regret to last a while.”
“It sounds like you’ve been thinking about me.”
“A lot.”
She’d thought about him, too. She shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t help herself. And while he might not regret what had happened, she should. But at that moment, listening to his voice and knowing he was parked outside wanting her, she didn’t feel anything but a hot curl of lust tugging at the pit of her stomach. “Me too,” she answered just above a whisper. “There’s a golf tournament this summer. I think I need to practice.”
“Honey, you can practice with my nine iron all you want.”
“I’ll grab my coat.” She hung up the phone, then stepped out of her panties and pulled her T-shirt over her head. Right now, wanting to get into trouble with Ty won out over the guilt she would feel in a few hours.
She hurriedly brushed her teeth and hair and grabbed her slick black raincoat from her closet. She shoved her feet into a pair of red pumps and dropped her keys into her coat pocket on the way out the door.
Ty stood next to his black BMW parked heading the wrong way next to the curb. Darkness surrounded him, and a cool breeze blew off Elliott Bay, tossing several strands of Faith’s hair in front of her face.
“Mrs. Duffy.”
“Mr. Savage.”
He opened the passenger door. “Nice coat.”
She stepped in front of him and looked through the darkness into his face. Stark white bandage strips were taped at the corner of his left eye. The same breeze that tossed her hair about her head brought the scent of his skin to her nose and she breathed him in. She placed her hands on his chest and raised her face to his. Beneath the cotton of his dress shirt, his muscles bunched and turned hard.
Ty lowered his mouth and kissed her. His lips pressed into hers and something hot and intense flooded her senses and her fingers curled into the fabric warmed by his flesh. His tongue touched hers as his hand slid between the lapels of her raincoat. His warm hand cupped her breast and he fanned his thumb over her nipple.
Just when she gave serious thought to grabbing his wrist and leading him upstairs, he lifted his head and pulled his hand from her coat. “Get in,” he ordered, his voice a bit gravelly from exhaustion or lust or both.
He opened the door and she sat in the passenger seat and looked up at him. “What sort of twisted positions do you have planned for me?” she asked.
“Working our way from one end of my mattress to the other.”
She pulled her feet inside and remembered his king-size bed. “That could take a while.”
“Exactly.”
Chapter 15
The brush of something warm across Faith’s shoulder brought her out of a sound sleep. Her lids fluttered open and she turned to stare into a pair of brilliant blue eyes a few inches from her face. Smile lines appeared in the corners, wrinkling the white strips covering Ty’s stitches as he lightly bit her shoulder.
“Good morning,” he said against her skin.
“What time is it?”
“A little before noon.”
“Oh my God!” She sat up and the white sheet slid to her waist. “It’s late.” A sudden knot of panic kicked up the beat of her heart and tightened her stomach. She hadn’t woken up in a man’s bed in…she didn’t know how long. She pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts and glanced back over her shoulder at him. He looked at ease and relaxed in a gray T-shirt and a pair of loose shorts. “You’re dressed.”
“I ran five miles on the treadmill.”
“And you didn’t wake me?”
He rolled onto his back on top of the thick black paisley comforter and stacked his hands behind his head. “You were out.” His gaze ran down her bare back. “You didn’t get to sleep until around five.”
“Neither did you.”