The Player:Moorehouse Legacy(16)

Best not to make it any destination at all.

Though he would never forget those moments between them, she was, after all, going home to her boyfriend. And in the light of day, she was no doubt relieved that things hadn't gone any further.

A narrow escape, he thought. They'd both had a narrow escape.

Because a small voice in the back of his pea brain told him that once he'd had her, he'd want her again.

                       
       
           



       Chapter Seven

THREE WEEKS, GRAY THOUGHT. Three damn weeks and I still can't get that woman out of my head.

He eyed the squash ball coming at him as if it were alive and carrying a knife. Slamming the face of his racket into the thing, he sent it into the wall with vicious force. The ball ricocheted wildly out of bounds and almost caught his partner in the chest on the rebound.

Sean O'Banyon, a powerhouse on Wall Street, and no momma's boy even on Mother's Day, came at Gray like a tank.

"Goddamn it! That's four times I've had to duck for cover!"

As the guy pulled up just short of their chests touching, it was easy to see the South Boston street thug Sean used to be. If Gray wanted a fight instead of the civilized game they were supposed to be playing, he was going to get one from his friend. Right here. On the squash courts of the elite Congress Club.

No wonder folks called Sean "SOB." And not just because of the man's initials.

"What the hell is your problem, Bennett?"

Yeah, where to start with that.

Gray cursed. "Sorry. I'm trying to burn my edge off. It's not working."

And he should have known a quick game of squash wouldn't help much. Chasing a little ball around wasn't going to bust through the frustration of three weeks of insomnia, three weeks of being tortured by hot dreams, three weeks of missing a woman he wasn't supposed to be missing.

What he needed was Joy.

On top of him. In his arms.

And now that he was back in New York? Naturally, she was on his mind every second of the day.

God, only poll results used to get him this preoccupied.

Sean stepped back. Bounced a ball on his racket. "You got problems?"

Gray shook his head. "I'm just on a hair trigger right now. I should have warned you."

"Or we should have gotten in a ring together." Sean smiled darkly. "Listen, why don't we shower and head to the bar? You look like you could use a drink and I have no interest in needing a cardiac surgeon."

"Can't. I'm due at Allison and Roger Adams's in an hour. They're throwing a party for Ken Wright."

Sean cocked an eyebrow as they walked over to the court's exit. "Wright's running for mayor, isn't he?"

Gray held the door open for his friend. "Yeah, but his campaign's in the crapper. He's hired me as a hail Mary, last-minute miracle, so from now until November, you'll have plenty of opportunities to get me back. I'm going to be mostly here in Manhattan for the duration."

"I'm always up for a game." Sean laughed coldly. "Or a fight."

"And you think I've got issues?"

"At least I kept my balls in fair territory today."

Gray smiled as they walked down the marble corridor, nodding to other members who were also dressed in whites. The men's locker room was down on the left, marked by a pair of glossy black doors. Inside, the air was heavy with steam and the mingling of different aftershaves. Mahogany lockers with brass nameplates ran from floor to ceiling behind a fleet of varnished benches.

They stripped and went into the old-fashioned, communal shower. The twenty-by-twenty-foot room was white-tiled on all sides with four drains set into the floor and at least a dozen showerheads on the walls. They took two in the back.

"So what's her name?" Sean asked as they cranked the chrome fixtures.

The rush of water drowned out Gray's curse.

"You want to try that again?" Sean prompted dryly.

"There's no her."

"Yeah, right." Sean worked a bar of soap in his hands and then covered his face with suds. "Come on, Bennett. Talk to me."

To buy some time, Gray squeezed some shampoo into his hand and then rubbed the stuff through his hair. "I've lost my mind, SOB. I really have."

Sean made a noncommittal noise through spray. "On account of?"

"Her name's Joy."

Rich, masculine laughter made Gray wish he'd clammed up.

"Nice name, Bennett. This someone you're sleeping with or working on?"

"I'm not sleeping with her." Gray realized he was blushing and stuck his head under the water. "I'm just desperate to."

"So take her to bed. What's the problem?"

"It's complicated."

Because after replaying everything that had happened between them over and over again, he just didn't know whether Joy was the sweet, gentle girl he'd always assumed her to be, or a calculating woman capable of giving even him a run at the sex game. Every time he thought about how amazing she'd been with him, how high she'd taken them both, he reminded himself that she'd been with him while that poor Opie guy was waiting for her back home.

"And the problem is?" Sean prompted, squeezing shampoo onto his palm.

"I respect who I've always thought she was too much to be with her. And I can't bear who she might be."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

"It does. One of the most attractive things about her was her … God, I guess you'd call it innocence. I've known her for years, since she was a teenager. I was so sure she wasn't … "

"Like the others?" SOB arched under the spray to rinse his hair out.

"Yeah. I was feeling guilty as hell for wanting her like I did and that was even before I saw her with her boyfriend. Then she came here to the city, we hooked up and it was insanely hot … " Gray soaped his chest. "But, damn, she's with someone and she let me crawl all over her. What kind of decent woman pulls that stuff?"

It was his mother's favorite game and look where that had landed them all.

"How'd you leave it with her?" Sean asked.

In the middle, Gray thought. And he'd been a sexually frustrated madman ever since.

"I left when she told me she loved me."

Sean dropped the bar of soap he was using on his legs. "What?"

"It wasn't like that. She didn't mean it. She couldn't possibly have. But it shocked enough sense into me to get me out the door."

"Yeah, those three little words will bring a man back to reality, all right."

"I just can't figure out who she is. If she's the nice girl I've always assumed she is, I can't be with her because I'll do one hell of a number on her."

"But what if she's not?"

"Well, I guess that's a different story. Except I don't know if I want the truth." The letdown would be oddly painful.

With a final rinse, Sean turned his water off. "She in town?"

Gray shut down his showerhead. "No. Up north."

Water dripped onto the tile with a casual, tinkling sound. After grabbing thick white towels from a neat pile in the corner, they went back to the lockers.

"The thing is, I can't stop thinking about her." Gray opened his and took out his shirt, shrugging into the button-down. "And the dreams. Holy hell, I feel like I'm fourteen. I wake up every morning with a-well, you know what I mean."

"If memory serves, yeah." Sean's dark smile returned as he hit his pits with some deodorant spray. He tossed the can over so Gray could use it. "You got it bad, my boy. You got it real bad."

After pulling on his boxers, Gray stepped into his pin-striped slacks and tucked the shirt in with vicious stabs of his hand. "Maybe I just need to get busy with another woman."

But as soon as he said the words, the idea didn't appeal.

"Don't know if substitution's really going to work in this case," SOB drawled, pulling a black cashmere sweater over his head. "Sounds like you're not hard up for sex. You're hard up for her."

Gray shot his buddy a glare, even though he knew the guy was absolutely right. "You're not giving me a whole lot of relief here."

"You want a kiss-ass liar, talk to someone else." Sean strapped on a heavy gold watch. "My advice? Get her out of your system. Ask the woman to come down for a visit, hole up in your suite with her and don't leave until the mystery's gone. What you have is a classic case of obsession. A little exposure therapy and you'll be back to normal in no time. Unless of course … "

Sean brushed his black hair straight back from his proud forehead.

"What?" Gray paused in the middle of knotting his tie. "What?"

"Unless she's the real deal for you. In which case you're screwed." Gray started cursing and Sean laughed. "But the probability of that is next to zero. Men like you and me, we're not hardwired for that kind of thing."

Gray thought about it for a moment. "You might be right. But she's with someone."

"That's between her and him. It's got nothing to do with you."

"Man, you're tough."

"You're only figuring that out now?"

After they left the locker room, Sean headed for the bar while Gray strode out into the lobby. He wasn't in a big hurry to get to Allison and Roger's party. Just this morning, he'd finally tracked down the last source Beckin had given him about Roger's nocturnal exploits with that reporter. The story had been corroborated again.