Larissa’s call requesting he bring over dinner had come in the late afternoon. Percy was going to hang with Kenny for the evening. The former receiver was going to explain basic U.S. history using a couple of comic books he’d found on the subject. Percy’s reading was improving every day but there was no way he was ready to tackle an actual high-school-level textbook on the subject.

Sam was already working with the teen on his math skills. Percy had a good grasp of basic concepts. Algebra came easy to him. Sam had actually looked gleeful when he’d mentioned taking Percy through introductory calculus. The man did love his numbers, which was good for the company and their individual financial portfolios.

Jack climbed the stairs to Larissa’s second-floor apartment, knocked once and let himself inside.

“It’s me,” he called as he walked into the kitchen and set the food on the counter. Dyna strolled up to greet him.

“Hey, pretty girl.” Jack picked up the cat. She instantly relaxed in his arms and began to purr. He rubbed her face. Big blue eyes stared back at him.

“Hi, Jack.”

He turned, prepared to offer Larissa a greeting. But the words got stuck in his throat. Or maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t breathe that made speaking impossible.

She stood in the center of her living room. That was okay. People stood in living rooms all the time. He knew that. The difference wasn’t the where, it was the what the hell. As in what the hell was she wearing?

Instead of her usual yoga pants and a T-shirt, or even jeans, she had on some kind of silky robe. The bottom barely covered her butt and just kissed her thighs. Her hair was long and a little curly and if he didn’t know better he would say she was wearing makeup.

The combination was unbelievable sexy. Wanting hit him like a linebacker and nearly knocked him senseless. Or maybe it was the lack of air that killed the last few surviving brain cells. He wasn’t sure.

He drew in a breath and carefully lowered Dyna to the floor. When he straightened, Larissa was still standing there in that damn robe.

“Am I, ah, early?” he asked, knowing it was just a matter of seconds before the blood pulsing through his body settled uncomfortably in his groin and his desire would be there for the world to see.

Dammit all to hell, why did she have to be so beautiful? And sexy?

Larissa stared at him coolly. “You’re not early.”

She tossed her hair over her shoulders. The movement caused the robe to shimmer around her and her br**sts to move in such a way that he was reasonably confident she wasn’t wearing a bra.

He swore silently and looked around desperately for a distraction. All he saw was the cat.

“I’ll brush Dyna while you finish getting dressed,” he mumbled, grabbing the unsuspecting feline and pulling her back into his arms. “I saw her brush in the kitchen.”

With that, he stumbled away.

He hid in the tiny space, hoping Larissa would assume his moronic behavior was about low blood sugar or because of too many hits to the head. Anything but the truth, he thought desperately. He had to get a grip.

He held on to Dyna, petting her while she purred and thinking about baseball and the changes they were making in the Mercedes CLS and how global warming meant there would be vineyards in Alaska in the next ten years. Anything to distract him from his need to follow Larissa into her bedroom, peel that robe from her body and make love with her for the next five or six hours.

He wanted to touch her all over—first with his hands and then with his mouth. He wanted to explore every inch of her, he wanted to know what she sounded like when she got close and how her breathing changed when she came. He wanted—

Stop it! He sucked in a breath and reminded himself that he worked with Larissa. She was his friend. He wasn’t going to screw that up by ha**g s*x with her. Talk about stupid. He wasn’t some love-struck kid. He could control himself.

Slowly his heart rate returned to normal. He was breathing easier and the pounding need faded enough to be manageable. After a couple more minutes, he risked going back into the living room. Larissa was gone. He set down the cat before returning to the kitchen. He’d planned to have a beer with his dinner, but after what he’d just been through, he was going to need something a whole lot stronger.

* * *

LARISSA PUSHED THE beans and rice around on her plate. She’d managed to eat enough of her burrito to keep Jack from asking questions. It wasn’t that she wasn’t hungry, it was that swallowing past the lump of stupid in her throat made it difficult to get anything down.

Her attempt at seduction had been a total disaster. Instead of being overwhelmed by desire, Jack had simply assumed she wasn’t dressed yet. Oh, right. Because she had a whole wardrobe of silk robes to pull on at a moment’s notice. Jeez. Until today she hadn’t owned even one.

She only half listened to Jack going on and on about how the guys were planning to get Percy ready for his GED. Not that she wasn’t interested in all that. She was. But hadn’t he noticed she was trying to get him into bed?

There was an obvious answer. No. He hadn’t noticed. He didn’t know she’d just spent ninety-eight dollars on a stupid robe she would never wear again. Nor had he noticed she’d curled her hair. That wasn’t something she did very often. Jack was supposed to be so smooth with the ladies. Where was that smoothness now?

“You okay?” he asked.

She forced herself to smile. “Of course. So is there a lot of science on the test?”

Jack said something about downloading a sample test and getting information on what students were required to know. But what she was actually thinking was she probably shouldn’t be blaming Jack for not getting what she was trying to do. The more likely culprit was herself.

What did she know about seducing men? In a word—nothing. Sure, she’d dated some, but she’d mostly avoided relationships. They were never what she wanted them to be. Never as fulfilling, never as exciting. She knew there were a lot of reasons. By holding herself back emotionally, she never had a real connection with the guy in question. Without the connection, she couldn’t care enough to make the relationship worthwhile. Rooted in the middle of that mess was her guilt about being the reason her parents had had to get married. She probably needed intensive therapy, but she knew that was never going to happen.

“You’re not seeing anyone,” she said, interrupting Jack.

He put down his fork. “You mean like dating?”

“Uh-huh. You haven’t had a woman in a while.”

His shoulders tensed slightly as his gaze avoided hers. “We moved to a small town. Finding women to date is going to be challenging here.”

“You’ll have to import them.”

“I guess I will. I have names.”

Great. She’d been joking and he was serious. How was she supposed to get him into bed when he wouldn’t even notice her as a woman? She’d been practically na**d and he’d been more interested in brushing the cat than having his way with her. Maybe she needed to take some kind of remedial class.

She picked up her bottle of beer and took a sip. All right—she would accept that her plan had a big flaw and deal with it tomorrow. She’d already wasted enough of a perfectly good evening and meal. Time to return to normal.

She reached for a chip. “I met Shelby Gilmore today.”

Jack looked confused. “Should I know the name?”

“She’s Kipling Gilmore’s sister.”

“The skier.”

“The Olympic gold medalist.” She tilted her head and grinned. “So in the superstar athlete hierarchy, does a Super Bowl ring trump an Olympic gold medal? I’m thinking not.”

“Your support is so heartening.”

“But it’s true. Kipling got those two gold medals on his own. You got your ring from being part of a team. And didn’t Sam kick the winning field goal?”

“Making me practically the water boy?” Jack asked dryly.

“Something like that.”

“Again, I revel in your awe of me.”

“It’s not about me,” she said, digging her fork into the beans. “It’s a town thing. I mean we have you and Raoul and Josh Golden. What if Kipling moves here? You guys can start a club. Once-famous athletes. OFA. You could have matching jackets and a secret handshake.”

“Or I could find a new masseuse.”

She chewed and swallowed the beans. “Cheap talk. You would be lost without me and you know it. I’m the one who keeps your fascia happy. And happy fasciae mean a happy body.”

“Truer words,” he murmured, then took a bite.

The banter continued. Larissa took comfort in the fact that even if Jack wasn’t hot for her body, he was still her friend. Which made him a nice guy. Which meant being in love with him made even more sense. He was sexy, he was smart and he was kind. How could anyone resist him?

She sighed. At this rate, she was never going to get over him. She needed a new plan. Maybe she would talk to Taryn in the morning and get her input on ways to seduce Jack.

They finished dinner and settled on the sofa to watch a movie. Dyna curled up between them and did a quick wash before falling asleep. At nearly eleven, Larissa walked Jack to the door.

Had she been trying to do anything else but sleep with him, she would have told him he was a blind moron not to see what was right in front of him. But given the subject matter, she wasn’t feeling that brave. So when he pulled her close and hugged her, she wasn’t expecting anything more than a quick squeeze from a friend.

Only Jack didn’t let go. Not for the longest time and when he did, his expression was both intense and almost angry.

“Larissa,” he said, then stopped.

She stared into his dark eyes and tried to figure out what was wrong. Was it his shoulder? His knees? Did he want to talk to her about—

“Ah, hell,” he growled right before he grabbed her upper arms and kissed her.

Nothing about the contact was gentle or sweet or tentative. He pressed his mouth against her hungrily, as if he needed everything she had. The pressure aroused her quickly and left her straining toward him. Except at the same time his lips claimed hers, his arms held her away from his body.

She thought about struggling; only before she could figure out a way to break his grip on her, he touched her lower lip with his tongue and nothing else mattered. She parted for him. When he swept inside, she felt the tingles from the top of her head down to her toes. It was erotic electric shock therapy, with the result of full-body quivering and mind-emptying pleasure.

She met him stroke for stroke and lost herself in the feel of his deep kiss. Once again she struggled to get closer, but he held her firmly away from him. As if he wanted to make sure there was no other contact. Which made no sense. Not that she was going to think about it now, she thought.

Her body began to melt. Need pulsed and grew until she thought she might have to whimper. If he hadn’t been holding her, she probably would have fallen right there.

He released her and she instinctively leaned against him. Their bodies touched everywhere. Chest to breast, thigh to thigh, erection to—

Erection?

The physical proof of his desire made her wrap her arms around him and start to laugh. Finally! They were going to do this. She would have glorious nights in Jack’s bed, pleasing him and being pleased. She could lose herself in him.

In the back of her mind, a voice whispered there was supposed to be a plan. A reason that making love with him was a good idea, beyond how it would make her feel. But the voice was small and easily ignored.

Jack stared at her. “You’re laughing.”

“I know.”

“This isn’t going to happen, Larissa.”

“Why not? We both want it to.”

He shook his head and untangled her arms. “There are a thousand reasons and you know every one of them.”

And with that cryptic statement, he was gone.

* * *

JACK HAD SPENT a lot of bad nights in his life. There had been all the times he’d worried about Lucas surviving to see another day. The emptiness after his twin had died. The confusion and hurt when his parents had left.

In college he’d gone through nights of physical pain from the game, the occasional tossing and turning because of how a relationship had gone and when Taryn had lost the baby, he’d spent hundreds of hours wondering how things would have been different if she hadn’t.

But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d stared at the ceiling because of a damn hard-on for a woman he couldn’t have.

Time had passed too slowly and he’d been up and in the shower by five. There wasn’t a basketball game that morning, which put him in his suit and subsequently his office long before six.

He had to get this under control, he thought grimly as he waited for coffee to flow into his mug. There had to be a solution. Kenny had been right. Getting involved with Larissa would mess up everything. He liked her and he didn’t want to lose that.

Last night had been a disaster. Worse, it wasn’t her fault. It was seeing her in the robe, he thought grimly. Imagining her na**d. Wanting to touch her. That was a slick road to hell. So what now? How did he make things better?

He lost himself in work and waited for the caffeine to do its thing. Sometime around seven-thirty other people began to arrive. At eight, Taryn strolled into his office.

“You look like crap,” she announced.

“Thanks.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I didn’t sleep.”

Taryn’s violet-blue eyes always saw too much. “Larissa?” she asked.

“She told you?”

Taryn shook her head and muttered something under her breath. “Told me what?”