Straddling the Line

TEN

TREVOR HAD COFFEE OUT IN THE SUNROOM. HE’D told Hammond to hold breakfast until after Haven got up, which she did about an hour after he did. With cup in hand, she joined him.

“Morning,” she said, taking a seat on one of the chairs as far away from him as she possibly could.

“Mornin’. Sleep good?”

“Yes. Just . . . fine.” She sipped her coffee and looked out the windows.

She looked pretty this morning in her capri pants and button-down long-sleeved shirt.

“So what’s on the interview agenda today?”

“Mmm, I don’t know for sure yet. I made some notes, but I need a full cup of coffee in me before I can think coherently.”

“Gotcha.” He decided to stay quiet until she decided to talk to him. He got up and told Hammond to go ahead and start breakfast, visiting with his friend about a couple of the baseball games that had been played the day before. By the time he came back into the sunroom, Haven was pouring another cup of coffee. He came up beside her, touching the small of her back as he eased around her for the sugar.

“Hammond’s making breakfast.”

She shifted out of the way in a hurry. “Great. Thanks.” Trevor felt Haven’s body stiffen as he laid his hand on her. He didn’t know what to make of that. Did he make her uncomfortable? Or was it something else?

He’d thought about her last night when he’d been sitting in the chaise drinking his beer. He hadn’t meant to, but visions of her had popped into his head, and suddenly his dick had gotten hard. Since he’d been alone out there, and it had been a while since he’d gotten off, he’d started rubbing his dick through his pants, thinking about Haven’s soft body, the sweet way she smelled, and the way she looked at him, especially last night.

A man knew deliberate sexual intent in a look, and Haven had it when she looked at him. He’d wanted to explore it with her, but she’d put a quick halt to any conversation when they’d gotten back home last night.

All he’d wanted to do was go knock on her door and pull her against him, put his mouth on hers and taste her. It hadn’t taken much for him to take out his cock and jack off thinking about getting her naked, putting his mouth on her nipples and sucking them until she was writhing and begging him to fuck her.

His cock twitched and he had to refocus his attention on the here and now. It wouldn’t do to get a hard-on in front of her. She was skittish enough around him as it was. He didn’t want to scare her away.

“So today we’re going to start with the basics,” she said, pulling him out of his fantasies about her. “We’ll start with high school sports and work our way up.”

“Sure. We can do about an hour after breakfast, then I’d like to take a break to work out, if that’s okay.”

“That works fine for me.”

“You can make use of the workout facility yourself, if you’d like. I can show you all my equipment.”

Her gaze shot up from where she’d been examining her coffee cup. “Uh . . . maybe.”

“Come on. You can’t just sit around here all the time. Your muscles will scream for a workout. Besides, I hate working out alone.”

She shot him a look. “And yet there’s a gym in your house instead of you going to the gym.”

“Sometimes that’s by necessity rather than choice. Work out with me today.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with you. You’re a lot more in shape than I am.”

“I don’t care if you just walk the treadmill. It’ll be nice to have your company.”

She looked like she was making the painful decision to have root canal surgery, but finally she nodded. “I do need to get some exercise. I’ll work out with you.”

Geez, was it that awful to be in the same room with him? He didn’t know what was up with Haven today. They had breakfast, then Haven grabbed her laptop and they settled in the office.

“Let’s talk about high school. Did you play multiple sports then as well?” she asked.

“Yeah. By then I’d settled into football and baseball. The coaches wanted me to choose one or the other, so I’d be looked at more seriously by the college scouts.”

“And you, of course, declined.”

“Yes. I was playing well for both teams. Why would I want to quit either?”

She shook her head. “You were always stubborn.”

“I prefer to think of it as determined. I had goals.”

“Really. Tell me.”

“I knew from early on that I wanted to play professional sports. Back in high school, I hadn’t yet decided which one, because I loved playing both football and baseball.”

“Yet you went to Oklahoma on a football scholarship.”

“I did, but I played baseball in college, too.”

“So you’ve been doing this juggling thing a long time.”

“Seems like my whole life sometimes.”

She typed notes into her computer. “And you got drafted by Tampa for football and Detroit for baseball, all in the same year.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “That was a really good year.”

“It didn’t scare you, or make you feel any pressure to be drafted by both a professional football and baseball team?”

“No. It was like a dream come true.”

“So, you’d say you thrive on pressure?”

He liked the way she altered his words. “You could say that.”

She lifted her gaze from the laptop. “Can I say that?”

“Sure.”

“How was it in high school?”

“In what way?”

“With your friends—your athletic peers. Any jealousy?”

He laughed. “Nah. I had good friends. We all worked hard, and we were after the same thing—winning. There was nothing to be jealous about.”

She tapped the laptop. “I did a little research on your high school career. It says here you had some run-ins with a guy named Jerome Kayman.”

“That was more of a misunderstanding. And over a girl. It had nothing to do with sports.”

She arched a brow. “Fighting over the same girl?”

“Uh, no. It was more like Heather Whitfield pitting Jerome and me against each other. Neither one of us knew we were both dating her.”

“Oh. Oops.”

“Yeah. Heather was a hell of a flirt. She was head cheerleader, very competitive. She told Jerome she liked him, and they started going out. They dated for a few weeks, though she didn’t tell anyone she was going out with him. This was all around the time of homecoming, our senior year. Heather really wanted to be homecoming queen, and Jerome was a popular guy—the quarterback of the football team. It looked like Jerome had a good shot of being king of the court.”

“Which upped her chances if she was his girlfriend,” Haven said.

“Exactly. Except then I caught a bunch of passes, got written up in the papers, and suddenly my popularity soared.”

“So she hedged her bet by pulling you into her web as well.”

“Yup. I’m not sure what she was thinking. Jerome and I were friends. And it wasn’t like she could go to the homecoming dance with both of us.”

Nothing Haven hadn’t seen before, especially in high school. “She was thinking she could string both of you along until right before homecoming, and then as soon as she figured out which of you was the most popular, she’d dump the other.”

“That’s exactly what she tried to do. Except Jerome went to her house one Saturday night and found out from Heather’s mom that she was out with me.”

“And that’s when the two of you got into it,” Haven said.

Trevor nodded. “Right. He thought I was moving in on his girl, so he drove to the movie theater and waited for us outside. We had words after. Maybe a couple of punches were thrown.”

“I’ll bet Heather was thrilled to have two guys fighting over her.”

“She thought it would increase her stock in the voting, which occurred the following week. It didn’t work, though, because after I took Heather home, I went over to Jerome’s house. We talked, and figured out Heather’s game. I dumped her, and so did he.”

Haven laughed. “So she ended up with no date for homecoming?”

“There was no way in hell that Heather was going to sit out the homecoming dance. She sweet-talked some guy from the basketball team into taking her. But she didn’t win homecoming queen. And she was pissed.”

“So who won?”

“Jerome did. I was on the court, and one of Heather’s rivals on the cheerleading squad won queen.”

Haven grinned. “You have to love karma.”

“And high school.”

“And you and Jerome stayed friends.”

“Hell, yeah. Never let a girl get in between you and a friend. Or a teammate.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll let me put any of this in your bio.”

“Uh, no. Not unless you get Jerome or Heather to agree to it. Though Jerome probably wouldn’t care. Heather, though . . .”

Haven laughed. “Right. Not a chance.”

“I don’t think she’s the type of woman to mellow about something like that over the years. Last I heard, she was married to Owen Lange and they have three kids and run an insurance agency in town. I remember him as a very quiet kid. He ran track and was pretty popular. Smart guy, president of student council, but kind of shy. She probably rules him with an iron fist. Poor guy.”

“They’d be a fascinating story, too.”

He laughed. “Look how your well is filling with ideas.”

“I think my well is pretty full with you at the moment.”

He stood. “I’m not nearly as exciting as you might think. Let’s go work out.”

“Just when things were getting interesting.”

“Right. I’ll meet you in the gym.”

Trevor went into the gym to warm up while Haven went to her room to change clothes. He got on the treadmill and started slow, then worked his way into a run.

Things were going well with Haven. She seemed focused on her work and upbeat. He liked that she’d connected with Alicia and Liz, and was having a good time while she was here with him.

When she came in, she was wearing tight workout pants that stopped just below her knees, and a sports top that hugged her body, giving him a great view of just how fit she was.

By then he was pumped up and running hard, while she smiled at him, slid her earbuds into her ears and got on the elliptical in front of him. She didn’t say anything to him, no doubt not wanting to distract him, so he left her alone and tried to focus on his workout. He kept his pace on his run while Haven started her machine.

But he was distracted, because she had a great ass, and the faster she moved, the more he paid attention to the motion of her legs and butt.

He was done, anyway, so he slowed to an easy jog, letting his heart rate decrease, then walked for ten minutes to finish cooling down and got off the treadmill.

Haven was a distraction. A good one. But he grabbed the towel, wiped off the sweat, and moved over to the weights.

Haven made her way over to the equipment a short while after he’d started lifting.

He stopped and racked his weights. “Do you want me to show you how anything works?”

She shook her head. “I’m pretty familiar with these strength machines. You go on and do your thing. I can find my way around here.”

“Okay. If you need any help, just holler.”

“Will do.”

He did his workout, but also watched Haven.

She was strong and capable on the pulleys as well as the free weights, and like she’d said, she didn’t need any help. Still, he enjoyed watching her work out, liked seeing her muscles in movement as she did squats.

She had powerful thighs, though you’d never know it by looking at her. She didn’t squat a lot of heavy weight, but she sure could push a lot of reps. Impressed, Trevor went and stood beside her as she finished up a set.

“Can I work in with you?”

She climbed off the machine. “You just want to make me feel bad by resetting the weights.”

He laughed. “I’m a guy. And my thighs are a lot bigger than yours.”

“Thank God for that. And I just finished my last set.”

She started to move away, but he grasped her wrist. “Are you avoiding me, Haven?”

She looked down where his hand was wrapped around her wrist. This time, he didn’t let go.

“I’m not avoiding you.”

“It feels that way. If I make you uncomfortable, we can set up alternate living arrangements for you while we’re working together.”

Haven took in a breath. Okay, that had been a lie. Yes, she was uncomfortable. Who wouldn’t be, being so close to someone like Trevor, especially after seeing him in such an intimate moment like last night? The problem was, it hadn’t made her uncomfortable in the way he thought. It had given her powerful desires she knew she couldn’t—shouldn’t—act on. And maybe it was time she had a truthful conversation with him about how she felt—and what she wanted from him.

But not now. There were still questions she had, and since today was a free day, she intended to grill him while they still had one-on-one time together.

You’re avoiding how you feel, Haven, just like always.

She listened to her inner voice, and agreed, but decided to ignore it.

For the time being, anyway.

“I’m totally fine with our living arrangements. And if it feels like I’m avoiding you, I’m sorry. I know how important your workouts are. I was only trying to stay out of your way.”

He relaxed, and let go of her wrist. “What if I like you in my way?”

He wasn’t making this easier on her.

“I’m going to go take a shower. How about we meet up for the rest of our Q-and-A after you’re finished with your workout?”

He paused, his body still so close to her she could feel the waves of tension coming off him. If she leaned in, she’d touch him. And oh, she’d really like to touch him.

But then he took a step back. “Sure. I should be done here in about an hour, and then I’ll take a quick shower and we’ll finish what we started.”

“Great.”

She turned and hightailed it out of there, feeling very much like a coward for not taking Trevor up on what he was so obviously offering.

She wasn’t ready.

Not yet.

As she made her way to her wing and her room, she thought about what he’d said.

Yeah, she’d like to finish what they started. Though they hadn’t even started yet, had they? So really, what she’d like would be to start something with Trevor.

She took a deep breath, closed the door to her room, and headed into the bathroom to take a shower, deciding it wasn’t just men who needed cold showers to keep sexual frustration at bay.