Love of the Game Read online

  Finally, Axel moved to cup her cheek in his palm. “You don’t have to tell me anything about your past. I’m not going to ask.”

  She didn’t know what possessed her. Why she broke. She never talked about her biological parents to people who didn’t already know the story.

  And rarely even then.

  But his eyes were so full of understanding, and she knew in her core that she could trust him. And she wanted, no, correction … needed … She needed to tell him why she was the way she was.

  It wasn’t that she couldn’t love. But rather because she knew she had the capacity for passion so deep and strong it terrified her. Passion could destroy her.

  Just as it had destroyed her parents.

  A hundred questions lurked in his eyes, but he asked none of them. He held her with his gaze, cradled her.

  “My mother murdered my father,” she said in a voice so calm that Axel did a double take, his eyes widening, body stiffening, nostrils flaring.

  “What?” He blinked. “What did you say?”

  “When I was seven years old,” she went on in a low monotone. No emotion. General. Bland. “My mother shot my father with a nine-millimeter handgun she’d bought at a pawnshop three days earlier, and when she finished she turned the gun on herself. One bullet for Dad. One for her. Bam! Bam!”

  The last two words echoed across the lake.

  Bam! Bam!

  Sorrow twisted his face. “Kasha, no.”

  She didn’t feel the impact of the shock beneath his words or react to the stark distress on his face. She iced herself up inside, numbed her feelings. Untouchable.

  “That’s horrifying,” he said.

  She went on calmly, as if giving the weather report for a cloudless August day. “My parents fought all the time, cats and dogs. Hot-blooded, the both of them. My mother was Italian and prided herself on how quickly she could lose her temper. As if quickness to anger was a virtue. They were infamous in Stardust.”

  “That must have been so scary for you.”

  “The police came out to our house at least once a month. But then my parents would make up. Be all lovey-dovey. Have loud, headboard-banging sex. I remember sleeping with my head under the pillow many a night trying to drown out the sound.”

  Axel shifted, leaning in closer, but his gaze never left her face; all his attention was on her.

  “Tumultuous, people called them. Passionate. And so it went, around and around. They would kiss madly one minute, then an hour later they could be screaming and throwing things at each other.”

  “Shit, Kasha.” He looked like someone had punched him hard in the gut after he’d just stuffed on Thanksgiving dinner. He jammed fingers through his hair, spun around on his heels a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, came back to plant both palms on the dock railing, shoulders down. “Shit.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me.” She stiffened her spine. “I didn’t tell you this so you’d feel sorry for me.”

  “I wish I had a time machine so I could go back in the past and rescue you.”

  She laughed a humorless laugh. “Sir Galahad. If you’d saved me, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”

  “Walled up in your ivory tower?”

  That hurt. She flinched, but tried not to let it show on her face.

  “Hey,” he said. “I didn’t mean that as judgment. We all have our demons. Just meant you hold yourself apart.”

  “Aloof.”

  “Your word, not mine.”

  “It’s not that I don’t care.”

  “I know,” he whispered, coming closer. “It’s that you care so much.” His arms went around her waist, comforting and comfortable. “You’re just protecting yourself as a byproduct of the volatile environment you grew up in.”

  She shrugged. “Plenty of people have it worse. Jodi’s biological mom was a drug addict who would go off and leave her home alone for days when she was only four years old. And Breeanne’s teenage mom abandoned her at the hospital when she found out Bree had a serious heart condition. And Suki? Her parents disappeared in North Korea and were never seen or heard from again.”

  “But their suffering doesn’t mitigate yours.”

  “Suffering doesn’t make me special. Sooner or later, life knocks everyone down. It’s how you deal with the knocks and dings that matter. My biological parents dealt with it badly. They were Roman candles. Heat. Light. Fireworks. Explosions.” She stared over his shoulder because she didn’t want to see pity in his eyes, and watched the headlights of cars moving on the road above them.

  “How did …” He paused.

  She could feel his warm breath tickle her ear, and the whispery heat stoke arousal deep inside her core.

  “What happened the day your mother … um …” He paused. “… did what she did?”

  Before she could form an answer, he held up a palm. “Wait. You don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my business.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s okay. I want you to understand me.” Helplessly, she leaned into him, absorbing his body heat, inhaling his reassuring scent. “I don’t remember that day at all. The last thing I remember about that spring afternoon was walking home from school past the purple hyacinth in the flowerbed as I climbed the porch steps. I remember they smelled so incredibly sweet I wished I could eat them.”

  Funny the things she remembered. Kasha hitched in a breath. “When the front door shut behind me, it closed down my memory of what happened. One minute I was imagining eating sweet purple flowers and the next I was lying on a gurney covered in a green sheet that smelled of anesthetic and staring up at a piercing bright light overhead. I was in the ER at Stardust General Hospital, and Maggie Carlyle was sitting to my left holding my hand, Dan had hold of my right.”

  “Oh shit, Sphinx. You found their bodies?”

  “Most likely. But I don’t remember it.”

  “Waking up like that must have been so confusing.”

  “And terrifying,” she said. “I didn’t know where I was or why I was there. I recognized Maggie and Dan, of course. Jodi was my best friend in grade school, and we were in the same class. I used to slip over to the Carlyles’ when the yelling or the lovemaking got too loud at my house.”

  “So after you walked into your parents’ house …” He hauled in a steadying breath. “… you went to the place where you felt safest.”

  Kasha bobbed her head. “This is what I’ve pieced together from other peoples’ accounts of that day. Several hours after the shootings, Dan found me hiding in their garden shed, cowering behind planter boxes and covered in blood.”

  “That must have scared him.” Axel winced.

  “Dan thought I was injured. Maggie tried frantically to call my parents, but when she couldn’t get an answer, she asked a neighbor to watch the children, while she and Dan loaded me into the back of their car and took off for the hospital.”

  “And you don’t remember any of that?”

  Kasha shook her head. “When they arrived in the ER, the place was in chaos. Cops were everywhere, nurses were running to and fro.”

  “Working on your biological parents?” Axel guessed.

  “Dad was DOA,” she said, still using the robotic voice that allowed her to tell the tale without breaking down. “But my mother held on for several hours.”

  “That’s …” He ran a hand through his hair, looked stunned. “I can’t … there are no words.”

  “There’s nothing to say. Worst day of my life.” She dusted her palms together. “But it happened and it’s over, and I made it through.”

  “Thank God you don’t remember it.”

  “Thank God for the Carlyles.” She rested her head on his shoulder, and he held her for the longest time, and after a while, she felt settled enough to speak again. “I was so scared that Maggie and Dan might send me away, but from the very beginning they treated me like family. They fostered me, and then adopted me. I was very lucky.”

  Another heavy silence rolled betw
een them, thick as the gathering damp. Axel pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Do you know why your mother killed your father?”

  “The cops figured it was a jealous rage. My father had a wandering eye. But it wasn’t until I found out about Emma that the truth cleaved me upside the head. Mom killed him because she discovered he had an illegitimate love child with a stripper. She couldn’t live with him, but she couldn’t live without him either. Crazy passion.” She spit out the last word as if it was a rancid peanut, and she could taste the oily yuck.

  “And all those years you had no inkling of Emma?”

  “No.” Kasha swiveled her head from shoulder to shoulder. “In the wake of the murder/suicide, Emma’s mother laid low, impressive because that’s pretty hard to do in a town as small as Stardust. I can’t imagine how ashamed she must have felt. How guilty. I wish I could have met her. Told her I didn’t blame her. I can’t begin to fathom what she must have gone through believing she was responsible for what my mother did. I just wish …”

  “What?” he asked, his voice soft as velvet.

  She shook herself, stepped back, offered up a ghost of a smile. “It doesn’t matter. The past is past. I can’t change it. I’m not responsible for what my parents did. I’m only responsible for me. And hopefully soon, Emma.”

  “And this?” He trailed his fingertips over her thighs. “What started this?”

  Kasha nudged his hand away, splayed her palms over her thighs, closed her eyes, and experienced the sharp edge of her fear.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “That part of your life is over. You’re safe.”

  She was, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t fall prey to her emotions. She hoisted up her chin, her shoulders, and her spirits. “It seems stupid now.”

  “What does?” His voice was a gentle caress.

  “When I was in high school some girls started a rumor that I was the one who murdered my parents, and pinned the blame on my mother. It was high school bullshit, but because I couldn’t remember what happened that day, I let the taunts inside my head, and I started to wonder if they were right. Maybe I had killed my parents.”

  “Sweetheart, you poor kid.” He drew her back into his arms again. Part of her wanted to fight his embrace. They were getting too close, but another part of her simply surrendered. It felt so good here in his arms.

  “That’s why it touched me when you went to bat for Emma with those girls,” she said. “Flashbacks.”

  “Dammit, Sphinx. You didn’t deserve any of that, and neither does Emma.” His voice rumbled from his chest, big and strong. “I’m so proud of how very far you’ve come. And Emma is lucky to have you.”

  “No. I’m the one who is lucky. Emma has opened me up to life.”

  He looked at her as if she were an angel tumbled from his dreams. “Kasha Carlyle, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever known, both inside and out.” He squeezed her against him as if he would never let her go.

  Instantly, her body responded, heating up, getting moist, throbbing with a wretchedly beautiful ache.

  She wanted him! Past every level of desire imaginable, past rhyme and reason and rational thought!

  This, whispered a terrified voice at the back of her head. This kind of desire is what destroyed your parents.

  He shifted her into the crook of his arm, eyes drilling into her, not taking his gaze off her for a second.

  Her pulse leaped, and her knees quaked, and a spasm tore through her throat, and she could not utter a word.

  “Sphinx,” he whispered. “My beautiful, beautiful Sphinx.”

  And before she could protest, he kissed her.

  CHAPTER 19

  A sexual jolt, as sharp and shockingly charged as static electricity, crackled against Axel’s mouth the second he touched down on those pretty pink lips.

  God, what lips! Pillowy. Luxurious. Honey sweet. Soft.

  And yet, at the same time, also firm and strong. A paradox. His Sphinx.

  Anxious to taste more of her, he tipped her chin up to deepen the kiss, deliberately taking his time, savoring her heated sugar as he slid one hand up her spine, drawing her closer to him.

  And that persistent thought again: We fit.

  A sliver of a sigh slipped past her lips, and her arms slid around his shoulders, moved up.

  Nice. Real nice.

  Her fingers pushed up through his hair, her short thumbnails resting against the nape of his neck.

  He had a sense of the conflict within her, wanting to pull him closer, while at the same time wanting to shove him away.

  As it was, she did neither. Just waited.

  All right.

  He wasn’t holding back. His tongue found hers, and a thrilling flush burned inside him.

  She pressed her body flat against his, and he was one hundred percent certain she could feel his erection. She was kissing him now, and he let her take the lead, interested to see what she would do, where she would take this.

  When her hands moved to cup his face, a rough groan rolled from his throat, in a sound so foreign he did not recognize it.

  Things got a little wild from there. The kisses grew quicker, harder, more frantic—bold, hot, hungry—until they were both perspiring and panting.

  Kasha broke it off, leaned back against the railing, her eyes glazed with desire. “I can’t do this,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “I won’t do this.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, his voice coming out harder and rougher than he intended. “It’s okay.” Reassuring her? Or himself?

  “It’s not okay. I’m your physical therapist.” She fingered her lips, stared at him with abject despair.

  “It was just a kiss, Kasha.” But he knew in his heart it was not just a kiss. He was in love with her and the kiss was a topper. He loved both this competent, confident woman that he’d come to know, and the lost child she’d once been.

  “Inappropriate,” she fussed. “I knew I should never have gone out on the Jet Ski with you. That was stupid enough, but then I compounded things by agreeing to dinner with you and drinking that wine—” She gulped, whimpered. “Totally irresponsible.”

  “It was your day off. Time out.”

  “Doesn’t matter. That was utterly …” Her breath came out hot and shallow. “It was—”

  “Terrific,” he said. “Hot. Sexy. Spectacular. Awesome.”

  “Well, yes.” She waved a hand. “But that’s beside the point.”

  “You’re making too much of this,” he said, attempting to soothe her, even as his own alarm bells were ringing.

  “A patient gives me the best kiss of my life, and I’m making too much of it?” She glowered, but she still looked dazed. Hell, he was surely dazed.

  “It was the best kiss of your life?” he couldn’t resist asking. Okay, so he had an ego, but the thought that she was impressed with his kiss left him feeling like the king of the universe.

  “Don’t let it go to your head.” She snorted.

  He smiled, hoping to get her to lighten up about the kiss.

  “Can’t let you get cocky, thinking your lips are something special.”

  “But they are special.” He wriggled his eyebrows. Stop it, Richmond, you’re making things worse trying to be charming. Epic fail. He was headed for an epic fail, but he couldn’t seem to shut up. “Right? At least to you, or you wouldn’t be making such a big deal of this.”

  “It is a big deal. I kissed a patient.” She wrung her hands.

  “Technically,” he said, feeling a bit panicky, “I kissed you.”

  “But I allowed it to happen.” She ran distressed fingers through her hair.

  He loved the way it moved like a shimmery curtain of dark water, nearly black and oh so thick. God, she was the most beautiful thing on the face of the earth.

  “I should have stopped you,” she said. “Bitten your lip or kneed you in the groin, or—”

  “Except you didn’t. Because you liked it.”

  She s
macked her forehead with a palm, as if something monumental had just occurred to her. “It was the damn hope chest wine. That’s what caused me to let down my guard.”

  “Hope chest wine? What are you talking about?”

  “It wasn’t me. It was the wine. Now that I’ve got the kiss out of my system, and the wine is all gone, I’ll be fine. Absolutely fine,” she muttered to herself.

  He’d never seen her like this, vulnerable, uncertain, lost. Not even when she fell into the pool and he dived in to save her. All he wanted was to make her feel better.

  “Yes,” he said, reading her, figuring out what she needed and hopefully supplying it. “I’m sure it was the hope chest wine.”

  “Good. Great. I’m glad we solved that mystery.” She straightened. “I’m going home now.”

  She turned her back on him and walked away as fast as she could without breaking into a run.

  Anguished.

  Kasha was anguished over what she’d done. It was the only word she had for the bullet of guilt, remorse, shame, and lust ricocheting around inside her body.

  After arriving home from her amazing day and evening with Axel, she put on yoga pants and T-shirt, and at ten o’clock at night went immediately to her mat, and started sun salutations.

  And yes, she knew sun salutations were a set to welcome the morning, but the poses helped to strengthen her resolve.

  She pushed her body at a punishing pace, trying to outrun her emotions, but it wasn’t working. She couldn’t empty her mind of him. Yoga, the very thing she’d come to depend on to fix any and everything, failed her.

  Sleep failed her too.

  Hours later she lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, lips still tingly from his kiss.

  She was at a crossroads. If she stayed on as Axel’s therapist she risked betraying both herself and her profession in the most fundamental way. And yet, if she quit now, in the middle of things, she put her chances of getting custody of Emma in jeopardy, not to mention leaving Axel when he needed her the most.

  It was only a couple more weeks. Soon he would be healed and no longer her responsibility. Surely she could resist the attraction for that long.