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  Dismayed, sick at heart, and embarrassed, he dressed and left, but not before leaving the full three hour fee on the table by the door. His heart didn’t hurt for a change and his head remained perfectly clear. He understood then what he wanted. And that sudden, crystal-clear realization terrified him nearly more than the thought of never seeing her again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sophie lay awake for hours, the usual calm that descended over her body and mind after a nice, hard discipline session for a client remaining elusive.

  Well, wonder why, genius? You fucked that up, pure and simple. What in the hell were you thinking?

  She groaned, rolled onto her stomach, and dragged the pillow over her head. As if hiding from this…this…this disaster she’d set in motion was possible. All because she lost it—let a man into her head, forcing her body to utterly stupid things and ruining the night for them both.

  “Fuck it.” She jumped out of the soft comfort of her bed and tugged a sweatshirt over the T-shirt she normally wore to sleep. The clock displayed the shocking early hour on the bedside table. Why not get an hour’s worth of research done before heading into normal daytime routine?

  Never mind she’d lain awake literally all night, unable to banish the sight of Brody’s face when he told her—no, commanded her—to release his wrists. Jesus. She had responded as if he were the Dom. Despite his bound physical position, he’d called the shots. Goddamn him.

  After making coffee, she flipped on the TV to get some noise in her head and force out the rattling reality of what had happened between them in her lair, in her goddamned Madame Katrina space—the one place where she could be safe. She’d been weak, as always, when faced with a strong male.

  A couple of hours spent trolling the gossip sites for her to-do list the next week settled her nerves. A strange plinking noise made her jump in surprise. The laptop glowed, unhelpfully. It sang out again, and she noted the Skype icon down at the bottom of her screen. It had a red circle on it, and the number 2. She sighed. Probably her boss, a fellow notorious early-riser and list-maker. If he’d been checking out the same sites she’d been, then they did need to have a discussion about a few things.

  Deciding to pour a huge cup of coffee before tackling a Jack Gordon early-morning bitch session, she settled back into her seat, then clicked the blue cloud icon with the big white S, but didn’t pay attention to it, distracted by a news flash on the TV screen to her left.

  She looked back at her laptop, unwilling to accept the news in front of her. The words, Black Jack Heroes? singed her brain. She froze when the Skype message from Brody Vaughn appeared, simultaneously hearing the television news talking head and acknowledging that her phone had buzzed all the way across the kitchen counter. Then she recalled that Jack had gone on a wife-imposed vacation, overseas or someplace warm, and was out of touch on purpose for a few days.

  “Harrison,” she whispered into the device, still staring, open-mouthed at the television. “Jesus, Metin, what happened?”

  “Can you get down here?” the team coach barked, his voice clipped and all business.

  “Already headed there,” she said before hanging up and re-reading Brody’s message:

  Bad news. Rick and Nate were in an accident at some bar. Can you meet us at Detroit Receiving?

  She thumbed through her contacts in her phone knowing she had every one of the men on the team programmed into it. Frowning, she did a double take back through the list. Why the hell he didn’t show up under B…. Cursing, she hit V, hoping to at least find him by his last name.

  The damn thing populated from her official HR contact list from the team records, thanks to her efficient secretary. Her pulse raced as memories of the man’s dark intense eyes shot across her consciousness in her heightened freak-out state. Robert Vaughn. Surely that wasn’t right.

  “Shit.” She ran to the bedroom, threw on some dressier clothes, and yanked her hair back. Foregoing makeup, she stuck her feet in heels and grabbed her phone, which opened automatically to the contact: Robert J. Vaughn. She hit send message and typed quickly:

  I heard. On my way.

  See you there, he responded quickly.

  She drove, processing the reality: two of the team’s players had been at a nightclub, dancing with a few girls, one of whom had just broken up with her boyfriend. Said boyfriend showed up with a gang of friends and a bad attitude. He’d manhandled the girl off the dance floor. Nate, the backup goalie for the team, a young kid with a shock of strawberry blond hair, a male-model perfect body, and a brogue that made girls swoon with delight at his every utterance, had pulled a hero move and gotten in a fistfight with the boyfriend.

  Witnesses stated one of the boyfriend’s gang buddies pulled out a gun and shot Nate in the leg. Rick, Nate’s former teammate on a half-assed Scottish team and one of the youngest guys on the Black Jacks, had shown up and body tackled the guy with the gun. By the time they were pulled apart, Rick had a bullet lodged in his heart. He’d died on the scene.

  Sophie shuddered and cranked the heat up in the car. The thought of dealing with death, or near death, in a hospital, caused her gut to churn. Her face burned, but she had a small flutter of anticipation, knowing that he, Robert, would be at the hospital too. At that moment, she allowed a tiny lick of hope to hit her chest— before stuffing it down deep under plenty of reality checks and touching her stomach and the scar that lay there, a constant reminder of her previous misjudgment about men.

  ****

  Chaos reigned as one might expect at a Detroit hospital on an early Saturday morning. Sophie bitched her way past security, making several vain attempts to get someone to help her locate her group. Coming in through emergency probably wasn’t the best plan, but she felt muddled, already spinning the dead soccer player story out in a thousand different ways and coming up with nothing good at the end of it.

  After being shuttled around between floors, she finally found Rafe and Metin, huddled around someone who must be a surgeon. She faltered, braced herself against the wall as tidal waves of memory washed over her. Swallowing the urge to bolt, she noted how distressed both the coach and manager appeared by whatever the scrub-suited doctor in front of them had to say. She needed to rally, to be in charge. She set her shoulders and walked toward them. Both men seemed visibly relieved to see her there, which bolstered her. But she kept glancing around, seeking Brody. By the time she reached them, Metin had dropped into a seat.

  Rafe pulled her aside. “He hates hospitals. His…you know his story, right?”

  She stared at him, at a total loss. Metin Sevim’s personal horror story had been national news for months, not only in the sports world. She touched Metin’s shoulder.

  Then, she spotted him—Brody, dressed in the trousers and shirt he’d worn the night before. She took a breath and allowed for the fact that the sight of him made her knees a little unreliable. He stood, talking with some hospital flunky, then spent a few minutes on the phone before acknowledging her. The relief in his eyes at that split second gave her another boost of confidence. She tried not to appear so obviously happy to see him, considering the shit circumstances.

  “Hey.” His calm voice jarred her, as if they had not spent an hour or so not long ago, naked, with her mouth-fucking and hand-jobbing him to climax, then kicking him out of her Dominatrix lair for no good reason.

  She smiled, trying to keep it on a business level, but her heart did a painful tap dance in her chest and words caught in her throat.

  “So, we have to contact their next of kin. I assume you have that info?” He dropped into a seat next to his coach, who still sat, shell-shocked and green around the edges.

  She pointed to the slim briefcase slung over her shoulder. “Got everything here. Where can we go?”

  Brody glanced up at the ceiling then leveled his gaze at her, giving her another jolt of surreal emotion. “I’ve arranged for a private room so we can all be on the call. Rick’s folks are in Florida. He told me once. I’m not
sure about Nate’s. Still in Scotland, I think.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t see any point to delay. “Let’s get this done. They need to be here to figure out what do with…with…” She blinked back tears and put a hand to her lips, embarrassed. Brody rose slowly, put an arm around her and as if it was the most natural thing in the world, pulled her into a tight embrace.

  “How’s Nate?” she finally asked, into his chest, hoping he’d never let her go.

  Metin got to his feet. “He’s gonna make it. One leg is broken all to hell. I don’t know. Jesus. Fuck.” He stared at Brody. “What the hell are we gonna do?”

  Sophie looked from Metin’s anguished face to Brody’s set in a stubborn way she’d never seen. Realization dawned. The Black Jacks had a long run of away games, a West Coast tour playing some of their league teams but ending with a crucial exhibition game against the Mexican national team. Something Metin had scheduled as a bit of a why the hell not? Before, of course, his star goalie had a concussion, and the back-up keeper just got shot by a gangbanger in a bar while being a hero.

  “Oh, no you will not,” she declared, loudly. “I…I mean. He can’t play.” She pointed to Brody.

  He frowned at her. “Let’s not talk about that now.”

  Metin tucked his hands in pockets. Rafe cleared his throat. She rolled her eyes.

  “C’mon.” Brody guided her away from the group. “Let’s get set up in the conference room and make these calls.”

  Rafe and Metin followed them, but they were all interrupted by a commotion from the opposite end of the hall. Parker, the team’s captain, dashed down the hall, dragging Nicolas Garza with him. Brody frowned at the sight of them. Then he motioned for the men to join them in the stuffy, windowless room where they’d call one set of parents to tell them their twenty-four-year-old, soccer-playing son had been killed. And another, to tell them theirs lived, but barely.

  “What are we gonna do about a keeper?” Nicco blurted out, bringing a nice level of awkward to the already tense room, while staring straight at Brody.

  “Gee, Garza, not sure. Since you and your bullshit put Vaughn on ice.” Rafe’s tone made it clear how he felt about Nicco’s sudden concern.

  “We’ll have to figure that out later. It’s not a priority right now,” Brody said with the sort of authority that shut everyone else up.

  And with that, she understood that Robert J. Vaughn would be returning to his spot in goal within the week. The team needed him, medical advice be damned.

  He leaned into her, his eyes intense. “It will be fine,” he said, low-voiced, for her ears only.

  She shivered. Had she spoken out loud? He touched her leg under the table, just a brush of skin, but in it he transferred the oddest sensation directly to her nervous system. A sudden calm settled over her brain, allowing her to focus. She had a job to do. Concentrating on the task at hand, she got to work.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When the team took the field for the last game on the grueling west coast tour, Brody had about convinced himself the whole concussion thing must be a bunch of alarmist nonsense from doctors worried about lawsuits. He’d never played better. Granted, he got headaches with predictable regularity but he learned to coast through with painkillers and long stretches of sleep. The trainers evaluated him before and after every match, using the head injury protocol for acute concussion, and he always passed with flying colors.

  Sustaining a loss with the death of one player and injury of another seemed to calm some of the roiling conflict between the pro and anti-homosexual team member camps, too. Thank god for small favors.

  Brody took practice shots while warming up for the final exhibition game. He had little hope they would do much more than hold their own against a strong Mexican national team that had defeated the U.S. men’s team twice already that year. But the Black Jacks were on a bit of a roll having won every single match in their expansion league, so hopefully they would carry some momentum into this day.

  Above all the tragedy, hard work, grueling road trips, and newly annoying headaches, something soothing had settled over his psyche. The sort of peace he hadn’t experienced since Nashville but one that had a decidedly different and healthier vibe to it, due in no small part to the fact he had struck up a nightly conversation with Sophie via the Internet. His skin flushed thinking about her, how her tightly wound personality appealed to him, how hard she worked to transmit strength while yearning for someone to be strong for her at the same time.

  He truly enjoyed talking with her. Light flirty chatter, never actually touching on their one steamy encounter, but digging into their backgrounds a little, just enough, mixed with news of the team. He anticipated it every day. It grounded him pure and simple. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted from her anymore other than just that—someone to actually talk to, to share things with—although his wild, erotic dreams of her lithe, naked body certainly kept his hand busy every night afterward.

  “Ow!” he yelped when a ball hit him in the chest. “Shit.” He kicked the thing back out and focused on his day job for a while.

  ****

  So, nice save. Too bad our forwards didn’t convert.

  Sophie’s first Skype message of the night brought a smile to his face. Wincing, he swallowed some painkillers and downed water before dropping into the hotel chair, sick of hotels and this whole trip. The damn game had been so close…right up until the last two or three minutes. He’d made an incredible save and set the midfield up for a great set-piece play, but a forward had stumbled, tripped by an opposing player who went unnoticed by the officials, effectively blowing the scoring opportunity.

  The game had ended a 0-0 draw, which many Black Jack fans considered a victory if the blog and Twitter chatter were to be believed. He, however, refused to accept tie games, believing them unfinished business unless settled by a shoot-out. But as a friendly exhibition, they’d agreed not to take it there and all had shaken hands and moved off the field, exhausted but mostly satisfied.

  A nervous, jittery energy coursed through him at the thought of seeing her again. He had no way of understanding it, having spent nearly three years in service to a Mistress who had trained him as her perfect submissive: pliable, eager to please, needy while with Her but master of his destiny otherwise. However, he had been turning over those experiences in his head lately and no longer believed it as clear-cut as that. He may have enjoyed getting off by learning to control orgasm and how to please a woman but…something about the whole thing no longer rang so true. As a matter of fact, it felt a little sordid, tainted with the distance of time.

  Sustaining a lowlying level of nausea he attributed to low blood sugar, he typed out a reply. Yeah. And how. Lazy fuckers.

  I know you don’t like games to end in a draw, but everyone seemed a little gassed. Probably could use the break.

  What’s the latest with Nate? he asked, still trying to shake the strange carsick feeling torturing his equilibrium.

  He’s out of intensive care. His mom is with him. They’ll release him in a few days, I think, with a long round of PT and a fistful of Vicodin. Speaking of which, how’s the noggin?

  Hurts kinda. Thinking I might have to do something drastic to distract myself. He sat back, took deep breaths, as the dizzy sensation slowly faded.

  Oh? Like what? Take a nap?

  Maybe…after…. He didn’t know why he’d decided to take their usual friendly, informational exchange banter to a different level, but his ears buzzed with a familiar urge and the rest of him tingled in anticipation.

  So…want some help with it?

  He grinned, pleased she hadn’t shied away.

  Her next words took some of the shine off that. I mean, in a friendly sort of rub-down-after-a-hard-game way. Madame K says no charge for you.

  I don’t want Madame K.

  His phone buzzed immediately at his elbow. Sophie’s number appeared on the screen, and he spent a few seconds staring at it, thinking he’d just ignore he
r and take that nap which sounded pretty good. But he didn’t. He’d had better training than that.

  “Yes?” He reached under the towel. Might as well finish what he started.

  “Robert,” she purred. “Robert, you have been bad.” She kept talking, and he kept listening. “I never came that night, you know? I do not like that, not a bit.”

  He drowned in her words, groaning and crying out at the last minute as the climax gripped his spine. He lay back, relaxed, but pissed off at the same time. He still held the phone to his ear with his other hand.

  “Madame, thank you.”

  “My pleasure, Robert.” She hung up before letting him return the favor, which he had fully intended to do. He glanced at the computer screen. Her Skype icon read offline.

  “Goddamn you, Sophie.” He sighed as sleep coated his nerves. Getting to his feet, he dropped face down on the bed, heading straight into a dreamless, restless sleep. He woke at two a.m., sweaty and breathless in the pitch black room.

  He’d dreamed of his Mistress again, but instead of the beautiful savior he always took her for, she’d opened her robe to reveal a skeletal, burned carcass that lunged at him, forcing him to do things to her even as he swore he could not take another minute. Sitting up fast, the dizziness hit him hard. He stumbled for the bathroom and after emptying his stomach, he crouched on the cool tile floor, legs clasped tight to his body.

  He’d been such a fool. Would he ever have a normal relationship? Did he even know what that felt like? He’d been ignoring Kelli for so long he hoped she got the message, but even that seemed wrong. Why not Kelli, now that he had a better grasp on what had been done to him in college? Why not indeed?

  Groaning, he leaned into the toilet to puke once more, hoping the demon he harbored would exit the same way, and leave him in peace.

  I like it when you call me Robert. He sent her a text the next morning on the team bus to the airport almost by rote, as if communicating with a girlfriend or wife.