Play to Win Read online

“She’s an intimacy instructor,” Camy Greer said two days later while sitting at the bar eating an order of loaded French fries.

  Her brother Lance, who sat one bar stool away from her, stopped practicing the tune he planned to play tonight and propped his guitar on one thigh. “Who’s an intimacy instructor?” he asked.

  Ethan finished drying a tray of glasses. He put them away and moved to the other end of the bar to greet two customers who’d just come in. He was the bartender on duty at the moment, and most of the time at Game Changers as he was the one who had prior bartending experience from his college days. Lance was his back-up on busy nights and the two nights a week that Ethan came in early during the day. But Lance’s true love was his music, so he’d convinced Noah that they needed a stage for live music every once in a while. Noah warmed to the idea and began planning on how to get other musical acts to drop by. Their business was really shaping up and Ethan was glad for that. They’d all been through so much; they needed some good light shed on them.

  Ethan decided he might need a little more than good light at the moment. He was irritable. He didn’t need his friends to tell him that. He’d been in a mood since Portia walked away from him again. That was the second time that woman had left him standing like an idiot staring after her. He was determined not to give her a third time.

  He had a three strikes rule. Shit happened in life, but he didn’t have to sit back and let it happen to him over and over again. So there were three strikes in his book—one, he chalked up to fate or a mistake, two was like a slap to the back of his head to get his act together and three…Ethan was certain nobody wanted to know what would happen when he got to the third strike in any situation.

  So he was through with Portia Merin. Yes, that kiss they’d shared was hot and only sealed his opinion that getting her in bed would be an explosive experience. And he still thought about her curvy body and masterful mouth from time to time throughout the day. But Ethan had seen something else in her eyes two nights ago on the side of that road. Fear and worry. Who or what was she afraid of or what was she worried would happen? He didn’t know and truthfully, he didn’t have the time or energy to try and find out. His focus now was Game Changers and building something together with the only real family he’d ever had. That was it. He was just fine with never seeing or hearing the name Portia Merin again.

  “And she’s doing some work on the Sunnydale so she can sell it. I saw the paperwork at the office and Rod’s floating on cloud nine because his company won the bid on the job. He’s over there now taking measurements or whatever it is he does,” Camy was saying when Ethan made his way back to their end of the bar.

  She was supposed to be helping out tonight, waiting tables with Glory Jefferson who was also a part-time college student.

  “Wait? Plain Portia owns the Sunnydale house?” Lance asked. “I didn’t know that. I thought her parents were those stuck up politicians that finally left town a few years ago.”

  “Her name is just Portia,” Ethan interjected. “Portia Merin. And why are you even talking about her?”

  He knew his tone was edgy, but he ignored the quizzical looks being tossed his way by Camy and Lance. Hearing that she was still here in Providence had been a shock that he’d also planned to ignore, but he wasn’t going to let what had happened to her years ago get started again. Especially not with his friends.

  With one brow raised and his fingers moving absently over the guitar, Lance sat back and looked at Ethan. “Yeah, you’re right, her name is Portia Merin. She was two years behind us in high school. Cute face, quiet, a little nerdy.”

  “Hey,” Camy said. “Nerdy is the new sexy.”

  Camy was on track to graduate at the top of her class at Hampton University. From there she planned to go to law school. Del and Lance were paying her tuition and all of the guys were extremely proud of her. She’d had a rough time after their mother died when she was just thirteen years old. Del and Lance were already living at the House by then because they were too rowdy for Elaine Greer to handle while she was battling breast cancer.

  “Never in a million years would I have pictured Pla…I mean, Portia Merin as an intimacy instructor,” Lance continued.

  Ethan almost said she gave a pretty damn good blow job demonstration and a hell of a great kiss, but he declined. He did move toward the bottles neatly lined across the back ledge of the bar and selected the ones needed to fill the new drink order.

  “Anyway, I haven’t seen her yet. Have either of you?” Camy asked.

  “Nah,” Lance replied.

  Ethan acted as if he was no longer a part of the conversation.

  “Haven’t seen who?” Glory asked when she joined the group.

  Ethan scooped ice cubes from the freezer and dropped them into a shaker.

  “Portia Merin,” Camy said while chewing.

  “She’s an intimacy instructor now,” Lance added.

  “Wow. I don’t remember much about her except that her parents kept her on a tight leash,” Glory stated. “Intimacy instructor is just a fancy word for sex teacher, right?”

  Ethan poured vodka, green apple schnapps and a little apple juice into the shaker.

  “Damn! Portia’s teaching folks how to have sex. That’s…ah…that’s really something,” Lance said.

  Ethan snapped the top on the shaker and began to shake, as if his life depended on the perfect combination of the liquids inside. He moved his arms fast, creating a loud sound and stared across the bar to the walls on the other side of the restaurant where a dozen TV screens were mounted. Baseball was on a few screens, CNN on others and 42, the Jackie Robinson movie on a few more.

  “Isn’t it something, Ethan?” Lance asked in a louder voice.

  “Yeah, sex is something, when you can get it,” he replied. “When’s the last time you got laid, Lance?”

  Ethan knew Lance would never answer that question, because he’d taken a vow of celibacy after his girlfriend of eight years ran off with her trainer. Lance’s vow was only known to the brothers, so Ethan felt a little low for asking, but he desperately needed them to stop talking about Portia and her occupation. The entire conversation was wreaking hell on his mind, and his body, for that matter. He was damn near jubilant that the counter where he was making the drinks hid the raging hard-on he was now sporting.

  “I’m going to take this order down and then I’m heading into the back to finish unpacking today’s deliveries. You can take over,” Ethan said after a few moments of Lance’s complete silence.

  Another group came in and Ethan took and filled their drink order while sending their food requests back to the kitchen. It was fifteen minutes later when he finally made it back to the stock room. He walked past the neatly stacked rows of shelves and headed straight to the bathroom.

  Ethan cursed as he locked the door and leaned against it. His head fell back, slamming into the wood with a thump, once, twice and then a third time as he closed his eyes and tried to force her from his memory. He shouldn’t have been this affected by her. Not after twelve years, and certainly not after all he’d been through. But he was. Dammit! He was totally stimulated by seeing Portia giving that blow job and kissing Portia, holding her in his arms and feeling her breasts pressed against his chest. She’d even moved her hips while they kissed. It was a slight motion, but one Ethan knew was in response to feeling his erection.

  “Fuck!”

  That was both a scream of rage and what he wanted to do with Portia. He gripped his length that pressed hot and hard against his thigh through his jeans. He would not. Could not. He wasn’t a horny teenager anymore and he hadn’t jerked off since he was fifteen years old. He hadn’t had a wet dream since then either, but this morning had been a pretty close call. What the hell was this woman doing to him? And how soon could he get over it, because this was not going to work. He was not going to relieve himself to the memory of her licking a damned dildo!

  But he was going to continue thinking about her. He hadn’
t stopped since seeing her at that hotel. And when he realized she’d thought he’d been in on the plan to embarrass her all those years ago, he hadn’t been able to get the memories of their time alone and how strange it’d made him feel back then out of his head.

  She was the smartest girl he’d ever known and her eyes were the prettiest he’d ever seen. Sure, girls told him he had pretty eyes all the time. It was one of those things his guidance counselor had said would always attract girls to him. Instead of his brains, which he apparently wasn’t using since at the time of that meeting in the eighth grade, he’d been failing all his classes. But Portia never said anything about his eyes. She only talked about Algebra.

  “What do you like to do in your spare time?” he’d asked her one day when he’d been walking her home from the library. “I mean, besides tutoring guys like me.”

  “I don’t know any other guys like you and you’re the only one I’m tutoring.”

  He’d gotten her name from a list of possible tutors in the guidance office, so he’d just assumed she had other students. Learning he was her only one was a shock, but made him feel good nonetheless.

  “But what else to you like to do? You don’t play any sports.”

  “No. I’m not into sports.” She’d been staring ahead, but suddenly looked over at him. “Except football. I like football.”

  He’d grinned. “I love football.”

  “I know.” She’d smiled at him then and something deep inside his chest had warmed. He’d felt that feeling when he was with her before but hadn’t really thought too much about it. On this day, he wondered what it meant. “I also like to read and sing.”

  He’d already figured she read a lot. She was always carrying stacks of books that didn’t look like textbooks. The singing was different. He never would’ve expected that response. “Are you good at singing?” Of course she was, Portia was good at everything. “Can I hear you sing sometime?”

  She shook her head so hard he thought those stud earrings would fall out of the holes in her ears. “Do you sing for your boyfriend?” That question had been a surprise to him and by the look on her face, to Portia as well. He didn’t know why he’d asked it, the words had just tumbled free.

  “No.” She spoke the one word softly.

  He’d wanted to ask why but they were across the street from her house by then and she’d hurriedly said bye before running the distance to her front door. For a few minutes he’d stood there just staring at the closed door wondering why no guy had snatched her up. She was a hell of a lot nicer to be around than Melissa or Cassidy and the rest of the cheerleaders. She actually spoke in full unique sentences instead of echoing everything he said and following up with an insane giggle. Of course, she didn’t dress like the other girls in their skintight jeans and tops with all their cleavage showing, but he liked her quiet style. And her tops were usually fitting enough that he got a good idea of how nice it would be to touch her pert breasts.

  But that was never gonna happen. No way was a girl like Portia Merin ever gonna be interested in a guy like him from the House. She probably had her life all planned out—an Ivy League college, grad school, some high-powered career, money and success. All he had going for him was the hope that he’d at least get a football scholarship to pay his way through college. He didn’t come from a good family like Portia, but instead from an abusive father who’d finally done them both a favor and died and the snickers of all the grown-ups in town telling him he’d never amount to anything just like his dad.

  Walking away that day he knew there was no use thinking of how pretty Portia’s eyes were or how he liked her smile and really wanted to hear her sing. She was too good for a guy like him and they’d both be better off if he never told her he liked her.

  Ever.

  When the memory faded and his mind was once again focused on the here and now, Ethan sighed heavily. He pulled his hands from his crotch and dragged them down his face, still believing that Portia Merin was too good for the likes of a guy like him.

  5

  Portia was on her third trip from the house to the car and back. Because of the delay in meeting Cynthia and then Cynthia’s not so subtle suggestions that the house would make a much better profit if some renovations were made first, she and Sunny decided to scrap the plan of having movers come in and pack up the entire house and put everything in storage. Now, Portia was going to do most of the packing. She would ship some things to Sunny and put others in storage. The things she wanted to keep herself, she would ship to her apartment in Seattle.

  As for the book tour, she wasn’t due to her next stop until next Tuesday which was five days away. Rodney Hankin had just left after assuring her that the updates Sunny had approved would be completed by then. Cynthia had proposed knocking down walls and changing paint colors, but Sunny had been…well, she’d been Sunny telling Cynthia via their conference call, what would and would not be changed. There would be fresh paint in all the rooms, new countertops and appliances in the kitchen, no walls would come down and landscapers could come and attack the overgrown shrubbery in the front and back.

  Now, it was almost ten in the evening on Wednesday night and Portia desperately needed dinner and a shower before she could work on the outline for her next book. She carried a heavy bag in one hand and a file folder full of research in another. When she came to the screen door, she attempted to open it with the hand holding the bag. The broken handle moved and when she tried to overcompensate, the bag and her folder dropped to the ground. She cursed as she bent down to pick them up.

  “Let me get that for you.”

  She looked up to see Ethan running up the stairs to the porch and kneeling down in front of her. The wave of déjà vu came quick, making Portia dizzy with a mixture of surprise and expectation. Why was he here and why did a part of her feel so happy to see him again?

  “I can get it.” She hurried to pick up the books and papers that had fallen out of the bag because she didn’t want Ethan to see them.

  “I’m just trying to help, Portia.” She knew that and felt like a jerk for acting like he’d come to pounce on her or harass her in some way.

  When she finished stuffing everything into the bag, she stood. “I know. Thanks.”

  Ethan was standing across from her, looking as calmly sexy as always. Today’s jeans were a dark denim-wash but the red t-shirt was familiar from the other night. This time she noticed there were words embroidered in black script over the right pocket of the shirt. They read: Game Changers.

  “You work at that restaurant near the interstate exit?” she asked.

  He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and stood with his legs partially spread. “I own the sports bar near the interstate exit.”

  “Oh,” she replied. Ethan owned a sports bar. Of all the things she’d considered he might do in his adult life, that hadn’t been one of them.

  With raised brows, he asked “Shocked?”

  “Yes,” she said frankly. “You played football. They were talking about scholarships and possibly the NFL when you graduated.”

  He was expected to go on to become a great college level wide receiver and then to be a top pick in the NFL draft. Portia had gone to every football game, watching in awe as he moved on the field and when he walked off. There wasn’t much she hadn’t known about Ethan while they were in high school, and nothing that hadn’t intrigued and endeared him to her even more.

  He nodded slightly. “I went to college, studied criminal justice, graduated and went on to work for the Secret Service because I wanted to do more than run up and down the field for the rest of my life.”

  There was a terseness to his tone, but she chose to ignore it. She hadn’t invited him here so if he was annoyed by her words or her presence, he could leave. That may have seemed unduly harsh, but she wasn’t going to be intimidated anymore.

  “You could’ve been rich.” She tightened her grip on the handle of the bag and clamped her lips closed tigh
tly. Money meant different things to different people. She’d known that Ethan lived at the group home because his parents were dead and he had no other family. That was part of the reason she’d thought if anyone deserved a free ride to college and a top NFL pick, it was Ethan.

  He shrugged. “I wanted to help people more and for the record, I learned how to invest well, so I’m doing okay.”

  “Right. I understand. Sure, you are. You own a restaurant. I’d say that was okay.” She’d also say she was babbling and that made her feel ridiculous. Portia took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Well, it was great catching up, but I need to get inside. I have some things to do.”

  That wasn’t a lie. She had to finish packing up her room and some other things that Sunny wanted in storage. Her agent had also sent her an email asking her about the first chapters to her second book, so she needed to get started on that. She also wanted to get away from Ethan, again. After spending all her teen years pining for this guy, now she couldn’t stand to be in his presence. That wasn’t true. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be around Ethan. It was more like she didn’t know how to be around him.

  “Yeah, I heard that you were going to be in town for a while. Fixing this place up so you can sell it,” he said.

  He was looking around the porch now, to the handle on the screened door that was barely hanging on by a nail and the windows that needed to be reframed.

  “I’m pretty handy. Noah and I did a lot of the work on The Lofts so I could help you out with some things. You know, free of charge,” he said.

  Portia had seen The Lofts yesterday when she was driving around town looking for a UPS or FedEx store. She recalled the space used to be an old textile warehouse.

  “Ah, thanks, but that’s okay. I’ve hired a contractor. Hankin and Sons.”

  “Yeah, that’s Rod Hankin and his dad. They do good work. I’m sure they’ll take care of the big things, but if you need help with just hauling boxes or stuff like that, I can give you a hand.”