“There won’t be any trouble. I swear.”

Bolly nodded, then continued down the bleachers to join the other dads who were standing on the sideline watching practice.

Griff wasn’t invited to join them, and wouldn’t be, but that was all right. He felt better than he had in a long while. He had a project now, something to look forward to, a reason for getting out of bed in the morning. And for coaching an aspiring quarterback, no one was better qualified. Knowing that made him feel good.

He was smiling when his cell phone rang.

He arrived ahead of her and parked in back. A few minutes later, she pulled her car in behind his.

“A meeting ran long,” she said as she got out.

“I just got here myself.”

Together they walked toward the front of the house. While she was unlocking the door, he looked in both directions along the street. No olive sedan. He’d come straight from the middle school practice field and knew he hadn’t been followed there. In fact, he hadn’t seen Rodarte or anyone suspicious since their last confrontation-a month ago, he realized.

But he didn’t think for a moment that Rodarte had been scared off. In fact, his noticeable absence was unnerving. Griff would prefer him to stay visible, at least occasionally. With that in mind, as soon as they got inside, he asked Laura if she’d seen the guy he’d warned her about.

“In the ugly green car?” One of her eyebrows arched slightly.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Do you think I made him up?”

“What I think is that you took an unnecessary risk of being seen with me.”

“I know the rules, but you needed to know about Rodarte.”

“I doubt it.”

“Look-”

“I don’t want to argue about it,” she snapped. Then she rubbed her forehead and sighed wearily. “I haven’t seen a man in a green car lurking about.”

“Good. Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know. Why didn’t you just say that and save us the argument?”

She looked ready to take issue, than changed her mind and started toward the bedroom.

“What was the model?”

“What?”

“The model. In the box I carried to your car.”

“It was an airplane model.”

“I figured that much. You were taking it home to show your husband. What for?”

“For a presentation.”

“Yeah? How’d it go?”

Avoiding eye contact, she combed her fingers through her hair. “It doesn’t matter now.” Before giving him an opportunity to say more about it, she walked down the hallway and disappeared into the bedroom.

Griff stood looking after her, wondering what had caused her to be in such a snit. A quarrel at home? Bad day at the office? Or just put out that she had to endure him again.

Screw it. Let her be snippy. Let her sulk. Whatever. He didn’t care. He only hoped to God it worked this time. He was ready to cash in and blow.

He tugged his shirttail from his waistband and pulled off his boots. He checked the wall thermostat and lowered it several degrees. He went into the kitchen and checked the fridge. Same bottled water, same six-pack of Diet Coke. He didn’t want either, but he unbuttoned his shirt and stood in the open door of the fridge, fanning the cold air onto his chest.

Back in the living room, he opened the armoire and scanned the titles of the videos. Maybe he should check one out, just for variety. Let’s see. Men with women. Women with women. A Tail of Two Cities. Hmm. Which two cities? he wondered. On one cover a chick wearing nothing but strips of black leather was straddling a motorcycle. Her snarl and sharp red fingernails turned him off, not on.

He closed the armoire doors, once again rejecting the videos and magazines in favor of his own imagination.

“Come in.”

He went into the bedroom and closed the door. Midway across the room, he stopped. She was lying as before, staring at the ceiling, covered to her waist by the sheet. Above it, she was fully dressed.

But this time there were tear tracks on her cheeks.

When he didn’t immediately move to the bed, she glanced at him, then back at the ceiling.

He walked to the foot of the bed. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been crying.”

“I’m just tired.”

“You cry when you’re tired?”

She looked at him and said testily, “Sometimes. Now, can we please just get this over with?”

Pissed off by her tone and the condescension behind it, he muttered, “At your service, ma’am,” and shoved down his jeans, actually hoping the sight of his tented boxers would offend her. It did. She turned her head aside.

He kicked off his jeans, peeled off his shorts, and crawled onto the bed, stretching out on top of her. He wrestled with the sheet, cursing its tenacity, before he got it out of the way. Her legs parted. He moved into position, thrust, missed, thrust again.

It was easier than the first two times. Faster, too. Quickly over. If you looked up slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am in the dictionary…

He didn’t even give himself time to catch his breath before levering himself up. As he did, he glanced at her averted face. And froze. Fresh tears were rolling down her cheeks like silent admonitions. Her lower lip was clamped between her teeth as though to keep it from trembling.

Well, shit. How bad could it have been?

Apparently pretty bad, because her chest hitched on a sob.

“Hell, did I hurt you?”

She shook her head.

“You said you wanted it over with.”

She tried to say something, but the words got lodged in her throat. She swallowed convulsively.

Griff, at a loss, didn’t say anything. Instead, he laid his hand against her wet cheek. At his touch, she tensed beneath him. When she raised her hand, he expected her to remove his from her face. Instead, she covered his hand with hers, then turned her face into his palm so that the heel of his hand was under her chin and the tips of his fingers were curved up over her hairline.

Her breath struck with hot gusts of emotion. Tears were captured in his palm. He watched her throat as she struggled to contain the choppy sounds of weeping. And then, when she couldn’t hold them back anymore, she clamped her teeth again. Except this time it wasn’t her lip that was caught between them. It was the meaty pad at the base of his thumb. She sank her teeth into it.

The effect on Griff was instantaneous. He sucked in a quick, audible breath.

Her teeth let go immediately. He lifted his hand off her face. Their eyes connected with an impact as startling as the bite. Her eyes, swimming in tears, widened fractionally when she felt what he couldn’t control. Didn’t want to control. He swelled inside her with an infusion of blood so hot and insistent, he had neither the time, the willpower, nor the desire to withdraw.

He filled her completely. Or was she shrinking around him? It was difficult to tell. And it didn’t matter. Because, God, it was a rush, the most erotic damn thing ever to happen to him.

He pressed his hips forward, tentatively, testing her reaction. Her eyes closed briefly, then reopened. Her eyelashes were wet, forming spiky clumps, very pretty. There was a black speck in the iris of her right eye that he’d never noticed before, but he’d never been this close to her before. He had never really looked into her eyes. He hadn’t allowed himself to look into them.

Still tentative, he angled his hips forward and up. Her breath made a soft hissing sound as she inhaled through her teeth. Her eyes closed. Encouraged, he slid his arm beneath her, scooped her ass into his hand, and tilted her up at the same time he pressed deep. A hungry sound vibrated in her throat, because by now her lips were rolled inward, tightly compressed. She was breathing rapidly through her nose.

He pulled back, almost out, then sank into her again. She groaned. He did it again. His strokes were long, slow, and deep, and she responded with corresponding movements that soon had him calling on deities in mindless gasps.