“Maybe a time or two.” Although he knew her body intimately, they were still strangers.
“I said I don’t want to talk about that.” She folded her arms across her jersey.
Kevin Olsen rounded the corner and laughed when he saw Lexie. “There’s our little runaway bride!” His voice boomed through the tunnel.
“Shhhh.” She tried and failed not to smile. “Stop shouting, and before you get started, I don’t want to talk about Gettin’ Hitched.”
“I don’t blame you.” Brody gave her a quick hug and kept one big hand on her shoulder as he bent forward to look into her eyes. “No one liked that Pete guy. Paul’s the only one who bet on you making it all the way to the altar.”
“That’s what I heard. You boys will bet on anything.”
“Next time, go on American Ninja Warrior. You’d kick butt on that one.” He straightened. “Win yourself some cash instead of a wuss.”
Her arms fell to her sides. “Tell the guys to get a new hobby because I’m not signing up for any more television shows or interviews. No more magazine articles.” Her brows lowered and she looked at Sean out of the corners of her eyes. “Or pictures in a gossip paper for the world to talk about.”
He’d have to be deaf not to have heard the widespread speculation regarding that photo; everything from she’d run off with a lover to she’d been kidnapped. The corner of his mouth twisted up. Kidnapped. Yeah, fucking right. That was funny given that she’d dived headfirst into the Sea Hopper.
“Me and Chucky talked about it,” Kevin said as he dramatically slammed one meaty fist into an equally meaty palm. “You just give us the word, and we’ll find that guy and shove a stick up his ass.”
Sean turned his attention to the two big men next to him. There was nothing funny about the fire in his teammates’ eyes. They were actually serious, and he asked, although he was afraid he already knew, “What guy?”
“The guy in that photo. The one who’d coerced Lexie.”
Now it was his turn to look at her from the corners of his eyes. “Coerced?”
Lexie raised a hand and covered the top half of her face. “I don’t want to talk about that, either.”
“Jesus, KO. You’re an in
sensitive jerk.” Once again Stony wrapped his protective arms around Lexie. “She’s been through enough without you bringing up that jackass who forced himself on her.”
Jackass? Forced? What the hell?
“Sorry, Lexie. I just want you to know that I’m right here. If you ever see that guy again, promise you’ll call me. I have a hockey stick with his name on it.”
Sean looked at her, waiting for her to correct his teammates. To clear things up and set the record straight.
Instead, a slight smile curved her pink lips. “I promise.” She patted Stony on the shoulder and stepped away. “But I doubt I’ll be seeing much of Mr. Brown.” She turned to Sean. “Meeting you was . . . interesting. I have a strange feeling we’ve met before.”
He looked into her blue eyes and the crease across her smooth forehead as if she was deep in thought, trying to solve a mystery. Was she going to point an accusing finger at him now that KO was dying to shove an Easton up his ass, or was she playing a game? “I have one of those faces.” The only game he liked to play was played on ice.
“That must be it.” She gave another dazzling smile, and he had his answer. She was playing with him, and he didn’t like it. “See you guys around,” she said as she turned on her heels and moved toward the door. As the others watched her walk away, Sean dug into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He glanced at the address and the code to a secure elevator written in blue. The word “tonight” was underlined. By the chill in her eyes, he doubted she wanted to scream in ecstasy and call him a cement head again.
“She’s such a sweetheart,” Stony said as she disappeared out the door.
That was not the first word Sean would have used to describe Lexie. He crumpled the note in his fist and shoved it into the pocket of his blazer. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on those cheese fries.”
Fifteen minutes later, Sean entered the elevator of a swanky apartment building in Belltown. His anger shot up incrementally with the rise of each floor. He hadn’t coerced or forced himself on Lexie. He’d never coerced or forced himself on anyone. Ever. He’d never even thought about it. If she said no, then she meant no. He had plenty of offers of yes. Women threw themselves at him, or in Lexie’s case, fell at his feet.
She wanted to meet and he wanted to know her plans. No games. No manipulations. No implied innocence on her part while condemning him with her silence and pouty lips.
The elevator doors opened and he stepped into an open space constructed of walnut floors and glass, stone, and overstuffed purple furniture with big fuzzy pillows. The far wall consisted of a window so big and clear it appeared as if he could just step from the white carpets and into the lights of the Seattle skyline.
“Hello, Sean.” She stood in the middle of the room, the city behind her, lighting her up as if she’d walked in from the skyline. She’d removed her team jersey and held some sort of creature in her arms. It might be a dog, but he wasn’t certain. The only thing he could tell for sure was that it wore something pink and fluffy. “Your name is Sean, right?”
“Right.” She still had on those tight gray jeans he’d noticed earlier, and her feet were bare. Unlike the last time he’d seen her, her toes were painted red instead of pink. “The kidnapping, rapist jackass.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”