* * *

Over the course of the next week, Sam kept herself busy. She had the café, which was thankfully hopping with late-summer action. She also had her friends, her surfing and any number of things in her life; such as her obsession with making brownies that could be eaten and not used as cement or paint.

But being out in the water only reminded her of the man she dreamed about every night. It didn't help that Lorissa enjoyed asking about him, or that Jack continued to call each evening so they spent long hours on the phone just talking.

By the time Saturday came and she was dressing to meet him, she could hardly stand it.

She was going to sleep with him. Actually, there likely would be no sleeping involved. Just lots of calorie-burning, good sweaty stuff.

Naked stuff.

Oh yeah, naked stuff really worked for her.

And then after that, she'd be over it, over him. She could move on. That's how it always happened, and that's how it would happen here, too. She'd kiss him sweetly and leave.

And never see him again.

It would be mutual, of course; she held no great illusions about herself. She wasn't anything special; in fact, she could be rather difficult, was a natural loner and not at all steady lover material.

Going over all of this in her mind, she drove to Jack's house. He'd called her with directions, and although she'd suggested meeting at a school or a local gym, he'd laughed that off and said he wanted privacy for this.

Privacy. Sounded good to her.

As she neared his place, she wasn't surprised to find herself in an extremely expensive area of Malibu. When she pulled into his driveway and stopped at the gate, she stared at the largest three-story glass-and-concrete beach house she'd ever seen.

She had no idea why it hadn't really occurred to her that Jack Knight was one loaded guy. He probably had more money than she could dream of and more ways to spend it than she could count. Slightly uncomfortable, she pushed the buzzer and waited.

"Hey," came his voice from the speaker. "You look good enough to eat."

She looked into what she'd thought was a mirror next to a number pad but realized it was a camera. She laughed, because she was wearing surfer, not basketball, shorts-she hadn't had any-and two spaghetti-strapped tank tops, one layered over the other. A beat-up old sweatshirt kept her warm in the early morning chill. Not exactly glamorous. She'd found socks at the last moment, and had them tucked into the tennis shoes hanging around her neck. "So do I need a passport to get in or what?"

"Nope, just a smile."

She had that just from the sound of him.

The gate swung open to let her in. She drove up the ambling, curvy driveway toward the house, beyond which was her beloved ocean. She parked right in front of the steps and took in the sight. The property itself-acres and acres of green grass and naturally landscaped beauty-grabbed her by the throat and held on.

She couldn't imagine having this much land to herself, with a private beach, clean of debris and people.

Heaven on earth.

"I'm way out of my league," she whispered and, wondering if he had a butler and a maid and a cook and all that, she turned off the engine.

She firmly reminded herself she was here because they had a connection, a sexual one. It hummed and buzzed in her veins at all times, and it begged to be explored.

She wanted to explore him.

Plus, she'd spent too much damn money on basketball lessons, and the cheapskate in her wouldn't let it go to waste. With all its might, her body hoped learning good basketball meant him having his hands all over her.

A lot.

No matter that her brain maintained that was a very bad idea…

10

Jack jogged down his front steps to meet Sam. "Uh-oh," he said, and tugged on her hand until she got out of the car. "You have a certain look on your face."

"Look?"

"Like you can't decide whether to run away or not." He tightened his grip on her fingers. "But I've got you now." He took her tennis shoes-with the rolled-up socks sticking out of them-from around her neck and tucked them under his arm as they started up the steps.

"This place is huge."

"Yeah, I like having lots of room."

"It's the size of a small country."

"Just about." He opened the front door and put his hand on the small of her back, mostly because he wanted to touch her, partly because he wanted to do a hell of a lot more than just touch her. "Ready for some hard work?"

"Work? Is that what basketball is to you?"

"Was." He smiled. "Today, you get to work, and I get to have fun."

She eyed the foyer, which soared to the second floor. "What do you do in here?" She lifted her gaze, studying the huge, open space with all the window lights and fancy glass that lit the place so beautifully. "Play basketball?"

"Nah, I'd break the windows and then my decorator would kill me.

She just looked at him, and he let out a little laugh. "I'm kidding. Well, sort of. Heather decorated this place for me, and now that I think about it, she probably would kill me if I broke something. So do me a favor and don't touch anything."

That made her smile, and he smiled, too. "Much better," he murmured and pulled her in for a hug. "Can't play basketball unless you're smiling. That's the first rule."

She hugged him back. "What's the second?"

"If I said you had to take off all your clothes, would you believe me?"

Laughing, she pulled away. "No such luck."

They walked through a large living room, then the formal dining room he never used and into another open area where there was soft, sink-your-feet carpeting, a big-screen TV, three of the biggest couches on the market and a help-yourself bar. "The great room," he said. "The hang-out room."

She nodded, taking in the warm butter-colored walls filled with pictures and collages of his friends and family and the events in his life. "This is nice."

"Thanks." He pointed to an envelope of photos lying on the coffee table. "Cole was kind enough to take pictures of me falling all over myself learning to surf, and then even kinder to give them to me." Opening the envelope, he flipped through the humiliating shots of him tumbling into the water, being tortured by the waves, and pulled out the one he loved. "This one is going on the wall soon as I get it enlarged."

She stared up at him and then took the picture. "It's of us."

"Yep." It'd been taken after surfing, so he wore only his swimming trunks, and Sam was in that black bikini he had an extremely soft-make that hard-spot for. When Cole had lifted the camera, Sam had started to pull away, but he'd slipped his arm around her. Turning back to him, she'd offered such a sweet, beautifully affectionate smile his heart had melted, and he'd offered her one back. Cole had snapped the shot.

"You're going to put us on your wall with all your friends and family?"

"What, you're not my friend?"

Her mouth shut, and with a frown, she stared down at the picture. "I thought…"

"What?"

She handed him back the picture, and turned her back. "Playing. We're playing. I taught you to surf, now we're going to play ball. Where's the hoop? I'm sure you've got a state-of-the-art one somewhere in here."

So she wanted to go at it like that, like they had nothing going on here, nothing at all. Fine. But suddenly he was far less happy with this no-commitment thing than he'd imagined. "Out here." Through the kitchen, the laundry room and outside to the backyard, where beyond the Olympic-size pool was a basketball court.

She stared at the asphalt, which had cracked last year and now had a few daisies popping up here and there. Then she looked at the regulation-height hoops draped with baskets, one of which had torn in his last fierce battle with some friends. "This is like… street ball."

He grinned broadly. "Yeah. Don't you love it?"

"But… where's the expensive wood floor, the custom paint job, the fancy baskets and hoops?"

He stepped close, tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and then cupped his fingers around her jaw until she looked at him. "I didn't grow up in a house like this, you know. I grew up in a regular neighborhood, playing basketball in the street. I like to play it that way. This way."

"Oh." She smiled, but it slowly faded. "Jack…"

"No." He shook his head. "You're not changing your mind."

She closed her eyes. "I don't want this to end. But if I stay, if we play, we're not going to stop there. And then tomorrow, it'll all be over."

"I'm confused." He ran a finger over her creamy shoulder. "How will it be over?"

"Because I'll be tired of you. I'm always tired of a guy after sex."

He grinned, and shook his head. "But you haven't had sex with me."

"Jack-"

His grin faded. "You're serious. You want to leave now so that we won't have sex and you can keep seeing me."

She nodded miserably.

"We each have a past," he said slowly. "A lot of yours is tragic, and I wish I could change it for you, but as far as past relationships, none of them should factor here. This thing between us is different. Original."

"And scary."

"And scary," he agreed. "But I don't care, and I'm surprised you do."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I thought you had guts and determination and grit, from that first night. I looked at you and saw-

"A beach bum?"

"A woman I wanted to get to know more, and as I did, I learned how strong you were, what a beautiful outlook you had after that crappy hand Fate dealt you. You played anyway, and won." Stepping close, he put his hands on her arms and ran them slowly up and down as if he could warm her, soften her. Make her see what he saw. "You won. I love that about you, Sam. You live as you are, as you want. Damn, if that isn't one of the hottest things about you. You bid on lessons with me because you wanted it. You wanted me. If you've changed your mind because you've lost your nerve, then I don't know you at all."