Chapter Fourteen

God, she was such a fraud. Full of big claims she didn't even come close to feeling.

Vicki tried not to grip the stem of her glass of champagne too hard, even though she was tense enough to snap it in two. She and Ryan had just stepped inside the Bently Reserve building in the heart of downtown San Francisco and all eyes had immediately turned to them as glasses of bubbly were thrust into their hands. Ryan's arm was warm and steady around her as they moved deeper into the large group of players and their wives and girlfriends. The toasts and congratulations came from one and all. She hadn't been able to eat much all day, and now her head was spinning from the seemingly unending supply of sweet liquid.

"So," one of the women asked, "how did you two meet? Wasn't it in high school?"

Ryan gave her waist a little squeeze as he said, "Vicki moved into town when I was fifteen. I noticed her right away, even though she never seemed to look my way."

The men all rumbled with laughter at the image of a hard-up fifteen-year-old Ryan, while Vicki worked to mask her surprise that Ryan had noticed her before she'd pushed him out of the way of the car.

"Of course I noticed you," she said softly. "How could I not?"

This was all supposed to be for show, but in that moment as he turned to look at her, his own surprise evident in his eyes, everything became completely real.

"As I remember it," he replied, "I had to step in front of a car for you to pay any attention to me."

"Whoa, hold up a sec," one of his teammates said. "What's this about getting hit by a car?"

Despite the way her head was spinning over Ryan's version of the story, Vicki quickly clarified, "There was an out-of-control driver in the school parking lot and he was headed straight toward Ryan. I helped get him out of the way."

"Thanks again for that," he said softly as he brushed her hair back from her face with his hand, gently stroking her jaw.

Ryan was so good at this, at both playing the crowd and making everyone believe that his feelings for her were real. How on earth was she supposed to hide what she felt for him in front of all these people who were looking at her so carefully?

"So if you guys were teenagers when you met, what took you so long to make it happen?" one of his teammates asked. "I thought you were known for speed, Sullivan."

Ryan didn't take his eyes off Vicki as he said, "She moved away and the next thing I knew, she was marrying some other guy."

She swallowed hard as his hand moved down to gently caress her neck and then her shoulders, before settling in again at the small of her back.

"I should have gone and fought him for you." He wasn't telling the story to the group now. Instead, he was speaking every word directly to her. "I regret every single day that I didn't chase after you. Now that you're mine, I'm never going to let you go."

All of the players' wives and girlfriends, along with the women from the back office, sighed as Ryan put words to every one of their fantasies.

Sadly, Vicki found herself doing the exact same thing. How many times over the years had she wondered what Ryan was doing, who he was with, whether he missed her?

Stop it, Vicki! Ryan was playing his part so beautifully he could have given Smith a run for his money on the big screen.

Cool.

She needed to keep playing it cool.

"So," one of the prettiest women Vicki had ever set eyes on said, "how does it feel to have tamed the ultimate bad boy?"

The cool she'd been struggling for was quickly replaced with a hot rush through her veins. Vicki bristled not so much at the question, but at that hint of knowledge in the woman's eyes and voice.

Clearly, Ryan had slept with her.

It shouldn't matter. Vicki knew that on a rational level. After all, she and Ryan were just friends and he could do whatever he wanted, both before and after their fake engagement. But right here, right now, and for as long as they were pretending to be engaged, he was off limits.

Vicki heard the smoky laughter come from her throat as if she were across the room watching another woman in a sexy zippered dress standing with Ryan's arm around her.

"Are you kidding?" She looked straight at the beautiful woman Ryan had slept with. "He's nowhere close to being tame." She put her hand on Ryan's chest and felt the heat of him through her palm before she added her final zinger. "Thank God."

When the other woman faked a laugh, Vicki let herself relish the flush of victory.

Unfortunately, she didn't get to enjoy it for very long. Because mere seconds after the words left her lips, everyone in the room started chanting for a kiss to seal the deal.

Oh no, she thought as she looked up into Ryan's dark eyes, what have I just done?

* * *

Did Vicki have any idea how gorgeous she was when she blushed like that, the perfect combination of sexy and shy? It was exactly the kind of expression that had a guy ready to do anything he could to amp up the sexy so that she forgot all about being shy while she was calling out his name from under him in his bed.

Ryan knew what everyone was picturing after what she'd just said about not being able to tame him - her na**d curves beneath his muscles, the two of them in a rough and sweaty tangle in his bed.

Every guy in the room thought he was the luckiest bastard alive for getting to make love to her. They all thought he was going to be unzipping her soon, and putting his hands, his mouth on her. No doubt it was Vicki they'd be picturing later tonight, regardless of who they were actually in bed with.

He put his drink down and then hers before turning to her and cupping her face in his hands. "Should we give them what they want?"

She waited to answer him for long enough that he thought she might say no, regardless of the show they'd come to give tonight. He didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until the moment she nodded.

All his teammates wanted was to see a kiss, but Ryan couldn't resist brushing the pad of his thumb over her full lower lip first. Her eyes held his as she shivered in his arms and her breath sped up.

When he lowered his mouth to hers he intended to give her a soft and simple kiss, similar to the one he'd given her at the cocktail lounge. Hot enough to appease the watching crowd, but still just barely on the right side of the friendship line. He'd done it that first night in front of James, hadn't he? Lips, but no tongue. No one expected anything more in public, so he knew he couldn't use that excuse.

But when his lips touched hers, she was so sweet, so pliant in his arms, that all of Ryan's plans for the kiss immediately crashed through the window and flew out over the Bay.

He had to tilt her face to get a better angle on her mouth and as she opened her lips on a gasp of pleasure, his tongue stole into her mouth in a desperate search for hers. When he stroked over it, Vicki's tongue immediately licked his back. He slid one hand down from her face to pull her closer against him and her hands tangled in his hair as they deepened the kiss together.

It wasn't until the sound of the catcalls and hooting and hollering from his teammates broke through the blood pounding in his ears that he remembered where they were...and what he was doing to Vicki in front of a roomful of spectators.

She must have realized it at the same time, because she looked shocked, then horrified, as she pulled back from him at the exact moment he forced himself to stop plundering her mouth.

Half afraid she would run after what he'd just done to her, he forced himself to whisper, "That was perfect," as if he'd just been acting, rather than feeling the kiss all the way down to his soul.

He kept her close enough to his side to cover his hard-on, but not close enough that she'd feel it digging into her hip. "Show's over now, folks. Go get your jollies somewhere else," he joked, before turning away with Vicki and heading out onto the balcony for a private moment.

"You okay?"

Her cheeks were deeply flushed as she replied, "Sure."

Well, that made one of them, then, because he wasn't even close to okay after that kiss. He wanted another and another and another. But even that one had been pushing things.

Way over the friendship line.

Which was why he tried to joke, "I think we really convinced them with that kiss."

Her eyes went translucent for a moment and he thought he saw a surge of emotion rush through her before she tamped it down. "Great. I'm glad we're pulling this off." Her mouth moved up into a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "We should probably go back inside, shouldn't we?"

Damn it, she wasn't afraid to be alone with him now after the way he'd mauled her inside, was she?

He put his hand back under her chin and turned her face up to his. "Are you sure you're okay? You can tell me if you're not, Vicki. You can tell me anything."

"I'm just not used to so much attention. I don't know how you live like this all the time."

"We'll get out of here soon, I promise."

"No," she said with a small shake of her head, "this is your big party before the playoffs. We need to stay."

That, right there, was one of the reasons he loved her. Where everyone else just thought about themselves, Vicki was never selfish. Whereas, even knowing how wrong it was to steal that hot kiss from her, he'd taken it anyway

Because he had to take it.

Hating himself for crossing the line he'd sworn not to cross, he said, "I'm sorry I kissed you like that, Vicki. I'm sorry I took advantage of the situation. And of you."

She went completely still, her expression freezing on her face. "There's nothing to forgive. They wanted to see you kiss your new fiancee, so you did." She looked colder, harder than he'd ever seen her before as she said, "And since I kissed you back, I hope you can forgive me, too."

A moment later, she was walking into the room and he was feeling like more of an ass than ever as he followed her inside. He didn't know what he'd said wrong...just that he had definitely screwed things up even worse.

And he didn't have the first clue how to fix it.