Rumor Has It

  “So you want to swap tutorials?” she asked.

  No, actually, he wanted to swap other things. Like touches and kisses and bodily fluids. “Yeah,” he said. “I want to swap tutorials.”

  Again her gaze dropped to his mouth.

  “Chicken?” he taunted softly.

  She looked at her watch. “I have thirty minutes. You’re first. You can do me tomorrow.”

  “Gladly,” he said, and enjoyed her blush.

  Five minutes later he was flat on his back on the deck of the ranch house.

  “Such a gorgeous view,” Kate said, looking out at the valley below, bordered by the rugged peaks.

  His view was far better. She was kneeling at his side, her hand on his abs. From his vantage point he had a fantastic view of her full breasts, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she was just a little bit chilly.

  “Close your eyes,” she said, and leaning over him, began to massage his shoulders. “Just breathe.”

  He closed his eyes and breathed. And then yawned. “Sorry,” he said. “Tired.”

  “Yawning doesn’t necessarily mean you’re tired,” she said. “It means your body needs more oxygen. Think of your happy place.”

  Eyes still closed, he slid his hand up the back of her thigh and cupped her ass.

  “Griffin!”

  “That’s my happy place.”

  “My butt is your happy place?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said with a groan of pleasure at the way she dug her fingers into his biceps.

  “Muscle tension is often the root cause of a bad headache,” she said.

  “Or an IED at ground zero.”

  She was quiet a minute. “Or that,” she said, her voice not as steady as before. “Yoga can alleviate both the cause and the symptom of physiological stressors.”

  Not wanting to talk about physiological stressors, he opened his eyes and tried to look down her top. “This really would be a lot more fun naked.”

  Ignoring that, she maneuvered him into several poses, one of which was called cat’s pose, where she made him get on his hands and knees and stick his ass in the air and breathe like a woman in labor. He pretended not to get it, making her show him slowly and in great detail what she wanted, and watching her on her hands and knees breathing like that got him hard as a rock.

  Totally worth it.

  Twenty minutes later she let him collapse to the mat. She leaned over him to knead his shoulders again, digging right into the aching muscles. “Still holding some tension,” she said.

  Yes, except the source of his biggest tension was considerably south of his shoulders.

  “You’re lucky to have grown up out here,” she said, eyeing the view. “With the horses and miles and miles of land.” She inhaled deeply. “Smell it. It’s so fresh.”

  He took a deep breath and smelled horses and dirt. And her, some complicated mix of shampoo and lotion and essence of Kate.

  “It’s just beautiful,” she said softly.

  He took another breath and had to admit, it was true. He had never appreciated it when he was younger. He’d been far too busy being pissed off at the world. And at his father for always being on his ass about something. And at his mom for dying. And at school for being torture. Everything.

  But now, with the maturity the past decade had given him, he realized he’d missed it and was truly enjoying being back.

  “Feel better?” she asked, letting her hands slide off his shoulders.

  No. But she still looked hot on her knees. Really hot.

  “Griffin?” She cocked her head. “Are you even listening to me?”

  “My brain stopped working the second you got on your knees like that.”

  She snorted, and he sat up and pulled her onto his lap, nuzzling at the sweet spot right beneath her ear.

  She melted into him and made his damn day. “I have to go,” she whispered, even as she wrapped her arms around his neck, seducing him with nothing more than a smile. Which meant that the joke was on him, because all along he’d honestly believed that everything that was happening—or not happening—between them was his own doing.

  But even he had to call bullshit on the notion.

  He’d been a hell of a soldier. He knew how to keep his guard up and watch his own six. And yet with little to no effort Kate had taken him down, methodically, thoughtfully, purposely.

  Taken down by a second-grade elementary school teacher slash science nerd who had no idea how powerful she was.

  She wriggled free. “Sorry,” she said. “But I’ve got to help Ashley with her math, and then it’s Bingo Night. We’re raising money for the school library.” She leaned in and then surprised him by nipping his lower lip, wrenching a groan from him.

  “Good?” she whispered.

  “So good it should be illegal.”

  “Cosmo said it was a trick to hold a guy’s interest.”

  She had his interest all right. And, he was afraid, his heart as well.

  He was still sitting there alone a few minutes later when his dad opened the sliding door and stared at him. “Yoga?” he asked.

  “It’s a tension reliever.”

  Donald gave a bark of laughter. “Whipped,” he said, and while Grif sat there stunned that he’d made his dad laugh—sure, it was totally at him and not with him, but it was something—Donald vanished back inside.

  That night Griffin didn’t get a headache, and he slept like a log. He had no idea if it had been the riding, the yoga, or all the fresh air, but he suspected that the culprit was none of the above.

  That the honor belonged to Kate herself.

  * * *

  The next day Kate woke at the crack of dawn. At first she thought maybe it was the pressure of the pretty embossed scholarship envelope sitting bedside, the one silently saying, Psst, only nine more days to grab your lifelong dream . . .

  But then she heard the knock at her door. Staggering down the hall, she peeked out. Grif.

  He handed her a to-go mug of coffee. “You’ve got five minutes.”

  “Huh?”

  “Drink first,” he said, and then pushed his way inside. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching her obey his order.

  When she had a few sips down and the caffeine had begun to clear her head, she asked, “Five minutes for what?”

  He just looked at her, all big, bad, and silent.

  Five minutes . . .

  Her body tingled. Normally her egg timer was set to about twenty, but she knew firsthand that Grif could get her to the finish line in half that time.

  “Time to get dressed,” he said. “It’s my turn to have my way with you.”

  “Then why am I getting dressed?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. An almost smile. But whatever had him up and ready this early wasn’t all that amusing. Serious Grif was in the house.

  And then she remembered. “You’re going to teach me how to defend myself.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not really all that fond of violence.”

  “You don’t have to be.” He turned her away from him and in the direction of her bedroom. When she didn’t immediately start moving, he gave her a swat on the butt. “Hustle.”

  What did it say about her that his comment made her want to hustle to strip rather than the reverse?

  He took her to the gym in town and proceeded to give her boxing lessons. Thirty minutes later she was drenched in sweat, and every single muscle trembled.

  “How do you feel?” he asked when he’d brought her back home and walked her inside.

  “Like a puddle of goo.” She blew a strand of hair from her face. “And maybe like I could kick some ass.”

  He flashed a heart-stopping smile, hooked an arm around her neck, and drew her in close, pressing his mouth to her temple. “That’s my girl.”

  She slid her hands up his chest. “Griffin?”

  His voice was morning gruff and caused shivers down her spine. “Yeah?”

  “We stil
l have a chemistry problem.”

  “No shit.” His hands went to her hips and squeezed as he glanced at her foyer table. “Kate, would you say that table is . . . sturdy?”

  She dropped her head to his chest and half moaned, half laughed. “Don’t tempt me.”

  She felt him smile at her temple. “You want me bad,” he said.

  “I told you. You can’t fight chemistry.”

  A laugh huffed from him. “So it’s not your fault? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “It’s your fault.”

  He only smiled, shook his head, and then quickly left, as if maybe he didn’t trust himself with her.

  The feeling was mutual.

  * * *

  The next day at dawn, Grif was woken by his phone chirping.

  “You have five minutes,” Kate said. “I’m on your deck with yoga mats.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Are you naked?”

  “No!”

  He sighed and rolled out of bed, peeking out his window to indeed see her car out front. “This is not how I dreamed of you waking me up, Kate,” he said into the phone.

  Her breath caught audibly, which only made him harder—a combination of morning wood and Kate’s voice.

  “Are you coming?” she asked softly.

  He groaned. “I will if you will.”

  “Oh my God. I didn’t mean—” She broke off at his low laugh.

  “Love it when you talk dirty,” he said.

  “Just get your ass out here, Griffin Reid. Now.”

  “And I especially love it when you go all domineering like that.”

  She hung up on him. Grif grinned and then stood there and recited the alphabet backward until he could pull on a pair of basketball shorts without tenting the front of them.

  * * *

  Holly and Adam came home from their honeymoon the next day, both looking quite relaxed and mellow. Holly hugged Grif tight in greeting then stepped back, grinning up at his face.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Oh, sorry, am I still doing it?” she asked. “Am I still smiling?”

  “From ear to ear,” Grif said.

  “I know! I can’t seem to stop.”

  Adam laughed at her, and she smacked her new husband in the chest. “Stop it. It’s all your fault anyway.”

  Pulling her into him, Adam nuzzled her ear before nipping it. “I know,” he said, sounding quite full of himself.

  Grif blew out a sigh. “Didn’t you get that out of your system over the past few days?”

  “Nope.” Adam took a good look at Grif and then his brows went up. “How are you doing?”

  “Good,” Grif said.

  “Really.” This wasn’t a question, and it sounded rather heavy on the irony. “And why are you good?”

  “Why am I good?” Grif asked. “What kind of question is that?”

  “I’m sensing a tremor in the force,” Adam said.

  “What the hell?” Grif looked at Holly. “What did you do to him?”

  “Well, I pretty much screwed him deaf and blind, and then—”

  “Christ!” Grif covered his ear. “Don’t tell me!”

  Holly laughed, but Adam was still giving Grif a once-over.

  Adam was a little spooky sometimes, knowing things he shouldn’t. Grif held his gaze, thinking he couldn’t possibly know.

  But Adam just stared back. He knew.

  “What’s going on?” Holly asked.

  “Ask him,” Adam said.

  “All right.” She shoved her new husband aside and looked up at her brother. “What the hell is my husband talking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  Holly turned to Adam, who gave her a raised brow. Holly gasped and whirled back on Grif. “You didn’t!”

  “Going to have to narrow that down, Hol.”

  She went toe-to-toe with him. “You didn’t sleep with her. Tell me you didn’t sleep with her.”

  Well, there hadn’t been all that much sleeping involved, but Grif knew his sister had one hell of a right hook, and he already had a building headache, so he kept that detail to himself.

  As well as the fact that Kate had given him a third yoga tutorial that morning during which she’d put him through his paces. He’d then returned the favor, teaching her some more self-defense moves. It had been a hot and sweaty forty-five minutes that he knew damn well had left her hot and bothered, and him the same.

  And then she’d gone to work, and he’d gone to the shower for a self-serve.

  “Dammit, Grif!” Holly said. “I told you she’s vulnerable!”

  “She’s a grown woman,” Grif said. “Capable of making her own decisions.”

  “You were at a wedding, for God’s sake. A really, really, really great wedding.”

  “So?”

  Holly stared at him like he was the biggest moron on earth. “So weddings make people even more vulnerable. Oh my God, I can’t believe you did this to her.”

  Okay, this was starting to piss him off. “Jesus, I didn’t force her!”

  “Of course you didn’t! You didn’t have to. She has a huge crush on you, and you know that! All you had to do was give her that look.”

  “What look?”

  “You know what look! The look you give women, the one that makes them fall at your feet. She probably leaped right into your arms.”

  Grif opened his mouth and then shut it.

  Adam laughed then sucked it up at a dark look from Grif.

  “Women don’t fall at my feet,” Grif said.

  “Suzie Mayers, Tessa Winworth, Sugar Madison, Morgan Yzardo,” Holly said, ticking the names off on her fingers. “Tracy Bassinger, Carina Martinez—”

  “That was high school!”

  Holly let her hands fall to her side, but the temper was still firing in her eyes. “They used to crawl into your window at night.”

  At the very pleasant memory, Grif smiled, and Holly hit him again. “Ow!” he said. “Watch it. I’m hurt, you know.”

  “Oh, really? Are you fragile, you big, annoying oaf? Are you taking care of everyone else in your world except yourself, leaving you no time for a real life? Are you feeling lonely and overwhelmed and just a little bit afraid that this is all life is going to