He stilled above her, his muscles tight beneath her fingertips. He was going to explode inside ofher, just as she had when his mouth was on her. It was all she needed to send her back up to thepeak of ecstasy again.

Nothing in her life had ever been this good.

God, she'd been such an idiot. All she wanted was to forget the day she'd met Ty Calhoun. She wasn't a green girl anymore, not the kind of woman who could be sucked in by a hot jock's charisma and perfect physique ever again.

Julie never worked with sports organizations. She didn't trust professional athletes, so how could she get other people to trust them?

She'd simply refer the Outlaws to one of her competitors, who would be more than happy for the ongoing business. After all, athletes were always getting in trouble and their teams were always paying someone to "reform" them in front of the public.

And Julie would try not to mourn the money she was flushing down the drain. Her stomach churned as she slid on her headset and said hello.

"Sean McGuire here, with the Outlaws. Our team needs to hire a great image consultant for Ty Calhoun, and we think you're it."

She swallowed her gasp and told him she didn't have the resources to take them on as a client, then referred him to another company.

"We'll double your fee. Triple it."

Triple? Sweet Lord! If she took this gig with the Outlaws her financial fears would be a distant memory.

As if he could sense her wavering, Sean said, "All I'm asking is that you come in for a meeting before you say no. We need you."

Had a Crazy switch been turned on in her head? Was she really going to turn down this huge fee, especially since this job could springboard into other big clients?

Yet even if she didn't have a personal history with Ty, how could anyone expect her to change him from a playboy into a solid, reliable man? It was too big a job for one person. And how embarrassing and unprofessional would it be if they found out she'd been one of his early groupies?

Especially one who only lasted one night?

"Look," Sean said into the weighted silence, "Ty Calhoun needs you. Desperately. I'm begging you, here."

All the air went out of her lungs. Ty needed her? Well, he'd acted like he needed her once before, and she'd been so blind with lust and what she'd thought was love that she'd needed him too. What a huge, enormous mistake that had been.

Nothing was ever going to make Ty change his ways. From everything she'd heard, he was just as selfish, just as screwed up, and just as much of a womanizing bastard as he'd been in high school. Oh, she understood that women wanted to save Ty, and his bad boy antics made him more attractive, more dangerous, more in need of saving than ever.

But she didn't have the slightest desire to reform a bad boy She liked her men intelligent, well groomed, and low-key.

Unfortunately, Sean took her silence as acquiescence, because he said, "We'll be by your office in twenty minutes," then hung up.

Julie blinked at the telephone for a long, confused moment, then ripped off her headset and threw it down onto her glass-topped desk.

"Amy," she called, "I need you to take a meeting for me." But when she poked her head into her friend's office, it was empty.

"Amy just left for a doctor's appointment," her new receptionist said with a helpful smile.

"Oh, right, thanks," Julie said, hating the way she was stumbling over her thoughts—something she never, ever did.

Pull yourself together. This meeting would be no different from any other difficult situation. She'd be cool, composed, and unflappable. No matter what Ty said or did, she'd refuse to be baited. She felt nothing but pity for the man he'd become. A boy could be excused for his actions, but a man had to take responsibility for his life. Based on media accounts of his wild partying and speeding tickets and evenings with strippers, Ty was as far from responsible as a person could be. No matter how good he looked when he walked in the door, pity would be her only emotion.

As she redid her makeup, made sure that her fishnets didn't have a run, and buffed her peep-toe, black patent leather heels, Julie reminded herself that anything she'd felt for him had died long ago. And nothing could ever bring those pointless feelings back.

CHAPTER THREE

Ty followed Sean through a shiny red door into Julie's office, and didn't even stare at the cute receptionist's nicely showcased ass. Not today. Today was all about Julie. He looked into the glass-walled offices beyond, not surprised to see that Julie had done very well for herself. She'd always been poised to be successful, to take what she wanted. And then he saw her, pushing open the door of her office, walking straight toward them. A surge of emotions shot through him—longing, hope, pain, lust—and he knew the only way he could deal was to shut them all down.

Heat shot straight to his groin. Even in her buttoned-up-to-the-neck sweater and knee-length skirt, Julie put every other woman he'd been with to shame. She was still the bar by which he measured the female sex, and everyone else came up short. Way short.

Her legs seemed to go all the way to her neck, and they were neither pencil thin nor overly muscular. She had rounded calves that he wanted to sink his teeth into, the sexiest kneecaps he'd ever seen, and her thighs would tempt a monk. Plus, that glorious ass of hers created the perfect waist-to-hips ratio. They were the perfect handful for grabbing onto when she was riding above—or below—him in bed.

Ty's gaze moved past her waist and up to her chest. Damn, a guy could be moved to write poetry about br**sts like those. Marilyn Monroe would have had some stiff competition if Julie had been around in the fifties.

Finally raising his gaze to her face, he took in the ice-cold eyes that studied him as if he were a bug beneath a microscope.

One that she wanted to spear beneath her very sexy stiletto heel.

Okay, so she was still pissed at him. No big surprise there. A flash of guilt hit him square in the chest, and he couldn't believe he was still feeling bad about things after all these years. Grad night had been the usual party mix of drinking, dancing, and sex. The only surprising thing was that the sex had been with a virgin.

With Little Miss Perfect.

With the one girl he'd always wanted but knew he could never have.

He'd never been good enough for her, and one look now at her expression told him that all the money and fame and success in the world hadn't changed anything.

Julie seethed as Ty reached out to shake her hand. How dare he walk into her office as if he'd never ripped her heart out of her chest and thrown it overboard? Her final words to him on the morning after grad night played over and over in her head.