He put his fingers under her chin and tipped her head up so he could see her face. Her velvet brown eyes held guilt. “I work here.”

“We went out to dinner tonight.” He’d been able to just talk, no editing, no worrying about whether it would find its way onto the Internet tomorrow. Not to mention how the candlelight made her lips look full and kissable, while he’d pictured her silky dark hair cascading over her naked breasts.

She lifted her chin out of his grasp but kept her gaze on him. “That was part of the tour.”

“I’ll get a private room at the restaurant. No one will know.” And afterward, well, he had a limo.

He saw longing weaken her resolve and applied more leverage. “Any restaurant in the city. Your choice.”

She still hesitated, so he used his final weapon. He leaned in and devoured her mouth in a hot, sensual kiss.

When he finally released her, her fingers were digging into his shoulders, and her eyes were closed. He allowed himself a satisfied smile as he felt how hard her nipples were.

Her eyelids fluttered open, so he could see the haze of desire in her eyes. “You’re used to getting what you want.”

“Is that a yes?” He waited.

She inhaled, pressing those tight nipples more firmly against him. “Yes, I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow.” She gave him a seductive smile. “But you have to make the reservations.”

Chapter 13

Trevor shuffled into the kitchen wearing flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt. “You were out late last night,” he said as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Yeah.” Luke took a sip of his protein shake. He had already showered and dressed in his film-watching outfit of navy blazer, khakis, and a blue button-down shirt with well-shined loafers. As he’d pulled on his clothes, he’d been relieved to find that his night with Miranda had not aggravated his injuries. In the throes of lovemaking, the bruises had been forgotten, which meant he hadn’t been careful about how he moved. Truth was, his body felt more fluid today, so maybe the sex had been good for him. He’d go with that.

Trevor persisted. “I guess your tour went beyond the cultural.”

“I went to the ballet.” Luke figured that would throw Trevor off the scent.

His brother froze for a moment and then started to laugh. “No, seriously. Where did you go last night?”

“The New York City Ballet. An all-Balanchine program. Those dancers are in shape, man.”

Trevor choked on his coffee. “Okay. Say I buy that. The ballet is over at ten thirty, max. You didn’t stroll in until way later than that.”

“All that dancing made me want to do the same, so I went to Cleats.”

“You could have called me.”

Luke thought of Miranda having an orgasm in his arms on the dance floor, one of the most intense things he’d experienced sexually, which was saying something considering that he hadn’t been involved. That made his cock hard all over again. And made him glad he hadn’t called his brother.

“Next time, Trev.” Luke took another swallow of the protein shake. “How’d your meetings go?”

His brother looked out the windows toward the Verrazano Bridge. “Not so great.”

“Academia is a tough field.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Trevor snapped.

“I was stating a fact. Lots of candidates, few job openings.”

“Tell me about it.” His brother transferred his gaze to his coffee mug before he looked up. “I know I was supposed to leave Friday, but I need to stay a little longer, bro.”

Luke cursed inwardly as he thought of his big, comfortable bed and what he wanted to do with Miranda in it. But he didn’t trust Trevor to keep his mouth shut, so he wasn’t going to let the two of them get near each other. “Mi casa es su casa.”

Trevor stared back into his coffee cup. “Jodie told me not to come home until I had a tenure-track job offer. She said she didn’t care where it was, but she wasn’t going to wait any longer to have children.” He plunked down on a kitchen stool. “With my lack of publications, no one is going to hire me at that level.”

A bad feeling hit the pit of Luke’s stomach. “Not to kick a man when he’s down, but why don’t you finish that book you’ve been working on? You’ve done the research.” Maybe his brother had writer’s block like that asshole Miller.

“It’s not good enough.”

“You don’t know that.” One thing about Luke’s career—it was easy to measure it in wins and losses.

“Yeah, I do. Wilson at Art Forum Press says it’s publishable, but not groundbreaking.”

“You don’t need groundbreaking. You just need publishing credit.”

Trevor stood up. “Really? You would be happy with an adequate career in the NFL? No, you had to be the best goddamned quarterback in the history of the sport. Shit, Luke, don’t be such a hypocrite.”

“What you do and what I do are totally different.” Luke kept his voice level, the way he did when tempers flared in the locker room. “There’s no comparison.”

“Damn straight there isn’t. You make hundreds of millions of dollars, and I make peanuts. Even if I got tenure at Harvard, I’d still make peanuts compared to you.”

Luke wanted to say it wasn’t a competition, but that was crap. Everything in his life was about winning and losing. “You’re comparing apples and oranges. My career will last maybe another four years. You have the best of yours in front of you.”