Chapter 9

She ran. God help her, she ran like the ninny she was, pushing through the heavy door like the devil himself was riding her ass. And she didn’t stop until she stood with her forehead pressed against the cool metal lockers.

Her pulse raced, and in her mind, the war waged on. She was single. He was single. It wasn’t like she was his superior, and he was nowhere close to being hers. She supposed there’d be hell to pay if Mike ever found out about them. No doubt Danny had more at risk than she did, and if he didn’t care…

But there were even more complications. They’d signed a contract with the television studio. Millie wanted friction for the camera. Kate wanted friction of an entirely different kind. But she wasn’t about to let the media dictate her sex life. At least not any more than she had let Jim Davenport and his remarkable lack of libido impact it.

No, the television show wasn’t her problem. Neither was generating publicity for the school. This was her off-season. Shouldn’t she be able to get off?

The sound of a shower running made her skin prickle. She flipped over and stared at the opposite wall, as if her super X-ray vision could map out the plumbing lines inside the wall dividing the men’s facilities from the women’s. Then again, if she had X-ray vision, she wouldn’t be wasting it on a maze of copper pipe.

It had been all she could do to keep from gawking at him in the weight room. She closed her eyes and slid her hand to the valley between her breasts. Her heart beat fast and hard. Groaning, she compressed one aching nipple with the flat of her palm. It didn’t help.

His skin had been so hot. He was leaner than she had expected. She’d thought most former football players ran to fat after their playing days ended, but Danny hadn’t. Every bit of him was firm. So firm.

The loose shorts he wore did little to hide the outline of his cock. Her mouth had run dry when she’d first spotted the telltale bulge in the mirror. Her mouth was still dry, as a matter of fact. She tried to swallow, but her throat was thick and rough, and nothing happened. A moment of panic seized her. She pushed away from the lockers, her gaze set on the water fountain mounted to the wall.

The rub of her thighs against each other made it abundantly clear where all her moisture had pooled. Her cheeks flamed even as she bent for a sip, and a series of tantalizing thoughts danced in her head. They were all alone. The place was a ghost town in the first weeks of summer. She was wet. He was wet. There was no reason in the world they shouldn’t be wet together.

Well, no reason other than common sense, pride, and the threat of public humiliation served up with a side of career suicide.

But at that moment, reason was more slippery than the desire pooling between her legs. She moved on instinct, breaking for the goal as if she had a ball in her hand and a clear path to the game-winning shot.

The hydraulic hinge on the heavy locker room door shushed the nagging voice in her head. She hooked a sharp right and plowed into the men’s facilities. The sound of water beating tile greeted her. A low groan drew her up short, just shy of the shower room door.

Pressing her hand to her throat, she peered cautiously around the corner. The new and improved Warrior facilities boasted the luxury of tiled half walls, providing a modicum of privacy for the athletes as well as some handy-dandy shelves for toiletry items. Danny stood in the nearest stall with a hand planted on the wall. Water beat down on his neck and shoulders. It ran like a river along the deep groove of his spine and spilled over the high, round curve of his tight ass. But neither those firm, pale globes of muscle nor the tantalizing hollows that led to his hips were what pulled her in. It was the sight of his right hand wrapped around his cock.

He stroked himself with a ruthless determination that made her gasp. She wanted to cry out. Tell him to stop. Be gentle. Go faster. Harder. Wait. Let her. But Kate couldn’t seem to extract the actual words.

So she chose action.

Billows of steam enveloped her. The soles of her bright new sneakers squeaked. His shoulders tensed, and the jerky movement of his hand stopped. She placed her hand on his back to keep him from looking at her. “Don’t turn around.” She inhaled shakily. “Don’t stop.”

The spray soaked the front of her tank and spattered her legs. Being a woman with her priorities firmly in line, she spared her last rational thought for her shoes. Danny stood still as a statue as she toed off the sneakers and kicked them toward the door. He didn’t move when she let her fingertips slide over his smooth skin, tracing the contours of his broad back. The rise and fall of his ribs betrayed his outward calm. She wanted to make him pant. The thought galvanized her. If she was going to do something this stupid, the man would have to exert himself.

Reaching around, she ran teasing fingertips over the back of his hand. He was still gripping his cock. “I said, don’t stop.”

His hand began to move, but slower this time.

“That’s right.” She brushed a glancing kiss to his shoulder blade, then ran her tongue over the curve of his neck, lapping precious moisture from his heated skin. She wrapped her hand around his as she plastered herself to his back.

“Slower,” she whispered into his ear.

A gratifying shiver ran through him, and she smiled as she kissed the tender patch of skin beneath it.

“Let it play out.”

To his credit, Danny made no arrogant remark or attempt at sexy banter. He simply did as he was told, slowing his strokes to match the pace she set. Unable to resist, she brushed the swollen tip of his cock with her thumb. Her heart tripped over itself as she pressed her cheek to his shoulder and closed her eyes.

“That’s it,” she murmured as he settled into the slow, steady rhythm.

“Every day.” The words rumbled from his chest, enunciated through clenched teeth. “I’ve thought about this every day.”

She didn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t. The last thing she wanted was to break the spell of sensuality billowing around them like the shower steam.

“Kate.”

His voice broke, the single syllable spilling a torrent of desire and emotion. A flash of panic seized her. She wasn’t ready for that. She wanted to float along on a stream of sensation that had nothing to do with emotion. She pressed against the taut mound of his ass, undulating shamelessly. Danny groaned loud and long, slowing his strokes as he pressed back against her.

She needed to keep control. Grab a branch and pull herself out before the current was too strong to fight. Get them back on the same playing field. Forcing her eyes open, she focused on the tile wall beyond them as she launched her offense. “You’ve thought about jerking off in the shower?”

He chuckled—a soft, sexy roll of unguarded pleasure that left her cursing the layers of sopping wet Lycra between them and the fact that she couldn’t quite get herself off by humping his ass.

“I’ve jerked off in the shower every day thinking about you. You and me.”

The correction came out gruff and terse, but her smile only widened. Wanting more, she scraped her teeth over his nape. “Really?”

“God yes,” he groaned.

Unwilling to let her goad him into revealing more lurid thoughts, he released his grip on his cock and grasped her wrist. The none-too-gentle hold made her gasp. The quiver of barely restrained strength in his arm made her want to rub herself all over him. He pressed her palm to his straining dick. She wrapped her fingers around him and hummed her appreciation. “You and me…such a bad idea.”

“But it feels so good.”

He was close. She knew that in one stroke. Ripples traveled up that stretched-taut flesh. The velvet-soft head of his cock popped out of her fist, dark, swollen, and glistening. She pressed a lingering, open-mouthed kiss to the sweet spot behind his ear, then pressed her cheek to his shoulder blade.

“Don’t hold back. I want you to come.” Her whispered wish came out softer than the spray, but she knew he heard her, because every muscle in his body tensed.

He resisted for the space of a heartbeat, but she brushed a tender kiss over his shoulder, letting him know it was okay. She had him. She wouldn’t let him down. He exhaled hard, his shoulders slumping as he surrendered to her touch.

Hot come spilled over her hand just as a low, guttural groan ripped through him. She pumped him sure and steady, milking the orgasm for all he was worth, though her knees trembled. Kissing his smooth skin, she stifled the urge to curse the steady stream of water for washing away his heat. She wanted to keep it, hold it, possibly commemorate this moment of triumph with a plaque she could hang in her office and admire whenever she wanted.

“Kate.”

He didn’t turn to look at her or press back against her body. Instead, he fell forward, planting his hands on the wall to catch his weight. She stretched her fingers under the spray, sending the last vestiges of this encounter spiraling down the drain, then took a step back.

The sopping wet Spandex made a disgusting sucking noise as she pulled her tank away from her skin. Mortified by the sound and her reckless actions, she stumbled toward the shower room’s entrance. “This didn’t happen.”

“Bullshit it didn’t. Kate…”

A note of urgency filled his voice, but she didn’t look back. Without breaking stride, she snagged her discarded shoes from the floor and started toward the door. “I’ll see you at the studio.”

“I never took you for a quitter,” he called as she grasped the handle on the locker room door.

She turned to find him standing in the middle of the locker room, stark naked, dripping wet and semihard. The sight of him, at once brashly bold and wholly vulnerable, ratcheted up her desire. “I’m not.”

“Why are you running away?”

“I’m not.” She winced, wishing she’d taken a second to think of a new response, but how could she when he was just standing there like that? “I just…people are going to start showing up,” she finished with a weak gesture toward the wall clock.

“Dinner. Tonight.”

She blinked, a bit affronted by his presumption but too turned on to work up a decent amount of ire. “We can’t go out. We’re supposed to hate each other, remember?”

His eyes narrowed. “I never agreed to that.”

“But you will,” she said, and his jaw tightened. She saw the little muscle beneath his ear jump and wanted to lick the stray drops of water from that spot. Widening her stance, she cocked her head and softened her tone. “You need this publicity, Danny. The school does too.”

“And you’re willing to go along with it?”

The slight sneer in his tone didn’t put her off. She knew all about pride, and it didn’t take a shrink to see that his was tragically wounded. “I’m a Warrior. My contract is up for renewal. I’ll do what’s good for the program.”

He took a long step forward, completely unselfconscious. “And what about what’s good for you?”

His implication rattled her. “You think you’re good for me?”

“I think we could be very good together.”

She pursed her lips to make it look like every hormone in her body wasn’t agreeing with him wholeheartedly. Gripping the door handle hard enough to turn her knuckles white, she let him sweat it out a bit.

“My place after taping,” she said as she opened the door just wide enough to peer into the weight room. Finding it empty, she heaved a sigh and pulled it open wider. “Pick up a pizza on your way over.”

She’d almost escaped when he called after her, “What kind? Pepperoni? Supreme? Veggie?”

Poking her head back in, she scoffed. “Veggie? Really? Didn’t you see what I did to that salad?”

He stared straight into her eyes. “You’re beautiful when you’re soaking wet.”

She blinked at him, then shook her head. “Just for that, you’re bringing the beer too. And none of that ‘light’ crap either. Real beer,” she ordered as the door swung shut behind her.

* * *

“I’m just saying it seems like a cheap way to delay the inevitable, that’s all. Who in their right mind thinks they can overcome a three-basket deficit when the clock has started adding the decimal point to the equation?”

Danny leaned forward in his chair, his hands planted flat on his knees. He’d tried to pound a fist on the arm of the chair to drive home a point earlier in the taping, but the hollow thud hadn’t had the desired impact. All it garnered was a pitying smirk from the woman sitting across from him. The slim, snug pencil skirt Kate was wearing, on the other hand, packed all the wallop of an atomic bomb. Judging from the appreciative once-over he’d caught the sports anchor giving her, he wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Turning back to the guy in the middle—Davenport, that was the string-bean reporter’s name—Danny flashed a winning smile. “Come on, Jim. I know you’re a basketball guy and all, but you have to admit the last couple of minutes of the game get a little ridiculous at times.”

“Ridiculous?” Kate edged forward in her seat. “What’s ridiculous is you telling me that managing the clock to my team’s advantage is different from trying to ice a kid attempting to kick a twelve-inch ball through a couple of poles from fifty yards away.”

“Eleven inches,” he corrected. “A regulation ball is between ten and a half and eleven and a half inches.”

A smile quirked her lips. Dark brows arched eloquently. “Wow. I have to say, I’m a little shocked. Most guys would try to add an inch rather than take one away.”

“Some of us don’t need to,” he retorted.

Suddenly, the scarecrow perched between them pressed a finger to his earpiece and sprang to life. “And that looks like all the time we have for this week. Coach Snyder, Coach McMillan, thanks for joining us here on The Warrior Way.”

The moment they were clear, Davenport turned toward Kate, effectively blocking Danny out. Not one to be put off by guys he could snap like toothpicks, Danny simply unclipped his microphone and stood. The sportscaster rambled on about the summer basketball camps, all the while darting glances over his shoulder as if waiting for Danny to leave the set. For his part, Danny wasn’t a big fan of how close String Bean’s knee was to Kate’s. As a matter of fact, it rankled him enough to make him step up. If anyone was getting close to that sexy, black skirt, it was going to be him.

“If you’ll excuse us, Coach Snyder and I have another meeting this evening,” he said, interrupting the man midsentence.

Davenport turned to Kate for confirmation. “You do?”

“We do?” she asked at the same time.

The impertinent lift of her brow challenged him. One infinitesimal little quirk, and he found himself riding the razor’s edge of annoyed and intrigued. He glanced at Davenport, then met Kate’s gaze directly, brain and body willing to rise to whatever she threw at him. “Boosters. We were going to figure out a way to tap them to finish what was started in the shower rooms.”

“Oh.”

A rosy flush crept up her neck. It looked awful pretty with the pale-blue sweater she wore. In truth, he was becoming quietly obsessed with the sexy secretary look she sported in the studio. The costume, coupled with those disconcertingly frank stares, was enough to have him ready to climb out of his skin. That delicious blush was an added bonus. One he couldn’t wait to taste.

“Shower rooms?” Davenport glanced from Kate to him and back again. “Didn’t you just upgrade the facilities?”

She dismissed Davenport’s question with a shrug and rose. Standing almost toe-to-toe on the tiny set, she looked Danny straight in the eye and flashed a game-winning smile. “There are a few…finishing touches needed.”

The reporter stared up at them, his brow knit in confusion. “You’re going together.”

Kate stiffened and took a quick step back. The smile was nothing but a memory. “Well, we’re going to the same place,” she amended. She removed her own earpiece and mic and dropped the equipment onto the chair. “Do you need directions?”

She asked the question with such an air of polite distance, Danny almost laughed. “No, I know my way around pretty well.”

Her lips twitched, and she quickly bit the lower one as if she couldn’t trust it to behave on its own. “Fine. I’ll see you there.”

She pivoted and stepped off the set without giving them a chance to respond. Danny nodded to Davenport, then made to follow suit, but she stopped beyond the camera range and raised a finger as if a thought had occurred to her.

“Oh. Sometimes parking can be a bit hard to find off campus, but if you stick to the side streets, you’ll probably get lucky.”

Danny nodded once to let her know he caught her drift, raised a hand in farewell to Davenport, and followed Kate through the studio at a discreet distance.

Once they were out the door, Kate glanced over her shoulder and added, “Don’t forget the beer.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Danny paused on the sidewalk, fidgeting with his car keys as he inspected the neighborhood. He’d parked around the corner from Kate’s neat, little bungalow—per her veiled instructions—but it irked him to do it. When he’d dropped off the shoes, it had been the dark of night, but he’d still pulled up to the curb in front of her house. Heaving a sigh, he opened the passenger door and retrieved the pizza box and six-pack of beer he’d picked up on his way over.

Kate obviously didn’t want him seen hanging out at her house. Probably wise, given that Millie was currently making them out to be Ali and Frazier, ready to go fifteen rounds at the sound of the bell. Plus, though he chose to ignore Mike’s pointed glares, he wasn’t oblivious to the risks in pursuing anything beyond a professional relationship with Kate. And yet another niggling voice in his head kept whispering that her reticence may have absolutely nothing to do with their current publicity campaign. Maybe she didn’t want to be seen with him. If that were the case, she was destined to be disappointed. He was done living his life under a cloud of shame. While he might have been willing to round a corner for the sake of its-nobody’s-damn-business, there was no way in hell he’d skulk down an alley like he was her backdoor man. They’d just have to figure out a happy medium.

As a concession to discretion, he snagged the green-and-gold Wolcott baseball cap off his dash and pulled it down low over his eyes. Hopefully any nosy neighbors who happened to be peeping through their blinds would think he was just a pizza delivery guy rather than the evil football coach come to debauch the Warrior princess.

Kate opened the door the second he reached the top step. To his relief, her smile was warm and welcoming. But judging from the speed with which she relieved him of his burden, she may only have been happy to see the pizza.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I ordered it loaded,” he said as he relinquished the six-pack.

“Just the way I like it.”

He tried not to stare at her ass when she bent to deposit the food and drinks on the low coffee table, but he failed miserably. She straightened, flipping back that smooth fall of dark hair with a toss of her head, and his vision blurred momentarily. He wet his lips, hoping to find something semiwitty lurking in his addled brain, but thankfully, Kate read his play.

She smiled as he advanced. They stood eye to eye. Their noses bumped as they sought just the right angle. His hand spread across her back, and he smiled when he realized she may even have him topped by an inch or so. For some reason, the discovery fired him up like a blowtorch. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t flinch or draw away.

That small indulgence was all the opening he needed. “I hope you don’t mind cold pizza and warm beer.”

“My favorites,” she whispered.