Page 33 of Love Game

“Queendom,” she corrected, sliding him a sly smile as he trailed kisses along the smooth muscles he’d traced. “And don’t you forget it.”

“I doubt you’ll let me.”

Scooting forward, she twisted her torso to look him in the eye. “I don’t have a Telestrator handy, but I have a coach’s clipboard.” She cocked her head, sending her ponytail swinging. “If I let you borrow it, can you draw up a play where this could work? I don’t see how either of us can come out the winner here.”

She held his eyes just long enough for him to see the golden light burning bright in hers. Then she dropped her gaze to his crotch and the obvious hard-on outlined by the clingy nylon of his shorts.

“Time to hit the showers, Coach. Best make it a cold one.”

“I have.” His confession came out in a hoarse rasp. “Every damn day since I met you. Doesn’t help.”

She shifted to rise from the bench. Lean quads bunched and stretched. The black compression shorts she wore clung to the flexing muscle but stubbornly refused to inch higher. Her body brushed his. It was the barest contact, but it set him off.

“We can’t do this, Dan.”

A slap across the face would have been less effective in snapping him back. “Danny,” he corrected automatically. Dan was his deadbeat father’s name, and he’d never answer to it.

“Daniel?”

The only people who ever called him Daniel were LeAnn and his mother. He refused to think about his messy affair with LeAnn, and the feelings he had toward Kate were a far cry from maternal. “It’s Danny.”

One dark brow rose. “Are you five?”

He scowled, refusing to be baited. “Are you trying to pick a fight so you can ignore what’s going on between us?”

“Nothing is going on between us.”

“But something should be.” Unable to stop himself, he tucked a stray wisp of her hair behind her ear. “And you know it as well as I do.”

Something that looked like regret flickered across her face, but by the time she met his eyes again, it was gone. “I know we’re in a public place.” Her brows inched toward her hairline. “Our work place.”

“No one is here.”

“We both are,” she argued. She darted a glance at the locker room doors. “Someone else could be.”

Frustrated, he gave in and made the move she so obviously wanted him to make—he stepped back. “Fine.”

She took the opening, swinging her leg over the bench and darting around him as if he were a player she’d instructed to set a pick. He turned to follow her progress as she made her way toward the door emblazoned with “Warrior Women.”

He let her get within arm’s reach of escape, then hit her with a zinger. “I’ve always hated the last two minutes of a basketball game.”

She froze, her arm stretched for the locker room door, her palm wide and fingers splayed. She shot a puzzled look over her shoulder. “What? Why?”

He smirked. All she needed was a football tucked into the crook of her arm, and she’d have been almost an exact replica of the Heisman Trophy. But one a damn sight hotter than old Ed Smith—that famous trophy’s inspiration—had ever been.

“Intentional fouls.” He started toward her but forced himself to make his steps slow and deliberate, giving her every opportunity to stop him if she wanted to. “I think intentionally fouling a player to stop the clock should be outlawed.”

She blinked as she straightened to her full height and turned back to him, her body tensed as if it took all her strength to absorb the sheer absurdity of his statement. “I’ve heard you have issues with clock management.”

He came to a stop right in front of her. “I don’t see the point in delaying the inevitable. I play straight, I play tough, and I play through to the end. No trick plays, just the fundamentals.”

Her lips parted, and it was all he could do to resist their pull.

“Make your fouls as flagrant as you want, Kate, but we both know the outcome is going to be the same.”

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.

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