Part 7 (1/2)

So he'd been looking for her. She tamped down the flutter of excitement in her chest. ”What's it to you?”

”Shannon, if they find out it was you in that locker room, they'll fire you. Isn't that what we're trying to avoid here?”

And there it was. We. ”Oh, for pity's sake, Brody. You're not worried about me. You're worried about you. As usual. If I get fired, you lose your leverage over me and you won't have anyone to fix your meals.”

His lips formed a grim line. ”Not quite all my leverage, Texas.”

That part was true, but it was against Shay's nature to concede defeat. ”What's done is done. Now can you let me out of here so I can go do my job?”

Brody blocked the door, his muscled arms belligerently crossed against his chest, his feet spread wide. He muttered something beneath his breath. ”Do you give all your boyfriends this much trouble?” he asked as he took two steps toward her.

”You're not my boyfriend, Brody.” It was a credit to her acting abilities that she could hide the disappointment in her voice.

Somehow he'd managed to move to within striking distance. He narrowed those cobalt eyes at her and suddenly there wasn't a breath of air left in the room.

”So then I shouldn't do this.”

Ever so gently, he cupped her face in his hands. Shay was too stunned to react as his lips descended toward hers. He definitely shouldn't be doing this, she thought to herself. But she did nothing to stop him. She couldn't. Even more embarra.s.sing, she wasn't able to stifle the soft moan of pleasure that escaped from the back of her throat as his lips made contact with hers. The sound was all the encouragement Brody needed.

He opened her mouth with his and she welcomed the invasion, his tongue sliding along her own. Heat pooled in her belly as Brody groaned, her embarra.s.sment quickly replaced by satisfaction. Her hands had somehow found their way into his hair and she threaded her fingers through the soft strands, the movement bringing their bodies closer. Brody lifted his hands from her face to explore the contours of her body, leaving a warm flush to her skin everywhere he touched. She sighed in protest as his lips left hers. But when they moved to caress the sensitive spot beneath her ear, her knees nearly buckled from the pleasure.

”I should have never let you leave my bedroom last night.”

The sensual haze was surely playing tricks on her hearing because men like Brody didn't say those kinds of things to women like Shay. If she were dreaming, she didn't want this interlude to end. Turning her head, she sought out his lips again. He didn't disappoint, claiming her mouth in a full, searching kiss. Shay arched her body into his as his hands cupped her bottom. Her own hands had somehow managed to slip underneath his T-s.h.i.+rt, her fingertips trailing over the smooth skin of his muscled abdomen.

Brody suddenly flinched, his breath catching in a hiss. Shay came to her senses with a start, breaking the kiss and taking a giant step back. She glanced up at his bewildered face. His hair was mussed from where her fingers had been and he was breathing as if he'd just run the length of a football field.

It was a moment before he broke the charged silence. ”Sorry. I got a stinger in practice yesterday, that's all.” He lifted up his T-s.h.i.+rt to show her his bruised stomach. ”See, nothing serious.”

Shay wasn't paying attention to his babbling, however. Shame washed over her as she caught sight of his very l.u.s.ty arousal. She'd been two minutes from shedding her drawers in the building where she interned. With a man who'd most likely done this thing a hundred times before; maybe in this very room. Worse, she'd wanted it as much as he did. Probably more.

”Shannon?” His tone was gentle as he took a step forward.

Shay put her hands up to stop him, unable to find her own voice. She needed to get out of there. Making a halfhearted attempt to right her appearance, she spied her hairnet lying on the floor next to his sneakered feet. But she didn't dare retrieve it. Not if it meant getting close to him again. Instead, she scrambled out of the room as quickly as she could, a strangled sob escaping her throat. Brody swore as she sped out, but thankfully, his current condition forced him to stay put.

Two days later, Brody was still edgy from his close encounter with Shannon. She'd made herself scarce again, prepackaging his dinners and snacks while he was at practice and leaving them in his fridge with detailed cooking instructions. He'd been wrong when he said Nate would be a p.r.i.c.k about his diet. Shannon Everett was worse. Way worse. She strictly regimented his day by what he ate and when. But he couldn't complain because his head was finally as clear as it had been before his symptoms started five months ago. As maddening as he found her routine, it was working. Now all he needed to do was to make the other parts of his body happy.

”Yo, Brody! Where's your girlfriend?” DeShawn called across the ballroom of the Baltimore hotel the Blaze stayed at the night before every home game. The team was rea.s.sembling for the coach's nine p.m. motivational pep talk before they dispersed to their rooms to catch the recap of the day's college football games and get some shut-eye. The same local restaurant catered the pregame meals for all the home games, so Shannon had the night off. Of course, that hadn't stopped her from organizing Brody's meals. How she'd managed it with the caterer he didn't know, but he was beginning to suspect that nothing stopped Little Miss Texas when she put her mind to it.

He gave his teammate a shrug. ”She has the night off.”

”Man, you need to be more careful with your lady,” the tailback said. ”You shouldn't let her tend bar without us there to keep the riffraff away.”

”She isn't tending bar tonight, either.” At least he hoped not. He'd spent five hours the previous evening nursing mineral water at Celtic Charm, keeping watch on Shannon as she mixed drinks. The three slugs from Santoni's had wandered through the bar area, along with the rest of the frat house, but they didn't linger. Most of the men vying for Shannon's attention had been his teammates, allowing Brody to relax a little. But only a little.

Thanks to the charade he was perpetrating with Shannon, he couldn't very well have hooked up with any of the women who'd been hitting on him last night. That little miscalculation was wreaking havoc with his body, with no relief in sight. Making matters worse, he wanted Shannon. G.o.d only knew the reason why. She wasn't going to grace the cover of the Sports Ill.u.s.trated swimsuit edition anytime soon. Not to mention Little Miss Texas was ornery as a mule. A man didn't stand a chance controlling a girl like that. Especially one with an IQ in the Big Bang Theory range. h.e.l.l, given the choice, he'd take a high-maintenance woman any day; she'd be less work than Shannon Everett.

The problem was, Brody couldn't stop thinking about kissing her. He'd known that if he got that second chance, he could coax a response out of her. What he hadn't been prepared for was the intensity of her response. She was equal parts innocence and s.e.x kitten, a conundrum even when she kissed. He'd been so overwhelmed by the way her body came alive beneath his hands and his lips that he'd nearly taken her right there in the training room. Even more astounding, he didn't think she'd put up any resistance if he'd tried. His body grew hard just thinking about it, making him squirm on the already uncomfortable banquet chair.

”You got ants in your pants, Janik?”

Brody stifled a groan as Shane Devlin slid into the chair next to him.

”More likely he's missing his new pretty girlfriend,” Will Connelly said as he folded his big body into the seat on Brody's other side.

Devlin waved a bag of nacho cheese corn chips in front of Brody's face. ”Chip?”

Brody shook his head and the quarterback reached across to offer the bag to Connelly.

”What's up with you, Janik?” Connelly asked, taking a handful. ”You normally eat like you've got a tapeworm.” The d.a.m.n linebacker was way too observant.

”Just being careful about what I fuel my body with before a game. All the better to optimize my performance.”

Devlin laughed as he crunched on a mouthful of chips.

Connelly eyed him shrewdly for a moment. ”What did I tell you about trying to navigate the Internet on your own? Don't get sucked into one of those crazy diet plans,” he teased.

”p.i.s.s off,” Brody said, and the two laughed harder.

Great. Not only was he jonesing for a certain whiskey-eyed bartender, but he had the bad luck to be sandwiched between the team's two most happily married men; one of whom was waving a tempting snack food in front of his face.

Coach Richardson took the podium and Devlin whispered to Brody. ”I've got two words for what ails you, Janik. Phone s.e.x.”

Connelly snorted beside him as Brody whipped his head around to stare at the quarterback.

Devlin kept his eyes fixed toward the front of the room. ”No diet's gonna fix what's eating you tonight, Brody. You need to call your girlfriend before you go to bed.”

Brody turned to his right where the linebacker smirked in his chair. ”Don't knock it until you've tried it.”

”TMI.” Brody shook his head in bewilderment as both men chuckled beside him. The image of the two men engaging in phone s.e.x with their wives creeped him out. Unfortunately, thinking about talking dirty with Shannon was punis.h.i.+ng his body further. h.e.l.l. It was going to be a long night.

Nine.

The midmorning sun felt good on Brody's shoulders as he jogged the perimeter of the painted football field. Kickoff wasn't until one o'clock, but it was his habit to take the earlier of the two team buses headed for the stadium. The gates wouldn't open for another half hour, allowing him to rehea.r.s.e his routes without the distraction of the crowd.

As he suspected, he'd had a restless night of sleep, but the exact.i.tude of his game day routine enabled him to relax into his playing zone. As he did every home game, Brody walked from the hotel to seven thirty ma.s.s at St. Leo the Great. He sat in the back with Sister Agnes, a nun who'd become a local celebrity for her weekly football picks on sports talk radio.

”Make sure you keep an eye on their corner, Chris Bailey. He had some speedy moves against Chicago last week,” she'd whispered during the homily. ”He's faster to the right, so keep him on your inside when you can.”

Talking football with a sixty-two-year-old nun always made Brody smile. Best of all, Sister Agnes knew the game and asked more astute questions than most of the media that hounded him in the locker room after the game. Brody had the benefit of game films to pick up that detail about Bailey, one a normal viewer might miss. He wasn't convinced that Sister Agnes didn't bring some divine intervention to her a.n.a.lysis of the game.

But ma.s.s had been three hours ago and he was starting to get antsy again. His cell phone buzzed inside the pocket of his shorts. Normally, he'd have turned it off by now, not wanting the distraction of family and friends calling, but he'd texted Shannon with a trumped-up excuse of needing one of her shakes before the game. He figured if she were in the stadium watching, he'd be able to concentrate better on his play. As usual, though, she drove a hard bargain.

She'd texted him back that she'd need two tickets. Brody hadn't counted on her bringing a date. Instead of his plan helping to mitigate his desire, he'd managed to add jealousy to the catalog of feelings he had for Shannon.