by Tracey Ward
“She was stepping on your toes all day. She deserved it,” Les reminds me.
I’m not entirely convinced he’s right. I feel guilty about what I said. It was all true, but I could have been better about it. I could have found a way to say it without being insulting. We’re both women in a male dominated field trying to make our way. She’s been doing it diligently for over a decade, a pioneer paving the way for women like me to be more than our measurements, more than a pretty face and a piece of ass, and I tore her down. All in the name of my own pride.
“Let’s call it a day,” I sigh, standing slowly. “I think we got everything we need for now.”
Travis checks his watch. “We’ve still got another seven minutes out the twenty. You sure you want to stop?”
“My rhythm is broken. I don’t even know where I’d pick up.”
“I have to put in the full time,” Kurtis tells me. He’s still in his chair, kicked back comfortably like he’s waiting for me. “If I don’t they’ll say I’m not cooperating. I’ll be fined.”
“I’m sure you can afford it.”
“There are better things to spend money on.”
“You haven’t even asked the lead question,” Travis reminds me. “We need an answer from all of them for the intro work.”
I glance at my notes. He’s right. I marked my questions off as I asked them but Carmen dove in at the start of the interview and threw me off. I didn’t ask the question at the heart of the documentary.
I sit down slowly, giving Les time to get us rolling again. “How do you feel about the Kodiak’s chances at the Super Bowl this year? Is this the year it finally happens?”
Kurtis frowns. “To be honest, I don’t feel any kind of confidence about our chances at the Super Bowl this year. I don’t feel like we’re going to win and I don’t feel like we’re going to lose. The season hasn’t even started yet. There could be injuries. There could be blow outs. We could win every game or we could lose every game. There’s no way of knowing until it’s done. Asking how I feel about an upcoming season is like asking if I enjoyed a meal I haven’t eaten yet. The answer is I don’t know.”
I smile faintly, closing my notebook. “Okay. Thank you.”
“That’s it? You don’t have anything else?”
“I told you, my rhythm is thrown off. But I think we got everything we need for now.”
“When will you need me in here again?”
I sigh, glancing at Travis. “This is our last spotlight for now. We talked to the defense already. Domata. Avery. Anthony. I think we have everything we need until the season officially starts.”
Travis nods in silent agreement. He’s started packing up, rolling long, black cords around his forearm. Alec has disappeared in the corner with the boom mic. Les pulls the camera off its stand with a decisive click. They’re dismantling the room, our time with Kurtis officially over.
Kurtis stands and I watch as he shakes hands with each of the guys in the room, thanking them for their time. He comes to me last.
I feel nervous as I offer him my hand. “Thank you for giving us your time.”
He reaches for me slowly, eyeing my hand with unveiled suspicion. Finally he takes it in his. “You’re welcome.”
“Next time we’ll be sure to start trying to schedule you two months in advance instead of just the one.”
He grins, his hand still holding mine. “It won’t help.”
“I didn’t honestly believe it would.”
“You’ll call Hollis if you need anything from me?”
“I wouldn’t know how else to get in touch with you.”
“Are you saying you want my number, Harper? Seems forward.”
I glare at him. “It wasn’t too long ago you were asking me for my number.”
“A lot has changed since then.”
“Nothing has, not really. You just know more now than you did then.”
“Do I know more or do I know better?”
“You tell me.”
His eyes search my face. My body. His grip on my hand tightens briefly before he lets it go. “I can’t decide.”
“Let me know if you ever do.”
“Believe me,” he mutters, leaning in close to kiss me chastely on the cheek. “You’ll be the first to know.”
He leaves the room without another word. The room feels cold when he’s gone. Deflated. Empty.
“You know, Harper,” Travis drawls quietly, “if you’re going to eye-fuck a guy that hard, you should really use protection.”
“Ha ha,” I reply sarcastically, the sound weak to my own ears.
The guys start packing up the gear behind me as I pull out my phone. I keep my face to the wall, keeping it composed, but inside I’m flustered. I’m freaking out. The guys are joking now, but they’re too close to the truth. They’re seeing too much because I’m not hiding any of it, not like I should. I can’t touch Kurtis Matthews, not while I’m on this project. He’s part of the job and I don’t mix my work with my personal life. Not anymore. Not since Derrick and the disaster that followed in his wake.
I can’t have another Derrick in my life.
I grab my bag off the table, heading for the door. “I’m outta here. You guys have a good night.”
They shout goodnight after me, all of them surprised. I never leave first. I’m always the last out the door, but today I can’t handle it. I can’t be around them when I’m like this; out of control. Out of my mind over a man.
I don’t turn to look at them. If I do I’ll stop. Travis will pull me in with questions and concerns and I really can’t right now. I need to hit up a drug store, score some kind of sleep aid, and get to bed. I don’t care if it’s early. I need sleep, I need clarity, and I need it now.
I’m surprised and relieved that when I get into the hall it’s empty. Kurtis moves fast. He disappears and appears like a ghost. It’s creepy and hot.
Why is it hot? No clue. But it is. No doubt about it.
I push the button for the elevator, feeling impatient and exhausted. My leg twitches anxiously. My fingers tug at the strap on my bag. I wait for over a minute with no reaction from the machine and I think Kurtis must have taken it down. It’ll smell like him when I go inside. Like his cologne and his skin. I’ll have to live inside it in the elevator for thirty seconds, but it’ll stay in my nose, in my mind, for days.
Not helping.
I groan in frustration as I turn away from the stagnant elevator. To my right is a door clearly marked STAIRS. There’s no emergency sign on it, so I push it open with a loud clang! and hurry into the semi-dark space.
I immediately crash into a wall.
Not a wall. A man. A mass of muscle, soft cotton, dark cologne, bright eyes. Soft lips.
My hands are on his chest, my breath trapped inside my lungs as I stare up at him. As he stares down at me, his palms heavy on my hips. I’m pressed against him from head to toe; hard, soft. He searches my eyes, his own hooded and confused. Angry. Irritated. Excited.
“I was—” I whisper, my throat too thick to speak. I swallow roughly. “I was leaving.”
“So was I,” he tells me, his voice echoing through the stairs until he’s everywhere. He’s surrounding me.
“You’re still here.”
“I was waiting.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you waiting for me?”
He flinches, his face going to war for half a second before he lowers his lips to within an inch of mine. “You ask too many fucking questions.”
Kurtis doesn’t kiss me; he takes me. He takes all of me with his tongue and his lips, his hands and his hips. I stumble backward against the cold metal of the stairwell door, his body crushing me. Trapping me and devouring me. His thigh is between my legs, against my heat that’s burning out of control as I claw desperately at his shoulders. I can’t get him close enough. I can’t move the way I want to. I can’t breathe the way I need to. He’s all consuming,
all encompassing, and I feel faint as I willingly let him feast on me.
I can hear our breaths rebounding off the walls, both of us desperate and erratic, and the sound sends me higher. It makes it so much hotter. I wrap my arms around his neck, pushing my fingers roughly into his soft hair as his hand rises up my side and over my breast. He takes hold of it without preface or preamble. Just blind want driving him forward, making me arc my back to push myself harder against his palm. Pleading with him to go farther. To strip away every barrier between us and have his fill of me.
“Touch me,” I plead against his mouth.
I expect my words to unleash something inside him. To set free whatever small piece of him is holding back.
I do not expect it to stop him cold.
His hand falls away first. Then his lips are gone. His thigh grinding against me vanishes, leaving me cold and confused.
My eyes flutter, my mouth hangs open, lips swollen from his kiss, and I watch him retreat. One step. Two. Three.
He scowls as he looks me over, taking in every overstimulated inch of me. Everything but my eyes.
“What—“
He turns his back on me, rushing down the stairs. He takes them two at a time, flying from the landing, from me. He disappears into the darkness below.
I gape after him, stunned. I listen to his steps as they rush farther and farther from me. They end with a hard bang! A door being closed.
I’m alone.
My chest is heaving, my heart still racing, my brain a blur of emotion and sensation. Even so, one thought forms crystal clear at the front of my mind.
I’m definitely not getting to sleep tonight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KURTIS
Touch me.
It’s physically painful how hard her words shut my body down. It feels like a car crash. My hands are shaking as I burst out of the building and into the parking lot. It’s empty, thank God. A few cars sitting dark and vacant, but not a soul in sight.
I pull my keys from my pocket with fumbling fingers. I have to leave. I have to go home. I have to get my ass in control. This feeling I have, this need in my blood for Harper, it’s so familiar. So terrifyingly familiar.
I can’t do this again.
Once I’m inside the truck I stop to breathe. I hold on tight to my keys, feeling them dig painfully into my palm. I focus on the feeling. I pour myself into it as I pull in deep, clean breaths. In. Out. Calm. In. Out. Calm.
I can’t get the feel of her off my skin. The taste of her off my tongue. She was wild and hot under my hands, igniting everywhere I touched her. So responsive, so eager, like an engine ready to race. Ready to run.
Suddenly my heart is flying again, faster than before.
I could do it. I could go to the garage and get her out of storage. She hasn’t been started in a month but I’m sure she’ll run. She always does. She always has for me. I’ll take her into the desert and drive and drive and drive until we see it in the distance; the shimmering lights calling us home. Waving in the thick, boiling air like a finish flag for me and my lime green girl. My Challenger.
My Hellcat.
That car is the only piece of my old life I held onto when I left California. She was the first thing I bought with that NFL money, brand new, straight off the lot, and she was the only thing I couldn’t get rid of when I left. I put her in a storage unit, threw a heavy, gray cloth over her gleaming, green paint, and I walked away. I’ve been back for a year and I haven’t been out to see her. Haven’t driven her. Haven’t raced her. I've been too busy being good. Laying low. Playing it safe. I haven't been the old me, the reckless me, for years, but coming back here it feels like it's only a matter of time.
Tonight could be that night.
I run through the old ritual; checking my wallet for cash. It’s full but it’s only twenties. It’s not what I need.
What do I have in my checking account? What’s in my savings? How much room do I have on my credit card?
Enough. There’s more than enough. I’ve been good for a long time now. All those months in Montana I didn’t have a choice. There was nowhere to go. But now I’m back and Vegas is only a stone’s throw away. An overnight trip. I could be back tomorrow in time for my meeting with Coach Allen. I could squeeze in a shower, maybe a nap. Maybe get laid while I’m there, take the edge off. I know a girl or two. It’s been years but women like that, they don’t go out of business. They aren’t pros, but they can fuck like one. They’ll be prowling the tables, looking for rollers. They’ll remember me.
And so will I.
It’s coming back to me now, like hearing a song on the radio that you barely remember, but suddenly all of the lyrics are there in your mind. On your lips. You didn’t know you still knew them and you wonder what important part of your life your mind gave up to store them. What part of you have you lost?
You’ll never know, because it’s already gone.
The sound of the heavy doors leading out of the stadium bang roughly to my left. I look out the window to see Harper striding across the parking lot, her head down and her hand in her hair. Her long, dark, silken hair. She looks angry, annoyed, her features tight in a way that makes my chest ache. In a way that pulls me out of the truck, down onto the asphalt.
“Harper.”
She halts, her eyes immediately locked on mine. She watches me walk toward her cautiously. We stare at each other as a warm breeze rolls over the pavement between us, tugging her hair from her hands.
“I thought you left,” she tells me carefully.
“I did. I am.”
“So am I.”
I study her for a long time. Too long. The words I owe her, they’re hard to come by. They always have been.
“Well,” she begins slowly, “I’ll see—“
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” She blinks. “You don’t—it’s okay.”
“I shouldn’t have left you in the stairwell like that. That was shitty. I’m not that guy. Not anymore.”
“But you used to be?”
I shift my keys in my hand, running my thumb along the sharp ridges of one. “Nobody is who they used to be.”
“Who are you now?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
She smiles sadly, her face soft in the purple evening light. “I know the feeling.”
I feel myself grin, though I don’t know why. It’s a reflex. A reaction to her and her smile. Her eyes. “You said you’re done with the other spotlights. Does that mean you talked to Tyus?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“How’d that go?”
“He was casual and smiling. He even hugged me when he came in. And when I asked about the night of the Draft, he admitted to being unhappy about Coach Allen’s choice, but he spun the feeling and vowed that it would only drive him do better. He said he wasn’t the least bit worried about the new blood coming in.”
“And you believed him?”
“Almost.”
I lick my lips, feeling my stomach turn. “Why didn’t you ask me about leaving California tonight?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe because I knew you’d never answer me.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Yeah,” she insists, not budging. Not opening up any more than she has to. “Maybe.”
“What if I told you I’d answer you right now? No cameras. Off the record. Just between you and me. Would you ask me then?”
“Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Maybe.”
She snorts softly. “I’ll pass.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re testing me, aren’t you? I haven’t earned the right to ask you that question yet. The trust isn’t there and you want to make sure I know it. But the fact that there’s a test, that I could be wrong, tells me that there’s a scenario where I could be right. Where I can ask you that question and you’ll answer me honestly.”
She smiles slyly. “You want me to slow down but you also want me to keep swinging. So I will.”
She’s using my words against me, and the absolute treachery of it is sexy as shit.
“I’m gonna go,” I tell her, refusing to confirm or deny her assumption. “I’ll wait until you’re in your car before I do.”
“Do you regret it?” she asks suddenly. Her words are confident and curious, not the least bit insecure.
I laugh raggedly. “I regret a lot of things in my life, Harper, but kissing you is not one of them. I’d do it again right now if I thought I had the strength to stop it twice.”
“I’m glad you did.”
My smile fades. “Do you regret it?”
“No, but it’s a bad idea. You and I in any way is a bad idea.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“It’s still true.”
“But here we are.”
“Yeah,” she mumbles, sounding tired. “Here we are.”
I look toward the exit where her crew could appear at any moment. She’ll distance herself from me then. She’ll be Harper with the cameras and the questions, not Harper with the eyes and ass. With a kiss like fire I can still taste on my tongue.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
I chuckle, turning my eyes back to her. “Who am I going to tell?”
“I don’t know, but don’t. Please. It’ll look bad for me, like I’m a rooster in a hen house.”
“There’s nothing to tell. We kissed. It was hot. It’s over.”
“Is it?”
“You taste like midnight,” I tell her, ignoring the question because I don’t know how to answer it. Not honestly. “How is that possible?”
She scowls playfully. “Is that a reference to my skin color?”
“I’m talking about what’s under your skin. What’s inside you.” I watch the wind take her hair, pulling it across her chest. Her neck. It flies beside her face like the dark banner of a sable queen. “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. Serious and brilliant like evening sky and burning stars.”
She hesitates, digesting my words. Choosing her own carefully. “I’m never going to get a read on you, am I? No matter how many questions I ask or how hard I try to figure you out, you’ll never stop being a mystery.”
