by Leslie North
The Nutty Norwegian, who called him stud and roused a cacophony of whistles and cheers from the female fans.
Clarence “Crazy Jack” Dawson with his shoe story—thankfully, leaving out the part of the discussion about Willow.
Millicent, with her fancy scarf…
A handful of kids from Sol’s gym—now Henry’s—that Chase mentored…
A woman from the local women’s shelter, with an old mayonnaise jar and a story about how she found it in their night drop, filled with money and Chase’s collectable player’s card.
Dylan and Mike…
Alejandro and his beautiful daughter, who blew a kiss to the camera for Chase…
The video was supreme. Masterfully edited, fancy graphics, spliced with endless photos fans had sent in, perfectly orchestrated with music, worthy of a special feature on ESPN, all working toward an emotional climax.
The music quieted. Javier returned. He talked about his hope that there was basketball in heaven. Maria read a thank you letter Javier wrote to Chase but never got the opportunity to send.
“In heaven, I know you will be part of my love gravity. We can shoot some hoops sometime. I might even beat you. It is heaven, after all. But please no dancing. Never dancing.”
The video cut to Chase’s best moves in a blue muskrat costume. Again, laughter swelled from the fans. The final clip went out on a black screen, Javier’s picture in a number twenty-eight jersey and the opening and closing dates of his life.
When the arena lights went up, Chase was absolutely certain about three things. First, that he had become so swept up in the stories, he had forgotten to keep a check on his emotions and had to swipe at tears lingering on his cheeks. Second, that he didn’t need the NBA Commissioner to lean close to his ear and tell him, “They love you, son,” because Chase could feel the standing ovation thundering through his entire body—not because he outscored, not because he brought victory, but because of him, Chase, the man he was off the court. And third, that this honor had Willow written all over it.
A spotlight found him. The Commissioner raised his mic and continued when the fan noise died down.
“Two days ago, Chase Holbrook was in the running with ten other players around the league for the most number of fan-favorite votes. Then, this video happened. And it went viral. And now it is my extreme honor to present to you this season’s fan-vote for Most Valuable Player.”
Cheers exploded.
He handed Chase a plaque, shook his hand. Camera bulbs flashed in his field of vision. Passing out was a distinct possibility. The Commissioner handed Chase his microphone.
“Say a few words, son.”
Chase glanced out at twenty-thousand people assembled, at network cameras, at his coach and teammates whistling and cat-calling, Tarek more animated than all the rest. Chase raised the mic to his mouth but couldn’t speak. The hesitation whipped the audience into a greater frenzy. He laughed and rested the mic against his jersey. His face grew hot from the lights, from the flush of trying not to lose it on national television. He had zero confidence his voice would be there when he most needed it.
He swallowed the thickness clogging his throat. His brain managed to pump out his thanks to the Commissioner and the league, his fans, the special people in the video and the friends he had made along the way, his coaches and teammates, his fans—again—which incited another rush of cheers. But who he most thought about during his acceptance was the one person without whom none of this was possible.
“And I want to thank a very special person who inspired nearly everything you saw in that video and coached me into the kind of man I want to be.”
Chase knew Willow would adhere to her strict mascot rules. He also knew he couldn’t stay center court one more minute without her. He raised his hand to block the spotlight and searched courtside in vain until one geriatric voice rose above the crowd. “Over here, Magnum!”
Estelle.
Chase laughed and tracked the direction of Estelle’s outburst. Twenty rows up, Bolt stood frozen on the aisle steps. He handed the microphone to the commissioner and jogged toward the mascot, taking the steps two at a time. Arena lights came up. Music kicked in. The crowd went nuts—standing, craning necks, snapping photos, cheering and talking. At least, that’s what it seemed. Chase only had eyes for a furry blue muskrat.
He ambushed Willow on the same step, lifted off Bolt’s head, and planted a kiss on the surprised O of her lips. She melted into him—well, as much as she could with a wire cage and a fifty pounds of fake blue hair between them.
When he finally released her lips, he pulled back and asked, “How did you pull that off? All that video, finding Clarence…?”
“My request from Bolt’s social media went viral. Someone at a shelter in L.A. remembered a guy talking about your shoes. And I know a few people who helped me edit it together.”
“You know more than a few people.”
“True. But there’s only one person I want to know right now…”
He smothered her last words on another kiss.
And, according to a later commentary from Tarek, at that moment, half the women in the city of Pittsburgh with damp panties turned their affections to the next most eligible bachelor in the NBA.
His mother disputes this claim.
Epilogue
Willow snuggled onto Chase’s lap wearing his two favorite things.
Her wedding ring, which turned out to be the simple gold band her father had given her mother in their early days before he could afford a diamond. For luck, she had said. But where Chase and Willow were going, they didn’t need luck.
And his jersey. Only his jersey.
She scrolled through the latest NBA game menu, controller in hand. She had a few hours before she had to meet her investors at the Cordial Café, and the last thing on Chase’s mind as he swelled beneath her was playing a video game. Still, she insisted as she ground out a torturous wiggle of her bare ass over his fly.
He selected the Sacramento Kings. She selected the Pittsburgh Alloys then promptly traded away number twenty-eight for a rookie from the Lakers.
Chase reached for her sides and tickled her into near extinction. The controller slipped from her hand. This time, when she squirmed and writhed for her freedom, gasping for air around her hiccup-like humor fit, nearly sliding off the worn leather fabric, he caught her lips and didn’t let her go until they had settled the match-up under the most pleasurable of conditions.
Even if a creepy, patched-together Quetz watched from his place of honor on the wall.
End of Celi-Bet
Book Two of the Solomon Brothers Series
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BLURB from
In Safe Hands
(The Safe House Series Book 1)
He didn’t understand loyalty until she stripped it away…
Ex-NYPD cop Damian Stone was on the fast-track to an FBI career until a mafia ambush cost him his partner. He left the force and was recruited by an elite security team that leverages his hyper-protective instincts to protect the unprotect
able--dangerous clients are Damian's bread and butter.
But he never expected her.
Alexa Volkov lived a privileged life—far from the messy underbelly of her father’s Russian mafia. But that doesn’t stop her from carrying the tattoo that makes Damian burn for revenge. As a crime boss daughter, Alexa is in a unique position to collapse the organization from the inside out. Her plan to testify against the mob patriarch puts a bounty on her head that would tempt even the most trustworthy cop—especially one hell-bent on punishing her for the sins of her father.
But the safe house part of Damian’s protection plan is anything but safe. In a place where alliances are not what they seem and the most dangerous heat bearing down on them is the forbidden burn of seduction, the only thing more at risk than life is a lethal hit to the heart.
Download In Safe Hands
(The Safe House Series Book 1) HERE!
EXCERPT
In Safe Hands
(The Safe House Series Book 1)
This was the last time Damian Stone would ever let Rockwell assign him a woman.
He studied the two figures at the nearby gas station, slid his thermos from his console, and took a fortifying swig of espresso. Twenty minutes had passed since his first scalding sip, and the caffeine had yet to rouse him from his morning haze. But the sight of Alexa Volkov’s crisp, white blouse shrink-wrapped against her cleavage was enough to raise a corpse from the dead.
Pure triple shot.
Admittedly, there had been no precedent before her. Damian’s past clients included a sweaty Wall-Street type with an appetite for sex trade cash, an informant that had turned state’s evidence against a high-profile New York senator, and a retired real estate mogul whose trophy wife had hired half of Jersey’s parolees to make his death look like an accident. In every instance, the guys were foul-mouthed, ball-scratching, abysmal excuses for human life that Damian would have given his dying breath to protect.
This woman? Damian would have surrendered his dying breath and every damned other involuntary drive to extract himself from her protection detail.
Two red flags skewered his instincts.
First red flag: her dossier. The text was more than half obscured. Rockwell’s thick, black boxes would have made the State Department proud. And the grainy, paper-clipped photo of the blond may as well have been a police sketch from a drunk eye witness.
Damian had nothing to go on. Less than nothing.
Second red flag: Goddamn, but she was beautiful. Distractingly beautiful. Throw-a-top-security-agent-off-his-game beautiful.
Volkov's escort leaned against the company’s unmarked sedan, looking damn obvious—dressed all in black and wearing a pair of expensive shades. The man looked like he had been trained on a Hollywood set and released out into the wild in full wardrobe. He certainly didn't look like someone casually passing through Wyoming at dawn.
Damian made a mental note to have a word with Rockwell about some of the newer trainees.
Volkov wasn't doing much to improve her cover, either. Her stiletto heels peeked from beneath an expensive, wide-legged pantsuit; and despite a coat more inclined to fashion than function in the Rocky Mountains, a sleek belt at her waist amplified her shapely curves. But what most women aspired to, Volkov achieved effortlessly: long, lithe figure; wide-set, exotic eyes, straight blond hair pulled back into a high ponytail.
One glance at Alexa Volkov was like taking a blow to the head. The spark behind your eyes that kept you company when someone laid you out on the training floor at the police academy.
Damian allowed himself a moment to feel dizzy. Then he got out of his car.
The woman didn't shrink as Damian approached, though her slender arms fidgeted. He wondered what she was contemplating more—his nondescript outfit, or his towering, decidedly descript build. He didn't blame her for looking uncertainly to her escort for a confirmation of Damian's identity.
"Stone," said the man in black.
Damian took ownership of the name with a slight nod. He flashed the escort his credentials, but his focus never veered from Alexa’s stare. Eye contact was the first non-verbal to gaining her trust. Her Nordic-blue eyes, as breathtaking as the rest of her at close proximity, tightened to a glare.
Her escort took the hint and departed without further comment.
"You're a cop," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Retired," he acknowledged.
"You don't walk like you're retired."
She was observant, then, as well as being a knock-out. Damian wondered how her defenses would impact their shared situation. He had been on the receiving end of that mistrustful look a time or two before when he still wore the uniform.
"Why don't we get some coffee?" he redirected. "Have you eaten anything?"
"Shouldn't we be heading out? I mean, isn't it dangerous, now that I'm…?"
"You're with me."
Volkov’s perfectly-shaped eyebrows twisted in a not-so-perfect fashion, no doubt her brain working to process his meaning. He had used the statement to calm skittish clients before, but the words hadn’t struck him as odd until they left his lips in the presence of a beautiful woman.
"What I mean to say is that you're safe, Miss Volkov. You can trust me to make decisions. Patronizing the diner will make our visit to the premises less suspicious."
Her steady, contemplative blinks seemed to indicate a shift, a consent to delay judgment until more information presented itself. Lines at her forehead eased then disappeared.
Damian guided her to the diner’s entrance and held the door for her.
Volkov stalled in the doorway and looked up at him with a wan smile. "Tell me again how you're retired? Even your words are blue." She ducked beneath the pillar of his arm to enter.
In her wake, her fragrance wafted to his nose—something blossoms and vanilla and rain, rolled into one.
The scent soothed his jacked nerves. Always first-meet nerves.
The Sizzling Griddle diner was cramped, built like a long railcar with red vinyl booths lining the outer wall. Volkov took direction from him beautifully and didn't stop until they had sequestered themselves in a secluded corner. A cursory glance satisfied Damian that they were a good distance from the windows. He took a seat on the stool beside her, trying to assess how much he was allowed to study a woman under his protection while still retaining his professionalism.
Seeing her in poor lighting only made things worse. She might be anyone. He might be anyone. Their first meeting might be a thing of chance, rather than a life-preserving necessity.
"How was your escort?" he asked. If they were strangers in a diner, he certainly wouldn’t have opened with that line.
"Strong. Silent. He looked a little ridiculous. You, on the other hand…" She paused when Damian removed his baseball cap and place it on the table beside his wallet, seemingly changing her mind about what she planned to say at the last moment. "Your name is Stone?"
He didn't correct her. An adherence to last names was a good boundary to encourage. Instead, he nodded to a passing waitress, who obliged him by overturning his mug and pouring him a cup of coffee. Alexa declined a cup.
"How did you get into this line of work?" she asked after their waitress left.
Damian raised the mug to his lips.
"Were you discharged?"
"No."
"No offense, but you look too young to have retired by choice. And if you were injured in the line of duty, I doubt this would be your logical next assignment. You have to be able to protect me, right?"
Damian lowered his coffee without having taken a sip. Answers about his past could make or break her trust in him.
"Am I right?" she pressed.
"Miss Volkov, if the question is whether or not I am capable of protecting you, then I assure you that you are in safe hands."
She sat back from the bar and crossed her arms. Damian wondered if she was going to order anything to eat, or if this had been a wasted effort to appear uns
uspicious. When the waitress returned, he took the liberty of ordering two stacks of pancakes. A possible overstep, but their first meeting couldn't derail much faster.
Volkov ate her meal dutifully, speaking little. Damian accepted a refill on his coffee. It was a long drive back to the safe house, and he couldn't afford to let last night's fitful sleep show. He paid in cash, and they quietly exited the diner.
A man watched them from a sidewalk, half a block away, half-concealed by a parked Jeep.
Damian’s hand seized her elbow. He kept the movement casual, overfamiliar for the benefit of anyone who might be looking, but the pressure his hand exerted left little question as to his intention.
Volkov stopped walking. "What is it?"
Damian leaned toward her, his body as close as a lover, his answer a whisper. “Trouble.”
Download In Safe Hands
(The Safe House Series Book 1) HERE!
