by Avery Flynn
“Mystie, with a Y and an IE. I am your biggest fan!” The woman smoothed her long, straight blonde hair that even Miami’s humidity didn’t frizz back behind her ears before clapping her hands together. The woman could have been a supermodel and it was kind of hard not to stare. “When my dad said he had a VIP ticket to the cruise, you know I swiped it out of his hand before he could blink. And now I am talking to the Colt 45! Oh! My! God! I could get pregnant just from being this close to you!”
Angie’s brain couldn’t keep up. It was like watching her mom’s excitable Jack Russell in human form. Hopefully, Mystie was just as harmless, but she’d probably need to notify security just in case.
She scanned Colt’s face, looking for clues that he needed rescuing. The vein in his temple danced the conga and he might chip a tooth if he didn’t unclamp his jaw soon, but he didn’t look any more weirded out than her Uncle Jorge had been when a transplant New Yorker had served him a Cuban sandwich slathered with mayonnaise. If he needed rescuing from his biggest fan, he’d better learn to give off better signals.
They handed their passports and tickets to the attendant, who ushered them through the turnstile and onto the VIP gangway leading up to the ship.
“I am so excited for this cruise.” The blonde’s long legs matched Colt’s expansive stride. “Aren’t you just totally excited?” The woman turned and grinned at Angie. “Are you a fan too?”
Afraid the woman was going to wrap her in a bear hug, Angie held out her hand to the tall blonde. “Angie Diaz, I’m with the team.”
“You are? How exciting to always be around all these strong men.” The woman took her hand in a firm grip and pumped up and down several times. “Mystie Ferrara.”
“As in Miguel Ferrara?” Now this was a coup. She glanced over at Colt to see if he was following the conversation. “The city councilman leading the way for a vote on providing tax breaks for the Thunder’s new practice facility?” She said it slowly, hoping Colt would pick up the signal.
Even he had to get the message to amp up the friendly factor toward his biggest fan. Real estate in Miami was a blood sport and Mystie’s dad could make or break the deal for the practice facility.
“One in the same.” Mystie nodded and led the way onto the elevator. She pushed the number fourteen. “What floor?”
Angie pushed the sixteen. “We’re so glad to have you on board.” She pulled a business card out of her purse and handed it to the other woman. “If there’s anything I can do to improve your cruise, please just let me know.”
“I will.” The blonde’s smile was genuine and friendly, if a little overenthusiastic. “I’m sooooooo excited to get to hang out with you for the next three days, Colt!”
The elevator doors opened on the fourteenth deck, home to suites with balconies, comped room service and in-room Jacuzzis. Mystie stepped into the hallway and turned to face the elevator, waving goodbye as the doors closed.
Slack-jawed, she turned to Colt. “Wow.”
“That’s one word for it.” He kept staring at the doors as if his superpower was making elevators move faster.
“Well…that’s awkward.” Angie looked for inspiration for something else to say in the garish purple, gold and green weave of the elevator’s wallpaper and came up with nada. “Is it always like th—”
The elevator’s ding as the doors slid open stopped her question. Well, that and the fact that Colt took off down the hall as fast as his namesake. Angie had to do a half skip, half jog just to keep up. He stopped at his door and she slammed right into him—either that or she ran into a brick wall camouflaged to look like Colt. Both would be about equally as big and hard, but only one smelled like sandalwood, soap and six feet, three inches worth of cannot have.
She reeled back, clutching her folder of paperwork tight when she should have been throwing her arms out for balance. Yet again, her poor choices did her in and she lost her sea legs and fell back, but jerked to a stop inches before her ass hit the floor.
Colt’s arm wrapped around her waist, holding her soft body close to every big, hard part of his. “You alright?”
“Fine,” she whispered over her pounding heart.
Her vivid imagination painting the picture they made, with her arched back and him curled around her as if they were performing the deepest dip in a tango. Her skin sizzled under his touch and warm desire washed over her as palpable as the folder clamped to her heaving chest.
His gaze dropped to her mouth and his pupils dilated. Everything went still—the ship, the people, her mother’s voice yelling in her head to kiss him already, all disappeared. He dipped his head lower. Her eyes fluttered shut and she parted her lips, more than ready for whatever happened now.
In the next heartbeat, her feet were both firmly planted on the carpet and the warmth of his arm around her waist evaporated. She blinked her eyes open in time to see him swipe his keycard across his room lock and open his door. Embarrassment burned her cheeks. So much for her decision not to play with the players.
He paused halfway inside his door. “Look, my head’s killing me, I’m going to be trapped on a boat for the next three days, and I’d rather be just about anywhere than here.” He rubbed his temples. “How about you give me a list of things I have to be at and leave me alone the rest of the time?”
“Okay…” She fumbled in her folder for his itinerary and the contact sheet.
He mumbled a thank you and shut the door in her face.
Angie stared at the gold-plated room number, amazed at his rudeness.
And this is why some hot guys shouldn’t talk—once they did, they ruined the whole sexy-as-sin thing they’d had going on before.
What a total shithead.
Good thing she didn’t have to like him to do her job and get the Thunder front office to realize what she could bring to the team. Brain already spinning with ideas to limit her contact with Colt, she spun on her heel and marched back to the elevator for the long ride down several decks to her small interior cabin.
Chapter Two
The battering ram hammering away at Colt’s door woke him from a dead sleep. He cracked his eyes and squinted at his phone. Fourteen missed texts from a Miami number he didn’t recognize and three missed calls. Bam! Bam! Bam! at his door.
“I’m coming.” He rolled over, crumpling the paper Angie had given him. The phone number in bold across the top caught his eye. Double-checking confirmed the identity of his mystery caller.
“Dumbass, open up before I knock this thing off the frame,” Darius Washington’s voice came through loud and clear, too strong to be muffled by the door. His mentor when he’d joined the Thunder, Darius was a walking concrete block of a man who had a good two inches on Colt.
He crossed the room and yanked open the door. “You’re too old and fat to break down a door.”
Darius crossed his thick arms and popped his pecs. “I’m not so decrepit that I can’t still whoop your ass.”
Puffing out his chest, he curled his fingers in a come-at-me-bro motion. “Try it.”
Darius’s laugh boomed through the cabin as he strutted into the room, just as cocky as he’d been during his playing days. “Please, young’n. Like I have time to waste on teaching you a lesson. You need to get your ass in gear before that cute little team liaison blows her stack. I swear you piss off women faster than any asshole I know.”
“Angie just hasn’t realized how much she likes me yet,” Shucking off his sleep-wrinkled shirt, he pushed the last vestige of a very vivid dream about a sexy-as-hell team liaison dressed only in his jersey to the back of his mind. “Anyway, Shontelle likes me just fine.”
He tossed the shirt at Darius, who caught it with the ease of a man who’d made a very good living for a very long time taking down guys the size of foreign cars on any given Sunday. The man had spent an incredible fifteen years in the league. Not everybody did that. Shit, Colt had just hit nine seasons and everyone acted as if he were about to go out to pasture.
&nb
sp; “That’s because my wife is blinded by the fact that you donated blood when Jace needed it for his surgery.” His face softened the way it did every time he talked about his son.
“Who knew having a rare blood type would come in handy someday?” Needles freaked him the hell out, but seeing Darius made low by worry was worse than getting poked in the arm for a good cause. “How is the little guy?”
Darius shook his head and snorted. “Giving his mama a heart attack on a regular basis.”
“So just like his daddy?” He tossed on his favorite Thunder T-shirt, wondering what it was like—the family thing. Growing up, it had just been him and his dad, who’d raised him to believe in the power of work, good food and football. Without a mom, grandparents or cousins, family never really factored into his life.
“Jace is exactly like his daddy. No need for a paternity test on that kid.” The older man checked his watch as he walked to the door. “You should think of getting a family of your own.”
“I don’t have time for that.” Not to mention he had no clue what to do with a family; his upbringing hadn’t exactly been the white-picket-fence variety. “Football, that’s all that’s important right now.”
“Young’n, your priorities are all fucked up.”
He shook his head. “No, they’re just where they’re supposed to be.”
Darius gave him a hard look before opening the door. “Come on, get your ass in gear, the party with the Thunder Dome Crew starts in five and you’re the big draw.”
“Ouch.” Colt slapped his palm over his heart and followed Darius into the hall. “You hold the Thunder’s team record for most tackles in a season and I’m the big draw. Retirement must be killing you.”
“Sheee-it, my golf game’s never been better and I never miss Jace’s baseball games.” He arched a bushy, graying eyebrow and poked a finger hard into Colt’s arm. “There’s life after the game, young’n. It’s best you start thinking about that.”
“Not me. Not anytime soon.” Unable to delay the inevitable being-the-center-of-attention hell surely to follow as soon as they stepped onto the lido deck, Colt latched the door behind him. “Let’s get this over with.”
The one-hundred-strong Thunder Dome Crew filled the roped-off area on the lido deck, turning it into a sea of black and gold as far as Angie could see. What she couldn’t spot in the crowd was Colt Butler and Darius Washington, the latter of whom had promised her twenty minutes ago to drag the star linebacker down here by the ear if necessary.
The free watered-down drinks had kept everyone satisfied for the first few minutes, but the team’s superfans’ grumblings were getting louder with each passing minute. If she squinted she probably could still see Miami in the distance, making it too damn early for everything to go to shit. Her gut pinched and twisted as she worried her bottom lip, working it between her teeth until the metallic taste of blood hit her tongue.
Mystie, dressed not in a Thunder jersey but in an obviously expensive and custom-made black and gold Miami Thunder minidress, handed Angie a plastic cup of red sangria. Colt’s superfan had spotted Angie as soon as she’d crossed the velvet rope and had provided a running commentary about the team, the Thunder Dome Crew and Colt’s stats since then. The constant chatter had helped keep her from going nuts waiting for the opening mixer’s big draw.
“Take the edge off.” Mystie tapped the side of Angie’s cup. “He’ll show.”
The sweet wine with a hint of bitter went down way too easy. Another six of these and she won’t even care if she got the special events director promotion or not. “What makes you say so?”
“It’s Colt, he always comes through.” Mystie sipped her sangria, amazingly more relaxed when she wasn’t basking in number forty-five’s aura. “You’re solid.”
It would be nice to think so, but she doubted it. “If not, you’ll help me find cover when the Thunder Dome Crew riots, right?”
“I vote for over there by the margarita machine.” Mystie jerked her chin toward the machine dispensing neon-yellow chilled drinks.
Angie laughed for the first time since she’d proposed the Thunder fan cruise to Ian Dare. “Deal.”
Suddenly, the air around them changed, became more charged, and then the whispers started. Colt 45 had arrived. As if they worked by osmosis, the fans started the Thunder Dome chant in one loud voice, with Mystie’s ringing out. “We will shock you, rock you, beat you in the Thunder Dome.” Then they stomped their feet twice in unison like a double crack of thunder.
Darius raised his fist in the air and let out a deep holler. Colt stood stock still, looking like the heroine in a bad slasher movie, all petrified round eyes and defensive posture.
“Oh shit.” Her stomach dipped to her toes. God, why hadn’t she realized it before? “He doesn’t like crowds, does he?”
Mystie shook her head. “Not even a little bit. That’s why he doesn’t do many appearances. He’s real shy, that’s why it’s important to take the lead in the conversation so he doesn’t have to. I have that part down in my notes.”
And he was Angie’s main draw. The player every one of the fans who’d paid out the wazoo to be on the cruise wanted to see. They’d want their pictures with him, want him to sign autographs and shoot the shit—and this small gathering of one hundred had him ready to bolt. She’d thought it had all been a pissy attitude on his part.
“How does he get in front of a stadium full of people to play every week?” she asked.
“No frickin’ clue.” Mystie shook her head and downed the rest of her sangria. “That’s one thing I haven’t come across in my research. However, I’ve studied the pictures and can tell you he dresses to the left and his favorite appetizer is cheese sticks dipped in Ranch dressing.”
Angie wasn’t even going to try to put together those two random factoids. She didn’t have time. Fans rushed Colt, gathering around him and Darius in a crowd three deep. The veteran glad-handed and joked around like a politician on the election trail. Colt gave it a go, but she could have spotted the uncharacteristic stiffness in his movements from space.
“This could get ugly fast.” She winced. There was no way she could just stand by and watch him go down. Not to mention that the cruise would circle the drain if she didn’t do something. She moved toward the excited mob of fans. “I better go rescue him.”
“Save me a spot up there.” Mystie shoved Angie forward. “I’ll be up as soon as I reapply my lipstick and fluff the girls.”
Angie surveyed the situation. Going straight through the scrum of fans wasn’t an option for someone her size. At most she came up to the majority of the fans’ shoulders. What she wouldn’t give for another three inches that didn’t involve putting on a pair of heels. She curled to the left of the crowd gathered around Darius and Colt, but it was ass to elbow there too. Raising up on her tiptoes, she could just see Colt over the fans’ heads, taking in his clenched jaw, tight shoulders and grim smile. Growing up in Miami, she’d seen alligators stuck in plastic mini-pools with cheerier expressions. There was no choice but to dive in and do her part to keep everyone happy.
“Excuse me,” she pushed forward. “Pardon me.”
Angie nearly drowned in the crowd as it ebbed and flowed like the ocean rocking the cruise ship. Two burly guys decked out in full Thunder gear pinned her between them and as they moved forward toward the players, she had little choice but to go with the flow and surge ahead with them.
“Hey!” she called out, but neither man seemed to realize what was going on.
Then the sea of people parted and Colt appeared in front of her, looking every bit like a man about to rip someone to shreds. If this was what opposing players saw on Sunday afternoons or Monday nights, it was no wonder they lost a yard or twelve.
Everyone turned and the Thunder twins scattered. Without them to hold her up, she dropped the two inches to the deck with a thunk.
He reached out but stopped short of touching her, hesitating with his hand in midair. “You ok
ay?”
“Fine.” She glanced around, realizing everyone was staring and some were taking pictures with their phones. To cover the awkwardness of the situation, she plastered on her biggest I-got-this smile. “I was just coming to offer you some help.”
He grinned and held out a hand to her. “You gotta Sharpie?”
Ignoring the funny things his crooked grin did to her sense of composure, she pulled one out of her bag and handed it to him. Their fingers brushed and electricity jolted up her arm. That’s how it had been in Vegas—a live wire of attraction singeing them in the best way possible anytime they went near each other. She’d convinced herself that what had happened at the Sports America Awards a year ago was an aberration, but her body wasn’t as convinced.
He looked down at his hand and flexed his fingers before closing them around the Sharpie. “Thanks.” Colt turned, took a few steps and then looked back at her. “You coming?”
Angie nodded and fell in step behind him as he cut a path through the crowd. Her attention should have been focused on the fans, making sure everyone had settled and was having an experience worthy of the ticket prices. Instead, all she could think about was how many squats he must do to make his ass look that good in a pair of shorts—enough to make her mouth go dry, that was for sure.
For Colt, the next few hours were a fifty-fifty split of heaven and hell. Normally that condition would be because while he loved talking football with the team’s fans, being around as many people as were at the Thunder Dome Crew event made him all twingy. But today, the agony and the ecstasy all came down to a pocket-size team liaison who had him imagining scenarios that made him harder than a fireplace poker and unable to do a damn thing about it.
Thank God he was sitting down at a table. The position gave him some much needed cover and made the whole meet-and-greet thing easier. Instead of being in the middle of a scrum like before, he was surrounded by a small group of fans came and went in twenty-minute increments. While he’d been in one spot, Angie had strutted her hot stuff from one table to the another in a black sundress with gold thread interwoven in the material. The light from the small bulbs strung across the pool kept reflecting off the threads, drawing his attention. He couldn’t help but let his gaze linger on the way the material swirled around her as she moved, because the woman was never still. Unlike him, she looked right at home in the mix of strangers.
