by Avery Flynn
He didn’t even blink. “Agreed.”
Angie gathered up her paperwork and shoved it into a folder. Next she put the laptop in the top drawer of the dresser right next to her underwear and…
Oh shit. Where are the pajamas?
She’d double-checked everything four times—everything except for the contents of her own personal suitcase. Fuck. She was a moron. Glancing down at her sundress that would be her nightgown tonight, she mentally shrugged. It was a little funky from spending the first day on the ship in it, but it would just act as Colt repellant so that was actually a good thing.
“I’ll take the left side.” She rolled back the covers and sat down on the bed.
He quirked an eyebrow at her and chuckled. “I’m not a total asshole, you don’t have to sleep fully dressed.” He reached behind his head, grabbed the collar of his T-shirt and yanked it over his head, revealing an eight pack that she could do laundry on if they got marooned on a deserted island. “I know I’m not sleeping that way.”
Distracted by the way his muscles undulated when he moved, she blurted out the truth before she could come up with a believable lie. “I forgot to pack pajamas.”
His mouth quirked up on one side and he quickly looked down but there was no way to miss the way his broad shoulders shook. Let the bastard laugh. He’d be laughing his way right into sleeping on the floor if he kept this up.
“Sorry. It’s just nice to see that you don’t always have everything locked down into place. One of my T-shirts would probably cover more than any nightgown you own.” He unzipped his duffel bag and fished around in it before pulling out something in Thunder black and gold and tossing it at her. “Here, try this.”
She caught it with one hand. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, I dare you.” There were altar boys helping with Sunday Mass who looked like more trouble than Colt did. He practically radiated innocent intentions.
Her Spidey sense twitched to life. “You’re cute.”
“That’s what they tell me.” He laughed at his own joke and waved toward the bathroom. “You get first dibs.”
He was up to something, no doubt about it. But unless she told him to take his shirt and shove it where the sun didn’t shine, she didn’t have a lot of wiggle room here. She went into the minuscule bathroom and closed the door behind her. Slipping off her sundress, she tried to ignore the sounds of him on the other side of the door. She wouldn’t picture him popping the button on his shorts and slipping them over his narrow hips and muscular thighs. She wouldn’t think about how his amazing ass looked in a clingy pair of boxer briefs.
Well, she may not be imagining it but her body sure as hell was. Her core ached and she clenched her bare thighs together to ease the pressure. Spending the amount of time she’d like to in the bathroom wasn’t possible with him waiting out there, and she sure as hell wasn’t going back out into her room with the smell of sex on her fingers.
With jerky movements, she grabbed the shirt and yanked it on. It wasn’t until she looked in the small rectangle mirror that she realized what he’d given her. His jersey—or a replica, anyway.
She grabbed the hem to pull it off, but hesitated. It was just a shirt. Wearing his jersey didn’t mean anything. He was just helping her out.
Yeah, keep thinking that’s all it is, Angie girl.
Tuning out that know-it-all voice, she rolled up the sleeves and double-checked the length. It stopped a couple of inches above her knees but probably showed less skin than her sundress had. She rolled up her dress and bra and tucked them into the laundry sack under the sink before opening the bathroom door. Only the light over the bed remained on. Colt was already under the covers and had scooted over to the right side of the bed as far as his big body would allow.
A bubble of disappointment squeezed her chest, but she ignored it, flipped off the bathroom light and hurried to the bed.
2 a.m.
Give her your jersey, Colt. What a great idea. It’s not like you’ve fantasied about seeing her in it and wondered how reality would stack up. Now you know, don’t you? Angie looks about a zillion times better than you’d imagined. Fucking moron.
He’d been lecturing himself ever since she walked out of the bathroom and ducked under the covers an hour ago. That hadn’t made his hard-on go away. He’d gone over every route and play in the Thunder’s lineup. The boner stayed, the little head mocking the big head for its stupidity.
2:36 a.m.
On the edge of sleep, he rolled onto his side and into a curtain of her long hair draped across her pillow and his. It smelled like fresh salt air, sunshine and the unidentifiable something that was Angie. He took in a deep breath and his entire body woke up—including Mr. Happy. God, he was turning into some kind of deranged hair-sniffing pervert. This was officially his worst plan ever.
3:41 a.m.
Resorting to counting down the great tackles in the game since counting sheep failed, Colt stared at the ceiling as he lay with his hands behind his head. If he didn’t get some shuteye soon, tomorrow was going to be a wreck.
Angie sighed in her sleep, the sound soft and high, before rolling over. One leg ended up across his thigh and her arm draped over his chest as her head found a home in the pocket of his shoulder.
He shouldn’t but he just couldn’t help himself. He dropped his arm and held her close. And finally, his eyelids drooped, his breathing deepened and he fell asleep.
Chapter Four
The sound of woodland creatures started quietly, but Angie had another three minutes until her alarm switched from Bambi mode to New York City traffic jam mode, compete with blaring horns and a lot of yelling from pissed-off drivers. She cuddled back into her warm pillow for another few minutes of shuteye, but something kept tickling her nose. Then that thing snored—loud, like a freight train with a four-pack-a-day habit.
Her eyes snapped open and she came face to lightly hairy chest with Colt Butler.
Panic cut off her air as she tried to clear the sleep from her brain and remember how in the hell this had happened.
Work. Ball bunnies. Duffel bag. Jersey. Bed. No sex.
The air she’d been holding whooshed out tinged with the tiniest bit of regret. Not that she’d be paying attention to that. She was caught up on events but that didn’t make this any better. She was snuggled up to Colt as close as possible, with her leg nestled up to what was most definitely an impressive amount of morning wood. She remembers a lot about his sunrise hard-on in Vegas and all the things he could do with it, the salty taste of it and how much he liked it when she’d reached down and squeezed his balls while the head of his cock hit the back of her throat.
The jersey he’d given her to wear was hiked up to her waist. His right arm held her close and he’d anchored his fingers in the waistband of her lace panties at her hip. Another few inches over and down and his fingers would be twisted in her tight, dark curls that were no doubt wet from that mental movie of their twelve hours in his Vegas hotel room. That movie was playing on a constant loop thanks to her horny ID that was wide awake, while the logical part of her brain had hit snooze.
Trying to channel the stealthy ninja she’d never be, Angie slid his large hand away from her waist and laid it down on the cool sheet. Colt stopped snoring. She held her breath, her heart going a mile a minute. All she wanted was to get out of this bed before he woke up because she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to hear all the reasons why not when her body was screaming hell yes.
His breathing started again, low and steady. Not daring to let out the air trapped in her lungs, she lifted the leg draped over him and inched it away. Even though her heart was in her throat, she couldn’t rush this. If he woke up, the gig was up and he’d know exactly how they’d spent the wee hours of the morning. Only a little bit farther and she’d be free.
Slow.
Calm.
Deliberate.
His left hand shot out and he curled his fingers around her ankle. “You’
re not trying to sneak out on me again like you did in Vegas, are you?”
She let out a yelp and jerked her leg out of his grasp, escaping his fingers but not the electric frisson of awareness left behind by his touch. “How long have you been awake?”
He turned to face her, propping his head up on one hand. “You say that like I could sleep with you hanging on me like that.” Eyelids lowered to half-mast, he gave her a heated but leisurely once over.
Angie clutched the sheet closer to her chest as if it could offer protection from the intensity of his perusal. Desire, as smooth as warm honey, poured through her, making her breasts heavy with want and her center damp with need. One move. One look. One word. Judging by the way he looked at her, that’s all it would take and he’d rip the sheet from her, along with his jersey and her panties. The idea of it made her core clench and pushed her right up to the point of no return.
But she wasn’t going over. Her friends’ experiences had taught her how this story would end and she didn’t like her wine watered down with tears.
“So the snoring was for show, huh?” She scooted over to the edge of the bed, annoyed with herself for missing his touch.
Disappointment darkened the blue of his eyes, but only for a second. “I don’t snore.”
“Sure you don’t.” Making her move before she changed her mind, she flipped off the covers and stood up beside the bed. The hem of his jersey brushed against her thighs—a poor substitute for the feel of him underneath her when she’d woken up. “I call dibs on the bathroom.”
She grabbed today’s outfit she’d laid out before her unexpected guest arrived last night and scurried into the bathroom, ignoring his low laugh as he watched her from the comfort of their warm bed.
Forty-five minutes later she emerged from the bathroom showered, dressed and back in her right frame of mind.
“It’s all yours,” she said.
“Got it.” Sitting on the bed in only his boxer briefs, he never looked away from the TV screen, but even from across the small room she could see the vein pulsing in his temple.
Two men on the screen were discussing the Thunder’s top prospects in the draft, but at the bottom of the screen in bold letters was the question: Who should start at linebacker: LeRoi Harper or Colt “45” Butler? Tweet your vote to @ThunderNation.
Damn. There was a downside to having everyone in the world—or at least the Miami area—watching your every move and wanting their say about it. Work evaluations were rarely fun in private; in public, they had to be mortifying. Chewing the inside of her cheek, Angie walked over to the bed, racking her brain for something to say to Colt to lessen the pressure he obviously felt.
“It’s just a dumb poll.” She squeezed his shoulder. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Colt shook off her hand and stood up, his face a dark mask of anger and frustration. “Only my livelihood.”
Without another word, he marched across the room to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him with a loud thunk.
An hour and two ulcers later, Angie pulled Colt farther into the wings of the cruise ship’s main stage. The audience was packed full of Thunder fans impatiently waiting for the players versus fans charades tournament to begin. It would have started fifteen minutes ago, if the overgrown jerk in front of her would do what he’d agreed to do.
“What do you mean, no?” Angie closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath, every last ounce of sympathy she’d been nursing for Colt after this morning melting away faster than ice cream at South Beach. “You signed up for this.”
He grimaced. “I agreed to signings and those God-awful cocktail parties.” He bit out the words as if he’d agreed to scrub toilets with his toothbrush. “There is no way in hell Manny would ever give the go-ahead to me acting like a performing monkey joining in on party games on a stage bigger than the trailer I grew up in.”
“Funny you should mention your agent, because Manny and I talked specifically about these type of events,” she shot back. “That he didn’t tell you, and that you didn’t read the contract before you signed it, isn’t my problem.”
He folded his arms across his massive chest and kept his gaze locked solidly above her left shoulder. “No.”
Frustration jacked her heart rate up so fast, her whole body vibrated. She needed this. He needed this. But he was too damn stubborn to see any of it. Reaching up on her tiptoes, she jabbed her finger into his unyielding chest. “You go out there and play nice with your fans or I swear to God I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Drag me out there by my ear?” He took a step closer, eliminating the space between them. “Good luck with that.”
Instead of the tip of her finger poking him, her entire palm rested over his fast-beating heart, the contact and heat of the argument ratcheting up her every primal reaction. Frustration. Annoyance. Hunger. The same things she saw reflected in his blue eyes, made dark by a combination of lust and determination. His gaze dropped to her lips, which had grown puffy from her chewing them to bits during the argument.
Letting out a low groan, he dipped his head.
Desire became a tsunami crashing against her skin, threatening to knock down every barrier she had against him. Holding on to her last threads of sanity with a white-knuckle grip, she took a firm step back and dropped her hand to her side.
“We both know damn well why you’re on this cruise, Colt, and it’s not because you’ve ever been accused of being Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.” Her voice shook but the words came out clear, which was more than she expected considering how jumbled up her insides were. “It’s because you’re doing whatever the fuck it takes to secure your position with the team. I can appreciate that because I’m doing the same damn thing. You hate crowds and being the center of attention anytime you’re not wearing a football helmet? Well, I hate dealing with gargantuan divas who don’t bother to read their contracts.”
The straight line of his mouth wavered a millisecond before he snorted with laughter. “I’m not a diva.”
“Really?” She threw her hands up in the air. “That’s what you picked out of that whole tirade?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. “It’s for sure in the contract?”
“Yes,” she shouted as quietly as possible so the crowd on the other side of the stage’s red velvet curtain wouldn’t hear them.
“Fine,” he said.
Her body sagged with relief. Her career wasn’t going down in flames in the middle of the Atlantic. Everything was going to be alright.
“On one condition.” The one-sided smirk curling his lips did not bode well for her long-term job prospects.
She was going to kill him. She’d probably lose out on the promotion, but right about now she was willing to take that chance. “What?”
“You’re my teammate.” He rocked back on his heels, obviously proud of himself.
“You’re already partnered up with Darius.” She pointed to the retired linebacker standing a few feet away, not doing a damn thing to disguise his enjoyment of the whole fucked-up situation.
“Have you ever played anything with him?”
She shook her head.
“Well, I played with him for eight years. He sucks at any team sport that doesn’t involve making someone’s bones crunch, and I hate losing more than just about anything else in the world.”
“Worse than crowds and being the center of attention?”
He just stared, neither confirming nor denying that they were both hip deep in bullshit right now. She’d be well within her rights to tell him to take a flying leap off the observation deck. She bet someone somewhere would cheer her on, but that person wasn’t sitting on the other side of the stage curtain. Judging by the noise, the crowd was getting restless. Eye on the prize, Angie girl.
“Whatever.” She shrugged. “Let’s just get this over with.”
She gave a nod to the ship’s onboard comedian who was acting as gameshow host for what was going to be one of the most hellish f
orty-five minutes of her life. The pulleys creaked as the stagehands opened the heavy curtain, much to the crowd’s appreciation.
“Thunder ladies and Thunder gentleman, are you ready?” the comedian asked.
The audience clapped and stomped their feet.
“Welcome to dirty charades!”
Angie’s jaw hit the floor. No. Just no.
Colt chuckled. “Looks like I wasn’t the only one who didn’t read every word in the contract.”
If he only knew how true the stories were about a Cuban woman’s temper, he would be guarding his cajones right about now.
Chapter Five
Angie’s day had started with dirty charades and ended ten hours later with a Thunder fans signed-jersey auction to raise funds for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. She was ready to hit the floor like a wet rag, but she couldn’t go without making sure Colt was settled in his new VIP room. As his official team liaison for the cruise, it was her responsibility. Keep telling yourself that, Angie girl.
The room was huge compared to hers, but on a cruise ship that wasn’t saying a whole lot. He had a big balcony, upgraded electronics and a bed big enough for six. Her gaze settled on the pristine white comforter, with its sea-blue decorative pillows and headboard made for hanging on to, and her heart sped up. She could barely hear her mental alarm bells going off over the blood rushing in her ears. Coming in here had been a very good bad idea, but she needed to bounce before it became a very naked bad idea.
Colt came up behind her, not touching but close enough she could wrap his sandalwood-and-soap scent around her like a blanket—a tempting comfort she couldn’t afford to crave. She turned, coming face to chest with him. He held out a filled champagne flute, alive with tiny bubbles.
“I don’t know.” Yes, she did. She should say no and leave while she still could instead of flipping off the fates like the heroine in a bad horror movie who just had to check out the old Smith house by herself at midnight.
