by Maggie Wells
She angled her mouth to fit his, then parted her lips enough to make him throb as much as she did. His answering groan was gratifying, so she parted them just a teensy bit more. His other hand came to rest on her hip. She was about to break the kiss when he stepped closer. His knee banged the front of the desk, but it didn’t seem to faze him. He kissed her slow and soft. Languid nips and brushes that made her squirm. His hand tightened on her hip. She knew she should do the sensible thing and pull back, but he yanked her to the edge of the desk, pressing her firmly against the hardness beneath his fly as his tongue swept into her mouth. And oh, it felt good.
Their kisses went on and on. Deep, drugging, and dangerously tempting, each swirl of his tongue made her ache in places that had no business aching in this place where she did business. She grasped at the last straw of sanity.
“Danny,” she gasped when he relinquished her mouth at last.
His fingers curled around the elastic waistband of her pants. She tried to protest, but his lips found the pulse in her throat, and all she managed was a strangled moan. She closed her eyes as his hand traveled from her nape to her breast.
“We can’t…not here.”
He pinched the hardened tip of her nipple, sending pain-laced pleasure coursing through her like a shot of adrenaline.
“We’re… We might… Anyone.”
He let go of her breast, and every objection she meant to voice melted away in a burst of white-hot desire. “God yes.”
Chuckling, Danny shoved the rubber tip of her whistle between her lips and crooned, “Shh.”
Her teeth clamped down on the whistle. The rubber ball trapped in the chamber trilled softly as she exhaled her surprise.
“Watch your breathing.” He leaned into her, pressing her back on her desk, forcing her to splay her hands behind her to catch her weight. He tugged her pants over the curve of her hip. “Lift up.”
He uttered the command in a voice so gruff, she obeyed without thought. Papers slid beneath her palms as she leveraged herself up. A proposed endorsement contract for a line of performance-enhancing protein supplements, camp schedules, drafts of the talks she’d be giving to overfed businessmen who considered an elite female athlete something of an anomaly. She smiled when he grappled with the zippers at her ankles.
Her T-shirt flew across the room. He pushed at the wide elastic of her sports bra with frantic hands. It rolled up like a broken blind. He caught a hank of hair and yanked. Her scalp screamed in protest, but she remained silent. The little rubber ball trapped in the whistle vibrated with each exhalation, but she kept it steady. The last thing she wanted was for him to stop. His hands were on her, and she was the sexiest, most desirable woman on earth. Even if she was clad in nothing but a pair of obnoxiously bright sneakers and some no-show socks.
Her fingers sank into his thick hair. The silky softness of the waves slipped through her fingers as he suckled her. The insistent tugs at her breast wound her up tighter than a spring. She inhaled through clamped teeth but carefully let the air seep from her lungs in measured exhalations, afraid she’d elicit another trill from the whistle.
He pressed the tip of his finger to her entrance. “Yes?”
She nodded, and he thrust deep inside her. The whistle fell from her mouth on a gasp. Wide-eyed with shock and desire, she gaped at him. Eyes locked on hers, he fumbled with his belt as he finger-fucked her fast and hard. “It doesn’t matter, Kate.” He ground the words out like gravel from his throat. “You and me. It’s what we say that matters.”
Her body bowed as he pressed the pad of his thumb to her clit. “Yes.”
The rasp of his zipper caught her attention. She tucked her chin to her chest, watching with interest as he worked his jeans and boxer briefs over his hips without missing a stroke. His cock sprang free, thick and hard. She shifted, eager to touch, but Danny wasn’t having any of that. He slipped his finger from her wetness and loomed over her, bending his knees to align their bodies. Then he was inside her.
“You feel so good,” he said. “Nothing should feel this good.”
Gratified as always by the wonder in his observation, she smiled. He pushed her back, oblivious to everything but his obvious need to dominate her, and in that moment, she was more than happy to let him have the upper hand. Even if it meant having the imprint of her red Swingline stapler permanently tattooed on her back. She ran her hands over the mesh polo he wore, felt his heart thrumming hard and fast beneath the placket, and smoothed the clingy knit over his rock-hard abs. The bunched fabric of his jeans abraded her inner thighs. She punished him for his state of half dress by hitching her hips higher and digging the heels of her shoes into the flexing muscle of his bare ass.
“I love making love to you.”
A flashbang of heat and hunger flared inside her. The confession was rough and rasping, its content not nearly as shocking as its phraseology. Usually his talk was edgier, dirtier, and used four-letter words that didn’t include the letters L, O, V, and E. A lump rose in her throat as the sensations he stirred inside her reached fever pitch. He made that hoarse hitching noise that signaled the fraying of his control. He slipped a hand between them, his aim unerring. He circled and stroked her, matching the maddening thrills incited by the combination of hand and cock, kisses and whispers, and love…
Oh God, she loved him, and he loved her, and they were on her desk, for God’s sake.
“Kate…”
That helpless croak was all it took. She flew, her fingernails digging into shoulder and scalp, her hips bucking against the unyielding wall of his pelvis, demanding more, taking him deeper, contracting around him until she wrung every shudder from the big, tough ballplayer cradled in her arms. The one who just “made love” to her. On her desk. In broad daylight. With their boss just down the corridor.
She stroked his hair, loathe to break the spell but all too aware that they’d crossed yet another line. “This is insane. We can’t do this.” She tempered the words with a tender kiss on the top of his head.
“I know. Mike warned me specifically not to do this.” He nuzzled her ear. “Maybe that’s why I went a little crazy.”
“Just a little?” She couldn’t repress her grin as he sagged against her. “Nuh-uh. Up, big guy.” Balancing precariously on one hand, she gave his shoulder a shove. “I have a stapler in my back, and I’m pretty sure we just desecrated a letter from the president of the NCAA.”
“Consecrated,” he corrected, lifting his head to look her in the eye. “The man would be ecstatic to see this much action.”
“Danny.” She gave him another fruitless push. “I wasn’t kidding about the stapler.”
With a reluctant sigh, he began to disengage. “Sorry.”
He put himself back together in the time it took her to locate her bra. A smirk twisted her lips as she pulled the lace and satin off Wilt Chamberlain’s head. Her staff had given her the life-sized cutout as a gag gift on her last birthday. Now, the basketball legend stood sentry in the corner, his short-shorts exposing miles of leg and his knowing eyes following her every move. She refused to flinch. With supposedly twenty thousand women under his belt, Mr. Chamberlain had no room to judge. Surely he’d seen things more scandalous than some stray lingerie and a desktop tryst.
Snatching her T-shirt from the floor, she shrugged into it and yanked it down until it covered her bare ass. “I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, but…” She turned to find Danny standing in the same spot, his feet braced for battle and her pants and panties in his hands.
“But you are,” he answered with a terse nod.
Unwilling to give another inch of ground, she untangled her clothes and bent to finish dressing right in front of him. She managed to get her panties on and one foot into her pants. Then she felt his fingers trailing lightly over the spot where the stapler dug into her skin. She froze when he bent and pressed a tender kiss to the impression.
“I’m sorry. I just…” He let the thought trail off as he st
raightened.
Kate thrust her other leg into her pants and yanked them into place. Pivoting on her heel, she met his gaze. “You just?”
“I think I’m in… I mean. I…”
Panic flared in his eyes, and for a second, she was tempted to take pity on him. But that second passed. She wanted him to say what she thought he wanted to say. And she wanted him to say it first. She raised both brows and plastered her best patient-coach expression on her face. One she hadn’t needed with the twelve-to fourteen-year-olds that morning, but it looked like Danny would need every bit of encouragement she had if he was ever going to work up the nerve to tell her what she wanted to hear. He opened his mouth, and she drew a shallow breath, holding it deep in her lungs as a damper on her own need to say how she felt about him.
“I’m picking you up at seven,” he blurted. “We’re going out to dinner. In public.”
The air rushed from her lungs. She turned her glare on his back as he strode to the door.
He paused, his hand gripping the handle, but he didn’t look back at her. “Wear a skirt. I like looking at your legs.”
She spewed the first words that came to mind. “Screw you.”
“Just did,” he retorted, finally glancing at her over his shoulder. “Loved every second of it, and so did you.”
“And you love me,” she shot back.
A smile twitched his lips as he opened the door. He stood framed in the doorway as it took hold and grew, stretching those too-lush lips into a wolfish grin. “Yeah, well, I’m going to call it even on that score.”
Chapter 16
Kate drifted through the doors to the athletic complex, certain the perma-smile on her face looked every bit as goofy as it felt but too happy to care. Danny had taken her to Caprice for dinner. The restaurant was not only the home of an award-winning chef, but also a favorite with the locals. The place had been packed when they walked through the doors.
She’d stood inches taller than Danny in the heels she’d worn in retaliation for the skirt demand, but it didn’t seem to make much difference to him. He guided her through the crowded tables, his hand warm on the small of her back and his smile wide. They’d endured the drive-bys from friends and fans and even signed a few autographs. Danny didn’t seem to mind that she signed three to his one, but he grew impatient with the speculative glances halfway through their appetizer. The second she set her fork aside, he took her hand in his, making it clear they were anything but enemies.
Even Millie’s late-night phone call did little to dampen the evening’s perfection. If anything, the older woman’s raspy harangue added fuel to the fire.
Kate smiled as she strode down the deserted corridor. For the first time since her affair with Danny began, she’d awakened to find him nestled into the pillow beside hers. He looked so delicious in his sleep—an overgrown boy with whiskers speckled with silver and a mouth so kissably soft it wouldn’t have shocked her to discover it was outlawed in some conservative states. By unspoken agreement, they’d moved their early-morning workout session from the weight room to the bedroom. But unlike the joyous pillage and plunder of the previous night, their lazy, languid coupling in the gray light of dawn seemed more of a celebration of freedom.
She didn’t even mind that he refused to let her out of the bed to brush her teeth. He loved her, morning breath and all. She was his. He was hers. And they didn’t care if the whole world knew it.
Her smile grew to the Joker proportions as she tapped the faded plywood Wolcott Warriors sign permanently mounted to the cinder-block wall. Not that she needed extra luck. She’d gotten lucky a total of three times in the past eighteen hours. The wicked smirk Danny wore as he strolled from her front door to his truck told her she was bound to come into more good fortune soon.
She rounded the corner at full speed but slid to a stop when she spotted Jim Davenport leaning against the wall outside her office. He had a copy of that morning’s Sentinel and his ever-present tablet curled in one hand. An insolent sneer twisted his beigey-bland features into something almost interesting when he pushed away from the wall. Kate opted for offense. No way she was letting a loser like Jim force her into playing defense.
“Jim. How did you get in here?”
He snorted as if her questioning a reporter’s ability to gain access to a building closed to the general public this early in the morning should have been obvious. And it was. “I know people,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “Other than you, that is.”
He unfolded the paper to show a grainy photo printed under the “Out and About” header. “To think I bought all that bullshit you used to spew about preferential treatment. I actually admired how scrupulous you were about it.” The sneer seeped into his voice as he took a step toward her. “So stupid of me. I should have realized that a good screw would have meant so much more to a woman like you than some pesky scruples.”
Kate blinked, unsure how he managed to knock the ball out of her hands so quickly. But she recovered soon enough. Shaking off the commentary on her sex life and whatever the hell he meant by a woman like you, she charged at him, over six feet of woman pissed off about having her exceptional mood pissed on.
“What exactly were you after, Jim, sex or a story? Because I could never figure that out. Maybe if I’d been a little clearer on what our relationship was, I might have been more forthcoming, but I owe you nothing.”
The once-over he gave her made her skin creep and crawl. “I wouldn’t have minded the sex,” he conceded at last. “Lucky for me, I got the story without having to go that far.”
A chill raced through her. She froze in place, willing every muscle in her body to be still as she scanned his face, searching for any hint of his next play. Only her rebellious heart dared to move. Each thump against her breastbone felt like a blow. She focused all her energy on holding his gaze and tamping down the swell of panic rising inside her. “What story?”
Jim smirked as he tipped his head to study the photo in the paper. “You and your guy look good together. The sparks fly on camera, but you know that already, don’t you? Got you both national airtime. Not that you really needed it, but then again, people tend to forget about women’s sports once the highlight reels stop running.”
Her hands curled into fists, but she held back the punch she desperately wanted to throw. Her hands were too important to her to risk breaking a knuckle on this bonehead. She was still attempting to summon a scathing retort when he droned on.
“Of course, your little dog and pony show scored lots of free promo for the university. Tell me, Kate, were you the dog or the pony?”
“Get out.” She ground the words from between clenched teeth.
Davenport just laughed her off. “Hey, look on the bright side. Your new boyfriend had enough pull to remind NSN that you’re still around. They finally shot the fawning feature film you’ve always wanted, and it’s all thanks to Dreamboat Danny.”
“That documentary was contracted two years ago,” she retorted.
“And they managed to get a crew on campus just two weeks after Coach McMillan’s inaugural press conference.” He tossed the paper at her feet. The photo of her and Danny holding hands across a table stared up at her. “Well played, Kate. Too bad you won’t be able to leverage your boyfriend’s notoriety too much longer. You’ll have to find some other schmuck to set a pick for you.”
Her head shot up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means lover boy is in violation of his contract. The board can fire him today.” He raised his eyebrows, daring her to refute the statement.
Hands on her hips, she curled her fingers around the bone like she did when she was trying to catch her wind. It was the exact same spot Danny grabbed when he pulled her hips high in the air and plunged into her until she screamed his name. Powered by the memory of kisses feathered along her skin, she planted her feet and prepared to take Jim’s charge full force.
“We’re colleagues. We had dinner.”
&
nbsp; “You’re holding hands,” he pointed out.
She tried to match his snide tone but fell short as she fumbled for plausible deniability. “We were shaking hands. He’d just agreed to reinflate all the basketballs in the storage closet each week if I brought him a Cubs hat back from my trip to Chicago.”
Jim nodded as if he might actually swallow that load of bullshit and flipped open the cover on his tablet. “Good, ’cause I doubt he’ll be wearing the green and gold much longer.”
He turned the pad to show a photo of her kissing Danny goodbye that very morning. She wore nothing but a faded Warrior Women T-shirt and a pair of panties that showed as she stretched into the kiss.
“Not that it matters. It seems there are a few programs looking for a new head coach. Now that Samlin popped his redemption cherry, Danny Boy may have other options. We all knew this was a stepping stone, but I guess we thought we’d get to see the guy call one play before he skipped.”
Danny had teased her about giving a floor show as she shoved him out the door. She stared at the photo, memorizing every crease in his rumpled slacks. She’d put those pleats in the front of his dress shirt with her very own hands. The green-and-gold Wolcott hat he wore to cover his bedhead was hers. He was hers. Or she thought he was. But for how long?
Squaring her shoulders, she looked Jim straight in the eye. “What story are you looking for, Davenport?”
“Something better than another up close and personal with the NCAA basketball’s reigning queen.”
His words proved to be a timely reminder of who and what she was. “That’s the only story I have to tell.”
“I bet I can get a juicier story from your lesser half. I want to know what really went down at Northern and what he expects to get out of coaching a team like Wolcott.” He snapped the cover closed on the tablet and brushed past her as if they hadn’t shared the world’s most anticlimactic courtship. “Tell Coach McMillan I’ll be in touch to set up my exclusive.”
“He won’t give it to you,” Kate called after him.
