The thrum of a dozen basketballs against hardwood drew him like a vandal to a freshly painted wall. The lack of syncopation should have crawled all over his nerves, but it didn’t. Those crazy, time-challenged thuds reminded him of the beat of Kate’s heart just after she came. Frantic. Erratic. Beautifully untamed.
He hovered in the mouth of the tunnel, his gaze locked on the honey-colored court. She stood at the center of mayhem, the brightly colored shoes planted square in the middle of the stylized shield and crossed swords that served as the university’s logo. Two dozen gangly preteens gamboled around her, skinny arms and legs flailing as they chased those bouncing balls.
Kate called something as one of the girls sprinted past her, a shining, blond ponytail streaming in her wake as she broke for the basket. The layup circled the rim but refused to fall through. The girl’s shoulders slumped as one of her cohorts snagged the rebound and dribbled away. She turned toward center court, hope and dread written all over her face. Kate gave a casual wave that clearly said “Shake it off,” captured a wayward ball, and winged it at the girl.
A flash of color at the far end of the court caught his attention. A huff of surprise burst from his lungs as he spotted a second Amazon among the milieu of munchkins. Another one of the WNBA’s former all-stars bent at the waist to talk to a girl who wasn’t much past the five-foot mark. A quick scan turned up two of her assistant coaches, a current NBA player, and Ty Ransom scattered between loose groups of middle school players.
Danny released a low whistle as he sidled into a row of bleachers and lowered a seat without taking his eyes off the action below. “That’s a lot of firepower.”
He’d mumbled the observation to himself, but a deep voice came from higher up in the stands. “You should see who she pulls in for the varsity camps later this summer.”
“Mack?” Twisting in his seat, Danny scowled as he squinted into the gloom beyond the first tier of seating. “That you?”
His assistant coach grunted in reply. “Better move back into the shadows. She doesn’t like people crashing her camps. Says it makes the girls nervous.”
Barely containing a snort, Danny glanced around at what he’d thought was an empty arena. Then he spotted them. A dozen or so spectators sat high up in the stands, all with their attention fixed on the court. All but one, that is.
Danny started to rise, but a sharp jerk of the AD’s head stopped him. Before he could seek refuge in the cheap seats, Mike made his way toward him, climbing over rows and bounding down the shallow steps three at a time. He read the intent on the other man’s face as easily as he read defensive formations. The blitz was coming. Danny had a choice: scramble and run, or stay in the pocket and take it like a man.
“Probably should have stayed in your office, Coach,” Mack stage-whispered. “I think the big guy’s been looking for you.”
Danny didn’t bother to conceal his grimace as he watched his old friend approach. “Yeah, thanks for the heads-up.”
“Mack.” Mike acknowledged the older man with a nod but didn’t break stride. Mack didn’t bother to move, a fact that made it doubly uncomfortable when Mike dropped down right beside Danny. “Coach.”
Mike hadn’t even left the customary one-seat man buffer between them. A fact that did not bode well as far as friendly conversation might go. Danny shifted in his seat and eyed the other man. “Director.”
Mike leaned forward to plant his elbows on his knees and clasp his hands between them. He kept his eyes locked on the court below, but tension rolled off the man in waves. “I’d hoped I wouldn’t see you here.”
A pang of regret twisted Danny’s gut. This man was his friend. One of the few who had not only stuck by him when the shit hit, but who also reached out on a regular basis. Danny had been so busy avoiding his boss lately that he hadn’t noticed Mike had been dodging him too.
The warning Mike had given that day on the practice field came back to him. The man had gone out on a limb for him. Danny was lucky to have this job. Kate was too deeply ensconced in Wolcott for him to fool with her and walk away unscathed. Every word was true. Unfortunately, a warning was never going to be enough to keep him away from Kate Snyder. Hell, nothing short of a highly skilled assassin would have done the trick.
“You can save the lecture,” Danny warned.
The blunt assessment captured Mike’s full attention. “Huh?”
“There was no way it wasn’t going to happen.”
Mike’s eyebrows rose. “I’m scared of both the structure and the content of that sentence.”
Danny had to laugh. Letting his head fall, he rolled the knots from his shoulders and dropped back another five yards to buy himself a little time. These days, Mike looked a lot more like an academic than an all-American. In reality, the man was both. Not only was he smart as a whip, but he also had the heart of a ballplayer. Danny needed to remember that. Unlike the front office guys he’d worked for in the past, he couldn’t bully this one into letting him call his own shots.
“Listen—”
“No!” Mike hissed. “I get it, okay? She’s beautiful, she’s talented, she’s friggin’ six feet tall—”
Danny turned and dropped the heel of his foot on Mike’s instep. Hard. Hard enough to make the man suck air. “Stop right there.”
Mike gritted his teeth, then threw an elbow with enough force and accuracy to restore what little space the two had started with. “Dammit, Danny, just looking at her wrong can get you fired in the blink of an eye.”
“You think I don’t know that? You think she doesn’t?”
Mike slid to the end of the seat and turned to face Danny head-on. “Then what the hell are you thinking? It took you years just to get back to this point.”
The shrill threeeep of a whistle cut though the cacophony, and the disjointed thrum of bouncing balls ceased at once. Danny watched as the girls lined up to place their balls on wheeled racks parked at the far end of the court. One by one, they rushed to the middle of the floor, anxious to see what Kate had planned for them next.
Mike’s growl of frustration was muffled by his palm. “Is she really worth it?”
The silence throbbed around them. Alive. Pulsing with adrenaline. And like a rookie spotting his first opening in the defensive line, Danny dove headlong into it. “How’s Diane? Still worth it?”
It was a cheap shot and Danny knew it, but he was feeling cornered and didn’t care. Mike’s wife had been a cheerleader he’d fooled with on and off in their undergrad days. Then she turned up pregnant just after one of those “on” periods at the end of their junior year, and Mike showed up for practice that fall with a shiny gold wedding band on his finger.
All indications showed that the marriage was thriving. They’d had two more kids after Mike’s pro career petered out. Danny had been to their expensive-but-comfortable house for dinner and spotted the pencil marks on the doorjamb that made the house a home. But still, it wasn’t like Mike had been given a lot of choice once the dirty deed was done.
“I’m sorry.” Danny issued the apology in an instant. “That was… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. You know I love Di.”
Mike sagged back against the seat. “I’m not trying to bust your balls, man. I’m just… The stakes are high. It’s not just your job on the line here. I took a chance on you.”
Danny slumped, the weight of Mike’s reality pressing down on him until he slouched like a sullen teenager. “I know that.”
Tugging at his bottom lip, he watched as Kate divided her worshipful minions between the opposing baselines. Whistle clamped between her teeth, she walked backward until she reclaimed her spot at center court, then gave it a short, shrill blast. The soles of sixty sneakers slapped polished oak. When the first girl came close to touching her, another bleat split the air, sending them back in the opposite direction.
She toyed with them, sending them long then short, reversing their course on her whim, and smiling around the whistle’s rubber guard as their squeals and taunts filled the air.
He closed his eyes. It took little effort to conjure the image of her straddling him. Toying with him. Tormenting him. Pushing him until it felt like everything would explode—his dick, his head, his lungs, his heart.
A long, trilling blast of the whistle jolted him, and Danny sat bolt upright as the girls ran to her. They surrounded her at center, their faces shiny with sweat and tendrils trailing from battered ponytails. They beamed at Kate. Every one of those young, fresh faces glowed with elation. He knew that feeling. It came to him each time he fitted his fingers between the laces of a football, cupped the curved leather, cocked his arm, and let one fly. Love of the game.
Love.
Eyes fixed on the woman towering over her gaggle of munchkins, he let go of the tension inside him. It was time to stop playing it safe and start playing to win. And to win, he needed to lay it all on the line. His job. Decades of friendship. The heart thumping hard against his breastbone. He hadn’t lied when he told his mother Kate was worth the risk.
“I love her.”
He spoke the words no louder than a whisper, but he knew Mike heard him. He couldn’t be bothered with the knuckles glowing white beneath his old friend’s skin. Not when he’d lobbed his heart right at the unsuspecting woman like a Hail Mary. Closing his eyes, he envisioned it slicing through the air in a high, tight spiral, unraveling the closer it got to her. Just like he did. Danny swallowed hard but forced himself to open his eyes. He couldn’t stand envisioning his heart lying bloody and beaten at her feet. “I love her.”
“Does she love you?”
Danny opened his mouth to tell the man it was none of his damn business if she did or she didn’t, but at that moment, Kate raised her head and looked right at him.
Thank God he hadn’t heeded Mack’s advice to move higher up in the stands. For once in his life, he was more than happy to be too slow to outrun Mike Samlin. He answered the eloquent lift of her brows with an exaggerated shrug. A small smile curved her lips as she carried the whistle to her mouth again and blew hard. This time, she took off with the pack, her dark hair bouncing off her shoulders as she raced the girls for the racks that held the basketballs.
He watched as she ripped a ball from the grasp of a girl eight inches shorter and dribbled away. Her throaty laugh rose like smoke. Her erstwhile opponent went after her, bony arms flailing as the NCAA coach of the year squared up and stepped into her defender, unwilling to give even an inch when it came to the only thing that mattered—taking the shot.
He drank her in, memorizing the line of her. Eyes fixed on the rim and toes pointed at the goal, her body curved into a graceful bow, her strength and power breathtaking to behold. She was his. And she loved him too.
“Yeah, she does.”
Mike heaved a sigh heavy enough to crush a lesser person. Danny twitched when the man’s hand landed heavy on his shoulder, but Mike’s voice was quiet and calm when he spoke. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” And he was. He knew with every fiber of his being that she loved him back, even if they hadn’t said the words yet.
Mike sighed. “I can’t stand the thought of watching everything you’ve worked for blown sky-high because of some woman.”
Danny turned to look at his friend. “Not some woman. The woman,” he corrected gruffly. “Before I met Kate, the only thing I had to look forward to when I left the office at night was hours of game film. The only goal I had was getting back, getting better, and getting my hands on that trophy.”
Mike held his gaze. “And now?”
The smile started, and there was no way he could stop it. Pure joy. Powered by love. Of the game, and of the right woman. “Now I want all that and her.”
The AD rapped his wedding ring against the plastic armrest and stood. “Well, there goes Millie’s publicity plan.”
Squinting up at the other man, Danny shrugged. “Oh, I bet Kate and I can keep fighting for the cameras.”
“Hard to buy two people going at each other if you know they’re getting it on at night.” Mike shoved his hands into his pockets and tossed down another put-upon sigh. “Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King never fell in love.”
Danny barked a laugh. “There were reasons for that.”
“I suppose.” As if the man thought he still had any room to maneuver, Mike cast a sidelong glance at Danny. “Keep it off campus.”
“There goes my plan to bend her over the trophy case.”
His words dripped with sarcasm. As it was, he’d been actively plotting payback for the locker room tryst for weeks, but the right opportunity never arose. He wouldn’t cross it off the list, no matter what Mike wanted.
“I guess I’ll have to make do with away games,” Danny said.
“Okay, I’ve said what I needed to say.” Mike patted his shoulder again but this time gave it a friendly squeeze. “I’ll talk to you later.”
He started to slide from the row, but Danny caught his arm. “I’m sorry about what I said. It was a cheap shot. You know I love Diane, right?”
“I do too. No matter how rough things were at the start.”
Danny didn’t even try to fight the flush that crept up his neck. He deserved every scorching bit of it. “I get you. And I am sorry. I shouldn’t have lashed out like that.”
The AD caught the apology with the same grace he used to show only when snatching footballs out of thin air. “Now you know how I know you’re not bullshitting about Kate.”
Danny watched his friend walk away without another word. Down on the court, the assistant coaches were herding the campers into lines for layup drills. Kate huddled with her two famous volunteers on the sideline. The lights above the court striped her dark hair with streamers of gold. The green-and-gold lanyard around her neck clashed with the neon-pink Nike shirt she wore with black track pants. He caught the Y-shaped outline of a sports bra beneath the high-tech fabric. The shirt clung to the slope of her breasts and flowed smooth over the curve of her hip. The urge to yank them both up to her armpits made his fingers curl.
The squeak of a seat rising alerted him that he wasn’t alone with his X-rated thoughts. A pair of decidedly low-tech sneakers appeared in his peripheral vision. At least the damn things had laces and not Velcro closures. He didn’t need to look to know his inherited assistant would have completed the look with polyester coach’s shorts and a polo.
Keeping his gaze on Kate, he asked, “You got something to add, Mack?”
Mack didn’t scuff his shoes or clear his throat. He didn’t bother with anything as obvious as a tap on the shoulder or whistle blast in his ear. Danny had seen the old coot do it to players on occasion. The tactic was undoubtedly effective but not as potent as stillness and silence.
At last, Danny gave in and looked up. “Well?”
Mack gave him the single nod that Danny was starting to think the man had trademarked, then gestured to the court. “Just glad to hear you finally got your head in the game.”
Kate walked her guests to the ramp that led to the locker rooms. Her thanks were effusive. Handshakes turned into hugs and kisses. The guy from the Knicks held her a little too long for Danny’s liking, but she simply laughed and punched the future Hall of Fame candidate in the arm as she pulled away. Poor Mack had to resort to a light slap upside his head to regain Danny’s attention.
Shocked, Danny turned to glare into crystalline-blue eyes, for the first time noticing that the shade was startlingly similar to the reflection that greeted him in the mirror each morning. But this man was nothing like dodgy Dan McMillan. This man knew who he was, where he belonged, and exactly what the next play needed to be.
“Yeah, Coach?” Danny asked, his voice hoarse with anticipation.
“Just make sure you play every minute of every quarter. Right to the last down.” He glanced at Kate and then back again. “Every second counts, kid. Hell, these basketball players, they’ll even take it down to the tenths and hundredths of a second. Play hard if you mean to win.”
“Gotcha.”
The old man thumped his back, then rose. “We’ve been spotted.” He jerked his chin toward the court. Kate stood in the center circle once more, a ball tucked under her arm and a gaggle of preteen girls gathered close. She raised a hand and waved him down. Of course, Mack was off like a shot. “Looks like you’re about to get drilled, and not in the good way,” he said with a chuckle.
Unable to resist her smile, Danny rose like a man in a trance. The soles of his athletic shoes were silent as he jogged down the steps, but the second he stepped onto the polished hardwood, they sang out his surrender.
Smiling at the chorus of giggles that greeted him, he trotted out to meet the group, his shoes squeaking like someone had stashed a pair of rubber mice in the insoles. “You beckoned, Coach?”
“Think fast,” she blurted, then winged the ball she’d been holding directly at his chest.
He caught it just before it knocked the wind out of him. Palms stinging, he shot her an arch look. “Fast enough for you?”
Kate simply smiled that saccharine smile he’d come to know and love and pointed to the far goal. “Hit it.”
Without breaking eye contact with her, he dropped the ball into an easy dribble. “Hitting it, Coach,” he replied with a smirk.
She let him have two steps before she unleashed her gaggle of flying monkeys with nothing more than a simple, “Get him.”
* * *
Kate drew up short when she spotted Danny lounging against the trophy case outside her office door. “Oh. Hi.”
He didn’t straighten or return her burgeoning smile. In fact, he didn’t look happy to see her at all. He looked…determined. She’d become fluent in Danny McMillan’s body language over the past few weeks. The tightening of his abs when her fingers bumped over his ribs marked him as ticklish but unwilling to admit it. A quick downward tug at the corners of his mouth signaled amusement he was reluctant to show. The sharp, jerky nod he gave her told her he was holding himself on a tight rein. His fingers were curled into his palms, not quite fists.
“You and your minions have fun making me look like a slug out there?”
Her ears burned, and her nipples went on high alert. That old saying about someone being beautiful when they’re angry came to life. He stood there, pissed off and gorgeous in all his high-definition glory, and, Lord, she wanted him. It had been less than six hours since he’d rolled out of her bed, but that didn’t make her any less eager to have him in it—and in her—again. Judging by the heat flaming in his blue eyes, he felt exactly the same way.
“You looked like you wanted to play.” She brushed against him as she aimed her key at the lock on her office door. He stiffened just the slightest bit, and she shot him a sidelong glance as the door swung open wide. “I would have introduced you to Alec and Shaundra, but they couldn’t stick around for the slaughter.”
“Your friend Alec can shoot, but he plays golf for crap.” The words sounded like a typical jock jibe, but Danny wasn’t wearing the requisite smirk to go with them. Instead, he kicked the door shut, twisted the lock, and started toward her, blue eyes locked on her like laser beams. “And given how I did against a bunch of twelve-year-olds today, I’d say I’ve got more than enough trouble trying to handle one Amazon woman. Two would probably kill me.”
“I wasn’t offering to set you up.” She leaned back to perch on the edge of her desk, bracing her feet wide and tipping her chin up to hold his gaze. Invitation or challenge, he could read it either way he wished. “Besides, you’re not her type.”
That cocky smirk she loved so much finally made its appearance. Danny stepped between her legs. Her eyelashes fluttered when he ran his big, rough hand over her hair. But when he wound a hank of it around his fist and tugged not so gently, her eyes snapped open, and her head tipped back.
“Haven’t you heard?” he asked. “I’m every woman’s type.”
“I hate to break this to you, lover boy, but I can tell you for a fact that I’m more her type.”
It took a half second for the full impact of the taunt to sink in. The metamorphosis of his expression was priceless. So was the sheepish but delighted smile he settled on at last.
“Day-yum,” he drawled. “If that’s not a thought to keep a man up at night, I don’t know what is.”
Kate grabbed his belt buckle and pulled him a little closer, all the while staring him straight in the eye. “Stop being a pig. Besides, she’s not my type.”
He blushed as he rubbed his thumb along the base of her skull. “Sorry, I know that was bad, but…can’t I keep it? Just for…inspiration.”
“You’re playing with fire, Coach,” she warned.
“Never did develop a healthy fear of it.” He lifted a shoulder in a helpless shrug. “Now, with you, I think I might be turning into a damn pyromaniac.”
She wet her lips, then let her hand fall away from his waistband. “I saw Mike up there too. I assume he was warning you off.”
“He tried.”
“Danny—”
“He failed.”
The stark ferocity of his assertion stopped her. Whatever she was about to say crumbled to dust on her tongue. She stared hard at him, searching for a crack she might slip through to inject a little reason, but all she saw was the impenetrable granite of sheer determination. Still, she was a champion, and champions never stop. Even when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds.
“He’s going to fire you.”
“No, he’s not.”
His rapid response startled her. She squinted at him, trying to read whatever convoluted thoughts had led him to his new certainty. “How do you know?”
“I know.”
A slow smile curved his mouth. Riding the wave of impulse that seemed to swell whenever this man was too near, she rose up and pressed her lips to it. The smile blossomed and spread as she moved to give the other side of his mouth equal playing time. She loved kissing him happy. Danny’s smiles had a taste all their own, spice and heat, as if each bump of his lips served as a thermostat. Oh, she loved his other kisses too. The ones rich and intense as dark chocolate. Those quick pecks that were savory but also achingly sweet. She particularly relished the moments when his innate coordination failed and he got a little sloppy.
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 straightened.
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.”