Kickoff Page 7

  “What the fuck? Did you hear me?” Tyler gripped near his elbow.

  Derek shook his head, trying to clear images of Rachel on her knees in front of him. “I, uh… Sorry, visualizing the game in my head.”

  Tyler’s laser blue eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Fuck that, you were visualizing her.” He jerked his head in Rachel’s direction.

  “Shut the fuck up.” Derek glanced around to make sure no one caught their little exchange. Time to concentrate on the game. The game was all that mattered and the only thing partially under his control.

  The Rams kicked off to the Steelheads, and the punt returner bobbled the ball, falling on it ten yards from the wrong end zone. A few plays later, Dante leaped in the air to make an impossible catch on an overthrown ball. As he came down, two defenders slammed into him. His body rocketed several yards before bouncing across the turf like a rock skimming a pond. When he finally came to rest, he didn’t move.

  Shit.

  The trainers tore out to the field. Derek stood with the rest of his teammates, straining to catch a glimpse of Dante and sending up a silent prayer for him to be okay. After several nerve-racking minutes, Dante wobbled to his feet and staggered off the field wedged between two huge tackles.

  “Ramsey, get your ass in there!”

  Derek jumped, so absorbed in worry about Dante that HughJack’s bellowing startled him.

  His gaze immediately sought Rachel. She gave him the thumbs-up and smiled. “You got this.”

  He nodded, strapped on his helmet, and raced onto the field. One sack and a broken play later, the Steelheads were backed up to their end zone, third down and twenty-two on the one. HughJack threw down his battered clipboard, stomped on it, and cussed a blue streak. Their second regular game of the season was turning to crap.

  Tyler shot a defiant glare at HughJack. Determination etched on his face, he nodded at Derek as they broke the huddle. Derek knew the meaning of the nod; he’d seen it all through high school and college. Throwing caution to the wind, Tyler called an audible at the line of scrimmage.

  Derek ran his pattern, surprised to find no one covering him. They obviously didn’t consider him a threat. Well, fuck that. The insult gave him renewed strength.

  Tyler looked in the opposite direction for an open receiver. The defenders scrambled in that direction. He sidestepped a diving linebacker and spun around. Cocking his arm, he lobbed a short pass in his cousin’s direction. Derek caught it in one hand and put it away. No one was getting this ball out of his arms. He turned upfield. One glance verified it was a foot race.

  With his speed, the defense didn’t stand a chance. Surging with elation and confidence, he eluded a couple of tacklers angling toward him from the sidelines and turned on the afterburners. His feet pounded on the ground and ate up the yards. His lungs pumped air.

  Eyes focused on the goalposts at the opposite end of the field, he listened for footsteps behind him, even chanced a glance over his shoulder. The closest defender lagged several yards behind, quickly losing ground. He was home free and breezed into the end zone for six points.

  Doubling over, Derek rested his hands on his knees and gulped for air until his teammates caught up to him and slapped the hard-won oxygen back out of his lungs. The half-full stadium erupted with noise. Derek stood up, only to have Tyler hit him full force. He would have gone flying if a 330-pound lineman hadn’t held him up.

  Tyler, ever the attention whore, showboated and shoved his fist in the air, dancing around his teammates. Derek cradled the ball in his arms, his first professional touchdown in four years. This ball would be going home with him.

  When his gaze met Rachel’s, she was smiling with pride. That smile meant more to him than the cheers of the crowd.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  After the game, Derek was the interviewee of choice by local news stations. After his touchdown run, he’d caught a few short passes. The Steelheads lost by a last-minute field goal, which sucked. Zero and two. The loss soured the good feeling he’d gotten from his touchdown.

  He didn’t leave the locker room until almost an hour later. Sidestepping invitations to after-game parties, Derek slipped out and hurried to the parking lot. Rachel’s car was still parked there.

  Feeling like a stalker, he loitered in the lot but kept his back to the door, pretending to be checking the tires on his truck.

  Footsteps sounded on the concrete behind him, followed by a couple of missteps as if the person stumbled. A slow smile slid across Derek’s face.

  Rae.

  His heart sped up. She stopped halfway across the lot, and he walked up to her. Her green eyes met his, and he glimpsed the old Rachel beneath her ice princess facade. He breathed in that sweet, uniquely her scent. His pulse quickened, and his palms started to sweat.

  Shit. This was stupid. This Rachel didn’t need him on a personal level. She needed who he was and what he could do for her career. For her, it was all about her ambitions, her future. And so should it be for him.

  “Hey. You okay?”

  “I’m fine. I tripped.”

  “I heard.” Her clumsiness was so damn cute. “I wanted to thank you for what you’ve done for my game.” And for me, he added to himself. She’d made him believe in himself again.

  “That’s what they pay me to do.”

  “Maybe, but no one knows me like you do.”

  Her radiant smile would warm a Texan in a bathing suit in Antarctica.

  God, he missed her. “Remember how we used to sit around and dissect every game? Hell, you knew as much as any of us guys.”

  “I still do, buster.”

  His mouth twitched as he suppressed a smile and nodded his agreement. “I ruined a good friendship. I screwed up.”

  “Actually, I did.” Rachel shrugged. “I needed comfort and to forget. You helped me out.” She stared at her feet.

  “Yeah, I guess.” Feeling uncomfortable, Derek shifted his weight from one foot to the other. An awkward silence ensued until he finally broke it with a change in subject. He didn’t bring up the elephant in the room, and neither did she. He hadn’t gone to her father’s defense, and he’d had good reason, a reason she’d never know.

  “What did you think of my game?” he asked.

  “You’re playing better, but you still aren’t where you need to be.”

  “I can’t get in the zone. I was almost there, but not quite.”

  “You’re too tight.”

  His mouth grew dry. He swallowed and cleared his throat. One suggestion on how he could loosen up played in living color in his mind. Shaking his head to clear it, he banished those thoughts to the locker room.

  “Derek?”

  “Yeah?” His fingers itched to take her in his arms and never let her go. A hint of something flickered in her eyes. Regret? Concern? It was gone in a flash, and her face settled into the calm, icy persona he’d come to expect in the past month or so. Everything about her screamed unapproachable.

  She’d always had ambitions as strong as his; she’d just suppressed them. They weren’t suppressed anymore, and he pitied any man who stood in her way.

  “I’m glad you had a good game.” She touched his chest, searching his eyes for something.

  “Yeah, me too.” He placed his hand over hers, holding it for a brief moment before removing it. She blinked a few times in confusion, as if not understanding why she’d touched him in such a familiar manner.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. Make sure Ty’s on time.” Her voice was devoid of emotion, and she hurried away.

  “I’ll try. Good night, Rae,” he called after her, watching her leave. Her ponytail swished back and forth, enticing him, calling to him, like a siren’s song, begging him to follow her, but he didn’t.

  He’d had his chance with her, and he wouldn’t get another one. The sooner he came to terms with the current situation, the better.

  His chest ached. A gaping hole opened up inside him where she once was. He felt as empty as a football stadium with
no spectators.

  Chapter 9—Encroachment

  Derek dragged his weary body into bed. It’d been a tough couple of weeks. Up at five every morning, he worked out with Tyler at the practice facility. They did countless push-ups, sit-ups, crunches—you name it, they did it.

  After that, regular practice for several hours in which the coaches, especially Rachel, were relentless. She was earning a reputation as a hard-ass and the grudging respect of even the biggest macho male on the team. Yet she looked as tired as he felt. Not that she wasn’t still hot as hell, she was, but there was something missing, almost like her enthusiasm for the game was waning.

  In the evening on even nights, the aforementioned Mistress of Torture put Tyler and him through devious forms of torment and physical tests for an hour or two. They ran patterns over and over until they could run them from a deep coma. Even Tyler quit bitching and obediently followed Rachel’s orders. His asshole cousin’s quiet compliance was scary as fuck. Derek had always known she had steel in her, but never like this.

  On odd nights, they evaluated game film, either with Rachel at her house or at the practice facility with the guys. Derek even managed to cram in a few hours of charity appearances a week, finding it hard to say no to anyone with a good cause.

  Definitely running on empty, he was almost too tired to think of Rachel as anything but a taskmaster, one advantage to his constant state of exhaustion. Not that she didn’t look damned attractive in her workout suit; a woman who had a whistle and knew how to use it was sexy as hell.

  Yet all the blood, sweat, and aching muscles weren’t paying off. Arizona blew the Steelheads out in an embarrassing 47-14 defeat, and their record fell to an embarrassing zero and three. HughJack was going through clipboards like Tyler went through beer after a game.

  Tomorrow, the team played at home. Derek would be damned if he’d walk off the field with his tail tucked between his legs again. They were going to win this one. A team could rescue their season with only three losses, but add another one, and it started getting out of control. The guys would start believing they were losers. The faithful fifty, what the press called the diehard fans who’d been with the team since its inception, would begin to lose faith. The GM would start looking for trade deals. Derek did not want to be one of those deals. He had to prove himself invaluable.

  So here it was Saturday night, and he was in bed by ten. His life sure had changed. Burrowing beneath the covers, he shut his eyes and waited for sleep to take him away. And waited. And waited.

  Derek rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Unable to sleep, he reached for the book he’d picked up last week and opened it to chapter twelve, where he’d left off last night. Judging by the cover, he’d thought it was a spy novel. While it had a bit of intrigue in it, the book was a romance, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit the sex was what kept him reading.

  The way he saw it, sex via proxy worked better than no sex at all.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Rachel often went to the practice facility late at night and ran on one of the treadmills. Usually, she was the only one there and let herself in with her key. Coaches kept incredibly grueling hours. The Steelheads coaching staff were the first to arrive and the last to leave. She was weary and wanting a break. Sometimes she felt like an imposter. She wasn’t a domineering person, but she’d been forced into that role to get her point across to the professional athletes she coached. Somehow the coaching aspect wasn’t nearly as appealing as the evaluation aspect of her job. She was probably just tired. That was all. Her dream was within her reach, yet she wondered at times whose dream it was—hers or her father’s?

  Tonight, the lights were on. She opened the door and hesitated, not sure who it was. Derek’s truck hadn’t been in the parking lot, so the lone inhabitant of the massive workout room couldn’t be him. Yet she had this feeling, the type of feeling she usually only got when he was nearby.

  She stopped cold and swallowed. She still had time. Run now, while she could. Her hand gripped the door. Her feet were anchored to the floor as if they’d been nailed down.

  It was Derek, and he was a sight to behold.

  Oblivious to her presence, he was doing push-ups in one corner, wearing nothing but a pair of athletic shorts. Lord, the man had a gorgeous body. Muscles, as fine as any sculpted in bronze, flexed under the strain as he pushed harder in an obsessed rhythm.

  Biting her lower lip, she backed up a little, and her feet wrapped around themselves. She grabbed at the nearest piece of equipment and sent a stack of weights crashing to the ground.

  She’d been outed and plastered an innocent expression on her face as if she’d just shown up and not been drooling over that body for the past few minutes.

  He stopped and looked up. When he saw her, a slow, sexy smile slid across his face. He jumped to his feet and ambled toward her in that long, easy stride of his. His gaze flicked to the pile of weights at her feet and back to her face.

  “You okay?” His lips twitched as he fought not to smile.

  “I’m wonderful,” she said mechanically. Her attention was fixated on his chest, wet with sweat and heaving from exertion. “You’re sweaty.” Stupid, stupid remark, but she couldn’t take it back.

  He chuckled. “That happens when I work out.” He stood aside and motioned her farther into the darkened workout room like a lion inviting a deer into his lair. Dumb prey animal that she was, she accepted the silent offer.

  “Is everything okay? Do you need something?”

  She needed something, no denying that. Wetness pooled between her legs as she remembered how good that sweaty body felt on top of hers. Her breath hitched.

  He cocked his head and studied her. “Are you okay?”

  No, she wasn’t.

  “Rae, it’s pretty late. Do you always come here after midnight?”

  “I, uh, sometimes run when I can’t sleep, and it’s safe here.” Or it used to be. This place was anything but safe tonight. In fact, it might be the most dangerous place in Seattle as far as she was concerned.

  Derek reached for a towel and wiped the sweat off his face, then his chest. She forced her eyes to focus on his chin. Even his chin was sexy.

  “I was just about to take a break. Want a bottle of water?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but grabbed two bottles of water from nearby and handed one to her. “Have a seat. We see each other all the time but never have much time to just chat.”

  That was because any personal contact with him was foolish and idiotic.

  Stiffly, she sat on the bench of a weight machine, then realized her foolish error. She should’ve left instead of settling in for a long winter’s night. He sat across from her, the towel slung over his bare shoulders.

  She wished he’d put some clothes on.

  “Tough luck at the game yesterday.”

  He raised one shoulder in a half shrug. “Zero and four isn’t a great start.”

  “HughJack is livid.”

  “That’s an understatement. He’ll need to have a semi full of clipboards delivered to last him the rest of the season.”

  “At least you had a good game.”

  “It was okay. I caught a few passes.”

  “You scored the team’s only touchdown.”

  “I dropped a couple I should have caught.” He leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes.

  Her gaze dropped to his bare chest with that spattering of chest hair, flat washboard stomach, and muscular, well-defined pecs. He’d looked fine in college, but not this fine.

  She wanted him. Oh, Lord, how she wanted him. For the last few years, she’d tried to purge her memories of him, but it hadn’t worked.

  It wasn’t just his body, gorgeous as it was, but his mind that attracted her, his quick wit, his humble attitude, his kindness to others. She loved his affinity for big band music and how he enjoyed karaoke, singing all those old classics with his clear, resonant voice. Did he still sing?

  Her image of Derek
as a straight-up, decent guy conflicted with his refusal to help her father. There had to be an explanation, a reason. Perhaps Derek was protecting someone. Perhaps nothing was as simple as it seemed. A grain of doubt regarding her father’s innocence nagged at her like a pebble in her shoe.

  Realizing she was staring, she jerked her head up and met his dark, hooded eyes. She knew that look. The man was turned on, and she’d started it.

  He licked his lips. “Rae, I—”

  “Don’t say it. I’m sorry. I was staring.”

  “I don’t mind.” His gravelly voice rasped, almost like a physical caress.

  She touched his cheek. He froze, held his breath. She traced his jawline with her finger. Stupid, stupid girl, but she couldn’t stop. Just one night, that was all. She couldn’t live the rest of her life without one more night with this man.

  She could lose her job. Never work for another team at any level again. Was one night worth that?

  No one needed to know, said the bad girl inside her who was tired of being repressed.

  He leaned closer. Her lips parted of their own bidding, begging for his kiss.

  His phone rang, disrupting the silence and saving her butt. She shook her head and pulled her hand back. For a second, he didn’t make a move, just sat there.

  “Damn. Bad timing.” He hesitated as if contemplating whether or not to ignore the call. As he rose to answer it, she made a quick exit out the door.

  Chapter 10—In the Huddle

  Who was calling at ten thirty at night? Derek picked up his cell phone and checked the caller ID.

  Tyler.

  “Hey, man, where the hell are you? We have a game tomorrow.” Leave it to Tyler to be partying all night before a game.

  “I’m at the Touchdown Club for a private charity function. You were supposed to be here.”