Her answer takes me aback, and when she swings around to leave, I quickly stop her by saying, “All right.” When she turns, I glance at the guys. “But I want it on paper she’s not leaving until the tour is over.”

I get up and head over to her.

She watches me approach with those alarmed doe eyes again; they are soft as a deer’s, but far prettier. Her breasts rise and fall, and I like that she knows. She knows something is going on here. She’s confused that I didn’t pursue her like she’d thought, but that is all right. Because my pursuit will be slower now, and deeper, so that in the end I can take her, fast and hard, like I’m used to taking everything in my life by force. But she’s so special, I want to reach the very core of her being before she’s mine. And when I’m there, and she’s soft and yielding to me, I’m not going to let her go.

Holding her gold gaze, I squeeze her hand gently, whispering, “We have a deal, Brooke.”

PAST

TO ATLANTA

There’s an image in my head of Pete and Riley arriving at the airport without Brooke Dumas, and I don’t like it. Pacing the length of my jet, up and down, I ram my hands into my jeans and peer out the window, but there’s still no Pete or Riley or Brooke Dumas.

I pull my hands out and crack my knuckles.

“Save it for the ring, boy,” Coach grumbles, flipping through a sports magazine, and I flex my fingers and inhale deeply. I need to train. I’ve needed to train longer, harder lately. I’m horny as fuck and just thinking about her gives me a hard-on.

From the bar, I grab a bottle of water, down it slow and cold, trying to relax. Then I go take a seat on the bench and put on my headphones. I scan my songs and look for something fast and hard, select it, and let it blast in my ears—then I see movement up in the front of the plane.

All my insides go still.

Nothing does that to me but looking at her.

And, yep, I’m looking.

My eyes feel out of control as they run up and down her body while Pete introduces her to Coach and Diane. My heart starts pumping blood to the south of my body, and the music blasting into my ears is forgotten. She doesn’t see me yet, but I see her. Every inch of my rapidly swelling cock is aware that she’s near.

Her round butt is encased in a knee-length skirt. My eyes run down her lean, toned calves and her pretty ankles to her feet in plain ballet-type shoes. An image of those ankles locked at the small of my back as I thrust into her body flashes through me. I fist my hands at my sides and force myself to exhale, but my blood is still prepping me to mate with her.

I watch as Pete finally directs her in my direction, and every primal instinct inside me stirs as she starts down the aisle toward me. A blush reddens her pretty tan skin. It colors her face and spreads down her throat and dips into her cleavage, and I want to pull open the buttons of her top and see if she’s blushing all the way to the tips of her pretty little tits. God, I want to hold those little tits and take them in my mouth, and most of all, I want to see the expression on her face while I do so.

Pushing the thought aside, I pull off my headphones, turn off my iPod, and stare at her face. She’s not only beautiful as fuck, but she’s excited, her eyes shining into me.

“You’ve met the rest of the staff?” I ask her, my voice gruff with arousal.

“Yes.” She smiles, a genuine smile that goes all the way to her eyes as she takes her seat and neatly straps on her seat belt. Her soft, smoky voice has a strange, calming effect on me. But my dick is still pressing hard against my zipper, and I have no idea what I’m going to do with it for the next couple of hours.

“Did you hire me for a particular sports injury or more as prevention?” she asks.

More so I could claim you. “Prevention,” I whisper.

She chews on the inside of her cheek as she surveys me, and she has no idea that as she measures the breadth of my chest, my arms, and my torso, I’m struggling hard not to lean down and kiss her lips.

“How are your shoulders?” she asks, looking quite the professional little thing. “Your elbows? Do you want me to work on anything for Atlanta? Pete tells me it’s a several-hour flight.”

Yeah, it will be, and I’ll probably have blue balls by the end, but what the hell. I want her to touch me bad enough that I stretch out my arm and offer her my hand.

She seems slightly surprised but takes it in both of hers; I don’t expect the way my gut tangles at the contact. Her body warmth blends with mine when she opens my huge hand with her little fingers and starts rubbing my palm, searching for knots. Her fingers are strong, but soft, and her touch is torture to my libido but too close to heaven to stop.

“I’m not used to such big hands. My students’ hands are usually easier to rub down,” she tells me animatedly.

Soft fingers scrape across the calluses in my palms as we talk about her students, and how I condition eight hours a day.

“I’d love to stretch you when you’re done training. Is that what your specialists also do for you?” she asks.

I nod, and my mind instantly goes to the YouTube video I’ve been watching nonstop. I really fucking wish I’d been there so I could crush the asshole woman’s video camera with my hands.

“And you? Who pats your injury down?” I ask as I signal to the knee brace that peeks from under her skirt.

“No one anymore. I’m done with rehab.” She raises a brow and looks alarmed. “You googled me too? Or did your guys tell you?”

I googled you, and I wanted to punch my fist through a wall, then go get you and carry you off that track and lick your tears dry.

Pulling free of her hand, I realize I’m the one who wants to do the touching here, so I signal at the knee. “Let’s have a look at it.”

“There’s nothing to see.” She doesn’t seem delighted about the attention, but ends up lifting her knee anyway. I seize it with one hand and rip open the Velcro, instantly spotting the scar cutting across the joint.

I hold her knee in my hand, and I stroke my thumb across, noticing her slim, muscled thighs, the tightness of her quad muscle. She’s strong and lean, but lithe, like a cheetah. I want her. Refusing to stop touching her, I explore her marred skin and she bites her lip and exhales.

“It still hurts?” I gently ask.

She nods and explains that it’s a double injury. She tore her ACL first six years ago, and then again two years ago.

“It hurts not to compete anymore?” I prod.

Her expression softens when she holds my gaze, and something, something invisible, tugs me to her even as I watch her lean the slightest fraction closer to me. “Yes. It does. You’d understand, right?”

Slowly I lower her leg, and instead of nodding, I stroke my thumb across her knee, so she knows that I do understand. More than she knows. We both watch me caress her, and, god, it feels so right I want to drag my finger up the inside of her thigh and under her skirt, so before I follow the impulse, I pull back and stretch out my free hand, gruffly telling her, “Do this one.”

Testing the territory, I slide my arm along the seat behind her as she takes my hand and starts working it. My nostrils twitch at our closeness; she doesn’t pull away. She smells . . . of soap and some sort of berry shampoo, plus her own female scent is sweet and warm in my nose. She probes and searches and I open my eyes and watch her face, soft and yet concentrating. My heart pounds faster.

She moves to my wrist, and she twirls and then probes into my forearm, and when she closes her eyes with a look of utter concentration and pleasure, I want to groan and tease and laugh at her and kiss her all at the same time. She looks young and innocent, and my hunter-gatherer instincts are in full force. I’ve hunted her and now I want to gather her to me. . . .

I decide to touch her. Tease her. I want to make her smile. Hell, I want to see her smile at me.

I cup the nape of her neck and I lean in. “Look at me.”

She opens those gold eyes, lowers my hand, and smiles in bemusement. Fuck me standing, but she was getting worked up with me and every inch of my body knows it.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing.” I smile, but I’m hot and bothered and delighted, all at once. “I’m very impressed. You’re very thorough, Brooke.”

She grins almost innocently. “I am. And wait until I get to your shoulders and back. I might have to stand on you.”

She amuses me. So much I poke her biceps with my fingers. Then her triceps, and I say, “Hmm,” and when I place her hand around my biceps, her eyes flare wide. I love it. I know she likes how big and hard it is, but she pretends otherwise and playfully responds, “Hmm.”

We laugh. We’re laughing when she seems to realize Pete and company have fallen quiet and are watching us.

She pulls something out from her bag, and I glare at Pete, silently telling him, Back off, bozo!

She clears her throat and sets an iPod and headphones on her lap. Curious, I snatch up her iPod and connect my headphones and start going through her music, handing her mine in return. She has tons of recent songs and some earlier older ones I recognize. She drops her headphones and grabs her iPod back, returning mine.

“Who can relax to that?” she protests.

“Who wants to relax?” I taunt.

“I do.”

I give her back my iPod. “I’ve got to have some easy listening for you. Listen to one of mine and I will listen to one of yours.”

I scan my iPod, sure of the song I want. I don’t regularly listen to it, but the times it comes on shuffle, I hear every fucking word, and now the need to play it to her is becoming more intense by the second.

A song plays for me from her library, and it’s sassy, but I’m mostly watching her listen to the one I picked for her.

She ducks her head to cover her profile with her hair. Her hand trembles on the iPod.

I can’t take it and lean forward to catch her expression.

I keep listening to the song she played me. How she won’t write me a love song. That’s okay. She’s still playing me one, really.

My lips twitch and I chuckle, but she ducks her head to her lap as she listens to the rest of the song.

My smile fades, my body tight. Fuck, I want her. I want her to get it. I want her to get me.

She listens quietly to “Iris” from the Goo Goo Dolls, then she slowly removes her headphones and returns my iPod. “I wouldn’t have guessed you had slow songs in there,” she murmurs, talking to my iPod as she returns it.

I keep my voice low so that only she hears. “I have twenty thousand songs—everything is in there.”

“No!” she automatically protests, then checks my iPod and notices it’s true. God, she’s adorable.

“Did you like it?” I quietly ask her.

She nods.

Her cheeks are flushed, and it takes all my effort not to kiss her. Instead I search for another song on my iPod and pass it over to her, playing “Love Bites” to her so she hopefully gets an idea of how very much I want her.

PRESENT

SEATTLE

It’s not really fun to ride in a convertible when you’re stuck in traffic,” Pete muses as we hit some traffic and sit there like mannequins in a storefront.