Chapter 1
Chapter One
Hunter
The sight of the gorgeous young chick sitting next to coach on the sofa more than disoriented me. It stopped me short on the threshold of his office. WTF?
The last thing I expected when I stepped into the front office of the Boston Militia, my new team, was to see Coach Marini with a woman like that. Did I have the wrong time for our meeting? Was I intruding?
Dragging my eyes from the woman, I looked at Coach for confirmation that I was supposed to be meeting with him now like I thought. He nodded, but I couldn’t read anything else from his expression. There was no welcome, but there was no censure either.
My eyes slid to hers again as if magnets pulled at me. She was young, but that didn’t stop her man-eater smile from taking a bite out of my soul right then and there. Whoever the hell she was.
Not good. Because in spite of his nod of acknowledgment that I was supposed to be here, the dangerously beguiling chick sitting with him belonged to coach.
Did I just think beguiling? Fuck.
The waves of heat between us kept me riveted, and frozen with fear at the same time.
Her dark, almost burgundy hair fell over her shoulders in sexy waves like molten glass, long and hot.
Kind of like I felt, looking at her. Meeting her brown eyes even for an instant I could see the gold specks.
I guess they called the color hazel. Ruthlessly I turned away.
“Come have a seat, Hunter.” Coach Marini raised a hand, indicating the chair opposite the couch. The chicklet tracked me with her eyes as I moved forward and sat. No one ever called me shy, so I stared right back at her. But this was Coach’s show, so I didn’t say a word.
“Meet my daughter, Catalina.”
Bam. His daughter? Fuck. That was a shoe made of lead dropping to the bottom of my gut. The dangerous siren was the coach’s daughter. Fantastic.
Fuck. Not so fantastic—not as disastrous as if she were his… girlfriend like I thought because apparently I’m a filthy pig, but not good. Not in any way shape or form.
“Catalina recently joined the Boston Militia organization in the Communications Department.” He turned to his daughter with that stereotypical proud papa look as if she were a monument. I tried to breathe calmly, thought of my mother. Thought of money.
Catalina rolled her eyes, then turned to me and said, “Cat. Call me Cat.” Her voice was cool and professional.
I still said nothing because I had no idea what to think, let alone what to say.
I couldn’t very well say what I felt, tell Coach to take his daughter Cat home and lock her up for a few years, for everyone’s sake.
Or at least for mine. Five minutes in her presence, no words exchanged, and I already knew she was like kryptonite to my career, to everything I was working for, to my family’s survival.
“Catalina, meet Hunter Quintanna, our newest team member. He may have come to us under less than ideal circumstances, but I know he has potential to be a difference-maker on the team.”
His words snapped me back to my senses.
“Thank you for giving me the chance, Coach.” I meant it. Coach wasn’t bullshitting me. Word was Marini was a straight shooter and that was the vibe I got. In spite of my previous assumption about who Cat was.
He cleared his throat and nodded, giving me a no-nonsense glare.
“I imagine you’re wondering what the hell my daughter is doing in this meeting, but you’re too polite to ask.”
His daughter rolled her eyes again. I smiled, keeping with the coach’s notion that I might be polite. Not a word anyone else used to describe me in recent memory, but what the hell? An improvement over my last coach’s parting words. You’re nothing but a fuck up.
“Daddy, stop torturing the man.” Cat turned her intense hazel eyes on me, a smile hesitating at the corners of her too luscious mouth, and said, “I’m your handler.”
My first instinct was to get up and run, followed fast by my next very powerful instinct to pull her from the couch across from me, sit her on my lap, and ravage her, starting with her mouth and moving down the rest of her shapely body with a thoroughness that would leave her branded in my memory.
Every last bit of her sensual breathtaking essence.
Breaking from the cool demeanor I prided myself in, I squirmed.
Only a slight movement, but damn. It’s not like I was a schoolboy.
It’s not like I hadn’t seen and bedded my share of beauties, had my share of lovelies throwing themselves at me.
Hell, I should be impervious to attractive young ladies by now.
But this attraction was something different. This was something new for me. There was something compelling, some kind of kismet crap thing if I believed in kismet. Maybe it was chemistry.
My mother used to tell me about this kind of experience—whatever the fuck it was.
She used to tell me that once I found my soul mate, I would be struck and there would be no going back.
Call it love-struck or hit by Cupid’s bow, she insisted the myth was real and that she and my father had experienced the strength of the fated mate.
It seemed laughable, but when I was young, really young, I believed her.
I waited for it, looked forward to it for myself.
Then, after college, I’d long forgotten the notion.
I was too busy enjoying the abundant variety of ladies who crossed the threshold of my bedroom door to remember foolish boyhood notions or to care. Until now.
Now? The sizzle I felt running through me lit a buzz of hyper-awareness. Anticipation of something gathered like a pool of overheated lava rising from the bottom of a volcano.
Whatever was going on, every male molecule in me seemed to react to every female molecule in her. WTF?
I met her eyes to look for clues about whether she felt the same connection. Then I realized there was no way in hell she couldn’t feel it. The air in the room was charged with it, sizzled with whatever sparked between us.
Not good. That meant her dad, my new coach, probably sensed it too. That was the last thing I needed.
Keep your eye on the prize, Hunter. There was only one thing I needed.
Money. This was all about the money and I couldn’t afford to forget it. Football equaled payday. I was playing for the money.
My agent had concocted the deal to give me max incentives in a one-year contract.
That’s the only way I could get any deal after the fiasco in LA.
I couldn’t blow this. We were four weeks into the season and I couldn’t afford to lose any more money after the fines I’d had to pay.
Everyone in my family counted on me. With my dad gone, I was the head of the family and always would be.
This deal with the Militia was my one opportunity to deliver what we needed, what my younger siblings needed most of all. Money.
“Handler?” I said.
Coach Marini glared at his daughter. She appeared to be impervious.
“Catalina prefers to be direct. It’s a gift best wrapped in patience and she has yet to learn this lesson.” Coach flashed a rare smile at me, but I wasn’t fooled. I waited for the official explanation.
“Let me explain the score, Hunter. You’re on a tight leash and Catalina is in control—off the field. On the field you answer to me. I’ll be running you hard. Catalina will be making sure you stay on message, stay out of trouble outside the stadium.”
“In other words, I’ll be a prisoner in my own home.” My words were matter-of-fact. I welcomed harsh reality, needed the cold slap.
“Which brings us to step one,” Cat said.
“Finding you a home. After Dad is done with you today, report to my office.” She stood and handed me a card.
I tore my eyes from her curvy figure-skater legs, bare and tanned, close enough for me to reach out and touch.
I clenched my hand around the arm of my chair. Tight.
In addition to her name, title, office location, and e-mail address, her office phone number had been written in along with her mobile number. I watched her walk from the room, feeling Coach’s eyes on me while I did. When she closed the door, I turned back to him.
He knew. His smile froze me.
“Don’t even think about it, son.” His low voice, a warning growl, promised certain death to my career if his warning went unheeded.
I nodded.
“I’ll see you in the locker room in five minutes,” he said.
I stood. There was nothing I could say. He would measure me by my actions, not by any promises I might make.
I felt his eyes on me as I walked out the door, his daughter’s card burning my hand like a ball of damn kryptonite.