Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Hunter
After showering, I took my time toweling off, awareness rippling through me like impending doom at the prospect of seeing Cat again. Until the idea of seeing her hit my dick. Then the doom switched to excitement like some kind of dark magic that had me springing to attention.
The thought of spending time with her, alone—hell, even the notion of going to her office—had me sizzling like I was hopped up on speed. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, thinking about my kid brother in an effort to get my dick under control so I could dress.
My youngest brother Seth was going to be ten years old and wanted to have him to come to the game this Sunday with my mother. I needed a place by then. Cat would help me find one. Period. It was business and I could be all cold and businesslike. It was my default with people I didn’t know.
The challenge was that I felt that insane connection to Cat, even if it was on a purely animal lust level. How the hell did I defend against that?
Put your head down and grit your teeth, Hunter. Focus.
Finally dressed in my complimentary Militia fan jersey and jeans, I was one of the few still left in the locker room as I headed for the door.
I would have said something to the other three guys, but they never looked up from whatever the hell they were doing.
No one had paid me notice from the minute we stepped off the practice field except Coach and Gabriel Wyatt, the QB.
But that was their job. Wyatt took his team leadership role seriously, but he still had a lot to prove as far as I was concerned.
Two years as a starter and getting into the playoffs was nice, but this was the year the team was really counting on him.
He knew it. I knew it, too. That’s why the team signed me.
I was the goddamn last piece of the machine needed to give the Militia a legitimate chance at the Super Bowl. I had one season, one shot at the big prize, or I’d go home. All the way home. No more NFL career left. No pressure there.
Slipping the card from my pocket, I double checked the office number and created a mental picture of where it was and how to get there from here. It was the first thing I did when I arrived two days ago—became familiar with the environment so I’d fit in, so I wouldn’t look the part of the new guy.
I pushed open the door to the stairwell at the end of the hall and ran up the three flights.
Not because I was in a hurry, but because I’d been conditioned at an early age that stairs were for running.
Too many reps of running the steps in youth football and then forever after that.
I opened the door at her floor and there it was.
Number 408 was in front of me with the door half open.
I paused. My heart rate was elevated from the stair climb, but it wasn’t only the stairs that affected me, if I was honest. Taking several slow deep breaths, I tensed my jaw. In fact, every muscle in my body was tensed against the onslaught of the sensual flood I knew was coming.
Not bothering to knock—because I’m a bastard at heart—I stepped into her office.
It was more like a closet with a window and a desk, not much else.
When I met her eyes, it hit me. She hit me, whatever it was between us sending waves of awareness through me.
Not the innocent businesslike kind. I clenched my teeth reflexively.
She stood up behind her desk in a quick move, knocking her chair back.
I felt the tic in my jaw, but I didn’t budge, kept my mouth flat, eyes trained on hers.
Taking pleasure in her nerves was evil, unfair, and not how I typically responded to attractive women, but this was about self-preservation. War. All was fair.
In love and war? A million-watt lightbulb-level understanding hit me of why love and war were equated when it came to lack of fair play. I couldn’t afford fair play.
The insight didn’t make me feel better. More like the opposite. More like spelling my doom. But not without a damn good fight. Too much was at stake for me, for my family, to play fair, to be nice. I hated it. My chest tightened with the possibility that I might end up hating myself.
“Hello, Hunter. Practice has been over for a while. I was just thinking you weren’t coming.” She collected herself and settled into a bright smile. Then she came around her desk with her hand outstretched as if to shake mine. No way was I going to touch her. Not even her hand.
“Here I am. Let’s get on with it.” I backed up to the door as she moved forward.
When she reached forward, around me, my heart stuttered. I’d kept my eyes on hers and couldn’t believe she’d try—
“My coat.” She reached behind me to lift her coat from the hook as I jumped back out of her way.
“You have the smallest office I’ve ever seen,” I said, my voice tight. It was true and it was killing me at that moment.
“I know. My punishment for using my dad’s coattails to get the job.” She looked around before shutting off the light, plunging them into semidarkness with only the light from the hallway left. “But I love it.” She stepped out into the hall and, after a beat, I followed, pulling the door closed.
“Let’s take my car,” she continued, speaking in a cheerful voice that sounded the opposite of relaxed. “I have the perfect unit lined up for you to see. With any luck, you’ll have a place to live by tomorrow so you can really settle in here.”
She slowed her step to walk next to me as we headed toward the elevator. I was glad we weren’t taking the stairwell, though the elevator wouldn’t be much better. I needed to avoid being confined with her, alone with her. At least the elevator ride would be short.
As we stepped inside, her smile started to show signs of wear and tear. I was kind of enjoying her anxiety. When the doors slid shut she flinched.
“You okay?” I asked with as much innocence as I could muster given that I’d probably used it all up years ago. But I did have concern. Some. More than I could afford to have for someone I was at war with.
“Yes. Great. I think you’re going to love the apartment.”
“How much is it?” I asked.
She looked up at me, daring a direct gaze, an assessing gaze. Then she waved a hand.
“Don’t worry. You can afford it on your salary.”
I decided not to argue the point. Not at that moment. I’d let her do her job, show me a place, then if need be, I’d find my own place. One I could afford along with all the other bills I had to pay for my family.
The fines imposed by the team and the NFL, the legal fees, and the forfeited salary from the past three weeks had put a sizeable dent in my already strained budget.
Thinking about money always put me in a foul mood, but in this case, I wasn’t worried.
Ms. Catalina Marini was possibly the only person alive I could afford to behave badly with.
Because it was her job, and therefore in her interest, to make sure I stayed out of trouble, to make sure I was seen as a saint.
She would never complain about me to anyone. Except me.
That’s what I needed, to have her annoyed or even angry with me. At all times. It would make resisting the pull of her . . . not easy, but possible.
The doors slid open and she jumped from the elevator, darting ahead of me toward the garage.
I didn’t speed up to catch up. I wasn’t in a hurry to sit in a closed car with her, to smell that scent of her that I remembered from earlier and had just smelled again, to brush against her, feel the heat of her.
Goddamn. I slowed. She turned to me.
“Something wrong?”
I said nothing, stiffened my spine, and got to the car. Once inside she was all business with the driving and I remained silent. But when we were on the road, she kept darting glances at me.
“You’re a quiet man.”
I said nothing, confirming her assessment.
“How was practice?”
“Fine.” I turned from the window to face her. Couldn’t stand my cowardly behavior. “Look, I’m not into small talk.”
“I get that. But it happens to be more important to me than small talk—I really want to know how practice went.”
“Ask your dad. He’ll have a better answer to that than I will.”
“That’s fair.” She cleared her throat. “How are you getting along with the guys?”
I snorted. I shouldn’t have reacted, but it was a sore spot.
“That good, eh?” She didn’t sound surprised. Sounded sympathetic. Sympathy was the last thing I wanted. It burned me.
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “After my performance on Sunday, we’ll get along great.”
“Let your playing do your talking. Good plan.”
I turned back to her because it sounded like she was mocking me. Sure enough, there was a telltale dimple in her cheek. Damn. That’s all I needed. Sassy on top of sexy. A female barely past girlhood haunting me, teasing me.
Saving me from any further private hell thinking about her dimples, I was distracted when she pulled into the garage of a towering luxury apartment building.
F—ck. This was going to be a whole other line of trouble.
She pulled into a spot near the elevator reserved for the superintendent and I thought about not bothering to get out of the car, telling her here and now it wouldn’t work.
“What do you think so far?” She looked at me with pride and hope and a little bit of that adoring fangirl I’d seen before. I must have been going to shit, because I couldn’t bring myself to burst her bubble. Not yet anyway.
I said, “How about if I reserve judgment until I get the details.” Holding back on a smile, but not the simmering expression that was probably in my eyes, I pushed open the door to escape from the confines of the car, where she was looking at me like she wanted me and I was on sensory overload with her scent and her nearness and her unvarnished bright-eyed enthusiasm for life. She bounced from the car undaunted.