THERE WERE SOME THINGS in life a man couldn’t tune out.
The roar of thirty-thousand fans during the playoffs. The flash of police lights in the rearview mirror. And a nearly naked woman prancing purposely into his line of vision.
Somewhere in Rick Warren’s head, a voice told him to run and get a towel for her to cover up with. To throw his team jacket around her shoulders. But since he’d seen her untie her little scarf dress with his own eyes, clearly she’d intended for this show to happen. A show involving no clothes except for sheer lace and satin panties that matched her strapless bra.
“Ms. Blair.”
He might have stammered when he said it. God knew, his thoughts were stammered. Stumbling.
Could a player be released prematurely from his contract for seeing the owner’s daughter naked? Maybe he’d be sent to the minors. Hell, an ultraconservative owner like Daniel Blair III would set up a Single A team in Siberia just to punish Rick for an offense like this.
That kind of penalty had crossed his mind in the past any time Rick had thought about acting on his attraction to the quiet beauty he’d had his eye on ever since setting foot in Atlanta.
Her lips moved, but Rick couldn’t hear what she was saying, calling to mind the ear buds he still wore. He tugged them out with one hand and chucked the electronic device into his open locker behind him, his eyes never leaving the golden skin of the goddess strutting his way.
A fantasy come true.
“Call me Delaney.” She smiled at him with a Mona Lisa lift of her full lips.
He’d heard Delaney Blair was adopted, her features Eurasian exotic. The long sheet of straight, dark hair gleamed with good health. Her eyes tilted up at the corners, but her generous height and bronze skin suggested a wide range of ethnic forbears. No matter her origins, she was a sight to behold even with her clothes on.
And now… He sucked in a long breath in an effort to drag in enough oxygen to clear his head. No dice.
“Ms.—ah—Delaney. I shouldn’t have stayed so late.” He thought about standing and realized his veins might not have enough blood flow available to fuel his legs for that kind of movement.
The wholly unexpected striptease had had immediate physical consequences.
“I’ve been trying to capture your attention all season.” The smoldering temptress paused in front of him, hooking her thumb in the waist band of her barely there underwear. “Every other time I’ve attempted to get to know you better, you’ve found an excuse to bail.”
His gaze went to her thumb as it tracked the band of white ribbon threading through the panties.
Through the erotic fog that enveloped his brain, he recalled Delaney looking his way a few times at a meet and greet early last season. At the time, he’d been too new to the club to know the lay of the land and he hadn’t wanted to start off his tenure with the Rebels as the guy who tried to schmooze the owner’s daughter.
And then, the longer he’d been with the club, the more convinced he became that dating one of the Rebels’ most prominent team attorneys was a bad idea. She worked for the organization he played for. Hell, she was the one who’d signed his damn contract. Rick had always walked the straight and narrow and he didn’t think now was the time to start veering from the path, especially when he’d finally landed on a team that could reward his years of loyal service with a championship.
“I’m no good at small talk,” he hedged, a little shell-shocked that this woman would be in here with him alone right now, peeling off her clothes.
As Daniel Blair’s daughter, Delaney was strictly off-limits. Cool and aloof, she was always at the fringes of every team gathering with the top brass. Which, perhaps, accounted for why he’d crossed her path at the occasional party. He tended to hang out on the sidelines a good deal himself.
Once he’d noticed her that first time, he’d looked for her at every team function, admiring the way she carried herself. Of course, he’d never seen her carry herself quite this way.
“Me neither,” she agreed readily, taking two steps closer. Putting one creamy thigh within touching distance. “Which is why I opted for a more obvious overture.”
“Maybe we should talk about this with your clothes back on?” He turned to check the door, needing to be sure there were no witnesses. “I’m pretty sure I could get traded for this. Or worse.”
He needed to get her dressed and out of here before his career imploded.
Her mouth compressed into a flat line and he wondered how often the beautiful owner’s daughter had encountered obstacles in her life.
“Is a scantily clad woman throwing herself at you such a common occurrence that you don’t think twice about ending the moment?” She fisted a hand and planted it on her hip.
Damn. He didn’t want to offend her any more than he wanted to be caught in a compromising position. Forcing himself to stand, he reached behind him to retrieve a clean jersey from his locker.
“Hardly.” He tossed the jersey around her shoulders, his number 11 curving around her breasts. “Is having your own way a common occurrence for you?”
After draping the shirt from his road uniform over her shoulders, he found himself trapped within man-snaring range of her perfume.
“I’ve rarely thought about what it means to have my own way, let alone gone after it, actually.” She tilted her head sideways, considering. That long, dark sheet of her hair slipped down her arm with the movement, baring the side of her neck.
She made the admission so softly, her words so full of honesty, that he regretted giving her a hard time. He knew damn well she was the most unselfish woman in the world. She spent her weekends at charity functions, using the team’s name and visibility to rake in donations for good causes. She had gone to work for her old man at the Rebels’ front office at an early age and probably made only half as much dough as she could if she’d taken a gig in finance and international law, both of which she had degrees in.
Ah, damn. He knew way too much about her.
The sudden flood of pink in her cheeks made him curse his total lack of manners. Why embarrass the hell out of her when she’d only been making a brave bid for his attention? God knew, he didn’t look up from his own path in life very often to notice what the rest of the world was doing. What right did he have to judge her motives?
She turned. “If you’d rather I go—”
“Wait.” He took her shoulders in his hands, putting her right back where she’d been. He wasn’t sure what else to say now that he had her attention.
But just about then, his brain started broadcasting updates on all the ways his body wished to capitalize on this moment. She’d taken a huge risk to grab what she wanted. And he couldn’t deny that he wanted her, too. So how could he possibly ignore her sweetly perfumed skin, her long lean limbs that his shirt did nothing to cover? The swell of cleavage that distorted the number on his jersey lured his attention back to her breasts.
And hell, yeah, he knew he was making excuses to follow his libido, but he was also quickly losing the will to give a damn.
“Nobody’s twisting your arm,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper as he tried to make sense of what was happening.
He’d seen her, noticed her in the way a man notices a woman, and yet he hadn’t acted on that in the year and a half he’d been here because he’d tried to throw all his focus on his job.
No more. A shot at a championship wasn’t worth throwing away the chance to touch her.
Delaney Blair had bared more than her body to him just now. She’d bared her desires. Her hopes. And she was—without a doubt—the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.