Guarding the Quarterback (Champions of the Heart #1) (8 page)

“To be clear, I was never in your bed.”

“Oh, going to play that card? The old ‘oral isn’t sex’ argument.”

Oral.
Sex.
My cheeks bloomed with heat. I turned away from him so the moonlight wouldn’t reveal the gleam that had to be in my eyes. Thoughts of riding out the blackout on top of his cock rocked inside my mind. “We did not have… that.”

“You know what I mean.”

My phone buzzed.
Crap.
That had to be Dubois. I had forgotten to check in. I should hand in my resignation or at the very least ask to be reassigned. As I put down my gun on the coffee table, I decided to play dumb.

“What’s up, Dubois?… A blackout?… I didn’t know… I was sleeping… Yeah, I’ll check on him now.”

I swear I could feel Dean arch an eyebrow.

“Shut up. Go back to jerking off,” I told Dubois and ended the call—and just in the nick of time.

Dean roared with laughter. I laughed too, realizing what I’d said.

An awkward silence followed. Finally, Dean said, “Well, goodnight.”

“Dean?”

He turned around, his voice hopeful. “Yeah?”

“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

“I’m not the kiss-and-tell type of guy.”

“Then I’m in trouble since we didn’t actually kiss.” How could I command him to do those naughty things in his bedroom and not even have gone to first base with him yet?

He stalked over to me. “Well then, you better shut me up and let me kiss you.”

My mouth dropped open.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” His lips caressed mine. A little squeak escaped me, and I felt his smile upon my mouth. But he didn’t stop.

I might have been able to fight a demanding kiss, but I had no safeguards in place for the slow and steady rush in my blood as his lips played along mine. This was a kiss of seduction. A kiss meant to change my mind. To change my whole world.

My body, always on the ready, released its tension and melded to him. The feel of his naked chest beneath my fingers made me want to dig my nails in like a feline creature and never let go. Dean touched his tongue to mine and I returned his kiss, mirroring his moves.

His hands drifted to my behind and gently squeezed.

The lights sputtered back on. Or maybe I had just realized it in that second. Our lips parted and my heart cracked open.

“Wow,” he said, his eyes heavy-lidded from the slow burn of our kiss. “You pack a sweet punch, Alexa.”

He let me go, and I stepped back. Though I was fully clothed, the chill of the dark void he left between us made me shiver.

“My door is always open,” he added before disappearing down the hall.

Under the cover of darkness, I might have abandoned my last shred of dignity or any semblance of professionalism. With the lights on, my head had cleared and exposed me for what I was—
scared
. And it had nothing to do with losing my job at Ian’s Security and everything to do with losing my heart to Dean.

*

Protecting a quarterback
among eighty thousand fans was a bodyguard’s nightmare. The stadium’s security was one of the best in the nation, but they were looking for the threat to come from a terrorist, not a lone stalker. As Dean’s girlfriend, I was stuck in the box seats set aside for family and friends. I had to trust in Oslo, Williams, and the rest of the security detail to keep Dean safe. Ian’s Security believed in being proactive, and the team met once a day for updates and to go over and over different scenarios.

Approaching my seat, I noticed a long box stretched across the arms of the chair. Flowers? My body tensed and my senses heightened when I looked and saw no card.

“What did you do last night?” asked a wife or a girlfriend of one of Dean’s teammates. I wasn’t sure who was who yet.

Was this simply a mean girl trick? Unlikely. This wasn’t high school. I couldn’t let my old insecurities creep back in and affect my reasoning. Maybe, they were from Dean? Even more unlikely. That left only one alternative—his stalker. I felt paranoid, but no one ever got in trouble at Ian’s Security for being too careful. Better paranoid than dead.

My earpiece was already on so I could hear my co-workers reports throughout the event. I turned my face away and explained what was going on. “What should I do?”

“Don’t open it!” my boss screamed in my ear.

“No shit, Sherlock,” I replied, shaking my head. I wasn’t some rookie on her first assignment. At most jobs I’d be called on the carpet for the remark, but in the male-dominated world of security, it was expected.

“Meet me at the Billings’ private elevator. There’s a scanner at Gate B.”

I gently picked up the box. The players’ girlfriends and wives were looking at me expectantly. “Uh, I’m just going to put these in some water.” I bit my lip and rolled my eyes to the heavens at my dumb excuse. Like where would I find a vase in a football stadium? Geez.

I carefully carried the box to the elevator, just in time for the doors to slide open. I went to step in.

“No. I’ll take it,” said my boss, relieving me of the box. The six-foot-five, former college football player and Green Beret had been in his glory inside the owner’s box. I thought he’d be pissed about being called away for what could be nothing. But the gleam in his eyes told a different story. He’d been riding his desk too long and missed being in the thick of the action.

“But—”

“Go back to your seat like a good girlfriend.”

Before I could argue, the doors slid closed. Fuming, I strode back to my seat. Dean had just taken the field.

In between downs, I made small talk with the two women closest to me while speculating on the others around us. None of them were like me. Yet another place where I didn’t fit in. I was the shortest by far. My makeup was the bare minimum, while they had their faces painted on like they were competing at a beauty pageant. My shoes were practical, one-inch-heeled booties while some of the others sported stilettos in thirty-degree temperatures! They probably wondered what Dean saw in me.

Why hadn’t Dean said something about my attire? As the quarterback’s girlfriend, I was probably expected to dress to impress. But this was a football game for Christ’s sake, not a dance club.

I slid the binoculars out of my bag and made a slow sweep of the stadium. My eyes landed on the Kings’ cheerleaders. The security team had performed background checks, but other than some sex tapes, they all were clean. I continued my sweep as I wondered which ones Molly and Bridget were. If it wasn’t important to the case, I didn’t want to know.
Liar.

“You don’t seem too interested in watching your man play,” said Kelly, the wife of one of the running backs.

“I can’t stand to see Dean get hit,” I lied. Or perhaps it wasn’t a lie. He might not have been my Fantasy Football pick, but I didn’t want him to get injured on or off the field. It was up to his lineman to protect him from the other team’s defense.

“You’ll never make it as a quarterback’s girlfriend. He’s the other team’s number one target.”

Yep, Dean Walker was a walking bull’s-eye.

“Reeves?” said Ian in my ear.

“Yeah.” I got up and headed for the concession stand so I wouldn’t draw any curious stares. They already thought I was a little off.

“Looks like you pissed off someone real good.”

“They weren’t flowers?” People buzzed around me, going and coming to and from, buying food or making trips to the bathroom.

“Oh, they were flowers. Dead ones. Dead roses to be exact.”

My stomach fell. I spun around. Everyone looked like a threat, everyone looked innocent until they all became a sea of blurred faces.

“And there’s something else.”

Buck up, Alexa.

“Bring it,” I said, determined to prove to Ian that I was as tough as any male in his employ, especially after that “like a good girlfriend” remark.

“There’s powder residue on the tips. We have no choice but to involve the FBI. I’m sending it to their lab for testing. Probably just baby powder but…”

Ian didn’t need to finish the sentence. I knew Dean wasn’t the only walking bull’s-eye in the stadium. Were the flowers from the girl I had the run-in with at Martini Madness? Or were they from some other jealous female, prompted by the photos in the gossip pages of Dean and I holding hands outside the club? The guys on the detail ribbed me endlessly about it. I was used to disappearing into the background not being thrown into the spotlight. Hopefully my new claim to fame would be yesterday’s news by the time I moved on to my next assignment.

“You made the stalker make a move. Good job, Reeves.”

Why did that praise suddenly seem hollow? And was I more upset that I’d become the stalker’s target or that we were one step closer to catching her, thereby ending my pretend relationship with Dean?

Dean

F
ourth and goal.

Early in the game, conventional football strategy would tell you to kick a field goal and take the three points. My coach, God bless him, was a rebel. That’s why we got along so well. With three failed attempts by the running backs to break the plane, the offensive coordinator radioed in a pass play to the tiny speaker in my helmet. After relaying the risky call to my teammates, we lined up.

I took the snap, dropped back, and scanned the field for my options. There were none. Like a charging bull, Dawson, the Steelheads defensive back, broke through the offensive line.
I’m fucked.

I scrambled until I saw it, a glimpse of daylight. I ducked like a matador, Dawson missed me, and I headed for the gaping hole that opened up like the parting of the Red Sea. It collapsed just as quickly as I was pounded from both sides by the defensive tackles. As I was about to hit the ground, short of the paint, I felt the bulk of my three-hundred-pound center, Jacobs, pushing me from behind, punching my body past the goal line and into the end zone.

Touchdown!

Though underneath the crushing weight of a half a ton of bodies, I didn’t feel a twinge of pain. I knew I’d feel every ache tomorrow. Right now only glory rushed through my veins as eighty thousand fans cheered. Jacobs hoisted me off the turf to inflict further damage to my person with a congratulatory shake and a clack of our helmets.

“You can run, but you can’t hide,” shouted Dawson as I jogged by.

“Look at the scoreboard, fuck-face.” Somewhere down the line, maybe even today, I would pay dearly for that remark.

Coming back to the sideline, I was riding high. The celebration was quickly over as the offensive coordinator handed me the iPad so I could review the defense’s positioning and go over the plan for the next possession.

Oslo and Williams flanked me. Something was definitely wrong. “What’s going on?”

Oslo handed me a water bottle. “It’s under control.”

“What’s under control?” I heard the panic in my voice and dialed it back a notch. “Is Alexa okay?”

Williams smacked me on the shoulder pad. “She’s fine, bro. Reeves is tougher than she looks.”

Alexa talked a good game, but what did I really know about her abilities? She acted like she was ten-foot-two instead of five-foot-two. How was I supposed to play football when she could be in danger? Why was I only thinking of her when there was a stadium full of fans, concession workers, and players?

The crowd exploded. Panic clenched my gut, but it was just the fans’ reaction to our defense intercepting the ball. I welcomed the opportunity to be back on the field where things made sense and the real world faded away.

After three failed downs, I trotted to the sideline to let our punter kick the ball, pissed that I’d failed to convert the turnover into points. I scanned the section where I knew the players’ girlfriends usually sat. I’d never had a girl at a game. Not even my mom, who preferred to watch from home. After I realized watching me play reminded her too much of my father, I quit inviting her. I understood, because in way, having her here would do the same thing to me. I wondered what she would think of Alexa and mentally shook the crazy thought out my head. The women I brought to my apartment weren’t the type you took home to meet mom.

At that exact moment I spotted her and relief engulfed me. Maybe now I could get my head back in the game where it belonged. With a win we could coast into the playoffs.

And that’s exactly what we did.

For the most part the media loved me. I was the quotable quarterback, the one who talked trash, and I usually stuck around until all their questions were answered. Not today. Keeping the locker room interviews short and the press conference even shorter, I ducked out, anxious to find out what had happened and to see for myself that Alexa was okay.

She was smiling, chatting with some of my teammates’ girlfriends in the VIP area. I guessed I’d worried for nothing. Yet, when I drew closer, I could see that her smile was a fake one.

“Dean! Great game.” She walked over, mouthing,
Save me
.

From what though? From a conversation with a bunch of flighty women only concerned with fashion and money or…

“What the hell happened?” I asked in a tight whisper close to her ear.