Protecting The Quarterback. Kristina Knight

he wanted to the blonde. She caressed the back of his head with her fingertips and nuzzled her head against his shoulder.

      He felt nothing.

      Scratch that. He felt annoyed. He wanted to drink, and he wanted to do it alone.

      Mandi kissed her way up his throat, nipped at the cleft in his chin and then settled her mouth over his. He kissed her back, but half-heartedly. She didn’t seem to notice as she inched the hand on his leg closer and closer to his junk.

      Jonas hit a button on the armrest and felt the car come to a stop. He pushed his hands gently against Mandi’s smooth shoulders.

      “What’s the matter, baby?” she asked as her hand finally made contact with the bulge in his pants. So maybe he wasn’t as uninterested in her as he’d tried to convince himself.

      Didn’t matter. He wasn’t screwing Mandi-the-Model in the back of this limo. The thin glass between the driver and them rolled down.

      “Take us back to the theater,” Jonas said, and the driver nodded.

      “Did you forget something?”

      Jonas shook his head. “No, just...” What to say to a woman he’d had no problem sleeping with any number of times in the past? “I’m tired. I want to go back to the hotel—”

      “Not a problem,” she said, squeezing her hand gently around his package. Jonas inhaled a sharp breath, and then took her hand in his, removing it from his pants.

      “Not tonight,” he said and slid another inch away from her across the seat.

      She watched him for a long moment, and then crossed her arms over her chest. “Did I do something wrong?”

      Nothing but everything. He was a doctor’s report away from being a washed-up quarterback. Mandi might not expect anything from Jonas, but he’d learned over the past four months that he expected something from himself. He just didn’t know what, exactly, that expectation was. Until he did, he couldn’t just be party-boy Jonas.

      He could make out a line of taxis outside the venue and took a few bills from his pocket. “Not tonight. I’ll pay for your cab back home.” The limo stopped at the corner, but Mandi made no move to leave. “I’ll, uh, call you the next time I’m in town,” he said.

      Mandi took the money. “Don’t be surprised if I don’t answer,” she said as she exited the car. A few flashbulbs went off as Jonas pulled the door closed with his good arm.

      “Take me to the airport,” he said, not wanting another night in the too-familiar hotel. He wanted out of New York.

      Once the limo was cruising toward the airport, Jonas shrugged out of his sport coat. Shrugged out was so not the way to describe what he did to contort his body out of the coat so that his shoulder didn’t scream in pain. It merely whimpered. Loudly. He grimaced.

      Damned shoulder, anyway. Stupid way to get hurt. No one noticed his hand. No one besides Brook Smith was close enough to see, and she’d been so petrified of the lights—what broadcaster was afraid of a few lights, anyway?—that he would be surprised if she even knew he was her co-presenter tonight.

      With his good arm Jonas threw the coat across the car, unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt and rolled up the cuffs. Dared his right arm to tremble.

      Nothing.

      Not even a hint of movement. He stretched out his arm at shoulder height. Winced against the pain and willed it not to move. The tremble started in his triceps before shooting through his arm to his fingertips.

      A few words his Southern mother had taught him never to say in mixed company painted the inside of the limo red. Didn’t matter. The surgeon said it would take time. He had nine more weeks before training camp. Nine more weeks to figure out why simple tasks like taking off a shirt caused more pain months after the accident than deadlifting two hundred pounds had before he’d ever been hurt.

      His phone rang and he nearly tossed it aside because the number was unknown. Something made him answer.

      A smooth Kentucky accent poured through the cell, making his muscles clench and his mouth go dry.

      Brook Smith. The sound of her voice through his phone was enough to make him...wish she’d been the one with him in the limo instead of Mandi. Before tonight he’d never met the pretty reporter in person. Her legs were longer than he’d imagined, peeking through the long slit of her gown as she’d walked with purpose across the stage to the podium. Her skin had burned him through the thin silk of her dress, and he could still smell the light scent of vanilla that accompanied their trip across the stage. A scent that had nearly made him forget they were in front of an audience for the first sixty seconds of their acquaintance. Now her voice was close, too close, in the limo, and it seemed as soft as he’d imagined the honeyed strands that had escaped her fancy hairdo would feel against his skin.

      “...so I’m going to be in Texas next week to do a sit-down with the Bulls for the network, I’d love to chat with you, too.”

      “About how I played Prince Charming to your clumsy Belle at the awards tonight?” he asked, trying to throw her off balance.

      “Prince Charming ends up with Snow White, not Belle—”

      “But the Beast would have let you fall right into the floodlights. Prince Charming always rides to the rescue.” Probably he shouldn’t have mentioned the Beast, not because now she would equate him with the fairy-tale character, but because men like him weren’t supposed to know about fairy tales. He was beer and football and Vin Diesel movies, wasn’t that the basis of a three-week tell-all his last girlfriend sold to the tabloids? Jonas frowned at the phone.

      “The Beast would have swept me into a waltz and danced me straight to the podium,” she said, and there was what could only be described as starch in her voice. “After this year you’ll have free agent status and can go anywhere. Fans all over the world want to know if you’ll stay a Kentuckian or find a football home somewhere else.”

      Everyone wanted to know. Hell, he wanted to know. Unlike many of his football brethren, Jonas had joined the league with the intention of being a one-team star. He liked the money that came with football, but a strong team was more important. Then he’d been drafted by the Kentuckians and for the past five years he’d only been playing for the money.

      Now, if his shoulder was really junked, no other teams would even look.

      Then he’d be an athlete without a team. The mere thought made his heel tap against the carpeted floor of the limo.

      “Free agency could totally change your career, unless there was more to that injury than the team let on.” She waited a beat. “Jonas?”

      He had no skills outside of football.

      “Mr. Nash?”

      His degree was in freaking Hospitality, for crying out loud, because it gave him more time to concentrate on football. He was goddamned Mr. Football to fans all over the world. He was not, repeat not, sitting down with Brook Smith to chat about his career plans, the injury to his shoulder or whatever else was on her greedy, reporter mind. Not until he was sure he was over football. Right now all he was sure of was that he wanted one more season calling the plays.

      It might already be too late, the sly voice in his head said. The voice that sounded a lot like his mother.

      “I can make myself available. Whatever works for you, I’ll work into my schedule.” Her voice was cool, at odds with the rising temperature in the limo.

      Unsaid questions peppered his mind. What if the rest of rehab went by with as little improvement as he’d seen in the past weeks? What if the Kentuckians didn’t want him? What the hell kind of life could a man have if he was washed up before the age of thirty-two?

      “I’ll be in Kentucky, but maybe next time.”

CHAPTER