Protecting The Quarterback. Kristina Knight

clarity Brooks saw the headlines and internet memes and goddamned internet gifs in her mind. Ridiculous hair, ridiculous makeup, ridiculous Brooks sliding across the stage at the International Sports Awards while perfectly dressed, never-out-of-sync Jonas Nash looked on.

      Then the strong arm at her lower back seemed to turn to steel as it slid around her abdomen, steadying her. Her face warmed and she couldn’t catch her breath. Heat seemed to envelop her, sizzling across her lower back, dangerously close to where Jonas Nash’s arm held her so tightly, making her stomach clench. And she knew why she made that catty comment to Jonas.

      She was attracted to him. God, she’d thought she was over this part of her life. Past being attracted to the men she worked with on a daily basis. She arrived at the station house or the stadium, did her job and went home to her empty apartment to get ready for the next game.

      She didn’t feel awkward interviewing half-naked athletes in the locker room. Not once in the five years since she took her first reporting job had she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to be with one of them. With Jonas’s arm at the small of her back all she could think was how much more heat she would feel if there weren’t several layers of clothing between them.

      Brooks swallowed hard and straightened her spine.

      “The objective is to arrive at the podium on your feet, not sliding into home,” he said, and this time there was laughter in his quiet voice.

      Brooks took a steadying breath, as they continued across the wide expanse. Just a jolt of attraction. She’d had those before. But they’d never left her quite as dry-mouthed or made her heart beat quite so erratically. Probably the cottonmouth feeling and the raging pulse rate were ninety percent fear, and ten percent attraction.

      She tried to look past the bright footlights, but only saw shapes. And still her back burned where Jonas’s hand and arm had touched her.

      Maybe seventy percent fear, thirty percent attraction.

      No laughing faces. She couldn’t hear any telltale titters of derision, either. Maybe no one had noticed.

      Jonas’s fingertips trailed across her lower back once more, and the sizzle intensified.

      Probably fifty-fifty, but standing next to six feet five inches of pure male perfection, who wouldn’t be attracted? And he’d saved her from an embarrassing fall on international television. That had to add to it.

      They reached the podium a second later. Jonas leaned down and whispered, “You’re welcome.” His breath tickled her ear, the slow drawl of his Southern accent seemed to tickle the hairs at the back of her neck, and the heat from his palm at her lower back seemed to scorch another degree higher.

      Okay, so it was sixty-forty with attraction making a comeback.

      “Thank you,” she said, and the words seemed to echo around the auditorium. The microphone had just switched on. Hot embarrassment flooded her cheeks, but Brooks refused to follow her instincts off the stage and into the blessed comfort of the non-spotlighted backstage area. She chastised herself for the flub.

      Cameras and stages were nothing new, but normally she was talking about a great pass or defensive play, not sent out in full hair and makeup as the center of attention at an awards show.

      “For accompanying you to the stage? It’s always my pleasure to escort a gorgeous woman,” Jonas said, deadpan. “But it’s not every day I get to escort the Hottest Female Sportscaster. So maybe I should thank you.”

      She felt her face flame hotter and closed her hands more tightly around the envelope in her hands. “Maybe we should just stick to the script,” she said, begging him with her eyes to start reading from the teleprompter. Miraculously, he did.

      Jonas introduced the first nominee for Most Inspiring Performance, pausing as the producers of the show replayed the highlights for the audience at home as well as the people in the live audience. Brooks concentrated on the clips rolling across the screen and stepped in to announce the second. They traded back and forth for the next nominees and then she waved the envelope. One more minute and she was home free, would be off the stage and could go back to being her ponytailed, flat-shoe-wearing, sports nerd self.

      “And the award goes to—” she said, but the envelope wouldn’t open. Brooks tugged on the vellum, tried sticking the long, fake nail the makeup artist had glued to her finger not twenty minutes before under it, but nothing worked. The stage manager had nothing to worry about as far as peeking went: these envelopes seemed to be sealed with atomic-strength glue. Brooks tugged once more. Her hand flew off the vellum and smacked right into the microphone. It popped and hissed. “Apparently these envelopes weren’t sealed with Post-it glue,” she said, and the audience chuckled. Brooks felt the tension ease in her shoulders. Okay, it was going to be okay.

      “Let’s just rip it off and see what happens, Brook,” Jonas said and she didn’t even feel the usual annoyance at someone mispronouncing her name. She didn’t care. She wanted to read the winner, hand off the trophy and get the heck off this stage as quickly as possible. She handed the envelope to Jonas.

      “Normally, I’m all for a woman doing a man’s job,” she said, “but this time, I’ll just let Muscles, here, do the heavy lifting.”

      Jonas tore the edge off the envelope, and a moment later the room swam in applause as a short, balding golfer took the stage to accept the award. Brooks knew she should recognize the man, even if sports wasn’t her job she should recognize him, but all her mind could focus on were Jonas Nash’s hands, trembling as he handed the heavy trophy to the older man, who took it without batting an eye, as if it weighed nothing. She turned her gaze to the man beside her. His face was impassive, his gaze calm, as if nothing in the world was off.

      His hands were still trembling. Strike that. Not hands. Hand. His right. His throwing arm. Her mind went back to a cold December afternoon, the last game of the season for the Kentuckians. Jonas had been sacked, driven hard into the frozen field turf. Had that injury been bigger than the team insisted? The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she sensed a story. A big one.

      The golfer started his speech and Brooks and Jonas faded into the background. In the shadows of the stage she heard him exhale a long, slow breath. And then he shifted his shoulder.

      The worst injury Brooks had faced when she was playing softball was a hairline fracture in her wrist, but there was something about the way Jonas moved that screamed pain.

      “Jonas—” she began, but he was already hustling off the stage, turning his toothpaste-commercial smile on the model waiting to lead the golfer back to the interview area. Hands shoved in his pockets, which was odd. In every picture she’d ever seen of him—and there had been many—in every interview, every locker room, Jonas Nash stood with his hands either at his side or gesturing wildly. The man was never still.

      Her pulse ratcheted back up.

      Make that twenty percent nerves, thirty percent attraction and fifty percent pure, unadulterated curiosity.

      Adrenaline pumped through her veins, the way it seldom did now that she was off the field and behind the microphone. Jonas Nash had a story and she would be the one to figure out what it was.

      * * *

      JONAS NASH SLID into the backseat of his limo, wanting nothing more than a strong hit of whiskey. He’d nearly blown it. His injury was no secret—nothing in the sports world stayed a secret for very long—but only a handful of people knew the extent of his injury.

      He’d nearly outed himself on international television with that trophy stunt. He should have left it on the podium. Why hadn’t he left it on the podium like every other presenter?

      “Hey, baby.” The model he’d flirted with backstage slid off the side-facing seat as the limo pulled away from the curb.

      “Hey, Mandi,” he said, trying not to feel annoyed with the woman who wouldn’t be here if he’d kept his freaking mouth shut backstage. But he’d felt out of sorts, and he’d found it hard to look away