Protecting The Quarterback. Kristina Knight

      He glanced over his shoulder. “Brook Smith, the Hottest Female Sportscaster.” Damn his rotten luck. Annoyance flashed in her pretty green eyes, and he wondered why. Because of the award? Or because of him? Women usually weren’t annoyed by him, but there could always be a first time.

      Jonas pulled the green tee down his flat abs and schooled his features into a careless mask as he turned.

      “Or we could just stick with Belle.” He grinned at her annoyed expression. She wore a sleeveless blouse and a bright green pencil skirt that showed off the length of her legs and the curve of her hip. His mouth went a little dry again, as if she’d somehow sucked all the moisture out of the room—out of him—just by walking up to his locker. “I see you’ve traded in your ice skates for a safer option.”

      Not that the flat shoes she wore were any less attractive. Her delicate ankle bones flexed as she closed the gap between them, and he decided her calves would be defined whether she wore tottering heels or flip-flops. He’d like to see her in both, or neither, and nothing else. Which was not where his mind needed to be right now. Jonas chastised himself.

      “And I’ve finally tracked down the elusive Beast again.”

      “Didn’t realize I was so hard to find,” he said and was rewarded when a faint tinge of pink lightened her cheeks. “For a princess you’re very determined.”

      “All the best princesses are,” she said, and then seemed to think better of it. “Not that I need a man to come to my rescue.”

      “Could have fooled me.”

      “I didn’t exactly go careening off the stage.” The pink darkened and she narrowed her eyes. Then something switched. She straightened her spine and set her shoulders back and the annoyance in her gaze turned to something else. Real embarrassment, maybe? Whatever it was it made the green in her eyes deepen and Jonas had to remind himself, again, that she was a reporter. He’d had his fill of them.

      She sucked in a breath and said, “But thank you, anyway. It could have been a lot worse if you hadn’t been there.”

      “True. That was some pretty fancy footwork.” Jonas told himself to stop baiting her. Let her say what she wanted and get out of his locker space. But he couldn’t seem to stop. “I didn’t realize princesses normally walked with their legs going in different directions.”

      She bit her bottom lip and then folded her arms across her chest. “I’m trying to say thank you. Would you stop being such an ass about it?”

      “Okay,” he said solemnly. “You’re welcome.”

      She was pretty without all that goop the makeup artist at the awards show had plopped on her creamy skin. Her face and arms were lightly touched by the sun and a fine line of freckles danced across her nose. Jonas wanted to run his fingers over those freckles, but that would be yet another bad idea, so he stepped over the low bench and into the main walkway, into her personal space. He saw her pupils dilate, and smiled.

      “Now that I’ve helped you save face before millions of viewers around the globe, what exactly is it that I can do for you?”

      Then his towel betrayed him by slithering down his legs. Jonas wanted to snatch it off the floor, but stopped himself. Athletes just didn’t go grabbing for towels and tees in the locker room.

      “You can sit down with me for that little chat we talked about after the awards show.”

      Jonas casually pulled up the towel and settled it back over his hips. “Sweetheart, if you just wanted to chat you should have told my agent.”

      “About your future,” she said, teeth clenched. “What happens after this season? You’ll be a free agent, but with your old college coach now leading the team, will you stay?”

      “I never said I was leaving.”

      “No one has said anything, which usually means something is up.”

      Jonas had to derail this conversation and he had to do it fast. He couldn’t just turn down the offer; the coaching staff had made it clear to him this morning that the sideline reporter from the network had full access.

      Jonas had never met a reporter who didn’t have an agenda where he was concerned.

      And in this case it was a woman, which made her naturally curious and, in his opinion, worse than most.

      “Something’s about to come up, all right, but I don’t think it’s what you want to know about.” He leaned in, getting a whiff of her lily-and-vanilla scent. The same scent that kept him up nights through the spring he spent busting his ass to get his shoulder back under control. Something was coming up, all right, and it was nothing he should be sharing with a reporter. Especially not a reporter like her. “Or maybe that’s the something that had you calling everyone from my agent to my college coach and the secretary here over the spring.”

      She raised an eyebrow and looked him slowly up and down. Which made him go from slightly interested to fully motivated. Finally, her gaze returned to his.

      “Like I said, Muscles, nothing there I haven’t seen before. I’ll just schedule our sit-down for tomorrow morning.” She turned away and then glanced back over her shoulder. “The coach already mentioned you were free from nine to nine-thirty.”

      With that she stepped over another bench and made her way over the carpeted floor to the door leading to the weight room and out to the field.

      Jonas looked down, holding his hands out to the side. “Now you have to go all Magic Mike? The woman doesn’t like us, buddy. The woman could hurt us.” As her scent faded into the familiar locker room smell of Bengay and sweat, his member slowly returned to normal. “That’s better, and don’t even think about doing that tomorrow, got it?”

      * * *

      THERE WAS SOMETHING about the green of the Kentucky countryside in early June, Brooks thought, as she rolled down the window of her car. A breeze blew through the window and for a moment she wished she still had the convertible Mustang her parents had surprised her with at her college graduation. Why had she ever thought the sedan was a more grown-up car than the Mustang? She closed her eyes for a second and breathed deep. Didn’t matter. She’d made her choices. Maybe she would buy a new Mustang. Or a new-to-her ’Stang. In the mean time she could still enjoy the Kentucky breeze blowing through her windows and the scent of...home was the best way she could describe it. As she continued down the highway the annoyance at Jonas Nash and his continued mutilation of her name melted away into something different.

      Something a little more powerful than the story she knew he was hiding. She saw right through the heavy-handed flirting and beneath he seemed just a little bit broken. And she was a sucker for broken.

      Brooks turned off the main highway onto the quiet lane that led to her parents’ two-story home outside Louisville. This was as good a place as any to start her tour with the Kentuckians, especially since training camp was held just down the road at a local college.

      Her dad’s familiar truck was gone, as was her mom’s classic Thunderbird. She checked her watch. Dad would be at the high school for at least another hour and her mother was likely at the church or picking up groceries. When Brooks had arrived her mother said something about needing extra supplies—as if the addition of Brooks’s one-hundred-thirty-pound body meant the Smith family now needed to shop at the bulk food store or buy an entire cow to get them through the summer. Brooks chuckled as she turned off the engine and gathered her things. She used the key she’d never removed from her ring to enter the back door into the kitchen. A pecan pie sat on the table with a note from Heidi. “Save a little for Dad. The last day of school always makes him crave sweets.”

      Smiling, Brooks put the note back on the pie topper and then pulled a bottle of water from the fridge before climbing the stairs to settle in at the small desk where she’d done her homework as a teen. Posters of the Backstreet Boys still lined the walls and she made a note to redecorate—or at least remove them—as soon as