Quarterback Blitz Read online

  Quarterback Blitz

  Frances Stockton

  All Anna wants for her fortieth birthday is a ladies’ night out. Her plans are stalled when she ends up stuck in her griffin costume. The mascot for the Alexandria Griffins, she never expects to be rescued by the star of her midnight fantasies, quarterback Kyran Black. Called “The Rebel” by the press because of his long hair, tattoos and playboy stats off the field, he’s everything Anna should avoid.

  Kyran is gorgeous and irresistible and he suggests they celebrate her birthday together. Certain she’s too old for him, she agrees to one night. Kyran’s charm and dominance in bed blitz Anna’s defenses, teaching her things about sex she never thought she’d experience.

  But when their one-night stand turns into a relationship, his bad-boy past comes back to threaten their future.

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Quarterback Blitz

  ISBN 9781419930416

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Quarterback Blitz Copyright © 2010 Frances Stockton

  Edited by Briana St. James

  Cover art by Dar Albert

  Electronic book publication August 2010

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  QUARTERBACK BLITZ

  Frances Stockton

  Dedication

  To Wayne, you are my hero.

  Acknowledgements

  I sincerely wish to thank my family and friends for their unwavering support throughout the twists and turns of my writing endeavors, and for being my cheerleaders.

  To the members of the New England Chapter of RWA, I wouldn’t have learned everything I need to get this far without you all, and I know I still have more to learn.

  To Renee Wildes and Venus Campbell, thank you for your thoughts and honesty when critiquing this book.

  And to my awesome cousin Laurie…she knows why.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following word marks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Escalade: General Motors Corporation

  Honda CRV: Honda Motor Co., Ltd

  Led Zeppelin: Robert A. Plant, James P. Page, and Joan Hudson

  Mack Truck: Mack Trucks, Inc.

  Meat Loaf: Michael Aday

  Chapter One

  Anna’s zipper was stuck!

  No matter how hard she tugged and contorted her tall frame into a pretzel, she was stuck in her mascot’s costume. Sweat covered her body, the sweltering heat of the costume one of the reasons the head piece had a little fan to cool her off when entertaining crowds. But the eagle’s head and wings were already off, sitting safely in their compartment in her little nook of the cheerleaders’ locker room.

  The gigantic team jersey that advertised the name and number of “The Beast” sat in a heap at her feet. If she wasn’t in a hurry, she might have laughed at herself hopping up and down. She’d made birthday plans with some friends and was supposed to meet them after the Alexandria Griffins Friday night televised pre-season game. Her costume was proving difficult and something she really didn’t need right now.

  She wanted to go out and have some fun after watching the star of her midnight fantasies perform on the field tonight. But Kyran Black was hardly going to remember his encounters with a physical education teacher from Baltimore. Then again, the last time they’d met, she had been thirty-nine. That changed when the alarm rang at seven o’clock this morning, reminding her what day it was.

  “Why did I tell Tracey not to worry if I was late?” she asked herself, hopping to and fro as she tried one more attempt at the zipper.

  Sweaty from her efforts, she headed out of her changing room and marched for the locker room door, only to draw up short when the tall, dark bare-chested rebel of her dreams charged inside.

  Not just any rebel. “The Rebel”, Kyran Black, the legendary quarterback recruited to calm down the high-strung starter for the Alexandria Griffins.

  “Hey, sugar.” He flashed his devil-may-care smile, his clean-shaven, chiseled features all the more sexy when she noticed the crooked scar that ran down the left side of his chin. Even when he smiled, the scar made it seem like he was snarling. It was sexy as hell.

  His dark auburn hair fell damp and wavy to his broad shoulders. “You mind if I hide in here with you?” he asked, leaning back against the door as if he had all the time in the world.

  Twin Celtic tattoos wrapped around his massive biceps, making him look more like a biker than a professional athlete. Anna’s pulse went into overdrive at the memory of riding on his Harley. All that muscle and powerful, vibrating engine had almost made her come.

  “Depends on what you’re hiding from.” Skeptical, she wrapped her arms over her chest, giving him her best “I’m the teacher. You’re the kid without a hall pass” impression.

  Kyran’s eyes swept her from head to toe. “A piranha with a microphone wanted to know how I felt after tonight’s game. I was damned lucky to pull on my jeans before she rushed into the team locker room.” He looked tired, freshly showered and he’d donned a pair of worn button fly blue jeans with holes here and there. The flash of his bare knee made her toes curl inside her griffin’s talons.

  He was six foot six inches of ripped, athletic muscle and shoulders that would give Atlas a run for his money. His pectorals and six-pack abs were bare of chest hair, letting her appreciate the fine line of auburn hair that dusted his navel, thinning downward to disappear behind the top button of his jeans.

  He was sex in faded blue jeans. But couldn’t he have grabbed a shirt when he was dodging the press? Or at the very least fastened all the buttons on his fly?

  Anna wouldn’t study the significant bulge behind those buttons. She wouldn’t notice the very nice, masculine scent that accompanied him or recall what it was like to be plastered against that hard body, so close to having that power and strength surging inside of her. Irish Spring soap and basic shampoo did nothing for her, except make her pulse race and her slit clench greedily for his attention.

  She told herself she was just horny. She hadn’t had sex in a while. Finding her ex-fiancé in bed with a twenty-year-old grad student made her swear off men for a while. At least she’d thought she had until she agreed to join Kyran for coffee after a game last winter. He’d been trying to ask her out a few times before that, but it wasn’t until that game when she started to believe he was really interested.

  “If you give the reporter a few words on tape she’ll leave you alone,” Anna suggested when he showed no sign of leaving.

  “Rathe
r not,” Kyran said, his vivid gaze returning to her face. “Isn’t that costume hot?”

  “Yes. The zipper is stuck. Lend me a hand and you can stay until your piranha is gone.”

  Kyran’s dark blue eyes narrowed. “I’ll help if you tell me why you’re pissed at me.”

  “I’m not pissed, Mr. Black. Being trapped in this costume is the last straw in the day from hell. I’d appreciate some help. I’ve places to go, things to do.”

  His mouth tightened and his brow lifted a fraction, sending white-hot lightning zinging from her heart to her clit. “Got a hot date, Anna?” He inhaled sharply, causing a trickle of arousal to slide down her inner thigh at his display of possessiveness.

  Well, damn, he remembered her name. He just couldn’t remember to give her a call after she’d decided not to go home with him. She’d been a fool to believe that he’d meant it when he said he wanted more than sex.

  “Just meeting some friends.”

  Kyran watched her before pushing away from the door. Her heart tripped in her chest. “Have to admit, never thought a griffin was sexy until I met you. Tonight you were hot.”

  Bowing her head to hide her heated cheeks, she edged toward him. “There’s nothing sexy about this costume. It’s itchy. When the night is done, it’s a relief to take a shower. That’s what I’d like to do,” she said, giving him her back.

  “Don’t you have someone to help you with this sort of thing after a game?”

  “I share this locker room with the cheerleaders. Tonight they had a meeting. I thought I could do it alone.”

  “Doing it alone is never as much fun as with someone,” Kyran teased, placing his hands on her puffy lion shoulders. She could have sworn she felt the heat of his touch through the foam and padding.

  “Help or get out of the way so someone else can,” she growled, waiting.

  “Remind me never to stand in the way of your talons.” He was trying to hide his laughter. She could hear it in his deep, gruff-spoken voice that tempted her to have raw sex with him right then and there.

  “I’m harmless,” she said. “Please help me.”

  “Okay, okay, you have foam and material caught in the teeth of the zipper. How did you manage to mangle it?”

  “I was in a hurry.”

  “Wouldn’t have been because you were avoiding me, right?”

  “Ah, no, you weren’t on my mind at all.” Ha, let him think that. “Tonight’s a special night. I’ve plans.”

  “Mhm, I’m curious. What are you wearing under this thing anyway?”

  The change in questions made her jerk around to face him. “A dancer’s leotard, satisfied?”

  “Hardly. Now that I’ve got your attention, explain why you gave me a bogus phone number after we went out.”

  “That’s your excuse? Ha, you’re Kyran Black. If you wanted to find me, you could have.”

  “I tried, but didn’t want to violate your privacy like that. Your home number wasn’t listed and your cell was no longer in service.”

  “That can’t be. I’d gotten a new cell earlier that day and—oh God.” She just might have given him the wrong phone number. “Okay, I admit I could have given the wrong number. A lot happened to me that day, I was a little distracted.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’d just learned that I would be the Griffins mascot. I was on cloud nine. I’m a gym teacher and my pay was cut. The money from this job was definitely welcome. Talking with you in the parking lot was icing on the cake. My favorite quarterback asked me out for coffee and I guess I was nervous after what happened between us afterward and…I did not just say that, did I?”

  Kyran smiled like he’d just won the championship game. “I’m your favorite quarterback? Tell me more.”

  “And feed your ego, I think not.” Anna gave him her back again. “Fix the zipper. You don’t have to worry about my phone number anymore.”

  “After your shower—”

  “I can’t take a shower in this costume.”

  “We’ll talk,” he continued. “Listen, I thought you’d brushed me off, but I did try to find you. You wouldn’t be the first woman scared away by what I do for a living. Now that I know it was a mistake, can’t we try to find out what’s between us?”

  “There’s nothing between us.”

  “Like hell there isn’t. Come on, Anna, go out with me tonight. Don’t you want to see what it might be like not to stop this time?”

  “How about we call a truce? I’ll let you avoid the press while I finish getting dressed for the evening.”

  Kyran’s hands brushed her back. Even through foam and fabric, she could feel the strength of his hands. He was thirty years old in a game dominated by younger talent and brutish defense and he could still stand in the pocket and deliver before an opponent plowed him into the turf.

  “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said when she trembled.

  “Didn’t think you would,” she murmured.

  He worked on the zipper for a minute and grunted in frustration. “Anna, don’t be mad if I tear this.”

  “Tear it, I have a second costume. This one can be repaired.”

  “Can I have a kiss when I’m done?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Come on, it’s not every day I rescue a damsel in distress.”

  “I’m not in distress. Fix it or I’ll call for your piranha, hero.”

  “Ouch, okay.” He suddenly tugged hard, the fabric standing no chance against his big, sure hands. “By the way, I’m getting that kiss when I’m done, Anna James. You left me with a raging hard-on the last time we met. You owe me.”

  “Ha, I don’t owe you a thing. We had a ride on your Harley, two cups of coffee, a nice conversation and a little flirtation. It was fun, but—”

  “Don’t forget the two of us going at each other like a freakin’ freight train when I dropped you off.” The fabric gave with another tug, the metal teeth of the zipper giving way to his forceful jerks. “That wasn’t flirting.”

  “We kissed, fooled around a bit, no big deal.”

  “Call it whatever you want. I almost fucked you against your SUV.” More tearing followed and the suit loosened. Anna was so wet she knew her leotard was soaked. “Don’t kid yourself. We wouldn’t have stopped if a security guard hadn’t driven by.”

  “Please, Kyran. I don’t know what came over me that night,” she whispered, embarrassed. They had made out like a couple of teenagers caught between second and third base. He was right.

  “Tell me you didn’t let me go that far with you because you’re one of my fans.”

  “Never, there was something between us that night, something amazing. The last thing on my mind at the time was fame or football. At least not until the security guard gave you two thumbs up.”

  “Did you think that was staged?” Kyran’s tearing had stopped, the suit loose around her shoulders, allowing for some of the air conditioning in the room to cool her off.

  “No it reminded me of who you were and who I was. I didn’t want you to think I was the kind of person who’d fuck someone just because he’s famous.”

  Kyran brushed the costume off her shoulders, pushing it to her elbows. “Turn around, sugar. I want to know something.”

  “Don’t call me sugar,” she argued, turning anyway. He was tall and big and sexier than any man had the right to be. But he was thirty to her forty, and way out of her league. “What do you want?”

  “You,” he said, his full, masculine mouth curved slightly up on the left side. The overhead lights reflected his deep blue eyes and scar. He looked fierce, like a predator. She was in serious trouble. Her heart pounded so fast and hard she was certain he could hear it. “You knew that the last time we were together, so why did you really give me the wrong phone number?”

  Drawing as tall as she could, she stared up at him. It wasn’t every day she could do that with a man. She was six feet tall. “I’d changed my service and phone number earli
er that day because a student stole my cell phone and made a bunch of calls to a phone sex company. I was still trying to remember the new number.”

  “And…” he prompted.

  “I was afraid. I am sorry.”

  His big hand came to rest beneath her chin, tilting her head back. “Afraid of what?”

  “You’d said you wanted to go out with me before then, that you’d come to mascot tryouts because of me. I was scared of what that meant, of being hurt when you realized I was too old for you.”

  “We talked for hours at that coffee shop, Anna. You were friendly, open-minded and fun. You told me about teaching self-defense to senior girls planning to go to Ocean City after graduation. I admired you for that, remember? I didn’t know you were a football coach—”

  “Assistant coach,” she interrupted.

  “Right, the point is I liked you, still like you. But yeah, I wanted to fuck you from the moment I saw you. That doesn’t happen every day, you get me?”

  “Kyran…talk like that, it’s not for me,” she argued. “I can count on one hand the men I’ve slept with and so far sex has been pretty disappointing. Let’s call it a night, okay?” There’d been three men, but she didn’t have to give him all the stats of her love life, or lack thereof.

  “I can’t. Anna, come home with me tonight.”

  Trembling, she tried to finagle her way out of the suit. “I’m getting out of this costume, taking a shower and leaving, alone.”

  “Thought you had plans,” he replied.

  She paused. “I do.” What, exactly, was his point?

  “Why leave alone? I could join you.”

  “That’s not a good idea. It’s a ladies’ night out sort of thing.”

  “Planning to go to a strip club?”

  “An all-male revue, so, yeah,” she confessed.

  “Hell no you’re not.” Kyran frowned, letting the costume fall to her feet and trap her in place.