Nice Girls Finish Last. Natalie Anderson
so stupid, stupid, stupid.
She’d worked so hard to earn respect and a good reputation here and she’d just chucked it. For what?
The kiss of a lifetime. Definitely. But it wasn’t worth her job.
Despite her hammering heart and desperate urge to flee the place altogether, she had to go back and implement damage control—sooner rather than later. She swiped her comb through her hair to smooth it, closed her eyes and counted to ten. She’d fix up the last couple of shirts for the team, then deal with the five-car pile-up her life had just become. She fussed with the fabric, getting it perfect while questions spun so fast in her head it was worse than being on some g-force terror ride at a theme park.
Who and how and why was he there? It wasn’t the right time in the season for a new recruit and he’d been right about it being a restricted area … so who?
And what had she been thinking? It was his fault—right? He’d invaded her personal space and made boundary-crossing comments and started the whole explosive episode. He’d kissed her. She’d been the innocent party … sort of. But her heart knew the truth and her body just wanted more.
Seth had shrugged his jacket back up to his shoulders and walked forward as soon as he’d heard the door open. Breathless, his brain obliterated, he had been guided by pure instinct to protect her as best he could.
But in the few seconds it took for the door to bang shut again—with no one having walked through it—she’d gone. Faster than lightning, she’d streaked down the corridor. He didn’t chase her; in the split second he saw her turn a corner—she knew exactly the way out of there. He didn’t.
So what he had to do was find Dion. Because Dion would be able to tell him who the flamethrower was.
Wow.
He chuckled and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, checking it. Yeah, a smear of the slick red she wore on her lips coloured his skin. He rubbed again to be sure he was clear, then ran his hands through his hair and exhaled hard, trying to release some of the tension.
As if that were ever going to happen. He was so wound and wired it was a wonder he could even walk. But walk he would—just as soon as some of the blood pumped back out of his pants and up north to his head. It took a few moments—hindered by the fact that all he could think of was that woman with the creamiest skin and the palest green eyes that were totally, totally feline. Given the smart-but-pretty dress and heels and make-up she had on, he guessed she worked here, probably PR, given her polished image. Less polished now he’d messed with her….
Yeah, none of these thoughts were helping him recover his control. He forced it, breathing out again and striding forward through the change-room door. ‘You in here, Dion?’
Seth stopped a few paces into the room and blinked at the sight. Dion was on the edge of a group of rugby players—all of whom were clad only in white towels, while a few more were posed in one corner of the room. In between the two groupings stood a photographer, camera in front of his face as he issued instructions and click, click, clicked.
‘Hey, Seth, glad you could make it.’ Dion had recently stepped in as CEO for the stadium. He was another property-development addict, and his new diversion was perfect timing as far as Seth was concerned—now for more than one reason.
‘Yeah, thanks.’ Seth smiled, exceptionally glad he’d come here today. ‘What’s going on?’
But Dion was staring at him with a curious expression. ‘What did you do to your jacket?’
Startled, Seth glanced down and saw streaks of some thing all over his lapels. He frowned, put his fingers to a spot and felt the slick dampness. Then he remembered—Green-Eyed Girl had grabbed his jacket as she’d snapped back at him. She’d held on to it tight. Now he knew why. She’d had some kind of slime on her hands and she’d wiped it all over him. The devious creature. He laughed, tickled and no less turned on. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’
He took it off—happy to—given he was still hotter than hot.
Dion still looked curious but Seth just jerked his head towards the team. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Last couple of shots for the annual calendar shoot.’
‘Really?’ Seth grinned at the poor bastards. Most stood with their arms folded across their gleaming bare chests. His eyes narrowed. ‘What have they put on you?’ he asked the nearest one.
‘Baby oil.’
A few started laughing again and smacking their chests like cavemen. ‘Oh, she got us good.’
‘I can still feel the sting of her palm,’ one complained, rubbing his hand up by his shoulder. ‘She’s a sadist.’ He rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘But it was worth it.’
‘Who got you good?’ Seth tried to ask casually.
‘Lena.’
Cue more smirks and body-slapping.
Lena. Oh, hell. Wasn’t Lena the name of the woman Dion had told him about? The woman who had the power to save him from next week’s nightmare so long as he could convince her to help him? The one he needed?
Hell, yes. Only, now he didn’t want her to agree to his last-minute project plan, he wanted her to say yes to something else altogether. Seth gritted his teeth as a surge of testosterone rippled through his muscles—all masculine hunger and sexual curiosity. His curiosity was so rabid he was unable to resist asking exactly what they’d been up to with the luscious Lena. ‘What did you do?’
‘Asked her to rub the oil on,’ one said with a shameless grin. ‘Thought she’d refuse all haughtylike, but she didn’t. She slapped it on all of us. And I mean slapped.’
The entire team erupted.
‘Perfect!’ the photographer shrieked, spinning, his finger holding down the shutter button as he caught them all. ‘Keep talking.’
‘You should have seen the look on her face.’
Oh, Seth had. ‘Did she laugh?’ He was still hearing that laugh; it had drawn him to her the way a magnet drew an iron filing. He’d been powerless to resist her pull.
‘Nah, you never see that, she always holds it together. Cooler than a chilly bin.’
Uh, Seth didn’t think so. He glanced down at the jacket in his hands, retrieved the few things he had in the pocket and dumped it in the rubbish. No getting oil stains out of that. He turned back, unable to resist asking more—to be sure it was her. ‘She wouldn’t be wearing a blue dress, would she? About this tall?’ He gestured just above his shoulder. ‘Dark hair, creamy skin, green eyes and curv—’
He broke off, recognising a little late that they’d all gone quiet and that he’d been about to get a little too detailed….
‘You noticed her,’ said Ty, who Seth knew was the captain.
‘I told you about her. Lena Kelly.’ Dion pointedly looked from Seth to the rubbish bin and back again. ‘PR and organisation and stuff.’
Yeah, definitely the one Dion had said Seth needed on board. She had the power to convince management to let him bring his boys here—the at-risk youth who needed not just a shot of discipline, but of inspiration, too. But Dion hadn’t told him she was such a scorcher.
And right now, wrong as it was, Seth had more of a fixation on that fact than he did on sorting the problem that had brought him here in the first place.
She definitely had a more valid reason than he did to be hanging out near the change rooms. What was more, she really had had her hands on all the boys. There was no smothering his chuckle.
The captain saw. ‘Don’t bother, mate, she’s not interested.’
Oh. Seth cleared his throat. ‘She’s taken?’