This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars #5)(17)
"It's—" Her fingers fidgeted with the skirt of her nightgown. "Uh, yes, I see what you mean."
His eyes narrowed, and his voice grew low and dangerous. "It would be called rape."
"You're not seriously trying to say that I—I raped you?"
He regarded her coldly. "Yeah, I think I am."
This was far worse than she'd imagined. "That's ridiculous. You—you weren't nonconsenting!"
"Only because I was asleep and I thought you were someone else."
That stung. "I see."
He didn't back off. If anything, his jaw hardened. "Contrary to what you seem to think, I like having a relationship before I have sex. And I don't let anybody use me."
Which was exactly what she'd done. She wanted to cry. "I'm sorry, Kevin. Both of us know my behavior was outrageous. Could we forget about this?"
"I don't have much choice." He bit off his words. "It's not something I want to read about in the papers."
She backed toward the door. "I hope you realize I'll never say anything."
He regarded her with disgust.
Her face crumpled. "I'm sorry. Really."
Chapter 4
? ^ ?
Daphne jumped off her skateboard and crouched down in the long weeds so she could peer into the nest.
Daphne Finds a Baby Rabbit
(preliminary notes)
Kevin dropped back into the pocket. Sixty-five thousand screaming fans were on their feet, but a perfect stillness cocooned him. He didn't think about the fans, the TV cameras, about the Monday Night Football crew in the booth. He didn't think about anything except what he'd been born to do—play the game that had been invented just for him.
Leon Tippett, his favorite receiver, ran the pattern perfectly and broke free, ready for that sweet moment when Kevin would drill the ball into his hands.
Then, in an instant, the play turned to crap. Their safety came out of nowhere, ready to pick off the pass.
Adrenaline flooded Kevin's body. He was deep behind the line of scrimmage, and he needed another receiver, but Jamal was down, and Stubs had double coverage.
Briggs and Washington broke through the Stars' line and bore down. Those same fire-breathing monsters, disguised as Tampa Bay defensive ends, had dislocated his shoulder last year, but Kevin wasn't about to throw the ball away. With the recklessness that had been causing him so much trouble lately, he looked to the left… and then made a sharp, blind, insane cut to the right. He needed a hole in that wall of white jerseys. He willed it to be there. And found it.
With the agility that had become his trademark, he slipped through, leaving Briggs and Washington grabbing air. He spun and shook off a defender who outweighed him by eighty pounds.
Another cut. A jitterbug. Then he put on the steam.
Off the field he was a big man, six feet two and 193 pounds of muscle, but here in the Land of Mutant Giants he was small, graceful, and very fast. His feet conquered the artificial turf. The lights in the dome turned his gold helmet into a meteor, his aqua jersey into a banner woven from the heavens. Human poetry. God-kissed. Blessed among men. He carried the ball across the goal line into the end zone.
And when the official signaled the touchdown, Kevin was still standing.
The postgame party was at Kinney's house, and from the moment Kevin walked in the door, women started to grab him.
"Fabulous game, Kevin."
"Kevin, querido, over here!"
"You were awesome! I'm hoarse from screaming!"
"Were you excited when you took it in? God, I know you were excited, but how did it really feel?"
"?Felicitación!"
"Kevin, chéri!"
Charm came easily to Kevin, and he flashed his smile while he untangled himself from all but two of the most persistent.
"You like your women beautiful and silent," his best friend's wife had said the last time they'd talked. "But most women aren't silent, so you home in on foreign babes with limited English. A classic case of intimacy avoidance."
Kevin remembered giving her a lazy once-over. "Is that so? Well, listen up, Dr. Jane Darlington Bonner. I'll be intimate with you anytime you want."
"Over my dead body," her husband, Cal, had responded from across the dinner table.
Even though Cal was his best friend, Kevin enjoyed giving him a hard time. It had been that way since the days he'd been the old man's resentful backup. Now, however, Cal was retired from football and beginning his residency in internal medicine at a hospital in North Carolina.
Kevin couldn't resist needling him. "It's a matter of principle, old man. I need to prove a point."
"Yeah, well, prove it with your own woman, and leave mine alone."
Jane had laughed, kissed her husband, given their daughter, Rosie, a napkin, and picked up their new son, Tyler. Kevin smiled as he remembered Cal's response when he'd asked about the Post-it notes he kept seeing on Ty's diapers.
"It's because I won't let her write on his legs anymore."
"Still at it, is she?"
"Arms, legs—the poor kid was turning into a walking scientific notebook. But it's gotten better since I started tucking Post-its in all her pockets."