Unexpected Rush (Play-By-Play #11)(13)

“That’s fine. I hadn’t planned on moving in until after renovating.”

“Good. I’ll talk to Jeff tomorrow and we’ll get things started.”

He stood. “Thanks for doing this, Harmony. You made it all easy.”

“Oh, it won’t be easy, trust me. You’ll have to make a lot of design choices and I’m going to be honest here. I think you’ll find a lot of them a frustrating and boring pain in the ass. Renovating is often exasperating as hell. But I’ll try to make the process go as smoothly as possible.”

“Thanks for that. Training camp and preseason will be coming up soon, so the last thing I want to focus on is paint color.”

She laughed. “I can imagine. I’ll be here every step of the way to shoulder much of that burden for you. But remember, Barrett. This is your house. Not mine. So you will have to make most of those decisions.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Okay, then. I’ll have a contract drawn up and get that over to you tomorrow. Now, there’s only one decision you have to make right now.”

“What’s that?”

She gave him a wickedly sexy smile. “When are you coming over to my place to cook dinner for me?”

“You were serious about that?” He was hoping she’d forgotten.

“Of course I was. You didn’t think I’d lay down a challenge and not expect you to back it up, did you?”

She waved one of her sexy legs back and forth, forcing him to look at them, and at her feet.

Hell, she even had pretty toes.

He should say no. He definitely should say no. To hell with her challenge. He knew better.

The code.

But it wasn’t like he’d be dating her or anything. He just had to prove he could cook. Then he could get the hell out of there and away from her. And they’d be working together on this project, so, like it or not, he was going to have to get used to the idea of being close to her. It might as well start over dinner.

“I have practices and then some meetings. How about Saturday?”

She offered up a benign, innocent smile that didn’t fool him for a minute. “Saturday sounds fine.”

He walked her out to her car and opened the driver’s door for her. She turned to him. “Text me a list of items and I’ll shop, since you won’t have time.”

“I’ll have time.”

She sighed. “Text me a list of items, Barrett. I’ll take care of it.”

He liked that fire in her eyes when he irritated her, hated to admit that he wouldn’t mind stoking it with passion.

And when his thoughts went down that road, he knew it was time to get far, far away from Harmony.

He leaned in, for some reason needing to poke her a little. “Hey. I’ve got it covered.”

She inhaled, then let it out in a heavy sigh. “Fine.”

She slid into her car, her dress riding up her thighs and giving him a glimpse of her smooth silky legs as she climbed in.

Dammit. He was sure she’d done that on purpose.

He shut the door and she drove off.

He walked back inside the house, deciding he needed a minute or two to cool down before he left. He walked outside and stood staring out over the Intracoastal Waterway.

This was going to be rough. He was attracted to Harmony in ways he hadn’t expected. Normally he could fight an attraction, but she was smart and beautiful and hot and sexy and every time he was around her the chemistry between them grew more explosive.

She was also Drake’s little sister, and like it or not, that fact was going to have to stay front and center in his mind.





Six





Barrett was happy to be working out with his teammates. They weren’t officially at camp, but working out together to get in shape for training camp next month. He breathed in the energy of his teammates while he stretched and got down to business.

Barrett and Drake and most of the guys on the defense often got together at the gym during the off-season to work out together. Now it was summer and OTAs were over, so they brought in some of the rookies and free agents to join their daily workout routines. The team facility was always the best place to get a hard workout in and run drills on their own.

They generated a tough sweat as they pushed one another hard for the better part of three hours. Barrett and Drake worked with a few of the defensive rookies, putting them through their paces to see what they had.

It was going to be a good team this year.

“You up for going out tonight?” Drake asked as they made their way back to the lockers.

“What did you have in mind?”

“I know a couple of ladies.”

Barrett laughed and shook his head. His best friend always knew a couple of ladies. He knew more than a couple of ladies. Drake was popular with women. At six foot four and with his dark good looks and the way he smiled, for some reason women were attracted to him.

That man always had a woman on his arm.

A flash of a dark-skinned, dark-haired beauty entered Barrett’s head.

No. Absolutely not. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea of Harmony.

“Sure. Let’s do it.”

“All right,” Drake said, flashing his signature grin. “Let’s meet at Skye at nine.”

“You got it.”