She answered right away.
“Hi, Joe. I got the money. Thanks so much.” Her voice sounded a little strained, or was that his imagination?
“Everything okay?”
“Sure, sure, sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”
He leaned against a thick oak tree. “You took her shopping, right?”
“I did. And to a salon to get her hair styled and a manicure.”
“When’s the interview?”
“Tomorrow. In the afternoon.”
Did Lisa sound a little hesitant or reserved?
“Fine. I want you to text me afterward and let me know the results. And Lisa?”
“Yes?”
He closed his eyes and let out a breath. “This is going to have to be the end. You hear me?”
“But—”
“No buts.” He shook his head, even though she couldn’t see him. “Seven years is a long time to carry her. Now she’s got to carry herself. Make it happen.”
He disconnected before she could say anything else and zipped the phone into his pocket. It was past time to be done with this. With the impression of him Shay had built up over the years, God only knew what wild things she’d imagine if she found out he’d been giving Gina money all this time. It was suddenly important to him what Shay thought of him. How she saw him. What her opinion was.
By the time he hit the jogging path, his muscles were warmed up and he could set a steady clip. This morning, in addition to sticking to his routine, he wanted to work the restless energy out of his system. And his unsatisfied sexual urges.
What the fuck had he been thinking last night, anyway? One minute they’d been sitting there watching a program about fucking Joe Montana. The next he’d had his mouth on hers and his hands everywhere on her body. This was Shay, for crap’s sake. Little Shay. Only she wasn’t so little anymore. She was a warm, desirable woman. One touch of her mouth, one taste of her, and she completely blew his mind. Where did this hot, sexy female come from, anyway?
Hank was going to kill him.
Yeah? Then he should have been smart enough not to leave the two of them alone in that house. He’d studied biology. He knew all about how sex worked.
Now what the fuck did he do? He not only didn’t regret what happened, he also wanted to do it again. And more. Lots more. He wanted to strip them both naked and watch his cock slide into her sweet, delectable pussy. Feel her clamp those hot muscles around him, the ones that singed his fingers last night. The problem was figuring out what she wanted and what last night meant to her.
Shit, shit, shit.
He pounded along the path, his body on automatic pilot, as every single moment of the previous evening replayed itself in his mind. By the time he slowed and began his cool-down, his cock was hard enough to use for a tree trunk and his balls ached like a sonofabitch. When at last he dropped onto a park bench and leaned his head back, he was thoroughly confused and thoroughly aroused.
Two things stuck out like the trip wires they were—Shay Beckham had grown up to be a very hot, very enticing, very sensuous female despite her girl-next-door appearance, and he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone in his life. Wanted? Wait, that wasn’t even half of it. The little seed of something planted inside him last night when he laid eyes on her now burst into full bloom through his body.
He was fucking in love with Shay Beckham! Holy shit! In love? Where the hell had that come from? People didn’t fall in love this fast, did they? Did you fall in love with someone in less than the blink of an eye?
But Shay was no stranger to him. Truth be told, she’d been on his mind for a very long time. Had this been growing inside him since that brief episode in New York or maybe even before that, even while he’d been so busy living the high life?
Jesus! In love with Shay, a woman who pushed all his buttons the right way?
His entire body felt as if a thunderbolt had speared through it, delivering the shocking realization that he was in love with Shay Beckham.
Yes, you ass. All this time you’ve just been too stupid to realize it.
Until now. Until they’d been thrown together in a situation where the attraction had exploded and consumed him. He’d had just a taste of her and now he wanted all of it. Everything. And not just for the here and now.
God. He could hardly wrap his mind around it.
He certainly had a lot to overcome with her. All those years he’d dissed her as Hank’s pesky kid sister. The overload of women he’d drowned himself in. The reputation the tabloids had hung on him. He needed to change her image of him and at the same time make her realize things were different now.
Oh, yeah, sure, jerkoff. Because she doesn’t have her defenses up, right? Taking on a Super Bowl championship team with a broken arm would be a lot easier. First he had to get past whatever she was feeling about last night.
For him it had been an awakening. Had it hit her the same way? That’s what he’d wanted to tell her, ask her, this morning before she shut him down, avoided the subject completely. Did she regret what happened? Was she ashamed of it? Somehow he had to get her mind turned around about it because he wanted more. With her.
He needed to breach her defenses because his desire for the grown-up Shay had exploded into a living, breathing thing. This was a whole lot more than sex. He wanted all of her, the whole package. Forever.
If he was going to move forward here, he needed a plan. This was no different than quarterbacking a game. Register the pitfalls presented by the other team, set the objectives and put the field plan together. He could do that, right?
Then he would get her to change the way she looked at him. The person she thought he was. He hoped. Show her she wasn’t just another addition to a long list she seemed to think he kept. He just needed to get her to listen to him.
Slow, he told himself. Just take everything real slow.
Okay. Now he knew what he had to do, but business first.
He mentally ran over his agenda for this trip. He’d be speaking to a couple of the coaches groups Scott had set up as part of his Coaches Conference. He was also meeting with the committee planning a big fundraiser for scholarships for athletes. He’d agreed to make an appearance at the event and use his connections to solicit sponsors and merchandise. Because it was close to his hometown and because football had been very good to him financially, he agreed to match all the funds raised from other sources. Keeping this out of the media until the last minute was the only promise he’d extracted from them.
That was the one thing he and Scott continued to disagree on—using his Coaches Conference program, his speeches, and his fundraising for publicity purposes. He didn’t mind personally soliciting people for contributions for worthy causes, or speaking to coaching staffs of varied sizes. As he changed the flow of his life, however, it occurred to him discussing his charity work would seem too much like puffing himself up. Telling people how wonderful he was for doing these things.
“We’ve been over this a bunch of times, Scott.” The agent’s words had irritated him. “You’re the one who told me I was too much of a publicity hound, remember?”
“I do. But that was more your life-of-the-party image. This is good stuff, Joe. People need to know about it. To see who you’ve become. Which is a damn fine person.”
“I’m the same person I always was,” he’d snapped. “Just older and wiser. And I don’t want to