“That’s pretty nice of you.”
“Thank you for saying that, but it was the only way I could live with the guilt. I could help her and the kids get out and make sure they were on a better path.” She let out a sigh. “If anything good came out of this, I made a new friend. And I learned.”
“We all learn,” he said. “I’d like to learn some more about you.”
He rolled atop her again. His fingertips brushed the ticklish skin under her arm, and she let out a laugh as she reached up to kiss him.
One night was not going to be enough. She was crazy to think it ever would be.
Chapter Eight
* * *
DREW AWOKE IN Kendall’s bed at the soft light of dawn. He glanced over at the clock on her bedside table. Five AM. He’d have to be at the airport in the next hour or so to have any chance at all of being on the eight-thirty flight to Seattle. He didn’t want to go.
Kendall was lying on her side, the sheet wrapped around her hips, breathing deeply. She’d tucked one hand beneath her pillow sometime during the night. She was still naked, and he was hard.
He knew continuing to see her was out of the question. She was right: Even if their relationship was consensual, it would cause more of a furor than the league’s attempts to eliminate kickoffs. She’d be the one that would suffer. The guys he spent nine months a year with would give him a ration of shit, but he cringed to think of what they’d say about her.
He knew what was waiting for her too. She’d told him that she enjoyed being the director of football operations; managing the team’s salary cap made sure she mostly stayed off the radar of men in the league who thought women had no business in a pro football team’s front office. Being an interim GM left a huge target painted on her back, especially if she decided she wanted the job for real. Even more than the job title, the proof she was intimately involved with one of the Sharks might be enough to cause the owner of the Miners to fire her on the spot, SEC investigation or not.
He shouldn’t have slept with her. She shouldn’t have slept with him. He knew seeing her again was asking for trouble and he was the worst kind of stupid. It made him a real candy ass to admit it to himself, but he was lonely. There were always women around. They weren’t the right ones, and it had nothing to do with whether or not they shared his ideas about a home and family. They weren’t what he really wanted, and the list had got shorter the longer he’d dated: smart, funny¸ thoughtful, compassionate, and beautiful. Even beautiful was negotiable; he wasn’t the guy that went for the bleached blondes with gigantic foobs, and he never had been. He’d appreciate someone with good health habits and someone who could keep up with him, but mostly, he wanted someone he could see making a home and raising a family with.
Walking into his parents’ house was still something he relished—the scent of food cooking, the hugs and sometimes, a few tears from his mom, who was always his and his siblings’ greatest cheerleader. Shaking hands with his dad and being wrapped in a huge bear hug. Since his career didn’t allow him to live in Wisconsin, he wanted those things in Seattle. It was why he didn’t bitch too much when he came home to find yet more of his teammates lounging in the family room, and why he enjoyed getting invited over to Zach’s house.
He’d been in Seattle two seasons now. The team was his family, his home away from home. They weren’t there during the wee hours of the morning, though. He needed a wife.
He watched Kendall sleep. She must have been having a great dream; he saw her smiling a little. He’d love to know what (or who) she was dreaming about. He hoped it was him. He could moon over her like a lovesick middle school student all he wanted, but she was on a different path in life.
She wasn’t going to leave the Miners. He’d retire from football in a few years, he’d find something else to do with his time, and she would still want to live in California. Did he want to as well? Would she enjoy weekend soccer games and inviting friends over for a meal, or would she be required to go to the high-profile events any franchise’s front office personnel attended? They weren’t important to him at all.
Maybe he should take it down a notch before he planned his entire future in the next ten minutes. He was interested, but he didn’t know enough about her to give her the starring role in his fantasies of domestic bliss. It would take many more dates to do so. The best course of action was to get his ass back to Seattle, stop in to see his young friend Nolan at Children’s, and figure out if they both were interested enough to pay the price for getting involved with each other. She’d said she wasn’t into one-night stands. He wasn’t into them, either, but right now, this felt a lot like one.