Page 25 of Striking Heat

“What? You just said yourself that you ladies are going to take forever to board. This way, we have priority boarding,” he replies. “Plus, I didn’t pay for the whole ticket. I just upgraded us to first class.”

“Oh, that makes it so much better.” I roll my eyes at him again.

He smirks. “Are you hitting your quota before lunchtime?”

“Fuck you,” I reply.

“Come on now, please play nice,” Cassidy chides me.

Danny opens his mouth to speak, then closes it before turning to Nick. “You about ready? We can head into the lounge.”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” he replies.

“Catch you on the flip side,” Danny says as he walks away.

“That was surreal,” I say, rolling my eyes as he walks away.

“He’s right, you do that a lot,” Cassidy says, pointing at me.

“Knock it off, Cass. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I thought lunch with him went fine.”

I shrug. “It did, actually. I thought that maybe he was an actual human being.”

“So, what changed from today?”

“I’m not sure. It’s like he got an extra shot of arrogance,” I admit.

“Bothers you, doesn’t it?” Cassidy bumps her hip with mine.

“Yeah, and why is that?” I exclaim.

“Okay, we need to use our indoor voices.” Cassidy laughs at me.

“Sorry.” The team is now looking at me.

Hendrix comes over. “What are we talking about so loudly over here?”

“Apparently, Mr. Taylor is coming along for the ride to Chicago. He’ll be covering the game,” Cassidy fills her in.

I slap her arm. She feigns that it hurts but laughs at me.

“Why? He’s a local dude.” Hendrix looks over at me and asks, “Is this for that in-depth piece? Does that include an in-depth look at your hotel room?”

“No!” I shout, causing more stares from the other girls. Amelia and Andie join us.

“What is going on over here?” Amelia asks. She looks like she’s trying to stifle a laugh as Hendrix is laughing at her comment.

“It’s not that funny,” I say, shaking my head at her.

“Well, you see, the reporter and Mac are going to bang in Chicago,” Hendrix proudly announces.

I go to playfully shove her too, but her solid build makes her hard to move. She just winks a chocolate eye at me and laughs.

“We are not going to bang. I don’t even look at him like that.” I sigh and take a sip of my coffee.

“Why the hell not?” Andie asks. “I mean, come on. I know you hate him, and I get why, but damn, have you looked at the man? He’s fucking hot with that swimmer’s body. I’d love to know what’s under that long-sleeve tee.”