Page 99 of Striking Heat

She looks up at me and smiles wider than I’ve seen her smile. “I think I like that you’re allowed down here and that I can hug and touch you.”

“August helped me get to you.”

“Guess that means your bromance is still happening, huh?” She leans up and kisses my lips quickly. “This is the best way to end a shitty game.”

“I would have to agree with that.” I pull her in again, huggingher tightly. “So, is everything okay with you and the team? Has anyone said anything to you?”

She looks around like she’s seeing if anyone is watching or listening to us. “I don’t think so. No one has really said anything to me about it. I’m not really sure who, other than my girls, knows what.”

I nod. “And what have they said?”

“Pretty much ‘Go, Mac.’” She’s enjoying this far too much.

“So, they’re on board?”

“Well, yeah, they think you’re hot.”

“That’s good to know.”

She pretends to punch me in the shoulder but doesn’t connect. “There’s that ego I remember from when we first met.”

I laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think that ego really ever left. I think I just changed it to bossing you around in the bedroom, which you don’t seem to mind.”

“No, I think I like it when you do that.” She blushes and I lean down and kiss her lips.

“I think you know that you like it. You don’t think you like it,” I tell her teasingly.

“This is true,” she says, laughing at me.

I look around and see that a lot of her teammates have made their way through the tunnels to the locker room. “Do you need to leave me soon?”

“I think so. But I gotta know, what happened to you today?”

“We can talk about that later.” I don’t want to upset her further. She’s had a rough enough game and day. I don’t want to pile onto it.

“Danny, please just tell me what happened.”

I sigh. “Later.”

Her voice gets sterner. “Daniel.”

I hate the idea of telling her right now, but she’s standing in front of me in that blue Blaze uniform, her arms crossed sternly across her chest. She has this take-no-shit look in her eye. They’renarrowed and a fiery blue color. She almost looks sexy, but I don’t dare tell her that. She looks like she would cut my dick off if I tried to change the subject right now.

“No one ever calls me Daniel, by the way. That’s not even my name. My given name is Danny. I’m pretty sure that Google search you did on my showed that much,” I tease her, hoping it lightens her mood. But it doesn’t look like it’s working.

“Just please tell me,” she pleads with me.

“Fine. They fired me,” I tell her.

Her blue eyes fill back up with tears. “You’re kidding me. How could they do that?”

“Martin said I compromised my integrity by sleeping with someone I was interviewing. And he didn’t think the paper could trust my words or my work anymore, so I was let go.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cost you your job. What will this mean for your career?”

“Mac, calm down. It’s okay. It hasn’t cost me anything other than a job I really wasn’t fond of. And I’m not worried about my career. Writing for that paper didn’t really make me happy.”

“I’m so sorry,” she repeats.