Quarterback Casanova (Kansas City Griffins #1) Read online

  Quarterback Casanova

  Kansas City Griffins

  Lisa Rayne

  Kansas City | Los Angeles

  QUARTERBACK CASANOVA

  Copyright © 2016 by Lisa Rayne

  All rights reserved.

  www.lisarayne.com

  The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form or in any information retrieval system by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter devised (including, without limitation, scanning, digitization, photocopying, and recording) is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property and is expressly forbidden without prior written permission.

  Fire Sign Press,

  a division of Fire Sign Media Group

  PO Box 9150, Kansas City, MO 64168

  www.firesignpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental and in no way reflects the nature, character, business practices or opinions of any person or entity for which a resemblance may exist. Any trademarks or trade names mentioned are the express property of their respective owners.

  Front cover design by Karol Jarvis.

  First eBook Edition (February 2016)

  Digital Edition 1.0

  Other Books By

  Lisa Rayne

  Counselor Undone

  This book is

  dedicated to

  Alexandra LaRae

  Just because.

  And …

  for always saying “when” I become a famous author not “if”; for smiling when you noticed I used your signature saying about the dead fish; and for being totally awesome all the time.

  About The Book

  She’s the last thing he needs … too bad she’s all he wants.

  Quarterback TALON “DASH” JANSSEN just had his big break threatened by the league scandal of the year. The last thing he needs is a relentless reporter digging through his life, especially one he used to date. She used him once to get a story. It wouldn’t happen twice, even if seeing her again does set his body on fire.

  To save her job, sports reporter NAOMI PELLIER needs an exclusive on the truth behind the rumors surrounding professional football’s favorite bad boy. But facing Dash revives feelings she thought long buried. This time, saving her career might mean losing her heart.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About the Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  The End

  Note From The Author

  Sneak Peek: Sideline Serenade (KC Griffins Book 2)

  Coming Soon

  Other Books By Lisa Rayne

  About The Author

  QUARTERBACK CASANOVA

  Chapter 1

  Quarterback Talon “Dash” Janssen wanted to hit someone. White-hot heat boiled through his veins and fired his blood way past angry to downright pissed. Beneath a sun-drenched September sky, he tamped down the itch to strike out and forced himself to put one foot in front of the other.

  A black microphone flew towards him, halting mere centimeters from his face. He jerked to a stop. A plague of reporters—who swarmed like locusts outside the downtown headquarters of the Kansas City Report newspaper—pressed close. Instead of crops, the hungry throng devoured his peace of mind and nibbled at the edges of his professional future.

  “Janssen, who’s the guy in the picture?” A balding newspaperman with an eager face shuffled forward.

  A television broadcaster cut him off. “Janssen, how long have you two been an item?”

  Dash turned away from the interrogators, but more questions bombarded him from the other side. The commotion caused by the relentless bunch, their jockeying cameramen and shutter-happy photographers, grated against his eardrums and created bedlam on the otherwise calm city block.

  No comment, Dash told himself. Just say no comment and keep moving.

  His agent and publicist had briefed him thoroughly. He wasn’t to react or respond to the press, and he certainly couldn’t hit one. He’d made that mistake once, and it hadn’t gone over so well. If he ended up with another fine from the Kansas City Griffins organization or the NFL Commissioner, he’d be screwed.

  Another black mic swooped towards him, nearly hitting him in the mouth. Pain radiated through the molars he clenched to refrain from swearing out loud. He believed in the First Amendment, but when journalists practically mauled you while shoving one microphone after another in your face, you should have the right to defend yourself.

  “Janssen, how have your teammates reacted to finding out you’re gay?”

  He didn’t think his teammates gave a crap whom he slept with, but that was beside the point. His sleeping habits—or, more accurately, what he did in bed while not sleeping—shouldn’t warrant this farce. It wasn’t anybody’s business.

  “Janssen, why did you choose to hide your sexual orientation?”

  Dash’s hands fisted at his sides. “I’m not gay,” he said in clipped tones. He hated that his pro athlete status turned this gossip into breaking news. He’d worked hard to keep a low profile after his last faux pas. Now, all his efforts to stay out of the headlines amounted to naught. Just his luck, the press couldn’t be content to twist the facts of real events any more. They had to start manufacturing their own.

  “So, you’re saying you’re bisexual?”

  Aw, hell. Not the direction he intended to take this media circus. “No. That’s not what I’m saying.” So much for no comment. His agent and publicist were going to kill him.

  The Griffins owner hated scandal and negative publicity of any nature. The press had already branded Dash as a hot head and featured him in several R-rated headlines over the last season and a half. He couldn’t afford to be at the center of another story highlighting sexual behavior that would place him opposite the owner’s conservative values—again. The guy already didn’t like him.

  He’d been warned: one more misstep and they’d bench him for so many games his season would in essence be over. He couldn’t have that. With the starting quarterback temporarily out due to injury, he finally had the opportunity to show what he could do as more than a backup and position himself to take the first string spot permanently. He had no intention of letting this gossip-rag-worthy fiasco derail his chances.

  Tilting his wrist, he checked the time on the face of the analog watch centered on a worn brown leather band. Ten minutes. He had exactly ten minutes to get inside for the meeting his agent had scheduled.

  How he’d manage that and keep his cool he couldn’t fathom, but somehow he had to get through this mob so his personal representatives could handle business. Someone needed to start doing damage control, like yesterday. In his opinion, his people should have immediately sent out a press release and skipped this diplomatic powwow.

  Screw d
iplomacy. He wanted the rag shut down and the job of the cretin who had phonied up that picture of him kissing another man.

  He pushed through the buzzing paparazzi, whose fingers clicked furiously. Tension settled into his muscles. After hours of practice, he craved a soak in his hot tub, a full body massage, and a woman wouldn’t be bad. He’d showered away the sweat he’d worked up earlier on the field, but the heat from his frustration had his perspiration back on the rise. His jeans and athletic t-shirt clung to his damp skin, doing little to improve his disposition.

  Dealing with this media nightmare, while trying to mind his Ps and Qs, felt like torture. He’d welcome needles under the fingernails before he’d willingly walk this gauntlet again. Luckily, the Report’s front entrance stood only twelve short feet ahead. Once he got inside those revolving glass doors, he’d be free. The vultures couldn’t follow him inside the building.

  “Dash, come on. Give us something here,” someone begged.

  Dash shook his head and kept walking.

  “Dash, surely, you have to know your fans are curious about that photo?” a honeyed voice asked. “Especially with starting quarterback Shave Stephens out and you leading the team for the next few weeks.”

  Naomi. He knew that smooth as molasses Southern cadence without having to see her face. He slowly turned to his left.

  Time suspended as his eyes tracked the crowd then locked on the sports journalist with whom he’d had an affair almost three years ago. She, out of anyone here, should know he was all heterosexual male. He shot her a look that telegraphed that thought, but she only smirked. He should have known. Hell hath no fury after all.

  “Are you here because you’re planning to sue the Kansas City Report for the article it ran yesterday?” Naomi finessed her way to the front of the crowd and stopped about a foot away from him.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat. She looked good. She always looked good. From the moment he’d first seen her at a league party, he’d been attracted to her like steel to a high-powered magnet. That night she’d worn only a simple black cocktail dress and clear stilettos, but she’d taken his breath away. The dress’s skinny straps had shown off her tempting shoulders and neckline. She’d tamed her mass of long, curly dark hair into some fancy up-do and worn no bling except a pair of diamond studs in her ears. The warm glow of her light brown skin and her luscious curves had been all the adornment she’d needed.

  His gaze moved up and settled on her face. She still took his breath away.

  Today, she’d gathered her thick mane into a scrunchie placed high on her head and let her wild curls cascade down behind her ears. The large drop earrings she wore nearly brushed her shoulders. Their five uneven strands of tiny, dangling beads matched the color of the coral blouse she’d paired with tailored black slacks.

  His eyes roamed over her lower half. She had a great pair of legs. Her designer pants currently shielded them from view, but he remembered what those long, shapely legs had looked like. More significant, he remembered what they had felt like wrapped around him in the heat of passion.

  For a moment, longing assaulted him, stealthy longing so deep it reached beneath the years of resentment he harbored and tightened his chest in the vicinity of his cardiac muscle. The unexpected bout of sentimentality caused unease to trickle along his nerve endings.

  Naomi’s jewel green eyes narrowed, hinting she suspected he’d taken a stroll down Memory Lane.

  He mentally shook himself and covered his emotional slip with a cold stare. “Ms. Pellier, you know the drill. Any official questions regarding legal matters should be forwarded to my lawyer.”

  She frowned, not happy with his response or his proper form of address. Tough. Once upon a time, he’d given her special access to his life. Then she’d betrayed him and acted such a nuisance after their breakup he’d cut her off completely.

  He’d never intended for their relationship to go the long haul, but her underhanded act had accelerated the inevitable breakup. The premature end to their interlude had blindsided him. He’d thoroughly enjoyed Naomi. He’d gelled with her in ways he’d never experienced with any other woman, and they’d proved extremely compatible sexually—in bed, in the kitchen, and anywhere else he could get her primed and willing. For her to take part in this misdirected homosexual outing struck him as not only absurd, but also disloyal. Leave it to her to betray him yet again.

  “So, are you saying your lawyer is meeting you here now?” a masculine voice asked from behind him.

  Dash ignored the followup question, nodded a dismissal at Naomi, and strong-armed his way towards Report headquarters. His brash movement knocked Naomi off balance. His hand shot out, landing on her hip. Pulling her to him, he placed his other hand on her opposite hip and steadied her. The familiar scent of her sweet perfume wafted up, eliciting an olfactory Pavlovian response in his nether region.

  His fingers tensed against the rayon blend of her slacks. Their close proximity made it impossible for her to miss the hardness Mother Nature wouldn’t let him control. Twin emerald pools with the power to undo a man focused on his face. The look in those eyes had gone from haughty to questioning. The pulse at her neck beat erratically, and Naomi’s lips parted to release light breaths, syncopated in time with her gently heaving bosom.

  Dash’s mind drifted once again to the erotic before he caught himself. Leaning in, he whispered for her ears alone, “You know better than this, Naomi.”

  With a glare, he moved her aside and entered the building. His long-time agent, Pete Daniels, paced a dull path onto the shiny black tile in front of the elevator bay.

  Pete looked up. “It’s about time,” he fussed and steered Dash into a waiting elevator.

  Right before the elevator doors closed, Dash glanced out the glass front of the building and caught Naomi’s vexed stare. She challenged him with a tilt of her head, letting him know he hadn’t shaken her bravado. His lips pressed into a thin line. He slid his hands into his pants pockets and wondered what her next move would be.

  *

  Naomi willed her pulse to a normal rate as she watched Dash enter the building. Part of her wanted to throw her digital recorder at his head. The other part wanted to follow him into the building, corner him in an elevator, and strip him naked.

  Okay, maybe she needed to rethink that strip him naked part. She was investigating the legitimacy of a photo showing him in a liplock with another man.

  Dash, homosexual? She’d never had even a hint of suspicion. She couldn’t claim to be an expert judge of a man’s sexual orientation, but she’d spent enough time with her gay friends that she’d picked up a bit of their gaydar. Had she missed the signs with Dash?

  The Kansas City Report had released the kiss picture via its online news magazine so the item had gone viral. When she’d first seen the photo, she’d immediately dismissed it as a fake. She’d waited for a statement from Dash’s camp denouncing the picture as a phony or PhotoShop magic. When such a denouncement hadn’t come, the doubts had set in—doubts about what had been real between them and what may have been cover for a man on the down-low.

  Only moments ago, Dash had publicly denied being gay … or bisexual. Her gut wanted to trust that, but for the first time, she found herself second-guessing her reporter’s intuition. The ex-girlfriend side of her, the part with a vested interest in the story being false, might be throwing her reporter sense out of whack.

  Through the wall of glass fronting the newspaper building, she spied Dash greeting his agent. The footballer cut a sexy swag—tall, tan, lean, and built. When he’d glared at her with those light-brown, almost amber, eyes she loved so much, her heart had turned over in her chest despite the animosity that simmered in the chocolate-rimmed irises.

  A silent curse reverberated through her mind at the injustice. He obviously didn’t have any residual feelings from their past. The look he’d first given her, like he could see through her slacks, had suggested a contrary tale, but his words made his position clear
. The Ice Prince reigned supreme—despite the evidence of the unexpected, lingering physical attraction he hadn’t been able to hide.

  A hormonal tingle jolted through her at the memory of his arousal. She reined in her awakening libido and sighed. No way would she go down that road again. Dash had a PhD in keeping his sex drive cordoned off from his emotions. She’d learned that the hard way.

  Inside the building, Dash looked out at her. She gave a brusque nod of her head right before the elevator swallowed him and Pete. Once he’d disappeared from view, her elevated blood pressure leveled and her thoughts slid to her designated mission: get the scoop on the origin and meaning behind that picture of Dash seemingly kissing another man. She needed this story. More importantly, she needed an exclusive. Whatever it took, she had to find a way to get Dash to talk to her.

  She looked around for his car. Nothing.

  Shoving her recorder into her oversized tote, Naomi walked across the four-lane street to the facing coffee bar. A tall, white chocolate latte with a double shot of espresso called to her. She dug out her wallet and answered with enthusiasm. Nose hovering above the tiny oval in the travel lid, she let the sweet aroma of chocolate-laced caffeine settle over her agitated psyche. A few sips of the endorphin-producing liquid and the Dash-induced fog around her brain would be history.

  Naomi took a trey of long, deep drags from the coffee cup and moaned softly in appreciation as the warm decadence slid down her throat. Equilibrium restored, she grabbed a table in a quiet, windowed corner to puzzle out her dilemma. Her boss had given her a directive—laced with a threat—before she left the office. If she didn’t get first shot at this story, she could consider her career at The Kansas City Sports Daily over.