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  DARING ATTRACTION

  Melanie Shawn

  Chapter One

  Are those toes?

  Cole Carson blinked several times as he struggled to force himself to wake up. It was not an easy task. His head was pounding, and there was a distinct buzzing in his ears. His eyes were blurry, and his lids felt like they’d been dipped in cement. His throat was as scratchy and dry as the Sahara desert.

  Once his foggy-mirror-after-a-hot-shower vision started to clear, the mystery was solved. Yes. Those were, in fact, toes not even an inch from his face. And they were painted bright hooker red.

  Propping himself up on his elbows, Cole watched the foot—which had been resting on his chest—drop beside him. His gaze traveled down the toned leg the toes were attached to and found a gloriously naked woman draped over his left side. During his visual journey, flashes of the night before began playing in his mind.

  He remembered meeting the blonde at Time Out, a bar that was right around the corner from his hookup apartment. She asked him to sign his John Hancock on her bare breast and after he obliged his new fan, he suggested going back to his place. She was more than happy to take him up on his offer. They hadn’t said more than ten words to each other, and he didn’t feel even a twinge of guilt for having no idea what her name was, because if memory served, they hadn’t gotten to that portion of the meet and greet.

  His morning wood twitched with awareness as his bed buddy rolled onto her back and stretched her slender arms over her head with catlike grace. Baby-blue eyes seductively locked with his as she temptingly pulled her full bottom lip between her teeth. The stretch caused her back to arch and sent her long, blonde hair falling off smooth, tan shoulders like curtains opening to reveal two perfect breasts.

  Damn. Cole’s mouth watered at the sight of double Ds, a slim waist, and flared hips, taking care of his bone-dry throat. Unfortunately his head was still pounding and the sporadic buzzing wasn’t going away, but he ignored them both for more pressing matters—specifically, the sex kitten who was purring and pressed up against his side.

  As he reached for her hips to pull her on top of him, she asked, “Are you going to get that? It just keeps going off.”

  Her voice cut through the half-awake-half-asleep lust fog he was floating in, and he sat up with a start. His phone. That’s what had been buzzing.

  Looking over at his nightstand, he grabbed the device, mid buzz.

  “What?” he answered before even checking to see who was calling. Only close friends, family, and his agent had this number.

  “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. How about you drag your sorry ass away from the blonde and get it down to the Dome?”

  His eyes cut to the aforementioned blonde, Cole asked, “How did you know I was with—”

  “Lucky guess, lover boy,” Alex Dare, his former teammate, offered before he was able to get the entire question out. “Hurry up. There are kids waiting on you.”

  Alex disconnected the call before Cole could process what he’d said. Inside his head, it still sounded like a small army was marching across his brain, which did not make dissecting Alex’s riddle any easier.

  Kids waiting? Why would kids be…? Oh, shit!

  Olivia Dare’s e-mail scrolled through his mind’s eye like the NYSE ticker tape. Damn. He had agreed to show up at the launch for Thunder Youth, a football program for at-risk and low-income kids. It was the brainchild of his former teammate Alex Dare’s new wife, Madison.

  Alex and Cole had both played for the Breakers. He had been Alex’s backup quarterback until Alex had suffered a career-ending hit, and Cole had been thrust into the starting quarterback position. It had been bittersweet. He and Alex had become good friends over the two years they’d played together, but Cole had been itching to get his shot.

  After Alex’s injury, they had lost touch—until last season, when Cole had been traded to the Thunder. That was also where Alex had helped start a program to assist athletes in planning for something no player wanted to think about: their future after football.

  Cole hadn’t really wanted anything to do with the program, but his publicist had been hounding him about cleaning up his image, so he’d agreed. It wasn’t all bad. He figured he’d at least get to be back out on the field with Alex, which was something he’d missed these last few years. Alex had been more than just a teammate—he’d been one of Cole’s best friends.

  After setting the phone back down on the nightstand, Cole scrubbed his hands over his face as he calculated how much coffee he was going to need to shake this hangover so that he could handle forty screaming kids. A groan escaped him, because he knew there was not enough caffeine in the world to face that many amped up preteen boys.

  Why had he gone out last night? He should have just kept his ass at home and familiarized himself with the profiles Olivia had sent him of the kids he would be working with on the practice field today. He should have gotten a good night’s sleep. At his house. Alone. Instead of doing what he should have done, he’d gone to Time Out, gotten more than a little wasted, picked up a groupie, gone back to his hookup apartment for some fun and basically taken a nap instead of getting a good night’s sleep.

  Cole sat up, swinging his long sluggish legs over the side of his king sized bed. His body was not happy with the new position.

  I’m getting too old for this shit.

  He looked around the bare apartment that he used to bring women to, because he never brought them back to his home. It contained only a bed and a couch. There was no paint on the walls, no pictures hung, no life in this place—just bleakness. It was sterile and cold.

  Letting out a sigh, Cole had what he’d heard his mother describe as a “light bulb moment.” The playboy lifestyle he’d been engaging in since high school didn’t really hold the appeal it once had. Random women. Partying every night. No commitments. No connections. Nothing real.

  He used to thrive off those things. Now, he just felt…empty.

  There were two things that Cole excelled at in life. Women and football. Women had always come easy to him, whereas football had taken sacrifice, hard work, and dedication.

  This year, unlike the past six, he had been feeling restless since the season had ended. He wasn’t like other guys, who got depressed when they weren’t playing. He’d always used the time he had on his hands during the off-season to his fullest advantage. Sure, he’d always been happy to get back on the field, play, and be around his teammates, but nothing had ever kept him from having a good time. A lot of easy, no strings, good times.

  Running his fingers through his hair, he made an executive life decision that he needed to start doing things differently. No more late nights. No more nameless, meaningless encounters. He was done. He was going to make some serious changes.

  Starting with getting his “sorry ass” down to the practice field and living up to his commitment. A new leaf—that’s what he was going to turn. With a renewed sense of purpose, Cole pushed off the bed to stand up.

  “Where you going?” Blondie asked, as she slipped her hands around Cole’s torso and gripped his morning wood, stroking it with an impressive level of expertise.

  Cole hissed through gritted teeth as he watched her slim fingers slide up and down his length, a whirlwind of arousal spinning through
him from head to toe and obliterating his newfound purpose.

  He was already late. What would another hour hurt? Tomorrow. His new leaf would be turned over tomorrow.

  * * *

  “How late are we going to be, Mom?” Anthony asked distractedly, not taking his eyes off the game he was playing on his phone.

  Julianna Perez swallowed hard, pushing down the anxiety and frustration that was bubbling up inside her like water boiling in a pot. With one hand on the wheel and the other twisting her hair, she felt guilt wash over her as she glanced down at the clock on her dashboard and saw that they were almost two hours late.

  “A little bit.” Normally, she didn’t make it a habit to lie to her son. But, since she’d just been through the morning from hell, she figured she’d give herself a break.

  Her Saturday had started with her oversleeping when her alarm had failed to go off, thanks to a rolling blackout that had occurred sometime in the middle of the night. She’d woken Anthony up and they’d rushed around. They would have made it on time but as they were leaving, she’d been called by the security company to come into the doctor’s office where she worked because the alarm had been tripped. Thankfully, it had been a false alarm. Then after that had been taken care of and they were headed to the stadium—she’d gotten a flat tire.

  The good news was she had a spare and was able to change it quickly. The bad news was she noticed that her other three tires looked as bald as an eagle, so she needed to replace not just the spare tire, but the other three as well. Which meant she had to figure out how to squeeze, oh, about four hundred dollars out of her already overextended budget.

  She’d been calculating how many catering jobs she’d have to take on to make the extra money. Between her full-time job as a medical assistant and the part-time work she did from home as a medical transcriptionist, she barely had enough every month to cover her expenses. So, when anything like new tires came up, she had to take on catering gigs. Being a server had always been her answer to making quick money by spending the least amount of time away from Anthony.

  The condo they lived in was above her means, but it was worth the sacrifice and budgeting because her son was in a good school district and they were both in a good neighborhood. The minimum payments she made every month on her student loans were not making much of a dent in her debt, but at least she was making them. Sometimes she felt like she was just treading water and any change in the tide would drown her.

  “Whoa!” Anthony’s eyes were huge as he stared out the window at the enormous stadium they were driving towards.

  She hadn’t seen her ten-year-old this excited…ever. Two weeks ago, she’d received a letter from Anthony’s fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Henson, which said that he’d been contacted by the Miami Thunder football organization to recommend kids he thought would be a good fit for the new program they were starting called “Thunder Youth.” Not only had Mr. Henson submitted Anthony for the program, which would be running for six consecutive Saturdays, he’d also nominated him to receive a scholarship for the five-day camp that was happening at the culmination of the six-week program.

  Anthony had been accepted for both.

  That news had been equal parts exciting and terrifying. Contact sports weren’t what Julianna had ever wanted for her son. Until two weeks ago, she’d been living under the illusion that she had a few more years before she’d have to face seeing her baby boy get tackled. Sure, there were peewee leagues Anthony had wanted to join, but she’d always had to say no. They were just too expensive.

  For this program, though, all Julianna had been required to supply were cleats, which she’d found on clearance. Score! With the financial factor taken out of the equation, she knew that she had no choice over Anthony participating.

  Now, she just had to wrap her mind around the fact that Anthony was going to be hit, tackled, and possibly hurt, all in the name of a game he desperately wanted to play. That and how to infuse a few hundred dollars into her budget this month for new tires. She knew that, out of the two, figuring out how to buy the tires was going to be a lot easier than coming to terms with her baby boy playing tackle football.

  Pulling up to the guard booth, Julianna smiled as she rolled down her window. “Hi. We’re here for Thunder Youth. We’re a little late. Sorry.”

  She knew that there was no reason to apologize to the guard, who she was pretty sure couldn’t care less. Her anxiety over Anthony’s playing was increasing by the second, and she tended to apologize when she got nervous. Apologize, twist her hair, bite her lip, and tap her foot.

  The blond-haired, blue-eyed, surfer-looking guard leaned his muscular forearms on the door. Then his eyes shamelessly roamed up and down her body as he asked, “And what’s your name?”

  Oh, come on!

  “I’m Julianna Perez, and this is my son, Anthony.”

  “Son?” The guard stood and lifted his brows.

  “Yes. And we’re late, so if you could…” Julianna motioned to the gate’s arm, which was blocking her car from entering.

  The guard stared at her for a few seconds then said, “I need to see your ID.”

  “Oh. Right.” Once she’d grabbed her purse, she pulled her driver’s license out of her wallet.

  When the guard took it from her hand, his fingers grazed hers unnecessarily and she stopped herself from rolling her eyes. After checking the list he was holding, he slipped the card back to her.

  “Wow. I thought you were his sister or babysitter.”

  Julianna didn’t bother addressing the security guard’s not-so-keen observation—the same one she heard on a daily basis. She was a young mom who looked even younger than her twenty-six years. People did not seem to be able to process that information, and they almost always felt the need to comment on it.

  Placing her hands back on the steering wheel, she prayed that the arm would rise and she’d be able to drive through without any more small talk. Unfortunately, her prayers were not answered. It stayed in place.

  Clearing his throat, the guard smiled. “Hey, I get off at four. Do you want to go grab a drink later?”

  Asking someone out in front of their kid. Classy. Real classy.

  Normally, Julianna wore a fake diamond wedding ring to avoid these uncomfortable situations. Today, she’d been in such a hurry that she’d forgotten it.

  “No, thanks,” Julianna stated firmly. “We’re running late, so could you let us through?”

  The guard’s brow scrunched as he looked at her like he couldn’t understand the words that were coming out of her mouth. His expression was as if she were speaking a foreign language.

  Oh boy. Here we go.

  Over the years and the hundreds, if not thousands, of advances she’d rejected, she’d observed that the better looking the guy, the longer it took them to come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t interested. It was as if they were unable to fathom the possibility that anyone, especially a single mom, would not jump at the chance to do whatever they wanted to do.

  When Julianna had Anthony at the age of sixteen, Jared, her boyfriend of two years, and his very wealthy parents had come into her hospital room and signed full custody of Anthony over to her, relinquishing all parental rights. At that moment, Julianna’s desire to date or be in any kind of a relationship had evaporated instantly. She’d trusted Anthony’s father. Jared had been her first love, her only love, and the day she’d given birth to their child, he’d walked out of her life.

  Sure, she knew that Jared had been pressured by his parents. But he was eighteen at the time. An adult. She was sixteen, with no family, no support, and no money, and not only had he left her—he’d left Anthony too.

  When you added that to the fact that when she was five, Julianna had gotten dropped off at her aunt’s house so that her mom could go party and “have a life,” then, when Julianna got pregnant and her aunt had kicked her out, she was basically a walking Dr. Phil episode.

  Needless to say, she had trust issues.
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  “What about tomorrow night?” the guard persisted, not giving up.

  Julianna knew that she needed to cut to the chase. Otherwise, they’d be here all day.

  “No. Open the gate,” she declared forcefully.

  “Fine.” Rearing his head back as if he’d been slapped in the face, the guard pressed a button. And as the arm lifted, he added in an irritated tone, “Park in lot B.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nerves popped like popcorn in Julianna’s stomach as she entered the large parking area. Her palms were beginning to sweat as she followed the signs to lot B. In her mind, Anthony was still a baby. How could he possibly be old enough to play a contact sport in a huge stadium?

  “Mom?” Anthony’s voice snapped Julianna out of her anxiety-ridden thoughts.

  “Yeah, bud.” Glancing over as she parked, she saw Anthony’s big, brown eyes staring back at her.

  “You don’t have to worry. I’m gonna be fine,” he assured her with more maturity than his ten years. The sincerity in his eyes caused her heart to melt like chocolate in the sun.

  “I know,” she said confidently, trying to disguise her fear. “I’m not worried.”

  Tilting his head to the side, he gave her a look that made it clear that he was not buying it.

  “What?” she asked defensively. “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re twisting your hair and biting your lip.”

  Shoot. She hadn’t even realized she was doing either of those things. Anthony knew all of her tells. It had just been the two of them for his entire life, and although she’d tried to protect him from the times she was stressed or worried, he’d picked things up.

  “Sorry. I can’t help it,” she told him, coming clean.

  “Try, Mom. Try,” he said, as he reached for the door.

  “Okay.” Taking a deep breath, she shook out her hands, attempting to release all of her pent up anxiety. Reaching in the back seat to get her laptop, she saw Anthony’s gym bag. “Don’t forget your bag.”

  As Anthony opened the door to get his bag, Julianna told herself that everything was going to be okay. Kids played sports all the time. Today was just another day. No. Big. Deal.