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Six years ago, Adrian Kane walked away from a lucrative career in the NFL with no warning to become a romance novelist. Curvy journalist Stella Quinn’s job depends on her finding out why. But when she falls hard for the reclusive star, she learns that some secrets are worth keeping.
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“I’m…enjoying your company. Besides, I’m the reason you’re stranded here. I was a dick yesterday.”
“You weren’t,” Stella quickly says, shaking her head. “I ambushed you, but you agreed to talk with me anyway. I honestly expected you to tell me to go to hell.”
“Why?”
“You never talk to reporters,” she says with a shrug. “I figured if you turned down Oprah, there was no way you’d talk to me. Why did you agree, by the way? I’m curious.”
“It’s about time I talked to someone,” I lie.
“Oh.”
“You’re different than you were in high school.”
“You remember me?” She sounds horrified. Looks it too.
“I remember.”
“Well, that’s humiliating,” she mutters under her breath. Her cheeks are scarlet again. “Um, can we pretend you don’t remember me?”
“Hell no,” I growl.
She pouts at me, though I don’t think she even realizes she’s doing it. “Fine, but then I’m going to ask you all the questions I want instead of just the ones I need you to answer. And we aren’t talking about what happened to my hair back then.”
“What was wrong with your hair back then?” I ask.
“Everything!” Her horrified look has me fighting a smile again. “It was frizzy and terrible. But we’re not talking about it.”
“You were a beautiful girl, Stella,” I murmur, holding her gaze. “You didn’t deserve to be treated the way you were.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Mr. Kane,” she says, her tone firm. “I know what I looked like back then.”
“I’m not lying to you, and stop calling me Mr. Kane,” I growl.
She tugs on her arm like she wants me to let her go, except no. “Fine, Adrian,” she says, emphasizing my name in a way that makes my dick harder. So does the way she rolls her eyes at me. “But I had bad hair, terrible glasses, and the world’s worst clothes. It wasn’t attractive. I’d rather not talk about it with the ridiculously hot romance author, okay?”
She thinks I’m hot? Fuck yeah.
“You were beautiful then and you’re a goddamn knockout now, dimples.”
She gapes at me for a full minute, her mouth hanging open. I should probably quit while I’m ahead but hearing her talk bad about the girl she was bothers me for a thousand reasons I’m not ready to think about just yet. So I don’t stop.
“You saw my dick earlier, baby. You know exactly why he was hard enough to hurt.”
“I thought it was an automatic thing,” she mumbles.
“Yeah. He automatically gets hard when he’s close to you.”
“That’s…inconvenient. You probably shouldn’t wear sweats around women anymore. No offense, but he’s hard not to notice when he’s ready to sing the national anthem like that.” Her entire face turns red. “Please, ignore me.”
“I didn’t say women, Stella. I said you. As in, specifically you.” I hook my finger beneath her chin, gently closing her mouth. “And for the record, every time you part those sexy lips, he gets harder.”
