Full Court Seduction. Synithia Williams
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of Jacobe’s fineness herself. And, boy, was that man fine. Six feet and four inches of long, lean muscle, smooth, terra-cotta skin and walnut-colored eyes. He played point guard and led the team with ease and confidence. His large body was a thing of grace and beauty. He handled the ball with self-assurance, ran up and down the court without hesitation and effortlessly faked out the opponent defending him. Since he’d been traded to the Gators she’d seen images of him everywhere, but being this close to him in action proved how inadequate billboards, television commercials and nosebleed seats were at portraying his skill and hotness.
Danielle alternated between greedily studying his powerfully built body and jumping up to cheer with the rest of the fans every time he scored. When she’d first come into the arena she’d considered keeping to her seat to try not to draw any attention to herself. That idea was immediately dropped after she was swept away by the buzz of electricity in the crowd. What did it matter if he did happen to look behind the bench? Jacobe had more than likely forgotten about her. Even if he happened to remember the tutor he’d slept with one night in college, she doubted he thought of her often or remembered much about her.
That night she’d known she would be treated as just another groupie, but knowing that hadn’t kept her away. Despite the attraction that sizzled between them, Jacobe had never tried to hook up with her. He’d been dating a girl named Christy, and, unlike many of the jocks she knew, he’d been faithful to her. Getting Jacobe to stray from the girl he’d started dating in high school had been a game for so many girls. A game Danielle had prided herself on staying out of. Then she’d heard that Jacobe and Christy had broken up.
To this day she couldn’t believe her audacity, but a switch had gone off in her head after hearing about the breakup. A part of her felt that if he was single she wasn’t being just another girl trying to steal him away. The thought of that day crept into her head, dulling the noise of the crowd as she remembered how she’d lit into him for keeping her waiting for another tutoring session.
“Yo, I said I was sorry. I have a party to prepare for,” he’d said.
“You know what, go to your party and quit wasting my time,” Danielle shot back. “I’ve got better things to do than babysit jocks.”
“You know what, I’ve got better things to do than get lectured by you,” he’d said, then turned to his roommate, who’d come with him to the library. “Come on, man, let’s get out of here.”
His roommate had snickered and tapped Jacobe on the arm. “Dude, why don’t you two just hit and get it over with? You know all that fighting is just foreplay.”
Jacobe’s sexy brown eyes had raked over every inch of her body. “I’d love to. She doesn’t want to handle all this.” He’d given her a cocky smile before turning and leaving.
That one simple statement had made her blood boil, though not from rage. She hadn’t known if he was truly interested or just wanted to tease her, but she’d gone to his pre-draft party that night wearing a sexy black dress she’d bought on a whim a month earlier. She’d gotten her answer. He had been interested, and she was able to handle what he offered.
They’d left the room in an awkward silence. Jacobe had promised to call. She hadn’t believed him. The next day he’d flown to New York for the draft, and she’d never heard from him again. Through the grapevine, she’d learned he’d reconnected with Christy.
She didn’t regret their time together. Over time she’d gotten over him never calling. She’d gone over there to discover if he’d felt the same attraction she’d spent the year trying to ignore, and she’d gotten her answer.
The buzzer for the end of the second quarter sounded. Danielle jerked out of the past. Debra was too busy cheering to notice Danielle was distracted. The crowd clapped as the Gators ran off the court. Danielle joined in. Jacobe walked over to the chair right in front of where Danielle stood, snatched up a towel and wiped his face.
He looked up into the crowd, spread his arms wide and waved them up and down. “This is our house!” he yelled, getting the crowd hyped even more. His intensity burned off him in waves.
A tiny shiver ran through her. His gaze lowered from the upper stands and landed right on hers. Most of the air evacuated her lungs. He held her gaze barely a second before looking away.
He took a step, paused, frowned and then turned to stare directly at her again.
Danielle’s heart thudded, and the remaining air in her lungs dissolved like cheap tissue paper. Her stomach clenched right before a thousand feathers tickled her inside. His eyes lightened, maybe with recognition—she couldn’t tell—but the smile that spread his lips sent a bolt of lightning straight to her core.
Then he turned and walked with the rest of the team into the locker room. Danielle stood there, stupefied. Had the moment happened, or had she just imagined that? He couldn’t possibly remember her, could he? No, not after all these years.
“Danielle, what was that?” Debra’s excited voice zipped Danielle to the present.
“What was what?”
“He looked at you, and he looked happy to see you.”
Danielle pushed her glasses farther up her nose and shook her head. “No, he looked into the crowd. He wasn’t looking at me.”
“I saw the look.”
“Forget the look. The look means nothing.” She was going to make it mean nothing anyway. “Let’s go to the concession stand. I want some popcorn.”
The lines were so long that the trek for popcorn and sodas took most of halftime. By the time they made their way back to the seats, the teams were running onto the court to warm up. Danielle staunchly avoided watching Jacobe. She may have enjoyed that second of eye contact, but that didn’t mean she had to visually stalk him for the rest of the night.
Debra chocked on her popcorn and grabbed Danielle’s arm. “He’s coming over.”
No need to pretend she didn’t know who she was talking about. “His chair is right in front of us.”
“No, he’s looking at you and coming this way.”
“Will you stop it, Jacobe Jenkins isn’t—”
“Danielle?” A male voice that didn’t sound quite sure if he was getting her name right interrupted.
Danielle’s hands became slick. Her heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings against her ribs. Oh, wow. It was him.
She slowly pivoted in her chair to look into a pair of sexy brown eyes. He smiled at her with a hint of unsureness in his gaze.
“Oh...hi, Jacobe.”
“Danielle Stewart...right?”
She nodded. “That’s me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Enjoying the game.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. What have you been up to?”
Danielle glanced around. Some of the courtside reporters were looking their way. A few even snapped some pictures. Danielle squirmed self-consciously in her seat. “I work for the St. Johns River Watchers.”
“You live around here?” Sweat ran down his face, to his neck and into the jersey covering his wide, muscled torso.
Why in the world was a sweaty man so damn sexy? “Yep.”
He ran the towel over his face, thankfully removing the distracting sweat. Unfortunately, the movement brought attention to his fantastically sculpted arms. “This your first game?”
“No. My first courtside seat, though.”
He nodded. “Cool. What are you doing after the game?”
She blinked, thrown off by the question. “Going home.”
He shook his head,