Read Online Game For Love: Love Games (Kindle Worlds) by Mara Jacobs - Free Book Online

availability for viewing later, via downloading the file to the laptop. There was a table nearby with a bunch of extra USB cables and some unopened thumb drives.
    Two metal folding chairs were near the wall by the door. Against the other wall were a few long, banquet-style tables that held a microwave, a coffeepot, some packaged condiments and creamers, Styrofoam coffee cups, and Marlee’s leather satchel, her notebook and a pen lying beside it.  
    Pretty sparse, but then you didn’t want a lot of distractions when you were going to be rehearsing and recording. Declan figured being in the same small room with Marlee was distraction enough.
    He took off his jacket and threw it on one of the folding chairs. Marlee had hung her long camel hair coat on a coat rack in a corner, and Declan saw dripping boots placed on the floor underneath. Alongside the boots were mittens with melting snow and a knit wool hat. Declan turned to look at Marlee and saw her sensible—but designer—pumps that now adorned her slender feet. She was on the newscasters’ set, leaning against the desk, hands clasped at hip level, her eyes following Declan.
    “Did you walk here? In this cold?” Declan asked.
    “Yes, and yes, it was very cold—I didn’t realize how cold, or I probably would have driven.”
    “Do you walk to campus every day?”
    “No, sometimes in the fall and spring, but never in the winter.”
    “Then why today?” Declan thought he knew the answer even though he was sure that Marlee wouldn’t admit it. He had felt the same pent-up sexual energy coursing through his body this morning. He’d gotten only a few hours’ sleep, but the zing of knowing he’d see Marlee again had him humming.  
    He knew his body well—it was his instrument for doing his job, and he would normally enjoy an extensive workout to expend this sexual hunger. But he didn’t need to work out anymore, he remembered, and the pang that he’d felt when he first woke up this morning returned once again.  
    He didn’t have to work out again, or monitor his protein levels during the week so he’d peak on Sundays, or watch hours of videotape in the tiny viewing room at the Pumas’ Complex that was known as Tate’s Mansion because of all the time he spent there, or any of that bullshit.  
    Trouble was, he had a suspicion that he’d miss that bullshit more than he was willing to admit. It was really all he’d known, all he had ever done, from Pop Warner football in fifth grade to yesterday afternoon.  
    He wasn’t sure he was capable of gracefully handling what the future would bring. Damn, but he didn’t want to be one of those guys who retired, opened a restaurant, and sat around entertaining the diners while explaining the delicacies of evading Cole Taylor in the Super Bowl.  
    This broadcasting thing was his shot. A way to stay involved with football, the game he lived and breathed, while still maintaining his dignity. He had to get this gig, and that meant getting comfortable in front of a camera.
    “I felt like the exercise this morning,” Marlee said. She hesitated, then, as if deciding to lay her cards on the table, she raised her chin, looked him in the eye, and continued, “I didn’t get much sleep last night, and woke up feeling, um…unsatisfied…so I decided to walk here and clear out the cobwebs, both mentally and physically.”
    Boy, she didn’t play games, did she? He liked that about her. It was his style as well. Most of the women Declan came in contact with played all sorts of games—first to get his attention, then to get him into bed, then to keep him in their lives. Declan went along with some, but declined to play most of the women’s games.
    “ You were unsatisfied? Darlin’, I could tell you a thing or two about waking up unsatisfied,” he said.  
      “I wasn’t the one who ended the evening. Darlin’ .”
    “There’s no way I would have left last night if I didn’t have to.”
    “Was it some type of