Striker by Michelle Betham Page B

there was nothing she could do about it. But he really didn’t need to know that. Despite everything she’d told herself, she was finding his arrogance and bare-faced cheek one hell of a turn-on. ‘I’ll ask you again – what are you doing here?’ But she still had to keep up the cold-bitch act. For now.  
    ‘I came to see you ,’ Ryan said, fixing her with a stare that may just have ever-so-slightly dented her steely exterior. ‘You busy tonight?’
    Amber sat down on the edge of her desk, looking briefly out of the window at the view of the city centre, the traffic down below streaming past the building, letting her know that rush-hour was almost upon them. ‘I’ve got work to do,’ Amber lied. She had absolutely nothing to do; she was finished for the day but, once again, he didn’t need to know that.
    He sat forward, clasping his hands between his open knees, his eyes still boring into hers. ‘Can we cut the crap, Amber?’
    She stared back at him, those deep-blue eyes of his making her feel quite dizzy. ‘I… What do you mean?’
    ‘You know what I mean. Don’t you?’
    She swallowed hard, a tingling in her thighs that she should not be feeling at 4:15 in the afternoon sending warning signals to her brain that she really shouldn’t be thinking about doing what she was doubtless going to end up doing but, what the hell. Ronnie was right on another score – maybe she did need to let her hair down more often. So, yeah, she knew what he meant. And even though it went against everything she’d ever stood for, broke every self-enforced rule she’d ever set herself, she wanted to see what was going to happen next. If she let it. Because she could still stop it, if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. That was the problem.
    Ryan smiled, a smile that sent a shiver right through Amber’s body, that tingle in her thighs only increasing with every second his eyes were on hers. ‘I’m giving you the chance to welcome me back to the North East in a way nobody else could ever do.’
    ‘You’re giving me the chance ?’ Amber asked, half laughing at his never-ending arrogance. ‘You’ll be telling me it’s a one-time-only offer next.’
    Ryan sat back, shrugging, and Amber laughed again, throwing her head back yet knowing full well that she was going to grab this chance with both hands in an act of total recklessness that was so beyond anything she’d ever done before – well, maybe not in a long time, anyway.
    ‘There are two reasons why I shouldn’t go anywhere near you,’ she said, sliding down from the desk, leaning over to write something down on a post-it note. As she wrote, she deliberately stuck out her bum, arching her back downwards, completely aware that she was flirting outrageously now, but not because Kevin had told her to. It was because she wanted to. Probably just to see if she still could.
    Standing up straight she smiled at Ryan, quite flattered by the flustered look he sported, even though it was obvious he was trying to look cool. Okay. So she could still do it. ‘Reason number one – you’re a lot younger than me, and two – you’re a footballer.’ She handed him the piece of paper, his fingers quickly brushing against hers as he took it from her, an action which sent a wave of something almost electric shooting right through her. ‘Anytime after seven-thirty. Now get out of my chair. I’ve got work to do.’

Chapter Five
     
     
    Ryan felt like he’d just scored the winning goal in a cup final. Sticking the yellow post-it note to the dashboard of his black Jaguar XK coupe he entered the post code into his Sat Nav, waiting a few seconds until it finally plotted the route to what he hoped was going to be a very successful night. He knew he should really be taking it easy; he should be leaving the fun until after Saturday’s match, that would be the sensible thing to do. But Amber Sullivan was something else. She was also the kind of woman that was almost guaranteed