My noir homage “Me & Mrs. Jones” was well received, so I’m running with that pulp style for a while. Consider this my appreciation for all the old Beeline and Greenleaf paperbacks that kept my right hand well occupied in my younger years.

Preface

“Rah, rah, rah, champ.”

Greg turned to the sultry voice. Grace leaned against the cinder block wall, not six feet from the locker room door.

She crooked a finger at him. Shiny, blood-red nail that was nothing but a claw.

The quarterback obeyed. She pulled him by the jersey and pressed herself against him.

“Coach is…”

“…right down the hall, baby,” she finished for him. “How about a kiss for your…head…cheerleader?

She didn’t wait for an answer. She pulled his head down, her mouth slick and heavy on his, tasting the sweat and grass on the young stud..

Greg grabbed her hips. She ground back against him, tight and unyielding.

“Mmmm, I like you like this,” Grace purred, her eyes bright as she pulled back just far enough to breathe. “Don’t shower. He’ll be in there studying film all night. We’re going to the house.”

“I’m parked behind the dining hall,” she said, backing down the darkened hall. “Better run the hurry up offense before I change my mind.”

Chapter 1

The August heat is a dry furnace, but inside the Buick, Grace Chatham is even hotter.

Fresh from her morning routine at the campus fitness, her damp skin is chilled by the blast of air conditioning. Grace sits behind the wheel, her predatory gaze on the field below. 

Through the shimmer of heat waves rising off the asphalt track, she watches 40 college boys in shorts, shoulder pads and helmets. Two-a-days. It’s the most grueling part of the season for these wannabe gridiron gods. But it’s a happy hunting ground for the siren in the cat-eye shades..

From the tower, Bud’s voice crackles through a bullhorn, harsh and relentless. The same tired jeers and praise and cliches he’s been barking for twenty years.

Besides the fresh crop of potential recruits that each fall brings, it also gives Grace blessed relief from that gruff voice and the man who wields it. Bud spends nearly every waking moment from August to December in the athletic facilities.

So while her dear hubby hones his playbook, it’s playtime for the coach’s wife.

Last year’s distraction, a sweet-talking senior safety with 10.4 in the 40 and even faster hands is five hundred miles away at an NFL training camp. He’s just a faded memory and an ache between her shapely legs. 

Her gaze sweeps the field, appraising, methodical, cold. Not the linemen grinding in the dirt—too clumsy and loud. She skips the wideouts. Then her eyes settle on the boy taking snaps under center.

Number 12. The hot shot transfer from Collier. Lean, golden-skinned, with the thick blond hair of the All-American poster boy he thinks he is. He commands the huddle with that QB swagger. Grace takes note.

She tilts her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose. A slow, cruel little smile touches her bright red lips.

Coach sees a conference title in his new gunslinger. Grace sees a new toy.

She rolls down the window an inch, letting the roar of the whistle and the smell of fresh-cut grass fill the cool car, and settles back to watch her new boy run.

The heat coming off the dash is suffocating, but Grace turns the ignition off anyway. She wants the echoes from the field..

She leans back against the headrest, her cat-eye sunglasses still perched on her nose. Number 12 drops back, hips twisting, muscles straining against his damp jersey as he tosses a perfect spiral to the far hash.

The heat rising between Grace’s legs isn’t from the Dog Days of August. She slides her red-tipped fingers under the waistband of her yoga pants. They snake slow and deliberate between her thighs, while her eyes stay locked on the boy.

He takes another snap. The sweat glistening on his collarbone, the jersey riding up to show off a six-pack, the strong hands cradling the ball are a quick, intoxicating trigger. 

Two fingers find wetness.Her breath hitches, fogging the corner of the window. Her middle finger finds its target and circles slowly. Her husband’s voice booms across the way —Drive! Drive! Drive!—and she does, lifting her hips off the searing leather in a small, sharp arc. 

She thinks about that broad chest over her, those QB hands pinning her hips to the mattress, that “hut hut hut” as a groan of pleasure.

The pressure builds fast, sharp and shameless in the sweltering car. A low moan escapes her throat, and her body coils and snaps. Grace rides the wave with her eyes wide open, watching Number 12 clap his hands together, not a clue that he just hit the hole on his newest fan .

Grace takes a slow, steadying breath. She pulls her hand free, can’t resist the smell of her own arousal on her glistening finger tips, sharp pink tongue darting out for a quick taste of the nectar. 

She settles on a strategy.. A slow burn. A little isolated drop-in after practice. A reason for him to come by the house while the coach is holed up in his office watching video.

She turns the key. The engine roars to life, blasts of cold air hitting her flushed face, but the fire below still burns. 

Without a second glance back at the field, she drops the Buick into drive, gravel spitting behind her tires as she pulls out of the lot. 

Operation Greg Conroy is a go.