Read Monster Man for Free Online

relationship is just courting disaster.”
    “Cat….”
    “No. Please,
Shane. Let’s just treasure this time we’ve had and end it
before it’s ruined by outside influences.”
    He swallowed hard
around the lump in his throat. “We can still be friends,
right?”
    Cat bit her lip and
looked away. “Of course we can.” She came off the bed,
settled on his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and held on
tight. Shane felt as if the bottom had just fallen out of his world.
     
    ###
     
    Shane was slow off
the mark as he dove for the running back, and just missed him. He
should have made that play with his eyes closed. His heart wasn’t
in it. To compensate, on the next play, he rammed into the next guy
and the next, charging right for the quarterback. He hit him with a
punishing tackle. He got flagged for unnecessary roughness, but the
aggression felt good.
    Then the play of the
game. They were tied, the opposing quarterback threw the ball, it
wobbled and Shane leaped, stole the ball out of midair, and started
running. Just before he was hit and taken down, time ran out. They
had won. Yet the elation he usually felt was absent as Shane went
down hard under a rough-hitting tackle.
     
    ###
     
    Cat watched Shane
play from the owner’s box, feeling as if everything bright and
beautiful had just been snatched from her. Her mother would call it
sick at heart.
    “Hi, Cat.”
    Great. Dick
Samuels. Just
what I need .
    “It looks
like you can’t take your eyes off Shane Bishop. I wonder why
that is?”
    Cat sat up a little
straighter and turned towards him, seeing the knowledge in his eyes.
    “What do you
want, Dick?”
    “I want that
promotion, Cat. And you’re going to hand it to me on a silver
platter. Turn it down or you won’t have a job at all,” he
said and smirked. “I saw you and Shane doing the nasty during
the party. I know you broke the golden rule.”
    “You are such
a stinking little weasel.”
    “Do as I say,
Cat, or all your hard work will have been for nothing.”
     
    ###
     
    As Shane came off
the field, he pulled off his helmet, holding it by the face mask. The
heaviness returned, settling between his shoulder blades and weighing
on his heart.
    He looked up toward
the owner’s box and met Cat’s eyes through the glass.
Something was wrong. He could tell by her stiff body language.
    As soon as he got to
his locker, he called Cat’s cell. She answered on the first
ring.
    “What
happened?”
    “Dick saw us
at the fundraiser. He threatened to tell Harding. He wants that
promotion, and he’s happy to tell all in order to get it.”
    Shane gritted his
teeth. “He’s not getting away with this.”
    “Shane, please
don’t do anything drastic,” Cat said.
    “I’m
going to Harding.”
    “Shane, no!”
    He ended the call.
    He barged into
Harding’s owner’s suite without knocking. And he’d
already decided to skip the pleasantries and go straight to the
issue. “Catherine Everhart and I are involved, and if you don’t
like it, I’ll be the one to walk.”
    “What are you
talking about?” The white-haired, bespectacled Harding looked
confused.
    “Catherine
Everhart. If it comes down to someone losing their job on this
franchise, it’s not going to be her.”
    “The hell you
say. I pay you $8 million a year, boy. You’d give all that up.
Why?”
    Shane walked to the
desk and slammed his helmet down on top of the polished wood.
“Because I want to be with her.”
    “You do?”
Cat whispered behind him, and he turned to see tears streaming down
her lovely face.
     
    ###
     
    Shane turned and met
her eyes and her heart rolled over. He had that penetrating,
black-hole look in his eyes. Walking toward her, he gathered her up
in his arms and kissed her, right there in front of Harding.
    Shane turned around
and lasered back in on Harding. “It’s your choice. She
stays or I walk.”
    “Ah, what the
hell, it was a stupid rule I made when my daughter worked here. I
didn’t want her