“Thanks, I’m full.” Dylan teased, earning a chuckle from the body in front of her that caused them both to shake from the laugher. She pulled Cat’s hair back and placed a kiss to a pink ear. “We can order something in.”

“Chinese?”

“I suppose so. What is this thing you have for Chinese food after we make love?”

“I have no idea.”

“Have you always been this way?”

“No, just with you.”

Another kiss and Dylan rolled over, switching on the lamp next to the bed. Opening the draw in the nightstand she removed a blue tri-fold menu, which she handed over to her lover.

“This hotel thinks of everything don’t they?”

“Nothing but the best.” Dylan retrieved a glass of mineral water she had brought into the bedroom several hours ago and took a healthy drink.

“Little dehydrated?” Cat giggled as she perused the menu.

“Just a little. I think juice is in order,” Dylan sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched, causing her spine to pop in several places. “Care for something?”

Cat looked at her lover with a leer and wriggled her brows.

“I mean from the kitchen you little smart ass.”

“Oh well, if you’re going to limit my options, apple juice if you please.”

“When you order could you?”

Cat held up her hand. “Got it, one veggie special with extra tofu.”

Cat rolled for the phone and picked up the receiver but didn’t dial until she had watched Dylan’s nude form disappear from the bedroom.

“I would really enjoy waking up to her every morning.” Cat sighed as she waited for the restaurant to pick up.

Dylan took Cat?s bag out of the trunk, handing it off to the player with a grin. “Thanks for a wonderful weekend.”

Cat smiled, completely charmed by her lover. “Do you want to come in?”

“Nothing I?d like better, but I have to go home to get ready for a meeting.”

“Horace?”

“Horace and a few other of his cronies. They?re going to give me better ideas on how to handle the team.” She smirked, knowing she would hear only half of what they said, remember a quarter of that and care about even less. “No big deal. It?s my bimonthly dog and pony show.”

“They don?t pay you enough for putting up with that bullshit.”

“Tell me. If I didn?t love what I do, I swear I?d go teach high school ball somewhere.”

“Well,” Cat sighed, feeling truly sorry for her partner. “Try not to let him get to you.”

“Oh don?t worry, Sweetheart. The last person in the world that?s going to get to me is Horace. Why don?t we have dinner tonight?”

“Sounds great. Let me cook for you. Come back around seven and we?ll have a quiet night in.”

“Perfect.” Dylan leaned over, giving the blonde a kiss on the cheek. “See you tonight.”

Dylan didn?t even bother to drop her bag at her house before heading over to Horace?s office. She hated these meetings, but they were part of her contract and nothing short of death was acceptable for missing them.

Locking her car and setting the alarm, Dylan noticed that the parking lot was empty of cars belonging to the other Horace idiots who regularly attended these meetings. “Oh this can?t be good,” she mumbled under hear breath, heading into the building.

Exiting the elevator, Dylan took a deep breath before heading into the office. She hated this shit. She hated Horace and she hated the hoops he made her and the team jump through.

She knew in her heart that the only reason she didn?t tell him to take his job and shove it where a basketball won?t bounce is because of Cat and the other players who worked so damn hard to bring the Badgers out of near last place and put them in the playoffs. She knew that without her as a buffer a lot of women on the team would be having huge problems with the owner.

Horace knew that not all women who played professional basketball were lesbians, but that didn?t stop him from assuming that deep down they really wanted to be. The only one he had confirmation on was Cat and he already wanted to make her life miserable. The more she thought about him the madder she got and by the time she actually made it to the reception area it was all she could do to keep from shaking.

She did manage to smirk just a bit about the middle-aged secretary sitting behind the desk. It seemed that Horace?s wife wasn?t the wilting flower she pretended to be. The bimbo from the plane crash was fired about a week after they had returned and she had been replaced by this lovely woman who was married, and well aware of what a prick her new boss was, but she was damn good at her job and Dylan liked her a lot.

“Afternoon, Mrs. Garrison.”

“Good afternoon Ms. Lambert. Mr. Johnson is expecting you.”

“Oh goody for me.” Dylan offered sarcastically. The secretary chuckled and nodded her understanding. “Could you take that pen and jab it in my eye?”

“Sorry,” she apologized with a smile. “You have lovely eyes and it would be a shame to mar them because of him.”

Dylan sighed, nodding as she walked toward the office door. “Things I?d rather do than go into his office. Root canal. Bamboo shoots under my fingernails. Frontal lobotomy.”

With a deep drawn breath she turned the knob and opened the good.

She smiled to herself when a quiet ?Good luck? floated in behind her.

Horace was sitting behind his massive desk flipping through a file folder. There was cigar smoldering in the ashtray and a glass about half full of what Dylan figure was some cheap whiskey.

“Horace?”

He looked up at her, grunted what she assumed was supposed to be acknowledgment of her presence and he gestured to one of the chairs facing his desk.

Taking a seat, she waited until he was ready to talk. This was one of his tactics that he used to control someone he felt was uncontrollable. Finally he looked up and sneered, “I should fire your ass.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me the first time. So you thought you could fuck the blonde and I wouldn?t find out.”

If Horace?s words in any way shocked Dylan she didn?t let it show. She just continued to watch him, hoping in a perverse sort of way he?d just have a heart attack right there in that chair.

“Not even gonna deny it, huh?”

“Why should I? You obviously seem to think you know what?s going on.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, glaring at her. “I know what?s going on. I know you?re banging the little bitch.”

“Oh really.”

His smirk was truly insufferable. “Oh yeah.” With a flick of his fingers, he sent a sheet of paper sliding across the desk to stop in front of her. As she scanned the page, anger burned in the pit of her belly, causing her jaw to set and her eyes to blaze.

It was a mock-up of the front page of the Weekly World Ledger, a national gossip rag that hung out with the others of its smutty genre in the checkout aisles of most grocery chains, drugstores, and airport lounges. In lurid block letters, its headline screamed out “TEMPTATION IN THE TROPICS! BIKINI-CLAD BASKETBALL BEAUTIES IN LESBIAN LIP LOCK!!!”

Beneath the headline was a grainy, fuzzy picture of two figures?unfortunately all too recognizable despite the poor quality of the photography. The shorter of the two had her hands familiarly on the hips of the taller, and was standing on her toes in the sand, head tilted up for a kiss.

“So,” she remarked as casually as she could manage, “is this what I have to look forward to when I go to pick up my groceries tomorrow?”

Johnson?s smirk broadened. “Well, I?d say that was entirely up to you.”

“Oh?”

Chuckling, Horace clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, lifting his legs and placing his feet on his expansive desk. “Either way, the dyke is fired. You, however?.”

“Fire her, and I walk, Horace.”

“Do that, and I can assure you that you and the little skank you?re screwing won?t even be able to get a job coaching preschoolers, much less—.”

The rest of his words were cut off as Dylan came over the desk at him. Pushing his legs off the desk, she grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and yanked forward so that they were nose to nose. “She?s not ?bitch?, she?s not ?whore?, she?s not ?skank?. Her name is Catherine. Use it!”

“That?s it. I hope you like bulldagger givin? it to you up the ass, Lambert, because that?s all you?re gonna be getting once I have that ass thrown in jail.”

“Go ahead, you bigoted little bastard. Try it. And maybe while the cops are here, we can chat about how you set Cat up to be beaten bloody in the parking lot of your arena, hmm?”

It was only a suspicion, never spoken aloud, but the guess was more than confirmed by the sudden paleness of Johnson?s jowly face. “I don?t know what you?re talking about,” he replied in a voice that suggested exactly the opposite.

The realization caused her hands to tighten on his jacket but she resisted, by the very slimmest of margins, lifting him bodily out of the chair and slamming him through the expensive paneling of his office wall. “I think you know exactly what I?m talking about, you maggot! Exactly!”

“Prove it!”

With great effort, she forced herself to relax her hold on him. Once she was sure her legs would hold her, she moved back across the desk, stood, straightened her clothing, and walked to the door. “I don?t have to,” she replied, pinning him with a gaze that made him swallow hard. “You just proved it for me.”

She had gotten the door open and was just starting to step through it when his voice floated over her shoulder. “You will pay for this. You realize that, don?t you?”

“You do what you have to do, Horace,” she replied, not bothering to look at him. “You just do what you have to.”

And then she left.

The shakes hit her when she was halfway home, and she had to pull off to the side of the busy road before her jumped-up reflexes got her into an accident. The little voice that had taken up residence inside her head was screaming for her to turn the car around, go back to Johnson?s office, rip his spine out through his throat, and beat him to death with it. The more sensible, more rational part of her mind diffidently reminded her that she wouldn?t be much good to either herself or Cat from Death Row. The team?s need for her wasn?t even mentioned.

That part was hard to hear for the blood of anger driving through her veins and pounding at her eardrums, giving her a headache that would drop Shaquille O?Neal at a hundred paces. Clenching her fists and jaw only increased the adrenaline-fueled tremors, so, with great strength of will, she forced herself to completely relax, allowing her head to drop back against the padded headrest and closing her eyes.

Digging into her pocket, she brought out her small cellphone. One button pressed, and she held it up to her ear, waiting for the annoying ringing to be replaced by a human voice. “Mac, it?s Dylan.”

“Yo, D! Long time, no talk!” His voice was staticy and crackly on the line. “Where are?wait, aren?t you supposed to be at the big bull meeting?”

“Yeah.”

“What, did it end early or something?”

“In a manner of speaking.” She drew the pads of her thumb and index finger over the tight band of muscle between and above her eyes, seeking to work out the headache before it consumed her.

“Define that, please.” Mac?s voice went deep and somber. “Did something happen?”

“I need you to do me a favor, Mac.”

“Wait. Hold up, here, big D. What the hell happened?”

“I suspect you?ll be hearing all about it soon enough, Mac. Let?s just say I almost popped the little prick?s head off and leave it at that, hmm?”

Absolute silence at the other end. Not even the static pulses dared to intrude.

Then, “Jesus Christ,” blown out on a breath of air. “Please tell me you?re speaking metaphorically, Dylan.”

“Look, I really don?t have time for this, Mac.”

“Make time, Dylan. Tell me what?s going on! Please!”

“Not now, Mac. I can?t. Like I said, you?ll probably hear about it soon anyway.”

“But?.”

“I need your help. Please.”

Another silence on the line, this one so long that Dylan came within a hairsbreadth of simply hanging up and dealing with things on her own.

“What do you need.” Mac?s voice was resigned, but steady.

Taking in a deep breath, she began to tell him.

The scent of home struck her as she walked through the door that Cat held open for her. Stopping in the entryway, she closed her eyes and breathed deep, letting the cherished smells calm her from the inside where she needed it most.

A hand on her arm caused her to open her eyes, and, reaching out, she gathered Cat in and held her closely, tightly, against her, resting her cheek atop the fair hair. “I love you,” she whispered.