ten minutes later, but she saw Will drawn into a conversation with the team’s owner. Not wanting to interrupt, she made her way across the room to the silent auction to see what items had been put up for bid.
She took her time going from item to item, fantasizing about being able to afford any of them. There were trips to Europe and Greece, a sailboat and a jet ski, collectible sports memorabilia, and a few works of art. It wasn’t until she got to the last item that her interest was truly piqued: an electric guitar autographed by The Void. Thinking of Katie, she looked at the latest bid.
Seven hundred dollars.
Her mouth went dry. It was lower than the bids on many of the neighboring items, but it was still out of her price range. Although she’d managed to sock away some money while living with her sister, a bid that high would take a serious chunk out of it.
Katie will absolutely love it, she thought, and her birthday is in six weeks.
Envisioning Katie’s reaction, she threw caution to the wind and placed a bid. If she lost, at least she’d tried. If she won, she might have to live with her sister a little longer, but Katie would have the birthday of her dreams.
After writing down her bid, she turned around to go in search of Will. He stood a few feet away, watching her. Seeing him again sent a delightful thrill through her.
“There you are,” she said.
He grinned at her. “Yep.” Glancing toward the guitar, he asked, “Did Katie turn you into a Void fan?”
“Definitely.” She moved closer to him to be better heard over the music and added, “But that bid wasn’t for me. It was for Katie.”
His grin fell away. His eyes deepened in color. He closed the short distance between them and took her hand.
“Come with me,” he said.
She didn’t even hesitate. Responding to the heat she saw in his gaze, she willingly went with him wherever he wanted to take her.
Chapter Seventeen
Will watched Jasmine throughout the photo session. How could he not? She was hands-down the sexiest woman in the room.
Even his teammates noticed. He hadn’t been standing in front of the step-and-repeat for two minutes before Javy—a known perpetual bachelor—approached him.
“That gorgeous lady in red yours, Campbell?” he asked.
Pride had Will standing straighter. “Yep.”
“Things serious?”
Giving Javy a sideways glance as the photographer told them all to smile, he growled, “Hands off, Rios.”
Javy lifted his hands in a show of surrender. They paused to smile for the first series of photographs.
“You can’t blame a guy for askin’,” Javy said as some of them were repositioned. “She’s sizzlin’ hot. An athlete, right?”
“A ballerina. How’d you guess?”
“I’m a catcher, man. I know what an ACL repair looks like. Got a scar from one of ‘em myself.”
“Smile,” the photographer told them.
Will smiled, all the while thinking of Javy staring at Jasmine’s legs long enough to notice the barely noticeable scar over her right knee. The catcher was a notorious ladies’ man. Would Jasmine even consider entertaining a proposition from him?
Knowing he had no real stake to claim weighed on Will’s mind as he went through the motions of posing and smiling for the photos. When it came down to it, he didn’t know if Jasmine had agreed to attend this thing with him as a friend—which they’d certainly become after nearly four months of knowing one another—as a teacher who didn’t want to lose her job, or as a genuine romantic interest. It guided his gaze over to her more and more often from beyond the step-and-repeat.
Javy wasn’t the only one who mentioned her, either. No less than six other guys approached him asking how serious things were between them. In nearly seven years in the pros, he’d never had that happen with a date he’d brought to an event.
Maybe that subconsciously came into play when he approached her at the silent auction table. He intended to ask if she wanted another glass of wine since he didn’t see one in her hand. All it took was one glimpse of her in her red dress and sexy high heels to lose every other thought in his head. The sight of her nicely toned ass as she bent over the table made him stop in his tracks nearly ten feet from her.
Once he saw that she was bidding on something, his mind switched gears. He knew she didn’t have much money. The auction was meant to raise