Title:
Interference
Author:
Dakota Madison
Genre:
Adult, Sports Romance
Release
Date: February 9, 2015
USA TODAY Bestselling Author Dakota Madison returns with another
spicy sports romance. This story set in the world of college basketball.
Neuroscience student SEDONA MILLER is perfectly imperfect. She’s
slightly nerdy and slightly eccentric, but completely
brilliant.
When an unfortunate accident leaves Sedona with an injured arm and
she’s fired from her part-time job shelving books at the university library she
has to find a new gig fast.
The only job available mid-semester is working as a tutor for the
athletic academic center. And the notorious bad boy of the university’s
basketball team, JESSE WALKER, is the one and only guy on the new tutor’s
roster.
But when SEDONA discovers a secret that could ruin the school’s
winning basketball team doing the right thing could mean destroying the only
guy she’s ever loved.
Excerpt from Interference ©
Dakota Madison
When I finally hit the last room
in a
long row of rooms I see a guy sitting there looking bored and
staring at two
fast food containers in front of him on the
table.
He glances up at me when I
enter. The
first thing I notice is his piercing green eyes. I don’t think I’ve
ever seen
eyes that green on a human being that weren’t Photoshopped
The second thing I notice is his
messy,
light brown hair. It doesn’t look like it’s been combed it in a
week. It makes
me wonder if it’s some new hair trend or if he just doesn’t bother
to style it.
Not that I have too much room to talk when it comes to hair. My
curly red mop
has been the bane of my existence since I was a kid. About the only
thing I can
ever do with it is pull it back into a pony tail.
“Sedona?”
I
nod.
“Have a seat.” He points to the
chair
right next to him.
I remember Lewis’s warning and
take a
seat across the table instead. I want to be as close to the door as
possible.
The guy is big and muscular and much more intimidating than I
imagined he’d be.
My heart is thumping in my chest
because
his size and rough demeanor are making me nervous.
When he pushes one of the fast
food
containers in my direction I cringe. I rarely eat fast food and when
I do it’s
from Just Veggies, an organic vegetarian place near
campus.
He doesn’t hesitate to open his
container and take a bite of the messy burger that’s dripping some
kind of
white sauce all over his pile of fries.
My stomach turns in response.
“I bought you a burger.” He
points to
the second container he’s pushed in my direction. “Ambrose scheduled
our
sessions during
lunch.”
I make a point of pushing the
container
back over to him. “No thank
you.”
He frowns. “It’s from Frankie’s.
Everybody loves Frankie’s
burgers.”
“Clearly not
everyone.”
His brows knit like he can’t
believe I
refused the food he
bought.
“You
don’t want it?” He actually sounds
hurt.
“No, I don’t.”
“Why?”
I lift my book bag from the
ground and
point to one of the many political cause buttons I have covering the
knitted
tote my mom made for me.
He barely acknowledges it. “What
is that
supposed to mean?”
Now I’m the one who’s frowning.
“Meat is murder. It’s a slogan. It means
that I don’t eat animal
flesh.”
“You’re one of those vegans?” He
doesn’t
bother hiding the condescension in his
voice.
“Technically I’m a vegetarian. I
eat
free range, organic dairy
products.”
“Fine. I’ll eat the burger.” He
glares
at me as he opens the second container and takes a huge bite of the
burger.
I’m appalled until I notice that
he
slyly pushes both containers away and doesn’t take another bite of
either
burger.
“I guess I should have brought
an apple
for the teacher.”
“Only if it’s organic. And I’m
not
actually a teacher. I’m a tutor.”
We both stare at each other for
a long
moment. Awkward does not even begin to describe our pairing. We’re
like two
people from different planets trying to communicate when we don’t
speak each
other’s languages.
I
remove a slip of paper from my bag. “Mr.
Ambrose gave me your schedule of classes for the semester. You’re
taking Film
Appreciation, The History of Jazz, Advanced Yoga and Stress
Management. What’s
your major?”
He shrugs. “Undeclared right
now. But
I’ll probably go with Sports
Management.”
“So these are Gen Ed
classes?”
He cocks his head and looks
confused.
“General Education classes,” I
clarify.
“Elective classes you need to take to fulfill requirements that
aren’t directly
related to your
major.”
“I guess
so.”
I’m
a little disturbed by his
lackadaisical attitude, but I let it go for the moment. We’re
clearly not going
to be able to develop much of a rapport so maybe it’s best just to
get down to
business.
“We’re just handed a class
schedule,” he
clarifies. “Assigned classes. We don’t pick them
ourselves.”
“And they assigned you the
History of
Jazz? That’s the class that you’re having trouble with?”
“The dude who was supposed to
teach the
class croaked and they got this new chick who apparently doesn’t
like
basketball.”
There is so much wrong with his
statement I don’t even know where to begin. “Might I suggest that
you call your
professors either professor or doctor and not
chick.”
I bristle at my own use of the
derogatory word, but I continue, “And what does her not liking
basketball have
to do with your performance in the
class.”
At this he gives me a sly smile.
“Let’s
just say she’s not willing to play ball the way the other professors
are.”
I’m not sure exactly what he
means by
that, but there seems to be some kind of sports reference that is
lost on me.
“So you’re saying your other
classes are
going well and you’re just having trouble with the one class,
History of Jazz?”
He leans back in his chair and
eyes me
for a few seconds before he nods. I don’t like when he looks at me
like that. It’s
like he’s examining some weird, new specimen and trying to make
sense of it.
“All of my other teachers are
huge
basketball fans and they know I’m the in the starting lineup. I’m
not sure what
the jazz goddess’s problem
is.”
I take in a deep breath before I
say
something that’s sure to get me fired. “Why don’t we start by
calling her Dr.
Fisher? I think that might help. And why do you think she has a
problem?”
“She doesn’t like basketball.
That’s not
normal. Everybody loves basketball. This entire campus lives and
breathes the
sport.”
“I don’t love basketball. I
don’t even
like it. Not even a little
bit.”
He actually looks stunned for a
moment.
Like I slapped him. Then he regains his cocky
composure.
“You’re one weird chick,” he
mutters
almost to himself, but still loud enough that I can hear
him.
“Excuse
me?” I say even though I heard
him. I just didn’t like having an insult hurled at me by someone I
don’t even
know.
“You. Are. One. Weird. Chick.”
His words
are slower and louder as if I didn’t hear him the first
time.
“I actually heard what you said.
I just
didn’t like it.”
A smug smirk appears on his face
that I
would love to slap right off if I could.
I continue. “In case you haven’t
noticed
I’m not a bird I’m a human being. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t
refer to me
as a
chick.”
He bites his bottom lip as if
he’s
actually giving it some thought. Then he says, “You’re one weird
woman. Is that
better?”
“I’m not sure why you have to
bring
gender into the equation at all. Why not just call me a weird
person?”
That makes him laugh. “You don’t
care
that I think you’re weird. You just don’t want me to call you a
chick?”
“I’ve been weird my whole life.
I’m used
to it.”
“At least you’re willing to own
it.”
“So did you bring your textbook
with you
or are you just going to spend the next ninety minutes taunting me?”
“I kind of like taunting
you.”
USA TODAY Bestselling Author Karen Mueller Bryson writes romance
novels under four pen names: Dakota Madison, Savannah Young, Sierra Avalon and
Ren Monterrey. She lives in a small town outside of Phoenix, AZ with her
husband and their bloodhounds.
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