Hot for Sports: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Box Set: The Sports Romance Complete Series (Books 1-5)

by Erica Hobbs

  I wanted a do-over. I wanted to try again. I wanted to do it right, this time, make it special. Naked so that I could see every inch of her. I had no doubt the rest of her was just as beautiful as what I’d seen last night.

  I rolled out of bed and stumbled naked across my room to the bathroom where I got under the shower. When I finished, I found high protein snacks in the fridge. Francois stocked them for me once a week so that I could eat right during football season. I headed out the door, still chewing, ready to train with the team. Damien would be there, and I had high hopes it would be better this time.

  Training with Damien was going better than I’d expected. Damien was an arrogant piece of shit on a good day. When he missed a play, or when anything else was wrong like when the weather wasn’t the way he wanted it to be or something, he got worse.

  I’d expected him to be a little bitch about it when we started training together. I was surprised he’d accepted the offer to start off with. He’d been so against it I’d expected him to keep turning it down. I’d meant it every time I offered it, but I still didn’t believe he would finally accept it.

  While we’d been training together, I’d also realized he wasn’t such a bad person once you looked past the temper tantrums and his terrible sense of humor or lack of manners. I’d told him about Alyssa. Not a lot, of course, but it was easier to talk to someone about my life if they weren’t involved in it at all. My aunt worried too much, and Rebecca would definitely tease me so I wouldn’t bring it up to her unless I were serious. Apart from them, I didn’t have anyone else.

  And I wanted to talk about her. I wanted to gush about the gem I’d found. And Damien, surprisingly, had listened.

  We’d trained together twice before the next training. He’d really put his back into it, and when I explained stuff to him, he listened. It was rare for Damien. I’d seen a different side of him, a side I hadn’t seen since we were at school together.

  I liked it. I wouldn’t be best friend with him right off the bat – I wasn’t stupid enough to trust him just like that – but he’d definitely surprised me.

  When we trained together, there was an improvement. It was so small I doubted anyone else would pick it up, but it was something. He was more confident. Or less stressed. I wasn’t sure which one was the problem with him fumbling the. He dropped it quite a bit during play anyway, but it wasn’t the same as before, and it was almost as if he thought about it for a beat before losing his temper.

  Eventually losing his temper was still a loss in my eyes, but it was getting better. Any change was good.

  ***

  We ran a lot. Coach Clay was in one of those moods where he made everyone run when one made a mistake. Why do coaches do that anyway? I knew it was good for us to be fit but even the fittest athletes had breaking points.

  By the time training was over I was just about dead. We walked to the locker room mostly in silence. Damien walked next to me and even though we said nothing to each other it was amicable where before it had been hostile.

  I was one of the first to change and leave the place. When I got outside, someone leaned against my car.

  A woman. Amanda.

  I groaned inwardly and walked toward her.

  “Please don’t lean against my car,” I said. When she moved away from the car, I rubbed the paint with my fingers, searching for minuscule scratches her skirt might have left behind.

  She wore a white skirt, and a yellow top with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had too much makeup on like she was trying harder than she needed to, and she wore those hooped earrings girls loved so much. Just for the record, guys hate those. They get in the way of everything.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. I didn’t have the energy for her. I didn’t have the energy for her on a normal day when everything in my life was going well. When I’d just killed myself off running laps even my everlasting patience with her demanding attitude and her clinginess was wearing thin.

  “I told you the other night I wanted to hang out more. I haven’t seen you in so long.”

  Well, there was a reason for that. I sighed.

  “I don’t want to hang out, Amanda. I don’t want us to be friends.”

  She shook her head. “Come on, Jake. It’s not like we didn’t get along before. I just want to be friends, nothing more. Really.”

  When a woman said ‘really’ at the end of a sentence, I was less inclined to believe it. The more they tried to convince me, the less I believed them.

  “You were too much. I told you this. What you’re doing now is already too much.”

  She shook her head, folded her arms over her chest and looked to the side like the answers were somewhere back at the training center.

  “I just want to try again. Not the dating thing, obviously. I know where you stand. But the friendship thing. Come on, give me a shot?”

  I rolled my eyes and walked around her, putting my equipment bag in the trunk of my car.

  “You’re begging. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  She sighed audibly.

  “Hey, Jake,” Damien said behind me, and I turned around. He walked to me, his own bag over his shoulder. He glanced at Amanda before turning his eyes back to me. “I wanted to say thanks. You know… for helping me out. It felt different today.”

  I clapped him on the shoulder.

  “I’m glad. It did look a little different.”

  He grinned at me and looked back at Amanda.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She looked him up and down. I wasn’t sure what was happening. A connection? The dick and the bitch. Imagine that.

  “I need to get going,” I said. I wanted to get away from Amanda, from whatever she was going to say to Damien and how he would respond. I wanted to go see Rebecca. I had been too busy again, and I felt bad for neglecting her.

  “Think about it, Jake?” Amanda asked.

  I nodded. There was nothing to think about, but it seemed easier just to agree than to put up an argument and have her fight me at every turn. I got into the car, started it with an expensive growl and pulled out of my parking bay. I glanced in the rearview mirror as I drove out of the parking lot. Damien and Amanda were talking, shrinking in the mirror. Good. Maybe they could keep each other busy, and he could take her off my hands.

  It was the best solution I could think of, other than ghosting completely so she couldn’t find me. As a pro player, of course, the latter was impossible.

  I turned toward home. A quick shower and I would head to Rebecca. I didn’t only want to spend time with her again. I wanted to hear what she thought about what was happening with Alyssa. I wanted to listen to her opinion. Now that I was driving away from everything occupying my mind, Alyssa was all over it again.

  The date had been spectacular. She’d been everything I’d wanted in a woman, and more. It had been a surprise – women usually disappointed me.

  In the week that had passed since I’d seen her we’d spoken once or twice but I was getting scared it would dwindle into nothing. I wanted to see her again. I wanted to do something to wow her. Somehow, all the money in the world didn’t seem like enough to impress her. I had to do more, be more. Rebecca could maybe help me with that.

  ***

  “I did it,” I said to her while we were speeding down the highway. With a car like the Limited Bugatti Veyron, speed was something you had to control. With the amount of power under the hood, I could keep going until they locked me up and took my license away.

  We shot past the other cars, just licking the speed limit. Rebecca clutched onto the door and the dash, her knuckles were white, but her face was riddled with pleasure.

  “Did what?” She asked.

  “I got her number and took her out.”

  I felt her eyes on me and slowed down before the exit I needed to take. When I was back on national roads, she cleared her throat.

  “And?”

  “I think I’m in trouble,” I said.

&n
bsp; Rebecca groaned. “Jake, you’re always in trouble.”

  I chuckled. “I don’t mean it like that. I mean with this girl. Alyssa. I really like her. I mean, really. I’ve never felt like this around someone.”

  Rebecca turned a little in her seat, and when I tore my eyes away from the road to glance at her face, she had a mock shocked expression all over it. I chuckled again.

  “Could this be? Womanizer Jake Nash found a girl he actually likes?”

  “Stop it,” I said, but I was still laughing. “I’m just as surprised as you are. She’s not like the others.”

  “You still slept with her.” A statement, not a question.

  “Of course, I slept with her. God, how old are you, anyway, am I allowed to talk about this stuff in front of you?”

  She pulled a tongue at me, and I laughed.

  “If she’s so great, why did you sleep with her, then? Didn’t you want to get to know her first, give her a chance to see the golden nugget under all that grime of yours?”

  “Gee, thanks, Beck. I’ve obviously made a great impression on my little sister.”

  She flashed me a cheeky smile. I turned and pulled into the mall parking lot. I was going to spoil her with clothes. She’d outgrown most of what I’d gotten her last time, fashion-wise. She was a bit of a snob, but most teenage girls were, I guessed.

  “Besides,” I added. “It wasn’t like that. It was with feeling. You know?”

  She pulled a face at me. Did Rebecca know was sex with emotion was? For that matter, did I?

  “Okay, if you say so. So you’re going to see her again?”

  We got out of the car and walked into the mall. Faces turned in my direction as shop goers weren’t sure if they saw the real thing when they looked at me.

  “I am. I want to take her out somewhere special, though. I want to do it right.”

  Rebecca veered toward a store, and I followed her.

  “Well, then you’ll have to convince her you’re not an idiot,” she said and smiled sweetly at me. I rolled my eyes and walked into the store where Becky’s teenage life overwhelmed me.

  I wanted to do something special for Alyssa. I had all the money in the world to spoil her with, but she was sharp, and she knew what I was worth. No doubt she’d already Googled me with her friends. Which meant that some fancy places, nice clothes or a luxury date, wouldn’t do anything for her. Not if she knew that it was normal for me. Not if she knew that was how things always went. And she would figure it out.

  I didn’t want to make it normal for her, either, though. I didn’t want to slum it for her sake. I wanted to make it different for us both. I wanted to treat her like a princess. The way she deserved to be treated.

  Which left very little options for me.

  I sat down on one of the stools in the shop. Apparently, older brothers and dads crashed here when they had to wait. I decided to scroll through my emails. Most of it was spam. Two of them were from the committee and one from Coach Clay about upcoming training sessions.

  However, there was one from a friend of mine I hadn’t heard in a while. He’d transferred to the LA Rams a while ago, and with our training schedules and traveling responsibilities, we saw little of each other.

  It was his birthday coming up, though, and he was having a huge event to celebrate. I was invited with a date. Well now. This was something that might just work in my favor. I scrolled through the invitation and found out all the details. The more I read, the more I liked it.

  It was different. Exactly what I needed.

  Chapter 15

  Damien

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Amanda as soon as Jake’s tail lights left the parking lot. She looked good, but she wore her resting bitch face.

  “I was here to see Jake,” she said. “We can still be friends, you know.”

  I snorted. Right.

  “There’s nothing wrong with that?” She protested.

  I shrugged and jammed my hands into my pockets. “You’re right, there’s nothing wrong with it. But no guy who had a thing with a girl and then broke it off would want to be friends afterward. The only reason men are friends with women is if they think they have a shot at getting more. Trust me on this.”

  Amanda frowned. “That’s not always true.”

  “No? How many male friends do you have? And by that, I mean the ones who have been around forever and have never made a move or a compliment or a flirtatious comment about you.”

  She shrugged. Men were pigs. They wanted ass. With some girls, you got it straight away. Others were a matter of time. You only stuck around if there was a chance of working. Otherwise, you left. It was simple math.

  “He doesn’t even care,” she said and folded her arms, hunching in on herself. God, the last thing I needed now was a woman who needed consolation. Those were worse than the women who just wanted to be friends.

  “Well, if it had been that long and he made it clear he wasn’t interested back then, there is no reason why he would care now.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

  I nodded. Well, wasn’t that news?

  She laughed without emotion and poked a stick on the ground. Her dark hair fell over her shoulder from the elastic she’d used to tie it back, and it was thick and glossy. I imagined he would be fucking hot without her clothes on. Sure, she was a bitch, but even bitches were great at sex, right? What would it take for me to get her in bed?

  “So, you haven’t exactly had a great run,” Amanda said. Her eyes were on me, her little moment of vulnerability gone. Her words were like a punch in the gut.

  “What do you know about football?” I asked.

  “Enough to know what they’re saying about you.”

  It was only thanks to the universal law you didn’t lay a hand on a woman that I didn’t slap her. If she were a guy, I would have climbed into her right away. Who did she think she was?

  “I’m working on it.” The moment I said it I felt like an idiot. I didn’t have to justify myself to her. She was no one, she was a reject.

  “With Jake,” I added. I had something she couldn’t have – his time and attention. Sure, it wasn’t nearly the same thing, but it was something I could make her jealous with. Two could play this game.

  And it worked. I’d gotten her attention. She looked at me with questions in her eyes.

  “Yeah, we’re tight,” I said. “We train together all the time.”

  It wasn’t exactly true, but it would be soon enough.

  “Did he say anything about me?” She asked carefully.

  I groaned and rolled my eyes. “We don’t talk about women when we train. We talk about training. It’s our jobs. We give it our all.”

  She pursed her lips and nodded.

  “Although, he has been distracted, lately.”

  “What do you mean?” She asked. God, she was like a cat. Curious about the smallest thing; so easy to bait. It was impossible for her to resist.

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. He had mentioned the girl from the other night – not a lot of things could distract Jake – but I didn’t know if it was her for sure. Still, it would be worth to see her in shock when I mentioned it.

  “I think there is a woman on his mind.” Her face darkened. “What else could distract a man?”

  She looked away, and her eyes blazed with fire. I wanted to rile her up. She looked like she could be great fun when she was angry. People who didn’t give a shit were the best when they were angry because they didn’t worry about what they said or how it came across. They were bluntly honest, and that was poetry in its purest form.

  “Well, I hope he fails with his game because of her. What a dick.”

  Woah. There it was. I blinked at her. What could distract a male? If women couldn’t ruin your life, I didn’t know what could.

  “You know, that might be just the thing.”

  I grabbed her by the arm. She yanked her arm back and glared at
me.

  “And you’re doing what, exactly?” She sneered.

  “God, relax. Just come with me. We can go to a coffee shop and talk about this. I don’t want the other guys to see you here with me if this is going to work at all?”

  “If what is going to work? I’m not having coffee with you again.”

  I groaned and marched to my car. “Fine, get Jake back all by yourself then… if you can.”

  I knew she would follow me. When I heard her footsteps behind me, I grinned. She was right. I was an asshole.