Blitzed (The Alpha Ballers #3)

by Lucy Snow

  I knew it sounded lame, but it was all I had.

  Mack’s entire face changed, like she was confronting something she had wanted to avoid. “Oh, Hud,” she said, shaking her head, and it looked like tears were forming. “That wasn’t it at all, it wasn’t anything you did.”

  “OK, I just wanted to make sure-“

  “It’s OK, it was nothing you did, but we couldn’t keep seeing each other like that…” Mack trailed off, and I realized that if we went any further here we’d make a scene.

  I straightened up. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Mack. I was looking forward to keeping things going the way we were - in fact I was more than looking forward to it, I thought that we could be something amazing, if we gave it a shot. Clearly you don’t, so that’s how it’ll be.” I took a sip of my drink and prepared to walk away, holding as much of my pride as I could.

  Instead, it was Mack who walked away. She tossed her drink back in one gulp, and walked out of the restaurant without another word, leaving me standing there with nothing to do or say.

  CHAPTER 23 - MACKENZIE

  Tonight was the worst night ever. I had wanted to avoid Hud as much as possible during the event, but just at the last moment, he had cornered me and said those wonderful things and I suddenly couldn’t breathe and I had to get out of there as soon as possible or I was going to jump into his arms and kiss him all over in front of everyone.

  I was lucky to get out into the night and into a cab back to the hotel while I was still able to keep it all together, but as soon as the door closed I burst into tears. The cab driver gave me a funny look, but something about me must have kept him quiet because he never said a word.

  I got back to the hotel after wiping my face off in the cab first, and a few minutes later I was back in my room and slipping out of my dress and into a nightgown. I looked at the clock and realized I should go to sleep, but for some reason I didn’t feel tired.

  Of course, I knew what that reason was - it was Hudson Asher. I was scared to death that I was going to lose him. He was all I could think about, and my team was about to play the most important game in its history. What was happening to me?

  Hudson’s words from the party came floating back to me - “the two of us could be something amazing, if we just gave it a shot.” I couldn’t get them out of my head.

  Hud was totally right - we could be something amazing, hell, we already were, if we just gave it a shot. More to the point, if I just gave us a shot. But here I was, scared and hiding in my hotel room because of some random email from some blackmailer who hadn’t actually demanded anything in return for the photos.

  How come I let this spook me so much?

  I needed a solution. I needed to find out who this person was and take away their power to hurt Hud and I. And I needed to do it fast. Who could I call?

  Then it hit me. The investigator I had used, the one who had worked with my father before, and who had uncovered the league’s issues with lab testing. Figuring out who had sent an email would probably be only a few minutes work for that guy.

  I pulled out my phone and was about to call him when it buzzed in my hand. I looked at it with a start, shocked that it was coming to life right as I was about to use it. Another email.

  From the same email address as the first email full of photos of Hud and I.

  “Shit,” I said out loud to no one in particular. The room didn’t answer.

  Gingerly, I thumbed open the screen of my phone and held my breath as the new email came up.

  No pictures this time, just a few sentences telling me what he wanted me to do - the gist of it was that he wanted me to step down from my position with the Patriots. That was pretty much it.

  I must have sat and read that email over and over again, what little text there was, staring at it for a good thirty minutes, like I was trying to see beyond the words, trying to see inside the mind of the person who had written it.

  And then it hit me. I put the phone down. I didn’t have to call the investigator after all.

  I knew who it was.

  It was Steve, my date from the charity event a few weeks back. The guy Hudson had beaten up while saving me. The night Hudson and I had connected for the first time.

  Steve was back for his revenge. I couldn’t quite put my finger on how I knew it was him - it was just a vague hunch, just a feeling I got. But it was as strong as any hunch I had ever had, and my father had taught me long ago to go with my hunches.

  I didn’t know what to do - Steve, if it was Steve, wanted me to quit the team and do something else with my life. Working for the Patriots had been all I wanted to do since my father had bought us season tickets when I was a little girl. And that desire only became stronger when he had purchased the team years ago.

  I wasn’t about to let all that disappear just because I wanted to date a player. At the same time, though, I couldn’t get Hudson Asher out of my head.

  So I was up shit creek and there was no paddle in sight.

  What was I gonna do?

  I had no answers.

  I just kept staring at the phone, trying to figure it out.

  And then, just as I was about to give up and try to figure out the answer in my sleep, someone knocked on the door to my hotel room.

  CHAPTER 24 - HUDSON

  I knocked on the door, loud enough that Mack would hear me, but soft enough that her neighbors wouldn’t come out wondering what was going on. I knew the team had booked their rooms all at once, so I had a hunch each of her neighbors were her coworkers in the font office, and Mack didn’t really need everyone gossiping about why a player was knocking on her hotel room door at 2AM.

  I figured Mack was looking at me through the peephole, so I smiled and waved, and then threw her the finger-guns for extra good measure. She finally opened the door till the chain caught and peered out of it, looking at me with tired eyes. “Hud?” She whispered, as if she wasn’t sure I was really there or if I was a mirage. “Is that you?”

  “None other,” I smiled, putting on a brave face. “Can I come in?”

  “That’s not a good idea, Hud,” Mack said, wiping her eyes. “Now’s not a good time, and you shouldn’t be here. Please don’t make a scene.”

  I stood tall. “I’m not going anywhere, Mack, until you talk to me. Until you tell me what happened.” I folded my arms over my chest. “I’ve got all night, nowhere to be for hours.”

  Mack stared at me like she was assessing how resolute I was, then she sighed and closed the door and unlatched the chain before opening it again, wider this time. “Come in, then.”

  I stepped past her and Mack closed the door behind me, leaning against it. She looked a little worn out, like there was something weighing on her. I wanted to scoop her up into my arms.

  So that’s exactly what I did. I leaned over and picked her up and Mack sighed again, burying her head in the space between neck and shoulder, and I could feel her tears against my skin. “It’s OK, Mack,” I whispered. “Whatever it is, it’s OK.”

  I turned around and walked into her hotel room. I would have thought she’d have a suite, given that she was part of ownership, but then again, Mack didn’t want people to think of her like that, so this was a regular single room, nothing too fancy.

  I picked out the couch on one side and sat down, cradling Mack in my arms. She stayed pressed against me, an I ran my hands up and down her back, slowly, pulling her into me.

  After a minute she leaned back. “I’m so sorry, Hud,” she started then trailed off, her eyes searching mine for some sort of connection. “I panicked. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “What happened? Tell me, Mack.”

  Mack blinked, then sighed again and slumped over. “Just before you got to my place that night, I got an email.”

  “An email? So?”

  “Let me finish. It was from…someone, I don’t know who. But it had pictures in it.”

  “What kind of pictures?” I could feel my blood starting to r
ise.

  “Pictures of us. Out to dinner, kissing, you know.”

  “Who took the pictures?” I moved my hands away from Mack and gripped the couch tightly.

  Mack shook her head. “I have no idea, but it wasn’t from a phone, these were taken from far away.”

  “What did the email say?”

  “The first one didn’t say much, but the second one said that if I didn’t quit the team they’d tell everyone that I was involved with a player.” Mack’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I didn’t know what else to do, Hud, so I panicked and I said those awful things to you. I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

  I softened my voice as much as possible. “There’s nothing to forgive, Mack, it’s not like you wanted to. Whoever this was they forced your hand.” Mack nodded. “Are you sure you don’t know who it was?”

  Mack shook her head. “I don’t know, but I think it might be Steve.”

  The blood rushed through my ears. “From the charity thing?” I gripped the couch so hard my knuckles turned white. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

  I almost started to get up, but Mack sensed it and shook her head at me. “Stop, Hud, you can’t. Not now. You’ve got a job to do, a game to play.”

  I sagged back into the couch. “He can’t get away with this, Mack…”

  “And he won’t. But you can’t stop it now, not when the game is this weekend.”

  “And once it’s over? What do we do then?”

  “I dunno, Hud, we figure it out. We could go public. Once the game is over.”

  Whoa. “You want to go public? With what?”

  Mack smiled, a smile that I had missed. She tapped me on the shoulder. “With us, dummy. You and me.”

  I wrapped my arms around her. “Oh yeah? Is that how it’s gonna be? There’s an ‘us’ now?”

  “Maybe,” she whispered, nuzzling against me, and looked into my eyes. “Is that what you want?”

  “I think my position on the matter has been clear for quite some time, thank you very much.”

  “I’ve missed you so much, Hud,” Mack whispered, trailing kisses down my neck. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, giving her more space.

  “Can you prove it was him?”

  “No, I can’t. It was just a hunch I got. He’s incredibly wealthy, Hud, proving it was him could take years even if it were possible.”

  “I don’t just want to do nothing.”

  She looked into my eyes and leaned over, kissing me. “Please, Hud, for me, just wait till after the game.”

  I furrowed my brow, thrilled at the kiss and surprised at how much I had missed Mack’s lips on mine. “I don’t know if I can do that…”

  CHAPTER 25 - MACKENZIE

  The way he said that made me melt. Or, rather, I would have melted, if I wasn’t already a puddle from being in his arms again after such a long time. Hud was like a breath of fresh air after being underwater for a minute. He made me gasp with need.

  Our sex that night was passionate and slow, moving and almost a kind of re-introduction to each other. It felt like it had been so long since Hud had been inside me that it was like the first time all over again. I ran my hands over his muscles as if to prove to myself they were still there.

  It was an intense and surreal experience, seeing this huge man thrust himself into me and feel the gasps and moans pulled from my throat. I was covered in sweat, barely able to move, feeling like a live wire, an exposed nerve of pleasure.

  We lay in bed afterward, our bodies intertwined like that was how they were meant to be. I ran my hands up and down Hud’s body, over his tattoos, the plane of his chest and back, those shoulders that made me weak in the knees just looking at them.

  “Hey,” Hud whispered to me. I glanced away from his chest to make eye contact.

  “Yeah?”

  “Game’s coming up in a few days.”

  I put my hands on his chest and rested my head on them. “You gonna be ready?”

  Hud smiled. “You don’t have to get ready if you stay ready, honey.”

  “Ugh, you are the worst, you know that?”

  Hud laughed. “Yeah, but it’s true. Of course this game will be the toughest I’ve ever played, on the biggest stage…”

  “-But you’re staying ready.”

  “Baby, I was born ready.”

  I tapped him on the chest. “Just the worst.”

  “Yeah, but you love it.”

  “You seem to be confused about the definition of love, Hud.”

  He smiled at me. “No, Mack, I don’t think I am.”

  I smiled back, and we lay there on the bed in silence for a few minutes more and it was perfect, each of us moving so slowly, the sound of our hearts getting louder over the drone of the hotel room’s air conditioning.

  “What’ll you do after the game?” I asked, out of nowhere.

  Hud looked pensive, like he had been giving this some thought for a while. Finally, he found the words. “I’m gonna retire, Mack.”

  I picked my head up off my hands and my jaw dropped at the same time. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Hud said, a serene smile coming over his face, like a weight had been lifted by saying it. “When we win, of course.”

  “Of course. That goes without saying.”

  “Right. I thought a lot about that conversation we had at dinner weeks ago.”

  “Yeah?”

  Hud chuckled. “Yeah, at the time I had no idea you were interested in me. I thought it was a business thing. I thought you wanted me to retire.”

  My cheeks reddened. “That was not what I meant…is that what you really thought?”

  “Until the end, yeah. I thought you were thanking me for the party thing and kicking me out the door with the same meal.”

  It was so absurd I had to laugh. “Is that how I came off?”

  “You know you have a nickname around the facility, right?”

  The embarrassment deepened and I narrowed my eyes. “I am well aware of what they call me.”

  “Well, at first, that’s what I had to go on. That and you a little tipsy at the party.”

  “I see your point.” Then, I softened. “So you thought about that conversation, and now you want to retire?”

  “Yeah. Funny how things work out like that. When we win this game, I’ll have done what I came here to do - deliver a championship to New England. I’ve played football for 10 years now, and that’s just professionally. Most guys don’t get this far.”

  I nodded.

  “And luckily, I’ve got my health still. Most guys can’t say that after this many years. So, I’ve been thinking, now might be a good time to start the next step of my life.”

  “Helping kids?”

  Hud nodded. “I’ve made a good amount of money and I haven’t spent what I’ve made, so I don’t really need to work anymore. Might as well put my time to good use - lift kids up the same way it happened to me. Give them something to work toward.”