Hustle

by Teagan Kade

  I laugh. “You guys make me want to puke sometimes.”

  David puts on mock offense. “Like you two can talk what with your constant grabby grabby and tongue wrestling.”

  I pull Sam close and give her butt a squeeze. “We like to display our love publically. Is that a crime?”

  David’s eyebrows lift. “Depends whether you’re clothed or not, I suppose.”

  Chance’s smile grows. “Oh, clothes will definitely be lacking in our cabin. Don’t you worry about that.”

  David pretends he’s blind. “Eye bleach! Where’s the eye bleach?” Sarah elbows him and his eyes snap open to Sam. “I wasn’t talking about you, Sam. You’re beautiful.”

  Sarah rolls her eyes at me, reaching forward and taking Sam’s arm. “Come on, Sam. Why don’t we grab a coffee and let those two knuckleheads kiss each other goodbye.”

  I watch the two of them go off together when something bumps into my leg. I look down to find a little boy in a Wildcats’s cap standing in my shadow. I notice Mom standing off to the side.

  “Mr. Adams?” he queries in a squeaky voice. “Can I have your autograph?”

  I reach down and take the playing card and pen he’s holding in his hand. I look a bit worn in the picture. It was only taken at the start of the season, but in it I see someone I barely recognize. How far I’ve come. How far we have come.

  “Mr. Adams?” asks the kid again since I’m standing there gaping at myself like an idiot.

  “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Chance,” he replies.

  I hand the card back with a wink at Mom. “Your parents have good taste.”

  ‘Thank you,’ Mom mouths back.

  The kid runs off. I notice David standing there with his hands on his hips. “What’s with you?”

  “You’re standing here with perhaps the greatest wide receiver the game has ever seen and I don’t even get a second glance.”

  I shrug, smiling. “I can’t help it if all the fans want me.”

  David pokes me in the chest. “And here I was thinking you were finally falling back down to Earth.”

  I look over to Sam sipping on her coffee by the cart, picturing the way she bucked below me this morning as she came, the way her pussy gripped my shaft in the throes of it. “Far from it, my friend. Far from it.”

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “Kids,” continues David. “You seem pretty good with them. The girls love you. When are you two going to start a family of your own?”

  “Whoa, we’re not even married yet and you’re already trying to sort play dates?”

  David crosses his arms. “I’m just sayin’, you better put a ring on that sooner rather than later.”

  “You think she’s going to run off on me?”

  “I see the way you two are together. It’s an inevitability. Why procrastinate?”

  “You just want to get wasted kid-free at the wedding, don’t you?”

  He nods. “It has been a long time since I’ve been to a wedding… or slept with a bridesmaid.”

  It takes me a second to catch on. “I see what you did there, but you’re way ahead here. I mean, I, you know. It’s not—”

  He shakes his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say my line of questioning here is making the mighty woman slayer that is Chance Adams sweat a little, no?”

  He knows me too well. “I’m not ready. It’s too soon.”

  David continues shaking his head. “Suit yourself.”

  The girls arrive just in time.

  Sarah hands a coffee to David. “What are you two scheming here?”

  David looks to me. “Just planning ahead.”

  An announcement comes over the PA for boarding to begin. Sam starts to pull on my arm, always a stickler for punctuality. “Come on, babe. They’re boarding.”

  Sarah takes the hint. “We’ll leave you guys to it.” She comes forward and hugs us in turn. “You two be good, you hear?”

  “I’m always good,” I protest.

  Sam swats my ass. “I’ll keep him in line. Don’t worry.”

  David puckers his lips at me. “Good. I wouldn’t want that sweet little butt of yours to come back as damaged property.”

  Now I’m the one shaking my head. “Come here, you fucker.”

  I pull him in for an embrace, slap him twice on the back before pushing him away. “Now get, we got business to attend to.”

  Sam sidles up beside me as the two of them work back through the crowds waving. “Business?”

  I run my hands down her waist, desperately wanting to keep running them inside her pants. “Dirty, dirty business.”

  As I kiss her, I think over David’s words. He’ll kill me when we get back.

  Carefully as I can, I run my hand into my pocket, checking one final time that the ring is still there.

  EPILOGUE

  SAM

  The team is huddled tight together, Chance arm-in-arm with them. I stand to the side listening to him speak to his troops.

  “We’re going to out there,” he says, “and we’re going to kick some ass. Who’s with me?”

  The players let up a war cry.

  “Hands in the middle, and break.”

  I watch as the team heads onto the field, Chance pulling up by my side looking a little too proud. “You think you’ve got this one in the bag, don’t you?”

  He looks at me with complete confidence. “I am their coach, am I not? How could they not win?”

  I place my forefinger under my chin. “I don’t know. Maybe because they’re all under five?”

  The first play is a shambles, both teams fumbling the ball and more than one player completely confused as to where they should be running. Another’s already running to the sidelines looking for Mommy.

  “That way!” shouts Chance. “Not… no… Oh, hell.”

  I have to laugh. “Not as easy as it looks, huh?”

  He’s got his hands on his head. “And I though the early nineties Colts were bad. It’s like these kids are deliberately trying to make me look bad.”

  “You’re the one who’s going to have to explain to their parents why they’re suddenly running around saying they’re going to ‘kick ass.’”

  We both smile, Chance pulling me into a tight embrace.

  I push back a little. “Careful. You wouldn’t want to squash another future quarterback, would you?”

  His hands move down to the small bump of my belly.

  “It’s not a crystal ball, you know.”

  He closes his eyes. “I see fame and fortune, women falling at his feet.”

  “His? You seem pretty damn certain it’s a boy.”

  He looks around me to our one-year-old daughter giggling away in her stroller, Felicity, our little lucky charm, even if Chance has got into the habit of calling her ‘Flick.’ I’m much more partial to ‘Fee,’ but you can’t have everything.

  Or can you?

  I’ve got the man of my dreams and the stable love I always thought was a construct of Hollywood and pulpy romance novels. People say you can’t love one person for a lifetime, but I beg to differ. I’m whole when I’m with Chance, empowered. Everything is just that little bit more alive, more exciting when shared with someone you’ve poured your soul out to.

  And the sex… Those same people are all ‘it’s different after you’ve had a baby, you’ll lose interest,’ but nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, we’re even closer now, more adventurous in the bedroom… and kitchen, and dining room, and car. I feel like a teenager again.

  Chance is on top of his game with the Cats, helping them to yet another NFL championship. Companies are knocking down our door for endorsement opportunities, but Chance’s number-one priority is his family. He wants to spend as much time as possible with us, even managed to talk Morgan into cutting back on his training hours.

  It’s so weird to think of our first meeting in that tiny massage room, the arrogant boy with his bravado
and endless lines. The boy, that life, is gone and in its place is a man with everything he’s ever wanted and more.

  I smile with the satisfaction that whatever problems may come, whatever challenges may arise, we’re going to face them hand-in-hand, together, as a family.

  I turn and follow his gaze to our daughter, can’t get enough of the way his face lights whenever he sees her.

  I reach down and lightly brush his crotch, leaning forward to whisper in his ear. “Guess you got your happy ending after all.”

  Wrecked: A Bad Boy Outlaw Romance

  Teagan Kade

  * * * * *

  Published by Teagan Kade

  Edited by Sennah Tate

  Copyright © 2016 by Teagan Kade

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  LET ME HOOK YOU UP!

  Signup to the newsletter for ARCs, the latest news, freebies and date releases for new and exciting titles from Teagan Kade: http://eepurl.com/bg2MAn

  DEDICATION

  To all the surfer boys in my life. Thanks for showing me the green room.

  CHAPTER ONE

  LUX

  “Ever been down-under?”

  I’ve heard better pick-up lines.

  The plane dips. I’m gripping the sides of my seat so hard my knuckles are paper white. I flinch when a peanut packet pops behind me.

  I’m not a great flyer. I much prefer to be on the ground, in the water. Planes are so… unstable. Quite a statement from someone whose life has been plunged into instability, I know.

  “Australia,” the man beside me continues, “you been before?”.

  This guy must be forty-plus wearing an Akubra that would make Crocodile Dundee proud. If there was an Aussie cliché convention, he’d be front and center.

  I glance at him. “No. Never.”

  “Big low coming up to the Island, probably accounts for all the turbulence.”

  You’re not helping.

  I love it how all Australians call Tasmania ‘The Island’ as if it’s a completely separate entity.

  He squirms in his seat. Probably smuggling a python back home. “Say, why are you visiting again?”

  It’s a good question. Why did I suddenly pack in my job, tell my boss to go ‘fuck himself with his inflated ego’ and sell everything I have to, what? Go surfing?

  Imposter Dundee claps his hands together. “That’s right. You’re a surfer girl.” He waves his hand. “Hang ten and all that.”

  Jesus. “Yeah, something like that.”

  Normally, I’d think this was a come-on, but I saw the ring. Imposter Dundee’s happily married. With my beach-blonde hair and tanned features I’m a walking, talking Californian postcard—a target for every hot-blooded male on the planet looking for their very own beach babe.

  Imposter Dundee continues to peck away with questions, but he’s got a point. Why have I come? To take up Dad’s words of wisdom and ‘live my life, seize the day’, Dead Poets Society and all that crap? If so, why do I feel so damn nervous, like I’m diving from a plane without a parachute.

  Not a good analogy, Lux.

  “You’re not travelling with anyone else?” Dundee asks.

  “No,” I smile, “just little ol’ me.” Given I’m five-five, that’s quite literal.

  “You’re what? Eighteen?”

  “Twenty-three,” I correct, happy to take the compliment all the same.

  Beside him, Dundee’s wife is drooling over her ‘Dance Moms!’ t-shirt. “Well,” he says, adjusting his belt, “I respect that. Best way to see the world is by yourself, no anchors to tie you down. I wish I did it when I was a more of a spring chicken. Where did you say you’re surfing again?”

  Imposter Dundee has the attention span of a goldfish. I’ve already told him twice.

  “Shipstern Bluff,” I tell him, not that he’ll have any idea what I’m talking about. No one does, not even the surfing elite. It may well be the last truly secret surf spot left on Earth.

  “Oh?” he replies, looking surprised. “Sounds kind of sketchy. What’s so special about it?”

  I swallow hard, fingers pressing even tighter into the pleather armrests. “Someone once told me it’s the gnarliest wave in the world.”

  *

  Shipstern Bluff—a multi-stepped surf break about as predictable as a two-year-old with a tommy gun. “The heaviest wave I ever surfed,” my father told me, and he would know. He’d been around the world before he was twenty-two, the same age as me. He used to surf all the popular haunts in California, was a celebrity at the Wedge. He’d been to Teahupo’o, Tahiti, when he was in his late teens and surfed a monster swell, but he never shut up about Shipstern.

  I have a picture of him deep in a giant barrel from the nineties. The waves must have been forty, maybe fifty foot that day. We said one day we’d ride Shipstern together, but he died last year at the infamous surf break Mavericks. A fitting way to go, really.

  So, here I am.

  There’s a decided lack of humidity when I step off the plane. Storms are predicted later in the week, but from where I’m standing on the tarmac the skies are crystal and cerulean—island perfection.

  I find a ride down to the south-west coast to a tiny town called Finke. I’m staying at a motel about a half mile from the break, not that you’ll find it on any map. When I arrive at the motel with single surfboard and backpack, I’m surprised to find the place is more or less deserted.

  I pay the skinny girl chewing Hubba Bubba at the front desk, the last of my savings gone, and make my way up to a room on the second floor of the motel. Even from here I can see the swell is around ten feet—nothing insane but still plenty big. Dad never shut up about Shipstern. “It’s got these scalloped, sucking waves that defy physics,” he told me. “They bend out over a razor-sharp reef just twenty inches below. The volume of water behind you, over your head, is incredible. Wiping out is like being hit by a semi.”

  I wax my board and head out, keen to get this ticked off my bucket list. I’m not one to sit around pondering, um-ing and ah-ing. I’m all about the action, getting things done.

  Dad talked about the bush trail to Shipstern so much I feel like I’ve been here before.

  The skies lose a little of their luster as I walk, birds calling through the scrub, the vegetation so different, so dry compared to back home.

  After half an hour of walking, I finally come to the ocean and the Bluff itself, a great headland jutting out into the ocean.

  I’m not alone.

  There are three guys on the rocks waxing their boards. They’re golden-skinned with short, dark hair as opposed to the beach-boy stereotype. They share similar features, with tattoos, bodies straight out of a Sons of Anarchy episode.

  One of them sees me, elbowing the others. He stands, eyes falling to my bikini. “You lost, little girl?”

  The condescending tone immediately has me on edge. I knew I’d cop some flack, but Jesus, I only just got off the plane.

  I recognize the accent. “You’re American?”

  They walk over side by side, boards in hand, every muscle sculpted out and glistening in the Tasmanian sun, wetsuits peeled around their waists like my own.

  The tallest one extends his hand. “Once upon a time. Deacon.”

  I shak
e it, his grip strong. “Lux.”

  His eyes run from my chest to my stomach. “Let there be light.”

  Someone get this guy a new playbook.

  He straightens up. “Where you from, Lux?”

  “Cali.”

  “Hollywood, hey? That’s nice.” He nods. “But it doesn’t mean shit out here”.

  Asshole.

  The others step in to introduce themselves, Bo and Razor in turn, the latter sporting a large scar on his left cheek.

  “Razor?” I question. “Is that your real name?”

  He gives me a wink. “Because I’m sharp out there. Wait and see.”

  “You’re related?”

  “Triplets,” replies Deacon.

  Bo looks to my board. “You are heading out, aren’t you?”

  I nod.

  Deacon’s still watching me carefully, his bottle-green eyes seeking out something in my own. “How’d you find out about this place?”

  I shrug. “Family secret, I guess.”

  Bo looks down at the crotch of my wetsuit. “Can’t see ’em, but you’ve got balls, baby. Never seen a chick out there before.”

  Razor punches him in the shoulder. “Or a man.”

  Bo punches him back. “Fuck you.”

  But Deacon simply stands there, boring into me with that stare. “You’d be better off sitting it out. It ain’t Waikiki out there.”

  Asshole, take two.

  I tuck my board higher under my arm. “I’m not a grommet. I can handle myself.”

  Bo smirks. “I bet. Come on then. You’ll be right.”

  Deacon’s shaking his head as I run behind the others heading down to the ocean. I cop a nice look at those tight boardie butts and can’t help but smile.

  Maybe things are looking up.

  Paddling out to the break is torturous. We’re barely halfway and I’m already out of breath. I try to get to the coast as much as possible back home, but I’m out of practice. I’ve gotten sloppy and yet here I am at what Dad said was one of the most dangerous breaks in the world, miles away from civilization.

  What the hell were you thinking?