by J. H. Croix
I held still for a beat.
“Daisy.”
I barely managed to speak, her name coming out in a choked whisper.
Her eyes opened, her liquid brown gaze slammed to mine. I swallowed, my heart clenching tight. On the heels of a breath, I slid into her in one swift surge. Her breath came out in a low moan, her lids dropped, but she didn’t look away.
“I meant what I said,” I murmured as I drew back and sank into her creamy clench again.
“What… Oh Tristan,” she moaned.
Bloody hell. The sound of her saying my name in that husky voice nearly made me come right there. I hung onto the thinnest thread of control.
She felt so good, slick, wet and pulsing around me. I forgot I’d meant to say something until she spoke again.
“What did you mean?”
“I love you.”
My heart felt as if it might fly out of my chest—the enormity of my feelings for her and the relief at finally letting go of fighting them was almost too much to contain. But Daisy was here with me, held tight against me, and it would be okay.
Her eyes teared up again. Next thing I knew she was murmuring she loved me, and I was futilely wiping tears mingled with rain off of her cheeks. At some point, she laughed softly and tightened her legs around me, shifting her hips just enough to remind me I needed her more than I needed air to breathe, or at least that much.
I drew back again, savoring the feel of her wet heat caressing my cock. In a matter of seconds, my release was thundering through me. I reached between us, pressing my thumb against her hot little button of need. Her channel throbbed around me, and she cried out just as pleasure lashed at me, so hard I had to catch my balance on the wall behind her. With my breath heaving, I spent myself inside of her. She held on tight, and I savored the feel of her heart pounding against me.
I adjusted her in my arms, sliding my hand along her thigh. At the feel of her pebbled skin under my palm, awareness broke through the haze of need and emotion clouding my brain. I lifted my head and looked around. We were barely out of view of the sidewalk. Now that I wasn’t driven entirely by need, I could see that perhaps we weren’t in the best spot. Inside of a second, anyone could come up the steps behind us and turn to find us here.
I caught her lips in a quick kiss and started to draw back. She tightened her legs around me.
“Where are you going?” she asked, a mutinous look in her eyes.
“Luv, it’s raining, we’re both wet and any minute now we might run out of luck and give someone an accidental show.”
Her eyes widened, and for a moment, I savored the fact she appeared to have completely forgotten where we were as well. She bit her lip and nodded.
“Oh right.”
I eased away, quickly tucking myself back into my jeans and helped her pull her skirt down. I paused and glanced down at her. “Did you drive or walk?”
“Oh, I drove! Let’s go to my office and then home.”
My heart gave a hard thump as I curled my hand into hers. We walked through the rain together. In short order, we were back at her place. She was visibly shivering and had been ever since we got to her car. I tugged her into the shower. Not much later, she was curled up beside me in bed. I stared at the glow in the dark stars on her ceiling and considered that I finally felt like I was home. Home wasn’t a place. Home was Daisy.
Epilogue
Daisy
Two years later
“Shut the fu…” I slapped my hand over my mouth, looking over to see Tristan’s shoulders shaking.
“Please be quiet,” I said, rephrasing with a syrupy sweet voice and glaring at him.
We were at the kitchen table, and our one-year old daughter, Lily, was busy chasing cereal around on her high chair tray. Tristan had just informed me we needed more diapers because he’d apparently forgotten to get them from the store yesterday.
I was irate about this because, well, just because. Life was busy. Crazy busy. Tristan was still playing for the Seattle Stars. After he’d predicted he might only play another year or two after his knee injury, he was stronger than ever. At thirty-four years old, he definitely had more years of play in him now. The Stars had regrouped after the team had been shuffled with players getting traded and injuries sidelining others. The core of the Brit Boys was still holding though.
In the two years since that rainy night when we’d finally both faced the fact that we loved each other, much had changed while much remained the same. I’d actually taken over the very position Tristan had temporarily covered at the hospital during his break from soccer while he recovered from his injury. He was still declaring he’d be back to medicine, but I figured that was his retirement plan. I ran the research clinic at the hospital and took Lily to work with me where we had an on-site daycare.
Tristan had finally given up his completely pointless apartment about six months after that rainy night. We’d sold my duplex a year later and purchased a charming house in the same neighborhood where Liam and Olivia lived. I could walk down the street to see my bestie if I wanted, and I often did.
Oh, and we’d had Lily. I still couldn’t get over it, but she’d been a surprise. I’d been on the pill for so long, I didn’t think much about it. I’d had a nasty flu and completely forgotten to take the pill for a few days. I’d so thoroughly forgotten it, I didn’t even think about it when I felt better. Until I got pregnant.
I looked over at Lily. She had Tristan’s black curls and hazel eyes. She appeared to have been cursed with my personality—she was bold and reckless sometimes and generally a tornado in our house. My heart squeezed tightly when I glanced to Tristan.
He winked at me with a shrug. “Sorry luv. I totally forgot, and it wasn’t on the list.”
I shrugged. “I’m already over it.”
He stood from the table and carted his now empty plate to the dishwasher, returning to fetch mine. I’d discovered he was a sublime cook. In the early months of our relationship, we were too busy screwing every chance we got for me to notice much of anything else. He’d gone so far above and beyond his initial promise to give me an orgasm, I could hardly remember it had ever been a problem for me.
He closed the dishwasher and paused behind my chair, sliding his hands down my arms and dipping his head to drop kisses along my neck. Shivers rolled through me.
“Why don’t you drop Lily off and come back home?” he murmured, the feel of his lips moving against my skin making my channel clench.
That’s all it took, and my panties were wet. This man had ruined so many pairs of underwear at this point it was a joke. I angled my head, catching his eyes.
Oh God. His gaze was hot and dark. There was no question I’d be hurrying to drop Lily off and turning right back around.
***
Tristan
I watched Daisy hurry up the walkway toward me. I was waiting on the side porch of our home. It had only been maybe twenty minutes since she’d left to drop Lily off, and as far as my body was concerned, it felt like forever. As usual, she wore one of her tidy, barely professional outfits. Fuck me. I was quite certain I’d never get tired of the sight of her in one of her fitted skirts and blouses. I’d torn plenty of buttons off and intended to do just that right now. As soon as she cleared the top step, I caught her hand and reeled her to me.
Her lush bottom felt perfect in my palm. I actually had somewhere to be, so I wasted no time. I spun us through the screen door. In a few stumbling steps, we were by the kitchen counter. I lifted her up, expecting to find her panties wet.
Instead of silk, I dragged my fingers through her bare, wet folds.
“You forgot something,” I murmured against her lips.
She giggled and then moaned when I sank a finger into her. “No I didn’t. They were a mess, so I took them off.”
“We have five minutes.”
“Well then, you’d best get to it.”
Roughly fifteen minutes later—because we weren’t ver
y good at quickies—I dropped my head into her shoulder thinking for the thousandth time that I was exactly where I needed to be. With the scent of Daisy surrounding me and all of her close to me, my heart felt so full it was hard to believe I’d ever worried about relationships being messy. With Daisy, I’d take the mess all day, every day for the rest of my life.
***
Thank you for reading Play Me! I hope you enjoyed Tristan and Daisy’s story. Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter at http://jhcroixauthor.com/subscribe/ to get a free copy of another one of my books!
In the meantime, please enjoy the first three books in this series - three full-length novels are here for you to enjoy for a limited time!
xoxo
JH Croix
The Play
Brit Boys Sports Romance
By J.H. Croix
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 J.H. Croix
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 9781541159976
ISBN-10: 1541159977
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Chapter 1
Liam
“Bloody hell,” I mumbled. I gave my knee a test bend, only to grit my teeth at the bolt of pain.
“Easy mate,” Alex said. “No need to be stupid about it.”
I glanced to Alex and rolled my eyes. Alex Gordon was waiting with me at the sleek, state of the art medical facility in Seattle. I was sitting there with a badly twisted knee waiting for the surgeon who was supposed to work wonders and make me good as new.
“At least we won,” I said, latching onto something other than the throbbing pain in my knee.
Alex chuckled and leaned his head against the wall behind him. Not for the first time, I was damn grateful he happened to be here with me. A month ago, we were signed to an American team on the heels of a crushing loss in a championship game in England. I’d known Alex since we were best mates in grammar school in a small town outside of London. We grew up playing football together, went to university together and got lucky enough to be signed to the same team back in England. Two months ago when my mum died from a stroke out of nowhere, I lost my focus, and our team lost its shot at the championship game. Before I came out of my stupor, our harebrained management ended our contracts and next thing I knew, my best shot at a good contract was with the Seattle Stars, a team paying big money for talent. Seeing as they signed me along with Alex and two other teammates from England, I went for it.
“It’d be nice if they called football by its proper name here,” I said, my favorite complaint ever since we landed on American soil.
Alex ran a hand through his messy brown hair, giving a roll of his brown eyes. “Not happening, mate. American football is way more popular than soccer here.”
“Bloody stupid to call it something else when everywhere else it’s football,” I mumbled.
He shrugged and moved on. “How’s the knee?”
Alex knew as well as I did there was plenty to worry about with my knee. Many footballers had seen their career stall after a knee injury. A bad injury or a less than stellar recovery could mean reduced speed and reflexes, which could mean the difference between good and amazing. Elite players weren’t good. They had to be amazing. The team’s doctor had ridden with us on the way here, but he’d wandered off to find the surgeon who was supposed to work magic on my knee.
“Eh, hurts. Can’t be too bad though. I walked off the pitch.”
“Field, mate. It’s a field here.”
I elbowed Alex in his side, which was conveniently not the side with my bruised shoulder. A nasty collision with a defender sent me sideways, twisting my knee and jamming my shoulder into the ground. I was impatient and ready to see the doctor. Just as I started to wonder where the hell Dr. Monroe was, the door to the room where I’d been deposited with Alex opened.
I looked up into the most gorgeous pair of green eyes I’d ever seen. A woman walked through the door, and my mind was effectively blown with one look at her. Her eyes were bright behind her glasses. The wild, dark curls of her hair were partially tamed into a knot atop her head, yet a few curls escaped as if in defiance, one winding around the temple of her glasses. The curls dangled around her face, which was heart-shaped, her complexion pale with a few freckles scattered across her nose. Never one to shy away from a good long look, my eyes traveled down, taking in the woman’s basic green hospital scrubs. It was hard to tell what her figure was underneath, although she was curvy enough her breasts were stretched against her top. All I could do was stare at her. For the first time since I’d collided with that defender on the pitch, I wasn’t obsessing about what any of it might mean for my career.
Dr. Monroe stepped into the room behind the woman who’d paused by the door, her hands clasped together in front of her. Those green eyes of hers flicked from me to Alex, but her expression was hard to read. “Liam, this is Dr. Bowen. She’s here to take a look at your knee.” Dr. Monroe turned to the woman as he gestured to me. “This is Liam Reed.”
I started to stand when it occurred to me that might not be the brightest idea. “Nice to meet you Dr. Bowen,” I said with a wink.
I felt Alex’s shoulders shake slightly with laughter beside me. Dr. Bowen adjusted her glasses, which were green to match her eyes and angled up at the corners slightly. “Nice to meet you Liam. Let’s get you into the examining room here,” she said, pointing to a door off the small waiting room.
Alex stood at the same moment Dr. Monroe stepped to my side. I wanted to brush them away, annoyed my knee was in enough pain I’d rather stay right where I was. I gritted my teeth and tolerated Alex’s hand under one elbow while he walked beside me through the door into the examining room. The room wasn’t large by any means. With two footballers and a tall doctor in there with the lovely Dr. Bowen, there was hardly any room to move around the table in the center of the room.
I was accustomed to having people around me constantly when it came to the state of my health and playing. Dr. Bowen, on the other hand, didn’t seem to think a group exam was a great idea. She adjusted her glasses again, tempting me to want to tug on one of her errant curls. “I’d like some privacy please,” she said briskly.
Alex quietly turned and stepped out of the room. He was the tall, dark, quiet type, which was why he was such an amazing goalkeeper—calm and cool at all times. Dr. Monroe, on the other hand, turned his sharp eyes to Dr. Bowen. “Olivia, I’d like to be here for the exam,” he said firmly, as if expecting no argument.
As a flush rose on her cheeks and her eyes narrowed, all I could think about was how perfect her name was for her. Olivia. Lust roared through me, followed promptly by a jolt of pain when I went to lean against the table.
Olivia basically had a stare down with Dr. Monroe. After several beats, she spoke again. “Whether you’d like to be here or not, it’s not how I work. Liam is my patient, and I’d like to meet with him privately first. I understand you’re the team doctor and would like to be involved in planning, but first I’d like to take a good look at his knee, review the MRI results and then we’ll talk.”
I bit back a grin because damn if her bossy side wasn’t fun to see. I sobered immediately, realizing she was trying to do right by me and not just go along with whatever the team doctor, and by extension, management might want. After another brief staring contest, Dr. Monroe nodded and turned to leave. He glanced back at me before he closed the door. “Liam, if you need me, let me know.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I knew Dr. Monroe meant well, but it’s not lik
e Olivia would hurt me. I was quite looking forward to a few private moments with her, although for all the wrong reasons. He closed the door behind him, and I turned to Olivia. I’d stopped even thinking of her in doctor terms and was busy wondering how the hell I could get her out of those scrubs.
She wasn’t even looking at me and was clicking through some screens on a laptop on the counter. After a moment, she turned back. She held a pen in her hand and flipped it back and forth between her fingers. Her gaze coasted over me. I was sweaty and streaked with dirt and didn’t give a damn.
“Well, Olivia,” I said, emphasizing her name. “You wanted to meet with me privately. Here we are.”
Her eyes widened and then narrowed. I could sense her wrestling with her thoughts, and it made me want to tease her even more. I felt let down when she simply shook her head slightly and stepped to my side. “Let’s get you on the table.” She moved efficiently and had me sitting on the table with my leg stretched out before I knew it. Her touch was cool and impersonal.
“I took a look at the MRI results from the scan they did before they brought you here. You tore your meniscus, but I’m guessing that doesn’t surprise you,” she said, her hand resting on my lower calf.
My gut clenched and an awful feeling of dread welled inside, sickening fear chasing fast on its heels. Football was my life. I didn’t play for the fame, but I had it. It came with being one of the best midfielders in England and right up there in the world. A knee injury could spell the end of my career, and I was only twenty-eight. I had plenty more years to play if I stayed healthy. I swallowed against the fear rising inside and met Dr. Bowen’s gaze. She’d suddenly become Dr. Bowen in my mind again. I needed her to be that right now, so I could cling to the hope she could make me good as new. I’d been promised she was one of the best surgeons I’d find, and I prayed that to be true.
