Dr. Kent’s jaw dropped. “Travis King is joining Los Angeles? How did I miss that announcement?”
I was nonplussed. Even though he was dedicated to researching athletic trauma, he never struck me as a fanboy.
“Is that a big deal?” I asked.
Both men looked at me as if I’d grown another nose on my forehead.
“Big deal?” Tony finally said. “Travis King is incredible. He is the best quarterback in the league, maybe even the best in the past twenty years.”
I shrugged. I purposefully ignored football. I never knew when a certain face might appear on TV and shatter my heart again.
“Speak of the devil—there he is!” Tony nodded toward the tunnel. A form in a pristine white uniform stood at the edge of the field, football tucked under his arm, watching the players going through their warm-ups. He was too far away to see his face, but the form underneath the tight clothing could have been sculpted from marble.
“Can you introduce us?” Dr. Kent asked. “I’ve always wanted to meet Travis King, but I never thought I might have the chance.”
He was like a giddy school girl. I had never seen the normally reserved and dignified professor act like this.
“Sure, but he’ll only want to spare a moment. The man is a hunter, and he will be completely focused on getting to work learning our systems.”
Tony waved his arms to catch the quarterback’s attention. Travis’s big, lean body moved like a well-oiled machine, perfect grace guiding his steps.
I was so busy watching his body that I didn’t look up at his face until he was almost at our side. When I did, the world stopped.
It can’t be…
I’d dreamt of that face every night for five years.
My heart jumped from a leisurely standstill to a thunderous tattoo against my chest, and despite the extra blood flow, I felt faint, like I didn’t have enough oxygen.
He barely looked in my direction, but I couldn’t look away.
He must not remember me. It’s been too long. He’s been with too many women since then. Florida was so long ago.
My mind ran in circles, tumbling over itself as I fought to regain a semblance of control. The men were oblivious as I verged on panic.
“Travis, meet Dr. Kent. He’ll be running that concussion study you may have heard about. Los Angeles drew the short straw and was selected as the pilot team.”
“Doctor.” Travis nodded and shook his hand. “I’m sure the team finishing dead last in the standings didn't help.”
“You may be right.” Tony nodded. “But that’s in the past now that you’re here, isn’t it?”
“We’ll figure it out, coach. You already know my ambitions. I want to build a dynasty here, and I’ll need your help to do it.”
“Anything you need, Travis. This here is Juliette Cartwright. She’s a grad student helping Dr. Kent out.”
He turned and held out his hand.
A jolt rocked his body as he looked at my face for the first time.
He recovered much quicker than I had.
“Juliette.” It sounded so right coming out of his mouth. “That’s a pretty name. I’ve waited a long time to hear it.”
Chapter 2
~Travis~
PAST
“Here we go,” Ricky said with a punch to my shoulder as we walked off the plane. “Spring break is here. You ready, man?”
I grinned at my teammate. “Ready? Miles of beach, hundreds of hot women and no football practices in sight? I’ve been waiting for this all year—maybe even all my life. I can’t believe I missed last year.”
“You’ve got that right. We’ll be kings of the beach. Bitches love football players.” Ricky looked back at the four men exiting the plane behind us. “Isn’t that right, fellas?”
Chad flexed an arm and patted the bulging bicep. “They can’t get enough of the muscles. Go crazy for ‘em. Like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Hey, we should have a competition,” Ricky said. “Whoever bangs the most broads wins, and everyone else owes him a case of beer.”
I sized up the wide receiver. He may be on the starting roster, but I was a quarterback. As soon as Jeff graduated, I’d take the top job and run the highest-ranked college offense in the country.
“You’re on.”
The others chimed in—no one wanted to be the guy who admitted he didn’t have a chance at hooking up with the most women.
We weren’t the only college students in the airport. It was flooded with spring breakers, as if all aircraft had a maximum age limit of twenty-two for the day.
“Dayum.” Ricky nudged me and pointed ahead of us. A group of four girls were talking and laughing, wearing tight clothes that showed off a serious amount of bronzed skin. “I bet you anything they’re from California. Don’t know why they’d even bother coming here when they’ve got it made out there, but Cali girls are fucking freaky.”
I shook my head. “Ricky, have you ever even met a girl from California? And no one calls it Cali. Don’t embarrass yourself.”
“Whatever, man. I’m just saying they’re hot as hell. I’d get on that all night, if you know what I mean.”
I laughed. Ricky was crude and single-minded, but at least it was entertaining. “That’s not an innuendo, Ricky. Of course I know what you mean.”
Besides, he had a point. The girls turned heads all the way through the airport. By the time we’d followed them to the baggage carousels, they must have surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of whiplash in the state.
While they were all pretty, the brunette on the right was radiant. I kept forcing my gaze away to keep from staring, but seconds later, I found any excuse to look her way once more.
We found our carousel, but the bags hadn’t come out yet. The girls waited for their own at the next one over, standing a mere dozen feet away.
“Travis!” Ricky slapped my arm.
“Huh? What’s up?”
“Here’s your chance to get ahead in the kill count. Go talk to the girl you’ve been eye-fucking for the past ten minutes.”
He hadn’t lowered his voice—he’d practically shouted the words.
The brunette looked our way. Her green eyes found mine, flicked down my body, and back up to my face. She raised her eyebrows and turned back to her friends.
She said something quietly, and the whole group tittered like a gaggle of songbirds.
I shoved Ricky’s shoulder. “Damn it, man, what the hell?”
I crossed the gap to the group of girls.
“Hey, I’m sorry about my friend. He’s got a mouth big enough to eat his own foot.”
The brunette cocked her head to the side and stepped away from her friends as they hunted for their bags. “And I’m guessing you’re the more considerate type?”
I smiled. She was willing to play ball.
“I’m just the perfect amount of considerate, sexy. I’ll bend you over, but I’ll buy you a drink first.”
She put a hand on her hip. “What if I have a bad back? Bending over puts such a strain on it, you know.”
My smile widened to a grin. “I know how to stretch you out just fine.”
“Tempting. I think your friends are a bad influence on you. Maybe you should spend your time with me instead.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but she turned away and picked up a bright flowery bag from the carousel.
Instead of returning, she walked over to her friends and they made for the exit. I watched them go, but she never looked back.
“Oh, my God,” Ricky said, walking over from our teammates. “That was brutal. You should see the look on your face right now. Classic. This bet is so mine.”
I ignored him, unable to tear my eyes away from the door.
Something important had just slipped out of my grasp.
PRESENT
This is it. This is your shot. Your opportunity to build a legacy they will never forget.
It felt good, the first walk down the t
unnel to the practice field. Like I’d come home. My first two years in the league had been good, but I still didn’t have a championship, and in Portland, I’d had to share the spotlight with one of the league’s top running backs.
Here, it would be all about me. And I wouldn’t disappoint.
I couldn’t. My whole life had built to this point.
The trade had caught the league by storm. No quarterback in his right mind would not only agree to be traded, but actively pursue a fresh start with the worst team in the league.
No other quarterback has my balls.
And no other quarterback had the vision to see that this team only lacked a good arm and steady leadership on the field to become decent. With a couple of extra pieces added in from signings and trades, we might even be competitive.
A waving arm caught my attention. The head coach, Tony Perkins. Just the man I was looking for.
He was with two other people, but the men on the field captured my attention. Integrating with a new team was always difficult, and my mind spun as I went over my strategies for gaining their trust. I barely paid attention as I shook the doctor’s hand.
When I went to shake the second hand, I finally looked at her, and the thoughts stopped.
Everything stopped.
Say something!
My mind was a blank, but thankfully, my mouth was used to operating with little conscious thought guiding it.
“Juliette? That’s a pretty name. I’ve waited a long time to hear it.”
I wanted to say more. I wanted to ask her where she’s been, what she’s done.
“Thank you, Travis.” She smiled, and it looked just like I remembered. “I’m glad to see you finally made it off the second string.”
Tony and Dr. Kent wore identical expressions—jaws open, eyebrows knit together, looking back and forth between us as if they watched a tennis match.
“Excuse us for a moment, will you?” I said to them and grabbed Juliette’s arm to pull her a few yards away.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Her eyes hadn’t left my face since I first saw her. “Dr. Kent and I are running a concussion study, like Tony said.”
“Not that. I thought you were going into geriatrics.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “I’m surprised you remembered that. After our fling in Florida, I found sports medicine more interesting, so I switched my focus.”
It was surreal to stand next to her once more. The long brunette hair was exactly as I remembered, but she wore a demure blouse and pants instead of the bikini top and short shorts I’d fantasized about for so long.
It didn’t make her any less attractive.
She wore the face of a self-possessed woman, different in subtle but distinct ways from the teenager she’d been, but she was as gorgeous as ever, if not more so. Every contour of her cheekbone and jaw sparked a cascade of vivid memories that threatened to drown me out of the present.
Neither of us had spoken in over a minute as we looked at each other.
She smiled. “Sorry. It’s just been so long. It’s hard to believe that you’re here in front of me.”
“Trust me, I know what you mean.”
We shared a laugh, the tension between us fading as we regained a portion of the easy comfort that made the week in Florida a highlight of my life.
“How have you been?” she asked. “You obviously made it to the pros, and judging from what Tony and Dr. Kent said as you walked up, you’ve been making a name for yourself.”
Her face was open and earnest.
Did she really never look me up?
We’d never shared our names, but she knew which school I went to and that I was the quarterback. I wouldn’t have been hard to find.
“I went number one in the draft,” I said. I allowed myself a moment to recall the sense of exaltation that had filled me when the general manager called my name from the podium. A life’s effort dedicated toward a singular, highly unlikely purpose, and to achieve that dream… “It was a good day.”
“Good day? Don’t pretend like you didn’t have the biggest shit-eating grin on your face for a month. I know you.”
I nodded, conceding the point. She knew me better than anyone ever had, despite the short time we’d spent together.
“I think I caused permanent damage to my cheek muscles from all the smiling.”
“And after that? You just got traded to Los Angeles, right?”
“That’s right. I was in Portland for two seasons. We went from worst in the league to the championship game last year.” I hesitated. The memory was still raw. “I could have won it with the final play of the game, but I fucked up the throw.”
She winced. “Sorry to bring that up. That must have been tough.”
Tough was an understatement. The off-season had been spent doing two things—soul searching and practicing relentlessly.
“I’m past it. The important part is that I have the chance to start fresh with a new team. If I can build Los Angeles into a powerhouse this year after their terrible season last year, it will feed into my legacy as being one of the biggest difference-makers in the history of the sport.”
She knew how important that was to me. We’d talked about it enough.
“Enough about me,” I said. “What about you, Juliette?”
It was only the second time I had ever said her name. It rolled through my mouth, three syllables I knew I would spend the night repeating over and over.
“Nothing nearly as exciting. I finished my undergrad in kinesiology and went into grad studies. There is cutting edge research going on at the college, and I’m lucky enough to have been picked by Dr. Kent to assist him with this study. It’s the first time the league has ever allowed something like this.”
I eyed her. “So you’ll be here all season?”
It would be heaven to have her around all the time.
She blushed at the look I gave her. “I will be, yes. Assuming the study goes smoothly.”
“Excellent. We’ll have to take advantage of that.”
I wanted to kiss her so badly.
Chapter 3
~Juliette~
PAST
“Here’s the plan. We’ll party it up at this bar tonight and see where it goes. If you can find places to spend the nights, that’s perfect. It’s a little too cramped in our room.”
Heather already scanned the crowd, looking for a partner for the night.
I took a sip of my drink. It was impossible to even taste the alcohol over the sweet, sugary slush mixed with it.
Dangerous. I can already feel it.
“See, this is why I said we should just get two rooms for the four of us,” I said. “You might be a dirty slut—love you—but I don’t want to hook up with guys just so I can sleep more comfortably.”
“Loosen up, Juliette! You finally broke up with your high school boyfriend after months of us telling you that long distance college relationships don’t work. We’re here at spring break. Just enjoy it and find out what you’ve been missing all this time. The world won’t end if you have a one-night stand with no strings attached a couple of times, you know?”
The mention of Jim gave my bruised heart a jolt, but I shrugged it off. Heather was right. I didn’t have to be so uptight anymore. College was the time when it was excusable to let loose a little.
Besides, it’s been so long since I’ve had sex.
Jim and I hadn’t seen each other since Christmas break, and my fingers could only give so much satisfaction. I thought of the man from the airport. Flirting with him had been fun and had turned me on, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how he couldn’t take his eyes off me.
Nothing I can do about that now. There are so many people here for spring break. I won’t see him again.
I took a deeper gulp of the cold drink. It still felt wrong to be drinking at a bar, but the fake IDs we’d gotten before the trip had worked flawlessly.
Either that, or they know exactly who t
heir clientele is. If they crack down on the underage drinkers, they won’t make nearly as much money.
An arm reached between Heather and me to rest on the pillar beside us. The man who’d separated us was big enough that I couldn’t see around him.
“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked as I looked up at him.
The startling blue eyes that had captured my attention at the airport stared into my own. A familiar smug smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“Oh, excuse me. You’re the one who said I should spend my time with you.”
Heather peeked around his broad shoulders and gave me a thumbs up. She walked away, and I struggled to think of something witty to say.
“Um, that’s true—”
“But you didn’t think I’d ever find you again, did you?” His grin was less smug and more open now. It made his already attractive face downright devastating. “Aren’t you glad I did?”
“No… no, I didn’t think that one through,” I admitted. “You’re pretty cocky to think I wasn’t just messing with you.”
“Not cocky,” he said. “Confident. There’s a difference. What’s your name?”
I shook my head. “No names.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. I guess I’ll just have to call you Sexy, then.”
A pleasant flush crept up the back of my neck. “Then maybe I'll call you Cocky.”
“That’s a good fit. I’ll show you my big—”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Keep it in your pants for now. I’m not that easy.”
“For now?” The flush spread to my cheeks at the look he gave me. “I was going to say that I’ll show you my big heart. But if your mind is that deep in the gutter, then maybe I can show you something else.”
To save myself from saying anything else embarrassing, I took a long gulp of my drink instead. Cocky took my glass and set it on a table, then he grabbed my hand.
“Let’s go dance.”
His confidence was disarming—he didn’t give me a chance to say no.
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