This time, Jerry caught my first throw. It wasn’t long, but it was complete.
Three yards.
I built on that. Took the open man wherever possible. Ran into open holes whenever they presented themselves. Fought tooth and nail for every inch up the field.
We barely made a new down every time, but we kept on pressing.
Finally, an open man streaked down the field. Ricky.
He doesn’t deserve to get the first touchdown of our season.
I almost threw the ball to Jerry near the sideline, but he had a Portland defender on him closer than white on rice.
Time to bury my ego.
I launched the ball and watched the spiral float down the field. It carried into the end zone before Ricky pulled it down with outstretched hands.
The stadium went nuts.
A loud boom echoed in the building as the celebrations started. Teammates jumped around, high-fiving.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Tony yelled when I got back to the sideline. “Great throw, King. Let’s keep it rolling.”
“Still lots left to do, coach,” I said. “But that felt good.”
I worked my way through the team, receiving enough high fives to numb my hand until I reached the trainer’s section.
“That was an amazing throw,” Juliette said with a wide smile on her face. “That gave everyone in here life.”
If throwing a touchdown always gave her that big of a grin, then I’d have the best offensive season in history just so I could keep seeing that look on her face.
“I hope we can get a stop. It’ll be a long game if they score on every possession.”
The game turned into a hard-fought chess match. Buoyed by newfound confidence, our defense tightened down and gave us a boost. Every time Portland scored, we returned the favor, but we could never gain the lead.
A familiar situation greeted me with twenty seconds left.
“Thirty yards. Twenty seconds. No timeouts. Down by five.” I spelled out the story of the game for the men, as if they didn’t know exactly what the stakes were. “This is our game to win. Let’s show the league we aren’t willing to be walked over this year.”
The men cheered and lined up for what would likely be the final possession of the game.
Just like the championship game last season.
The comparison did nothing to help my blood pressure.
I wonder if Juliette is watching my heart rate from the sideline.
One play. It was moments like these that made legends.
Once the ball was in my hands, time slowed just like it always did. My receivers sprinted toward the end zone, running their routes and doing everything they could to shake the Portland defense. All I had to do was find an open man, and this game could be ours.
Come on.
We were taking too long. The pocket collapsed around me, and no targets appeared to take the pass. In another second or two, the linebackers would be all over me, and the game would end with a two hundred and fifty pound man taking me hard to the ground.
There.
It wasn’t an open man. It was a gap in the pocket.
Run.
It wasn’t even a conscious decision, my body reacting to the positioning it read on the field.
I launched myself between two of my linemen, who struggled to hold back the men who wanted to tackle me to the ground. So much of the Portland defense was involved with denying my receivers an open look that none stood in the way of my sprinting down the field.
Twenty yards. Fifteen.
The black shirts responded, racing out to meet me as I flew toward the end zone.
Ten.
My teammates ran with them, fighting to block the opponents from reaching me in time.
Five. Four-three-two-one!
A last leap at the goal line sent me flying over the Portland defender waiting for me, and I landed heavily on the other side.
The breath was knocked out of me, and I couldn’t hear anything over the raucous explosions filling the stadium. I saw fireworks, and it took a moment to realize they were actual fireworks going off in the sky over the stadium.
Then I was pulled to my feet and surrounded by jumping and screaming teammates. My back was slapped so many times that I made a note to check for bruising tomorrow.
The rest of the team ran onto the field to celebrate, taking in the cheers of the crowd. It felt like we’d just won a playoff game, but I knew we were a long way from that milestone.
This is just one regular season game.
This meant more than that. It represented a new start, a new direction for a franchise that had been in the middle of a death spiral.
Surrounded by ecstatic faces, there was only one I wanted to see, one person I wanted to celebrate with.
I fought my way through the crowd until I found the band of trainers. Juliette stood with Dr. Kent and a few of the medical personnel.
She saw me coming, and the look on her face stopped me dead. She shook her head and nodded toward her professor.
An old man won’t get in the way of what I want.
I resumed walking toward Juliette, and her eyes widened. She said something to Dr. Kent and backed away, fleeing the field.
I stared after her, lost, as teammates swallowed me back up. I wore the grin of the victor, but my mind was on the brunette who’d captured my heart and couldn’t give it back even if she tried.
Chapter 9
~Juliette~
PAST
New relationship energy.
That’s what they call it when you meet someone new and every signal in your brain fires off like crazy, chemicals flooding your system and making you happy and giddy and horny.
I had it bad. With my background, I knew it, too. I knew exactly what was going on within my brain, the reason I kept putting off getting together with my friends to spend the whole day with a man I’d met the day before.
I didn’t even know his name.
And I didn’t want to.
After a day on the beach with his teammates, Cocky and I wandered through town and grabbed dinner at a small Mexican place on the beach. We watched the sun set, and had a few drinks. We talked about our families, what we wanted out of college, and where we wanted to take our lives.
Then we went back to his room.
“We should play a game,” I said. “Do you have any cards?”
“Let me check.”
He rifled through his bags, coming up with a deck after a few seconds of searching.
“What do you want to play?”
I thought about it for a second. I hadn’t had anything in mind—it just felt like a good idea rather than to jump right into sex. The feeling of it was inevitable, but we were enjoying each other’s company even without it turning sexual right away.
“War?”
He shook his head. “Too boring and random. There’s no skill to it, just flipping cards.”
“You have a point. It’s all I can think of, though. Do you know any two-player card games?”
Cocky tilted his head. “Card games? No. Other kinds of games, yes.” His eyes traced the path his mouth had taken last night.
I’d never had someone so obviously enamored with me. It was exhilarating to look over and catch him staring, to not have to guess whether he liked my features but to know he did.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “Why don’t we make up our own game?”
“Make up our own game?” He said it as if the idea had never occurred to him. “We can do that?”
I laughed and jumped onto the bed, patting the spot beside me. “How do you think all the games people play came about? Someone had to think them up, didn’t they?”
He crawled onto the bed. I’d never tire of seeing him move—like a panther stalking his prey, every movement sinuous and deliberate, the grace of an athlete in his prime.
“So what will we call this game?” he asked, his voice a low purr.
Th
e way he looked at me, the way his hand found my thigh, the deep rasp of his voice—we wouldn’t last long in this brainstorming session.
“Does it need a name?” I asked, breath short just from his nearness.
He smiled. “I guess not. What are the stakes?”
I knew what he wanted. It just so happened that I wanted the same thing. “Loser strips off a piece of clothing. If they’re already naked, then they have to do anything the winner wants.”
“I like this game.”
He was close. So close.
“Is that enough brainstorming for now?”
The panther pounced, hands finding my wrists and pinning me to the bed. “We’ll get back to it later.”
His mouth became far too busy to say anything more.
PRESENT
I slipped into the silken pajamas and luxuriated in the feeling of the soft fabric slipping down my body. I’d caved and bought grown-up nightwear last year and had no regrets about swapping the old t-shirts and boxers for the expensive upgrade.
I’m no longer a teenager. I’m allowed to have nice adult things.
No matter how many years passed, it still sometimes felt like I was that nineteen-year-old girl masquerading in a woman’s body. I jumped onto the hotel room bed and looked around, still unable to get over how nicely furnished the room was.
As part of the contract with the league, Dr. Kent and I went to every Los Angeles game, both home and away. We were treated just like the regular staff, which meant traveling with the team and staying in the same hotels at the team’s expense.
Still saddled with a monumental pile of student debt and having only traveled as cheaply as possible, that meant entering a world I’d never known existed. Instead of the drab wallpaper and lumpy bed I expected at hotels, the room felt cozy, with finely detailed wood paneling and complementary art hanging on the walls. The king sized bed was the most comfortable thing I’d ever climbed into—a warm embrace.
A knock cut into my introspection. I skipped to the door and swung it open without wondering who would think to seek me out at this hour.
My heart jumped at the sight of Travis leaning against the door frame.
“Game with no name?” he asked.
He held out a deck of cards and a bottle of wine.
I looked at him, dumbfounded.
His eyes swept down my body and back up, lingering at the curve of my hip and the swell of my breast.
The careful examination reminded me of the clothes I’d just slipped into. Silk did nothing to hide the nipples that had hardened at the sight of his square jaw, piercing eyes, and the lips I knew too well could do incredible things to my body.
I crossed my arms over my chest, hiding my uncooperative nipples.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
I wanted to close the door on him. Had to. It made me so vulnerable, gaping wide and inviting him in as it was.
“What harm could a card game do?”
I shook my head and failed to keep a small smile off my face. “And what about that?”
I pointed to the bottle of wine.
“Oh, this?” He held it up. “It was hanging around my room. I thought I would bring it to someone who could appreciate it.”
My body knew what it wanted—it didn’t know why I hadn’t ripped the clothes off his muscular frame yet. My mind and the contract I had made with the league were the only reasons he still stood in the hallway and wasn’t naked in my bed.
“You have to go, Travis. If someone sees you here, I’m screwed.”
If I kept pointing out how it would hurt me, he couldn’t keep risking hurting my career.
Could he?
“You should hurry up and let me in, then,” he said. “The longer we stand here like this, the higher the chance that someone will walk along and see.”
“Travis,” I stomped my foot. “Come on.”
“Come on what? Be more specific.” He winked and grinned.
Incorrigible.
“Seriously. You have to leave.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere. If you close that door, then I’ll just stay out here and serenade you until you let me in. That might draw attention, though. It would be far easier to just let me in now.”
The man was relentless, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t be mad. Not that he wanted to spend time with me.
Against my better judgment, I moved to the side and held the door open.
“Fine. But we are only talking, Travis. Nothing else.”
My words wavered in the air, not as strong a conviction as they’d sounded in my head.
Travis walked to the side table and pulled out a pair of wine glasses.
I didn’t even know there were wine glasses there.
None of the hotels I’d ever stayed in were so well-appointed.
He held out a wine glass, swirling the deep ruby liquid.
I stared at it. Drinking with him would be a bad idea. My self control was in rough enough shape as it was.
“Come on, Sexy, relax. No one will know what happens in your own room.”
The use of his endearing nickname for me sent a happy jolt to my heart. We could have been back in Florida, except the hotel room was much fancier than the cheap motel room he’d had there.
I took the glass and joined him at the table.
“Do you remember how to play?” he asked as he pulled the cards out of their box.
I nodded. “I’ve taught a bunch of friends the game. We play it all the time. You?”
Travis answered with a grin. “Ditto. We created something amazing. It was one of the only things I had to remember you by.”
No matter what he’d said since reuniting, I found it hard to believe that he’d spent as much of the past five years as hung up on me as I’d been on him. He’d been a college athlete and then gone first overall in the league’s entry draft, leading his new team to the championship game in only two seasons. He’d have his pick of models and actresses—why would he ever spend any time thinking about the girl he’d had a spring break fling with?
“Did you really think of me that much?” I asked.
I said it nonchalantly, pretending I didn’t wait upon his answer with every fiber of my being.
“I did,” he said. “You’re special, Sexy.”
There it was again. That name.
“I thought about you, too.” I volunteered the information, figuring fair’s fair. “But I was too afraid to find you. There’s no way you remained single all that time, and I didn’t want to read about your model girlfriends.”
He barked a laugh. “Did you date anyone since Florida?”
I considered my answer. “I did. A few people. Nothing serious, though. I could never feel a deep connection with anyone. What about you?”
Here it was.
Travis leaned forward and dealt the cards. “I’ve never gotten past a second date since then. The chemistry was never there. After spending a week with you, I was ruined for other women.”
He said it like he discussed the forecast for tomorrow’s game, as if it had no bearing on the here and now. Like it wasn’t a massive bombshell that changed everything.
I stared at him, but he was involved in dealing. My mind churned, considering and throwing away a thousand possible responses in the blink of an eye.
He looked up with that small smile of his. He knew exactly what he’d done and the thoughts running through my mind.
“Your turn.”
I took advantage of the distraction the game provided to change the subject. I couldn’t address what he just said. It was impossible to do that and not end up tearing his clothes off.
I sorted my hand. “Have you done any of the traveling you wanted to do?”
He shook his head. “Football consumes all my time. I don’t have an offseason—that’s when other guys do that sort of thing. I train even harder between seasons. It’s the only way to get ahead, become the best there is. One day, after I retire, I�
��ll get the chance to see the world.”
His passion for his sport was admirable, but I couldn’t help but to feel a little sad for the millionaire sitting across the table. “So you’ll just put it off for that long? I mean, I get it. I’ve been mired in studies for what feels like forever, with who knows how many years left. There’s been no time to travel, and even if I had the time, I have so much student debt that I can’t afford to, anyway.”
“If you were mine, you’d never have to worry about money again.”
Once again, he caught me off guard with his words. I was unable to think of a witty response to lighten the mood.
Instead, I took a final card and set my hand down.
“Down and out in one go. I win this hand with a hundred and twenty points.”
Travis chuckled and put his hand down. “So you did. That makes negative ninety points for me, then.”
My pride over my victory turned to surprise as he pulled his shirt off and threw it on the floor at my feet, revealing his perfect abs to the warm hotel room lighting.
Chapter 10
~Travis~
PAST
Thunderous knocks on the door echoed through the motel room.
“Dude, we’re late for the party!”
Ricky’s voice was annoyed.
Fuck him.
I took my lips off Sexy’s.
“Shut up and go without me, you moron,” I yelled back.
“You’re already two kills behind in the bet. If you don’t come out tonight, then you don’t stand a chance.”
I didn’t bother replying. My mouth had better things to do, and I returned it to its willing partner.
The girl I’d spent almost every hour of spring break with so far responded underneath me, the movements of her body bringing my arousal up to an aching peak in no time, barely restrained by the flimsy swim shorts I wore.
She gasped for breath, breaking the kiss. “Don’t you want to go out? I’m sure you want to find another girl to sleep with at some point.”
I pulled back to look into her eyes. The deep green orbs held my own with no sign of distress.
Extracurricular Page 19
