THE MAN. THE GAME. THE BABY. (A Knight Brothers Novel) (A Bad Boy Sports Romance)

by London Casey

  Welcome to world of

  THE KNIGHT BROTHERS

  ~

  A romance novel by London Casey

  London Casey is the pen name for bestselling romance author Karolyn James

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  THE MAN. THE GAME. THE BABY.

  A Knight Brothers Novel

  They hired her to keep me out of jail. Now she’s carrying my baby…

  Roman Knight. You know the name. You know the reputation… on and off the field. There’s not a pass I can’t complete or a woman I can’t charm. I’m the highest paid quarterback in the league. But I’m one bar fight away from jail. Now my people have hired some lawyer to try to control me. Yeah, right. I know she’s going to last about as long as all my other lawyers.

  Right up until I meet her.

  As soon as I lay eyes on Willow, I know I have to have her… in my bed and in my life. I always get what I want, and this time, I end up with a little more than planned. Willow is pregnant… and if that’s not shocking enough, a late night incident results in a murder charge being thrown my way. I’m left with a choice – rat on an old friend or go to jail.

  If I want a real life, and a family… I’m going to have to fight for it.

  (Roman)

  THEN

  I had the guy by the neck and eyed the window. I always wanted to throw someone through a window. Instead, I just punched him, knocking him down and out.

  The bar was a disaster.

  Someone had already yelled to call the police.

  The last thing I needed was more legal trouble.

  Shit, if I was going to end up in jail again, I should have thrown the asshole through the window.

  NOW

  “Hey, Knight! Can I get an autograph?”

  I liked coming to the dive bar scene because it reminded me where I came from. I didn’t buy into the whole rags to riches kind of thing. My plan had always been pretty simple. That was to figure out how to make a shit ton of money as fast as possible so I didn’t have to worry about a thing.

  The first time I touched a football, it was by accident. I was trying to track down a homemade arrow my brothers and I made. Caine had tried to shoot a squirrel but the arrow barely got into the air before coming down in some brush. Slade laughed his ass off as he drank a can of piss warm beer we stole from our old man. We always drank beer like that. One can between the three of us. It never got us drunk and it never tasted good, but when we were that young, that was our rebellion to the world.

  I found the football and picked it up. I forgot about the arrow and told Caine to go for a pass. It’s hard to explain what happened that day. I held the football and it felt right. My fingers touching the laces. My thumb gripping the leathery skin tight. I dropped back, my weight on my right leg. I threw my arm forward and the fucking football took off. A perfect spiral in the air. Up, up, up it went. Then it slowly curved and came down.

  It missed Caine by a mile because of how much force I had behind it.

  Funny thing?

  We lost the football as fast as we found it.

  We still forgot about the arrow.

  We finished our can of warm beer and snuck to the top of a ledge. In the creek below was where some older kids would dam it up and make it into a pool. College girls would come there and they’d drink and fool around.

  Naked women and football.

  It consumed me… and made me insanely rich.

  I grabbed a napkin, flipped it over, and signed the napkin.

  “Here you go, bro,” I said and handed it back to the guy.

  “Holy shit,” the guy said. “Roman fucking Knight. You’re fucking here, man.”

  “I’m always here,” I said.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m not from around here. I’m visiting my cousin. Damn, man, that throw you had in the last game of the season. Fuck. You need better receivers.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” I said.

  “You have a wicked arm, Roman. The best I’ve ever seen. What do you curl?”

  “Two women and a beer,” I said.

  The guy laughed. He clutched his signed napkin. He gritted his teeth and nodded. “Fuck yeah, man. Thank you for signing this. Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Sure thing, buddy.”

  The guy ran away to pay six bucks to give me a beer. We weren’t going to sit together and talk about football. Fuck no. I had a security team hanging around the bar in case I needed it. All I had to do was snap my fingers and they’d be right there to fuck shit up.

  Then again, I liked to do that on my own which was why they were hanging at a table at the front of the dive bar.

  I was in the corner, by myself. My own table. My own thoughts.

  I was on beer seven of at least ten. My eyes scanned the place, looking for the lucky winner of a one night stand with me. There were tabloid writers and paparazzi all over the outside, waiting for their chance to strike at me.

  Take a picture of me with the lucky woman, asking me who she was. Or maybe some asshole would be ballsy enough to ask about my legal problems. I had a few things hanging in the background. A weapons charge. An assault charge. A few threats that I made which were blown way out of proportion. But I wasn’t worried. I employed a fucking legal team who made it their lives to keep my ass out of jail and in good standing with the league. They were totally PG, trying to turn their warrior athletes into heroes.

  I wasn’t a fucking hero.

  I was a survivor. I found a way to throw a football and did it well enough that I rode through high school, college, and into the pros like it was a nice big wave out of a sunny and warm island.

  The season was finally over, a grueling one at that. I set the record for most passing yards in one year. That was matched with touchdown passes, touchdown runs, and completions of fifty yards or more. And that was with my main receiver with a torn ACL. The crazy motherfucker tried to change a play on me and when I put the ball where it belonged, he wasn’t there. He tried to twist and make a move and blew himself out. We got into the playoffs but I took a dirty hit from some lunk and thanks to concussion protocol I had to miss the second and third quarters. By the time I got the ball back into my hands, it was too late. I took the game by the balls but didn’t have enough time to undo what was done by our backup quarterback.

  I stared into my beer and thought about the last play.

  Quick snap, face the handoff, roll back into the pocket. My receiver, Shawn, cutting down the side of the field. He stops, turns, then makes a cut. He burns the defender. My O-line struggling to keep the defense back. From my blindside I could feel something coming at me. It’s a bull of a man, rage in his eyes, victory pouring from him. I try to tuck the ball but his paw like hand smacks it out of my hand. My eyes never leave the ball though. I’d rather break my neck from getting tackled by a four hundred pound lineman than lose sight of the ball.

  I’m faster than the guy chasing after me, now the ball. I run backwards, scoop the ball, and keep going. I know it looks insane on the footage. My darting back for a ten yard loss. The clock is already at zero, so fuck it. I stop, turn, know I have a second to make this happen. I plant my foot, grit my teeth, and throw the ball.

 
I take the hit and slam to the field with a thud that pops every bone in my spine. I lose my breath and can’t see for a few seconds. I hurry to stand and fall to my knees in pain. I grab for someone and get back to my feet.

  Shawn is there and the ball drops to him… except it gets to the one yard line.

  The fucking one yard line.

  Shawn makes a beautiful catch and spins, diving forward.

  Two defenders are there, grabbing him by the waist and throwing him back.

  One fucking yard short.

  After the game, I got interviewed by ten different people. Telling me how great I was. How it was a historic comeback. How the footage will be used and shown for years. For me, it’s all about the win.

  The taste of loss is something I don’t accept.

  I know what it feels like to be beaten… literally…

  I caught myself gripping my mug of beer tight as I shook the thoughts away. There was nothing to do now. I got paid whether I won or lost. That was the beauty of it all. The contract was signed. My bonus paid. My salary paid. And then all the incentives paid.

  Money. Beer.

  “Hey, Roman…”

  I looked up and a woman stood before me. A white tank top, way too tight for her curvy body, but she already knew that. She leaned forward, tits spilling from the top. She reached for a napkin, putting those tits inches from my face.

  “Do you want my autograph too?” I asked.

  The woman grinned. “No. The napkin is to wipe the drool off your face.”

  “Please, honey,” I said and grabbed her wrist. “The only thing wet is between your fucking legs.”

  Her eyes went wide.

  Just like that… I win.

  (Willow)

  I looked at the martini and curled my lip. My hair was pulled back too tight. My feet hurt from the heels. And my goddamn bra… like I didn’t need anything to be pushed up, okay? But since I wasn’t packing big fake stripper tits, it was better for me to have my top a little bit open with my boobs hanging out. But that was only because I was out of the office. In the office, when I wasn’t with a client, I had to keep things buttoned up.

  Lady like.

  Whatever the hell that meant.

  I touched the skinny part of the martini glass and slid it to the edge of the bar.

  “Everything okay, ma’am?” the bartender asked.

  “I need a beer,” I said. “Please.”

  The young man smiled.

  He was cute. Really cute.

  The last thing I needed was to corrupt the life of a young man trying to make ends meet as a bartender. Even still, the rules of a one night stand could still apply.

  I thought about it as he twisted the cap off a beer. He nodded and walked away. I checked him out and actually started to consider it.

  This was what I had become.

  “Willow, why are you weeping?”

  I rolled my eyes when I heard the rough voice.

  It was a partner in the law firm I worked at.

  “Big Johnny,” I said with a smile.

  He instantly touched his stomach as though it wasn’t there. Maybe it was wrong to be that way to him, but the guy was a fat arrogant prick. He had a wife, two kids, and at least ten girlfriends scattered across the country.

  “Heard about the Donnelly verdict,” he said. He killed off his martini and pointed to the glass. “That was a rough one.”

  “A sketchy past and a fresh DUI will do that to you,” I said.

  “You didn’t want to defend, huh?”

  “I’m objective in my job, Johnny. I do as I need to do.”

  “Then you would have done more,” he said, getting close to me. “See, Dale had some connections and his problems were supposed to go away to help us.”

  “Is that how justice works? Based on favors?”

  “Please. You still got the fresh law school coating on your pretty skin, Willow. Give it a few more years. It’ll wear off. You’ll see the truth.”

  “And what is the truth?”

  “The truth is that his past meant nothing to this case,” Johnny said. “You never argued the fact that he was arrested in a jurisdiction with connections to a rival real estate developer who, by the way, had paid through the nose for a previous blackmail charge.”

  I swallowed hard. Sometimes all this shit was as dirty as politics. I had gone this route in life to keep the bad guys away from hurting good people. Yeah, that meant I should have been a prosecutor, but when I had the chance to defend someone who needed it, it ignited a new passion in me. The problem now was that most of the people I dealt with were guilty as sin and I had to find a way to maneuver the law in their favor.

  I grabbed my beer and took a big drink.

  “That’s not very lady like, Willow.”

  “Like I give a shit,” I said.

  “You should consider offering a better image.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Are my tits not showing enough for you?”

  Johnny laughed. “You know me, Willow. There’s never enough.”

  I eyed Johnny up and down. “I can see that.”

  “That also goes for the size of my dick.”

  “That sounds like sexual harassment to me,” I said. “Are you prepared to face that charge?”

  Johnny took his fresh martini and looked me in the eyes. “You should be fired, Willow. You fuck up one more time and I can promise you, it will happen.”

  I watched him waddle away, bouncing through the crowd. Anyone who turned, wanting to say something, quickly realized it was Johnny and kept their mouths shut. We were all puppets, letting our strings get pulled on so we could make some money and try to make partner.

  It was crazy but I did enjoy my job. I got to stand up for myself and for people who needed me. Yeah, there were plenty of assholes mixed in that bag, but you never knew what was going to happen or who would walk into your life.

  I finished my beer and turned to find Mr. Cutie Bartender staring at me.

  “Another one?” he asked.

  “How about a shot?” I asked.

  “You don’t fit in here, do you?”

  “No,” I said. “Why don’t you pour me a shot and you take your break? I could kill off fifteen minutes with you.”

  Seriously, Willow? You really just did that?

  The bartender looked at me. “Well, you are fucking beautiful.”

  “Yeah, enough of the chit-chat. Let’s go.”

  He put his hand to mine and grinned. “I would love to. But I don’t think my boyfriend would like it. Or me.”

  I shut my eyes and pulled my hand away.

  Of course I would try and pick up a gay guy at a bar. This is my life.

  (Roman)

  She wiggled hard against my dick. Trust me, it didn’t take much to get it hard. Fuck, it was long enough to begin with before filling up. But this chick wanted it bad.

  I grabbed her waist and squeezed tight, digging into her curves.

  “Fuck, honey,” I groaned. “You going to slide on my cock for two hours or are we going to get out of here?”

  She looked back and down at me. “You really want to fuck me?”

  “I want to fuck everyone.”

  “Oh.”

  “But tonight, I want to fuck you. You ready to get your picture taken with the baddest boy in football?”

  She giggled. Her cheeks turned red.

  “Uh… can you touch me?”

  She suddenly looked uncomfortable. My right hand was twitching, ready to cut up her shirt and feel those big tits of hers. They were fucking full. I wondered if her nipples were big and round too. Or maybe they were little pink and perky, leaving the rest of her tits just creamy skin.

  Goddamn, I loved women.

  All of them.

  They all needed to sit on my cock and fuck.

  But this chick had something else going on. I realized the way she was grinding on me wasn’t all that good. Not that it mattered, most women didn’t know how I wanted it. F
uck, maybe I just hadn’t met the right woman yet in life. Which was even more of a reason to fuck anything with a slit between their legs. How else would I ever know?

  I lifted the woman off me a little. My dick was throbbing hard. “What the fuck is this?”

  “What?”

  “I’m not an idiot, honey.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I looked forward and saw the guy sitting there, fists balled tight, a Dragons hat on backwards. Of course he’d be a fan of the team. And he was probably pissed that Shawn was tackled at the one yard line. Oh, and he was pissed because his girl was rubbing her pussy against me.

  “Jesus Christ,” I said. “What, you trying to get a story out of me?” I stood and put the woman on the table. I turned and touched her face. “Listen to me. You’re a pretty woman. You don’t need a guy like that. You don’t need a guy that takes you to a bar for a date, makes you hang your tits out of your shirt, and then sends you to fuck around with me for attention. Okay?”

  She didn’t respond but she didn’t need to.

  “You son of a bitch!” a voice bellowed.

  I turned and threw a left, hitting the guy in the mouth as he came at me.

  I had wicked good reflexes and a crazy sixth sense of things. The guy flew back, his Dragons hat falling from his head.

  A second later, two more guys came charging at me.

  I was an athlete and a warrior, but I wasn’t a comic book hero.

  Two on one wasn’t going to work.

  “Ah, fuck,” I said as the two guys tackled me to the bar floor.

  They tucked their heads and threw weak and stupid punches. Probably so they could say they got into a bar fight with me.

  I wrestled with them and managed to kick myself back against a wall. I hated to resort to kicking but what choice did I have? I swung my big black boot and hit one of the guys in the face. The other threw a left and got me in the jaw. My head bounced off the wall.

  That’s when my security team jumped in.

  They knew I loved a good bar fight, but they also knew that any damage to my legs, hands, and head were no good for the team. Off season or not, my body was worth a ton of fucking money.

  My security guys grabbed the two attackers and put them in their place.

  I stood back up and faced the original asshole that started this thing. He touched his bloody nose and yelled, running at me. I grabbed him and threw him over a table. The table fell, glasses shattered. His girl kicked back on the table I put her on and she fell back, letting out a scream. I turned, grabbing for her so she didn’t end up smashing her head off the floor.