Scoring Off the Field

by Naima Simone

  “Jesus.” Zeph shook his head, loosing a loud crack of laughter.

  “Tenny isn’t leaving because of a guy.”

  His friends didn’t utter a word, but the look they exchanged might’ve as well blinked Yeah, okay, over their heads in neon green.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he snapped, an inexplicable and admittedly disproportionate irritation scraping the underside of his skin like brand-new sandpaper. “If she had a man in her life, I would be the first to know about it.”

  She wasn’t like him. He didn’t do relationships—he fucked. Relationships were time-consuming, and football was his wife, mistress, and side chick. He’d learned the hard way that he couldn’t serve two masters.

  Tenny, on the other hand, wasn’t the kind of woman satisfied with casual flings. She wasn’t built like that.

  “That’s what we’re saying,” Ronin said. “Tenny’s life revolves around you, your job, your meetings, your errands, your needs. What about hers? She’s a beautiful, smart, sexy-as-hell twenty-five-year-old woman. With a social life that totals to zilch, bagatelle.”

  “Bagatelle?” Dom repeated, not even attempting to keep the WTF out of his tone.

  “You like?” Ronin’s grin flashed from the middle of his thick, lumberjack beard. “I learned it from Tenny. But allow me to prove my point.” Leaning back, he yelled, “Erikson!” and waved another player over.

  The tall, lean fullback’s dreads brushed his shoulders as he strolled over. “What’s up?”

  “Tennyson, Dom’s PA.” Ronin waved a hand toward Dom. “You remember her?”

  “The hottie with the hair and bangin’ body? Hell yeah. Who could forget all that—” Erikson curved his hands, cupping them, but when he met Dom’s glare, he dropped his arms and grinned. “Hair. Who could forget all that hair?”

  Ronin arched an eyebrow at Dom. “See? One I’ll-hand-your-boys-to-you-in-a-gunny-sack look, and Erikson’s cupping himself and running in the opposite direction.”

  “I wouldn’t say running,” the other man interjected with a frown as he backpedaled toward the practice field. “Walking briskly, but never running unless it’s after a ball.”

  “This is bullshit,” Dom snapped, the discomfort and annoyance swelling in his chest, along with an anger that simmered just beneath like a seething cauldron at both Ronin and Erikson’s description of Tenny.

  Hottie? Bangin’ body? An image of Tenny infiltrated his mind as if conjured. Of unruly, dark, almost black curls that brushed slender shoulders and framed a delicate face dominated by big, chocolate brown eyes, interesting angles, and a wide, surprisingly carnal mouth. So petite, her halo of spirals just brushed the underside of his jaw; she was a little thing. But she was a road map of curves and dips. Full breasts that many women paid good money to get surgically. A tiny waist that made the flare of hips even more pronounced. Proportionally long legs that belonged on a runway model, not a pixie like her. And the smoothest, loveliest shade of brown that reminded him of the natural pine he handled at the lumberyard he worked at as a teen.

  She resembled one of those fifties pinups with her hourglass figure and full curves. But sexy as hell? She was pretty, yes, but still…Tennyson.

  His best friend. His constant in a life that had more twists and turns than a post corner route. Even when he’d hit rock bottom in college, she’d been there. Even when their relationship had been a little strained, he’d still never doubted her loyalty. Even after she’d had a beer-goggles moment and declared her love for him, they’d weathered that short-lived storm, and she’d still had his back. She was the only family he had left to depend on.

  “Face it, bruh,” Zeph said, interrupting his thoughts with a slap on the shoulder. “You’re cock-blocking and don’t even realize it.”

  “Actually, I think it would be called pussy-blocking since she’s a woman,” Ronin argued.

  “Don’t make me punch you in the face,” Dom warned Ronin. “And I call bullshit, again. Tenny would have no problem telling me to fuck off if I got out of line.”

  “Would she?” Zeph stood, stretching his long arms above his head. “You get away with murder when it comes to her. She puts you ahead of herself all the time.”

  “If that’s true, then why is she so gung-ho to leave me?” God, now he sounded like a sulking child. What next? Probably a full on man-trum if Tenny didn’t change her mind about quitting.

  “Look, D,” Ronin said as their coach blew the whistle, signaling their break was over. He chucked his bottle into a nearby garbage can with a flamboyant jump shot, then turned to Dom with a shrug. “She’s getting a life, which, by the way, I don’t think is a bad thing at all. It was bound to happen. Now you just have to pop that titty out of your mouth and deal.”

  “For once, I have to agree with the lumberjack.” With another slap on the back, Zeph slipped his helmet on his head and followed Ronin back to the field.

  Frowning, Dom lightly jogged after them, but his mind remained on their conversation. Even as he ran the new plays for Sunday’s game, he couldn’t shake free of it.

  They were wrong. Yeah, maybe he was a little overprotective when it came to Tennyson, but he didn’t prevent her from having a life outside of her job. He didn’t scare off the men she dated. When she dated, that is.

  Okay, so there was the time in college when she’d had sex for the first time with some asshole frat boy.

  She’d been this innocent, and a little naive, freshman, and the guy had been a junior majoring in art history of all fucking things. Nothing about that big-as-a-tank motherfucker with his faux hawk, tatts, and tight T-shirts had said “art history.” Red flag number one. Dom’s first time meeting the guy, and Dom’s douche-dar had started pinging like a metal detector. He knew the type: spoiled frat boys who zeroed in on the incoming freshmen so they could tally how much ass they got like the women were punches on a scorecard.

  Yeah, Dom had paid him a visit and might have mentioned something about him peeing through a straw for the rest of his life if he hurt Tenny. The asshole had broken things off with her the day after their talk, and she’d been hurt, but better sooner than later after the schmuck dragged her name, reputation, and heart through the dirt. He’d been down that ugly, pitted road, and he’d do anything to protect her from that kind of pain and disillusionment.

  If that made him a cock-blocker—or pussy-blocker, as the case may be—then screw it. She was his to protect. Had been from the moment her social worker had ushered her into the Shermans’ house, and he’d looked into her too-carefully-composed-for-an-eleven-year-old face. That detached expression had been a punch to the gut. But when he’d met her gaze… Every emotion absent from her features had been swirling like a wild storm in those pretty brown eyes. In that instant, all the anger, bitterness, and grief that had been firmly entrenched in him since his parents’ deaths in a car accident two years earlier had eased. Because at fourteen, he’d found his purpose. Taking care of this too-quiet, scared little girl.

  That resolution hadn’t changed in the fourteen years that followed. It’d been why he’d remained at Ohio State after his junior year instead of entering the draft a year earlier, waiting until Tennyson finished high school. And when he’d signed with the Warriors the same year she’d become a legal adult and had been emancipated from the foster care system, he’d brought her to Washington with him. He’d provided her with a place to live and had even paid the tuition her scholarships hadn’t covered with his salary.

  Football and Tennyson—they were his motivations for everything in his life since that fateful day they met.

  And the thought of losing her, of not being there to protect her from a world he’d tried his best to shelter her from, had his gut twisting in so many knots, it probably resembled bondage rope play gone wild. Because he didn’t need a magic eight ball to predict how this would play out. First, she quit. Then she suddenly would become busy—too busy for him. Their daily interactions would become every day, the
n weekly, then even less than that. Eventually, their presence in each other’s life would fade as she found new friends…replacing him.

  The irony didn’t escape him.

  During his sophomore year of college, he’d fallen in love with another student, Tara Jacobs. She’d been beautiful, sophisticated, fun, great in bed. He’d been so wrapped up in her, he’d done the same things he feared would happen with Tenny: he spent less time with her; he placed Tara as a priority above Tenny and football; his relationship with his best friend suffered, as did his game. In fact, his focus had been so divided, he’d missed several practices for her, endangering his scholarship and his place on the team—which would have made it difficult if not impossible to catch a pro coach’s eye after graduation.

  He’d lost control over the most important things in his life. Only to discover that the woman he’d adored only loved being the star quarterback’s girlfriend. She liked being in the stands and having the camera pan to her more than she liked actually being with him. He’d overheard the words from her lips at a party one night while she’d gossiped with a friend. “He’s hot and can fuck like a horse, but he’s not the brightest bulb in the box. Not to mention a total hick. But they’re saying he could be a number-one draft pick, so I can put up with him.”

  He’d dropped her ass, fixed things with Tenny, and refocused on his game. After that, nothing else mattered but getting drafted so he could provide the life he and Tenny never had.

  To an outsider, he might look like he was on the verge of losing control again, with his contract up for renewal. But he wasn’t about to let it happen. No shortcuts. No distractions.

  Forty-five minutes later, when he and the team headed to the locker room for a media session, his resolve had returned. Solidified. Somehow he had to convince Tennyson that they belonged together. He needed her. They needed each other. They were family.

  This was one game he intended to win.

  Chapter Three

  “Now this guy has tons of experience. One of his former employers was even a football player. He’s definitely in the Give a Call pile,” Tennyson said, scrolling through the résumés submitted by an applicant for Dom’s new personal assistant. “What do you think?”

  When she didn’t receive an answer, she glanced up from her laptop. Across from her, Dom sat sprawled on his home office’s couch, his gaze fixed on the mounted TV. He aimed the remote toward the wide, flat screen, carelessly flicking through the channels.

  “Hellooo,” she called. When that didn’t garner a reaction, she picked up a pen and tossed it across the room, the blue cap hitting him square in the forehead. He’d practiced throwing the football around with her when they were kids so much that she had a killer arm.

  “Damn it, Tenny,” he growled, picking the ink-filled missile up off his lap and flinging it onto the sofa cushion next to him. “I just got back from practice. Can I relax for five minutes?”

  “Please.” She rolled her eyes. It was Monday, his lightest day of the week aside from Tuesdays, his day off. “It’s the first practice after a game. You had meetings and walk-throughs all day. Suck it up.”

  “Don’t forget the media interviews where I had to explain why I threw an interception in the red zone and missed open receivers on crucial downs. Oh and let’s not forget those two sacks,” he muttered. “Apparently, ‘because I fucked up’ isn’t a socially acceptable excuse.”

  She winced, catching the disappointment and frustration under the sarcastic reply. No one was harder on Dom than Dom. He’d become one of the best quarterbacks in the league because of his perfectionist attitude. But he’d always been that way. Whether it was staying out on the high school football field practicing his throws and snaps with the coach long after the rest of the team had called it quits, or studying for hours until he could quote a classroom textbook, or leading his college team to a NCAA National Championship.

  Dom hated failure. And even though the Warriors had defeated Pittsburgh the week before, he would still consider the loss to Atlanta the day before a failure.

  Sometimes—no, often—she worried about his unrelenting pursuit of perfection and control. She got it; no one got it more than her. He’d had the perfect life—a home, middle-class parents who provided for him and loved their only son, and security. Then, at the age of eleven, he’d lost the two people who’d cherished him most and had been thrown into a system that wasn’t exactly warm and affectionate to most children. But to a boy who’d known nothing but adoration and unconditional love, it’d been hell. For three years, his life had been strange and chaotic. By the time he’d been adopted by his high school coach at fifteen, no more of the carefree boy he’d once been existed. That iron will had been forged in the fires of grief and loss. But that same iron will had been her security for the last fourteen years of her life.

  And then there’d been the clusterfuck that was Tara.

  Tara. From Georgia. Tenny silently snorted. How very original and Gone with the Wind-ish. Yeah, all these years later, and she still wanted to pile drive the scheming bitch.

  Most people would crumble under the weight of the responsibility and pressure of being the face and leader of a professional football team, of being under the unrelenting scrutiny of the media and public, of being at the constant pull and demand of the Warriors organization and companies whose products he endorsed. Of providing the emotional and financial support to a foster sister.

  Then again, “most people” weren’t Dom. He relished leadership roles—excelled at them. The more he managed, organized, and commanded, the happier he was. Though he would never admit it, the more secure he was.

  But she was tired of being one of those responsibilities.

  Of being a burden.

  Dom would never see her as a desirable woman, but he could at least view her as an equal.

  Which meant she had to force him to make a move to hire her replacement. It’d been two weeks since their initial discussion about her leaving, and he’d found every excuse to avoid talking about it. From practice, to meetings, to getting a new tattoo, to watching a freaking Homicide Hunter marathon on TV, the man had become an expert in the art of ducking and dodging. But not tonight.

  “Losing sucks, and it won’t be the last time, so drag that big-boy cup on, and move on. Besides, these applicants aren’t going to hire themselves.”

  “You’re damn right I need a big-boy cup,” he grumbled, reluctantly shifting aside as she sank down to the couch with the laptop.

  Unbidden, her attention dropped to his thighs, and she bit back a groan. The gray sweatpants did nothing to conceal the considerable bulge of his cock. A thick, melting heat slid between her thighs, settling there with a low throb. He wasn’t even erect—not with her sitting beside him—and the length rested against his damn thigh. Part of her wondered why she even carried a torch for him. If by some chance pigs sprouted wings and unicorn horns, and he looked at her with lust instead of brotherly affection, she’d probably faint in maidenly horror at her first sight of his dick.

  “Did you just check out my package?” he drawled.

  Oh shit on a stick. Fire blazed up her chest and neck, and she battled not to let a blush lay siege to her cheeks. Shrugging, she met his amused gaze and feigned a nonchalance that didn’t exist. “Don’t worry,” she said, patting his forearm. “I didn’t see a thing. Maybe if I had my magnifying glass…”

  “Smart-ass.” He bumped her shoulder with his, and the friendliness of it sent both love and pain shooting through her. Grabbing the computer, he set it on his lap with a sigh. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  Elbowing past the emotional shoving match inside her, she scrolled down the résumé on the screen. “I think he’s a great candidate. He has six years’ experience and, like I said, two of them with another player. That’s—”

  “I don’t like him,” he interrupted, closing out the document with a tap to the mouse pad.

  “What?” She gaped first at the screen that no
w showed her inbox instead of the résumé, then at him. “What the hell? Why not?”

  “Because he’s obviously a job-hopper. Three jobs? Can’t commit. Something must be wrong with him,” he replied calmly. “Probably snoops through his employers’ homes when he’s alone and sells shit to tabloids.”

  “How in the world do you get that from a résumé?” she demanded. Although, he might have a point. Three same-level jobs in six years didn’t look that great, now that she thought about it. “Fine,” she muttered, clicking on the next email. “Here’s one that seems like a good fit. She’s worked as a PA for the last four years, and it’s been only one employer,” she added, sliding him a glance. “She’s worked for a corporate executive and just scanning over everything that fell under her list of responsibilities, she’s more than capable of handling this job.”

  “No.”

  She blinked at the flat refusal. “Why not? You barely even glanced at it.”

  “She attached a picture with her résumé.” He pointed at the headshot of a pretty young woman in her mid-twenties with shoulder-length blonde hair and green eyes. “No one does that unless they think their looks will help them get a job. I don’t feel like getting ass thrown at me along with my mail. Next.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” She glared at him. “Your ego is almost as big as the self-reported size of your dick.”

  His blue gaze didn’t waver. “Next.”

  With more force than necessary, she clicked the mouse to close the document and pulled open the next. But that candidate suffered the same fate as her predecessors. As did the following three. Used a fancy font, too flighty. Fresh out of college, didn’t have enough experience. Left an employer after ten years, probably fired and couldn’t be trusted. And on it went.

  By the time she closed the last résumé, she wondered if “acting like an ass” was just cause for murdering someone. Any jury who’d suffered the asinine excuses and stubborn refusals she’d just endured couldn’t possibly convict.