Men in Shorts

by Lori Perkins

  That kind of behavior belonged to Roxy, and Roxy only existed on paper.

  Paper that was currently MIA.

  Had she taken the notebook home last night? She distinctly remembered tucking it in her bag. Maybe she’d left it in her car.

  She snatched her keys and ran to the parking lot, desperate for some piece of mind, if not another glimpse of this morning’s fantasy.

  “Roxy” had Tyson hotter than a teenager with his first issue of Playboy. As he toweled off, his eyes kept returning to the little black notebook he’d stuck in his locker before practice. Too bad its contents were already so seared on his brain he’d hardly been able to focus on the new plays they were running.

  He’d found the thing sitting in the gravel parking lot that morning, a notebook that chronicled a series of escapes between some hot-to-trot Roxy and him. Whoever this Roxy was, she had them screwing everywhere. She’d written about him hiking her skirt up and driving into her in the elevator, on the practice field, under the bleachers. Her imagination was vivid and unapologetically graphic.

  With a quick glance in either direction to confirm that he was the last player in the locker room, he snatched the notebook from his locker and sat on the bench, turning to the page where he’d left off.

  Like all the entries, this one was titled. The feminine script at the top of the page simply said, “The Locker Room.”

  The team wasn’t supposed to arrive for another twenty-four hours. I went into their locker room for some privacy. I didn’t want to hear the giggles of the other female staff as they swapped fantasies during their post-workout showers. I wanted to be alone with my own fantasies, and since the players’ locker room was off limits to all staff, I knew this was the place to do it.

  I stripped from my yoga pants and tank top, then stepped under the hot spray of the shower and began to work the soap in my hands. Every muscle in my body was tense with longing for Tyson, and as the hot spray rained over me, I reminded myself he’d be here soon enough. Soon enough he’d be inside me.

  My soapy hands trailed a path down my body to the source of my tension. I let my fingers slip between my legs where my clit was swollen, pulsing…

  I sensed him before I even registered the sound of his steps.

  I opened my eyes and my hands stilled. “Tyson.”

  He was nude and sweaty, as if he, too, just finished a workout. He was massive in the way only a professional athlete can be – broad shoulders that reminded me of a time when men’s shoulders were used to carry more than a football and an ego. He was Neanderthal in his strength, in the sheer space he ate up in a room.

  He stepped behind me, pressing his hard body against mine. “Don’t stop on my account,” he whispered, his lips already at my neck.

  “Why settle for the fantasy when I can have the real thing?” I murmured.

  I turned around and he didn’t hesitate before pressing me against the cold, slick wall. I shivered, but it wasn’t the cool tile at my back that brought on the chill so much as the fiery heat in his eyes.

  I wrapped my legs around him and dug my fingers into his thick, dark hair.

  His big hands cupped my ass, his fingers digging into the plump flesh.

  His erection was solid and insistent between my legs as his lips devoured mine, his tongue explored. His fingers matched his tongue step for step.

  “Roxy,” he whispered, his breath at my ear.

  His fingertip traced the curve of my ass, the crease of me, until sliding under and dipping into my silky heat.

  His moan against my mouth was guttural, and his erection grew harder, stronger. I wanted him inside me.

  The sound of a locker door slamming bounced across the walls. Someone walked into the shower room. I didn’t know who. I couldn’t pay attention with his mouth on mine, his finger moving slowly, rhythmically inside of me.

  Our visitor cleared his throat.

  Tyson pulled away but never tore his eyes from mine as he spoke. “Go away.”

  Suddenly, I was frantic. “Now,” I pleaded.

  “What, baby?”

  “I want you inside me. Now.”

  Tyson complied, wasting no time adjusting our bodies, and then—dear God—then he was filling me, filling me and murmuring my name in my ear. “Roxy …”

  “Ty?”

  The sound of his name startled him back to the reality of the empty locker room.

  “You comin’ to lunch?” Phillip, a lineman, called from the door.

  “Yeah.” Ty took a breath before grabbing his jeans. He glanced down at what Roxy’s words had done to him. “Give me a minute. I’ll meet you there.”

  And he would. He’d go to the cafeteria where the staff and players all ate during training camp, and he’d go and find out who on the staff was named Roxy.

  As his teammates kept busy razzing the rookie cornerback, Ty scanned the cafeteria. He didn’t know the names of all the staff members, but he figured he could find the notebook’s author by process of elimination, if nothing else. He wouldn’t be able to focus on his game until the mystery was solved.

  “Hey,” Phillip said, hushing the guys and nudging the lineman beside him who was in the middle of a raunchy strip club story. Phillip nodded to the coach’s daughter, who was approaching their table with a woman Ty didn’t recognize.

  The men all straightened, Coach Montane having terrified them all of acting like anything but complete gentlemen around “his Anna.”

  Ty squirmed a little, but not for the reason his teammates would have guessed.

  Ty figured everyone had a weakness. Some of his teammates had a weakness for beer, others for loose women. Hell, he knew a few linemen who needed to work on their weakness for doughnuts. But Ty? Ty had a weakness for prim, proper, studious, librarian-waiting-to-happen women. Not that he indulged the weakness much, since those didn’t tend to be the women who waited outside the locker room after games.

  But Anna Montane was every bit that kind of woman – from the chestnut hair she kept pulled into a no-nonsense clip at the base of her neck to the way she always kept herself covered from neck to knee. She kept to herself. She didn’t eat with the players the way the other staff did or try to take advantage of her easy access to them.

  She was also the coach’s daughter.

  All of it made him want her more. He never understood why other guys didn’t share his fascination. What titillation was offered by a woman whose breasts were already spilling from her top? Maybe it all came back to the forbidden, but women like Anna, they had secrets.

  On more than one occasion, Ty had mentally undressed the coach’s daughter, and his mind’s eye always found something enticing underneath. Once, she’d shown up to a playoff game in a red Savages turtleneck and dark Levis. During warm-ups, his eyes should have been straying to the Savages cheerleaders or the near-bare breasts in the stands, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off Anna. He’d mentally undressed her at least twenty times during that game. And no matter how hard he’d tried to imagine something less enticing, he saw a black lace teddy under that suburban soccer-mom outfit every time.

  Another time, she’d worn a long-sleeved, floor-length black dress to a Savages formal event. All night long, he hadn’t heard a word his date said because he hadn’t been able to get his mind off the idea that she was nude beneath that simple dress.

  It was absurd. The other players didn’t have to worry about being attracted to the coach’s daughter. They didn’t have to worry about what would happen to their careers if they seduced the coach’s baby. It wasn’t that they didn’t think she was attractive. She simply didn’t register on their radars.

  Lucky bastards.

  It was uncharacteristic of her to approach the players for anything other than PR talk. Even then, she usually worked directly with their agents.

  But, now, Anna and her friend were standing nervously at the end of the long table, and, thanks to coach’s overprotectiveness, the men were all too damn nervous of offending her to
even open their mouths and say “hi.”

  Ty shook his head at his teammates and flashed her a grin. “Hey, Anna.”

  The redhead beside Anna squeaked a little, and Anna shook her head.

  “I’m sorry to bother you guys,” Anna said. “But this is my friend Kerri, and I promised her I’d introduce her to the best offense in the NFL.”

  Ty watched the men as they appraised Kerri, running their eyes over her pretty face and curves before flashing her their dumb jock grins and welcoming her to training camp.

  Anna fidgeted, not bothering to hide her hurry to get away. “Well, we don’t want to interrupt your lunch, so we’ll be going.”

  “No,” Phillip said, turning his full-blitz press conference smile on Kerri. “We have room. Stay and eat with us.”

  “Maybe the ladies have other plans, Phil,” Ty said, trying to give Anna the out she seemed desperate for.

  “We don’t have plans,” Kerri said hastily, scurrying around the table to sit next to Phil. She patted the space between her and Ty and looked to Anna.

  “It’s sweet of you to invite us,” Anna said softly, but her reluctance was clear as she lowered herself into the seat.

  “I don’t see you in here very often,” Ty said softly. Maybe polite conversation would get his mind off what she may or may not be wearing under her red mock turtleneck top. But it was too late. He’d already decided. Lace. The same color as her top. But thin enough lace that he could see her nipples bead through it as she got aroused.

  “I’m pretty busy. Media day is in a week. It’s easier to work through lunch,” she said, never taking her eyes from the space of table in front of her.

  “You know what I think?” He couldn’t help himself. He put his fingertips to her chin and turned her to face him.

  Her mouth opened in a small O and her tongue darted out to wet her lips.

  Jesus. He dropped his hand.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  He swallowed and continued. “I think we make you nervous.” He lowered his voice, and cocked his head, not sure why he was so determined to get her to relax. “But I promise you the guys are more nervous than you are.”

  Her gaze traveled the length of the table and her eyebrows drew together. “Why would I make them nervous?”

  Ty laughed softly. “Coach Montane has put the fear of God into them. They’re afraid to say something wrong to you.”

  Anna put a hand over her face. “He’s a little overprotective.”

  “Nah, he just hasn’t realized that his little girl is all grown up now.”

  From across the table, Drew Wethers flashed Ty a look that said, What the hell are you doing? It wasn’t an unreasonable question. But, hell, he couldn’t very well let the woman sit here feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

  Because then she’d never come back.

  “Don’t worry about my dad,” she said.

  Kerri peered around Anna to look at Ty. “Coach doesn’t understand Roxy.”

  Ty stilled.

  “Who’s Roxy?” Phillip asked.

  Kerri laughed and nudged Anna who was squeezing her eyes shut as if trying to wish herself somewhere else.

  “Kerri,” Anna warned.

  Kerri ignored her. “Anna’s real name is Roxanna. ‘Roxy’ is what we call the ‘real’ Anna – the woman her dad likes to pretend doesn’t exist.” She shook her head. “In his eyes, Anna’s still twelve years old.”

  The guys started talking about feeling protective of their daughters and nieces, but Ty didn’t hear them. He was too busy choking on his fantasy come to life.

  Anna was Roxy.

  Holy shit.

  That meant that notebook was a product of Miss Priss’s overactive and, dear God, vivid imagination.

  Dear God, he was in trouble. He’d played like hell this morning, distracted by the words and fantasies of a faceless woman. But now he knew those visuals had been created by a woman about whom he’d already had his own fair share of fantasies.

  And she was Coach’s daughter.

  Roxanna locked her office behind her before heading for the elevators. She’d reached the end of another blissfully torturous week. She’d done everything she could for Media Day and now she was ready to go home. She’d pour herself a big glass of wine and draw herself a bubble bath. And if her thoughts happened to stray to a certain dark-haired, green-eyed running back? So be it. Her own hands were a sorry substitute for the real thing, but she’d made herself so damn hot thinking about him – those big hands, those eyes, that solid body and how it would feel over hers—

  Okay, this train of thought was exactly the kind of thing that had made it so hard to do her work this week. And she knew it was just her under-sexed body feeding her overactive imagination, but she could have sworn his eyes were hot when he ran into him in her dad’s office today. So, at lunch, when she should have been tearing her office apart to find her missing notebook, she’d thought about him instead. She’s started a new notebook with an entry she’d simply called The Desk.

  As she stepped onto the elevator, the images she’d scribbled down flashed through her mind. She took in a ragged breath as the doors slid closed.

  She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. The old elevator groaned, beginning its slow eleven-flight descent.

  She’d written about Tyson again. Always Tyson. But this time, they were in her office.

  The images she’d painted with words flashed before her.

  Tyson coming around to her side of the desk, hiking her up onto it. Tyson pushing his fingers inside her and whispering in her ear. The threat of someone walking in, or of someone on the field below looking up and seeing her, legs spread, her sex exposed as he worked his fingers inside her.

  Her fingers brushed her own cheek, slipped down to her breast. Her nipple reacted to the slight touch through her silk shirt and the thin lace of her bra.

  He’d work her with his fingers until, when she couldn’t stand it anymore, he’d slide into her, thick and hard and—

  The elevator stopped too soon and she started, dropping her hand. The doors slid open. Hadn’t she been the last to leave the offices tonight?

  Then the object of her fantasy walked came through the doors, and a small, tortured moan slipped from her lips.

  His lips twitched in amusement when he saw her.

  What was so funny? Could he read her mind? Did her flushed cheeks give away that she’d been fantasizing on her elevator ride?

  She waited for him to turn around and stare politely at the numbers above the door like any normal person would.

  Instead, he crossed the small space, coming straight at her, reminding her too much of another fantasy – the last one she’d scribbled into her notebook before losing it. She’d called it “The Elevator.”

  Her mind was reasonable. There must be an explanation for his proximity. Maybe he needed to tell her something. Maybe she had a piece of lint on her shirt he was going to remove.

  But her body wasn’t so reasonable, and when he stood before her, mere inches separating their bodies, her stomach started acting like a gymnast on speed, flip-flopping every which way. Thick, liquid heat pooled in her center, settling lower, creeping toward the muscles that were already quivering between her legs.

  The doors slid closed.

  “Hey, T-Tyson,” she managed.

  His eyes darkened to the deepest, darkest emerald. Was he angry? His uncompromising gaze locked with hers…then slipped to her lips.

  Dear God.

  Her tongue shot out instinctively to wet the lips dried by his scorching gaze.

  He reached out, and his thick fingers were suddenly at the buttons on her starched white shirt.

  She swallowed as the faint, pulsing ache between her legs became an insistent throbbing.

  What was he doing?

  With a flick of his fingers, he freed the top button and his eyes returned to her, challenging her to stop him.

  She didn’t dare.
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br />   He traced her collarbone with rough fingertips of one hand while the other went to work on the next button. She stood stock still. Afraid to move. Afraid to breathe. His fingertips dipped lower, grazing the sensitive skin between her breasts. Her breath caught. There had been nothing this innocent in her elevator fantasy …and yet…

  The captured breath escaped as a soft moan. His fierce expression turned almost playful for a moment, but turned serious again as his eyes followed his hands, which had already progressed to the button at her navel. His gaze traveled down the length of her, then back up, studying her white lace bra.

  Her breathing was heavy now, and she was desperate. There was only a single button before she’d be free of the shirt – only one button until his fingers could move on to much more important tasks.

  He was eyeing the ruby in the ring at her navel. He fingered it for a delirious second and then smiled for real. Then he shocked the hell out of her as he dropped to his knees and sucked the little jewel into his mouth, tugging lightly, making her head swim and her knees buckle.

  His tongue dipped into her navel, tasting her, teasing her. She threaded her fingers through that thick, dark hair and held on as sparks of pleasure shot through her. But, God, she wanted more. Much, much more.

  As if reading her mind, he suddenly stood. He shoved her shirt off her shoulders where it pinned her arms to her sides, hiked up her skirt, and pulled her legs around his waist. He wasn’t inside her. No, that would be too easy. That might end this torture. Instead, he pressed her against the wall and put his hand between them. Just as his palm cupped her, she saw the elevator door slide open behind him, and the wildness of it, the taboo of being caught half naked and halfway to orgasm made her fly apart before she was ready.

  She threw her head back and unabashedly rocked against his hand as she rode out her orgasm.

  Maybe she should have been ashamed – ashamedshe’d done this at all, embarrassed that she’d come without him so much as putting a finger inside her. But when she came back down, she saw his eyes. The heat and lust there couldn’t make her anything but hungry for more.