Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80153 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80153 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
She dips her head, and a smile spreads across her face, even as she tries to rein it in.
After the press conference ends, I drag my feet, taking my time leaving. I make sure I’m the last player to exit, and when I’m the only one in the hall, she comes out of the room, shutting the door.
“Oh. Hey.” She sounds startled to see only me in the long, empty hallway.
“Hey.” It’s the first time at training camp when it’s been just the two of us.
“How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“Are you enjoying training camp?”
I step closer, dangerously close. “You can presume it would be better if you sneaked into my room at night,” I whisper into her ear.
Her eyes float closed, and a visible tremble moves down her body. She murmurs my name, then she opens her eyes. “You are far too tempting.”
My gaze roams over her from head to toe, thinking of those two days and nights in Miami when she was all mine. “I could say the same about you. Especially in this red shirt. Red is lucky, you know?”
A faint smile spreads. “I wish.”
“I wish we were getting lucky.”
“Me, too.” She glances down the hall, and even though the coast is clear, she tips her forehead to the door at the far end. “I should probably go. Someone will show up here any second.”
“Are you worried you’d be tempted to do something if you stayed here in this hall with me?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not worried. I’m absolutely certain of what would happen if I stayed near you for another five seconds.”
I grab her wrist, the need to touch her overruling any reason. Stroking my finger across her skin, I move closer. She’d better stop me, because I’m not sure I can stop myself. I’m not sure I want to.
She swallows, shakes her head. “Jones, you’re making this hard.” Her voice is wobbly.
“It is hard.”
She sighs, and it comes out soft, so sexy and needy that it nearly shatters my already weak resolve. “I really need to go.” But she doesn’t make a move. She leans in close, almost as if she’s inhaling me.
She’s inches from me, and if anyone saw us, they’d be hard-pressed to believe any denials we’d utter.
That reality—how close I’m tangoing to fucking shit up—smashes into me, and I let go of her hand in an instant. “I know. I really need to let you go, but you have to know that’s the part that’s hardest. Letting you go.”
Her brown eyes are big, beautiful, and full of something deeper, something I want in my life. The kind of connection I’ve never had before with a woman. The kind that lasts.
“I know,” she whispers, her voice trembling, her eyes shining. She inhales sharply, waving her hand as if to shake off her emotions.
She walks away.
Later that night, in the room I share with Harlan, he packs his suitcase. “Hey, man, whatever happened with Jillian?”
I toss a shirt into my duffel. “Nothing.”
“The cherry pie didn’t work?”
I shake my head.
“What about Miami?”
I don’t like lying to my buddy, but I promised Jillian that what happened in Miami was just between us. I have to keep it that way, even if I want what happened in Miami to happen again and again.
“Miami was . . . just work.”
The crowd roars. The din of sixty thousand fans in Seattle vibrates across the field, a steady drumbeat. That noise is paired with insults from the D line, the usual trash talk, words about my mother, your mother, my dick, your dick. I tune it all out, narrowing on Cooper taking the snap.
My cue. Breaking to the right, I race downfield, hunting for an opening every step of the way. The score is tied, and it’s the fourth quarter. There are two minutes left in the first game of the season in early September, against one of our division rivals on their home turf.
I have one job. Find the gap.
I dodge a speed-demon cornerback, racing into the perfect spot as Cooper launches the ball. All my senses zero in on one thing. My eyes track the pigskin like an eagle scanning for fish.
Crosshairs. Mine. I own that ball.
A linebacker appears out of nowhere, aiming for me. A quick sidestep, a double back, and I’m right where I need to be, avoiding him as the ball arcs low toward the grass. That won’t fucking do. No way in hell is this pass going incomplete.
I stretch my arms as I lunge for the ball, extending my hands. The football tap dances on the tips of my fingers. This is when the big hands count the most, and I grapple the edge, barely holding it before I reel that ball in like a big catch in the ocean, yanking it to my chest. In a split second, I’m off and running, sprinting hard. The end zone is twenty yards away. It’s my destination—it’s always my destination. A safety comes at me, trying to grab me anywhere. Arms flail at me. But I’m faster, and when I cross the goal line, the sounds truly become deafening.