Christmas Break (5 page)

“I don’t have anything for you.”

“Honey, you’ve given me the greatest gift:
one of the best Christmases I can remember, awesome company,
awesome sex, and an awesome dinner. What I gave you is nothing
compared to that.”

Okay, I’d go with that. Guilt abolished, I
tore into the package.

Little bits of paper flew through the air. I
opened a gold-lined jewelry box and held my breath. A small silver
grizzly holding a football dangled from a silver chain. “It’s
beautiful.”

“Do you really like it?” Brax studied me in
earnest, as if it really mattered to him.

“I love it. Help me put it on.”

Brax took it from my hands. After a few
fumbled attempts caused by overlarge fingers, he managed to fasten
it around my neck. “I wanted you to remember our Christmas
together.”

As if I could ever forget, any more than I
could forget the text message with that awful picture, but I’d be
damned if it would ruin my time with Brax. At least we had one more
night. I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the bedroom.

Chapter 9

The morning after Christmas Day I woke up to
Aubrey’s head on my shoulder, one of her legs wrapped around mine,
and her nipples pressed against my bare chest. She raised her head
and rubbed her eyes, looking adorably sleepy. There are moments in
life I wish I could put in a time capsule and keep forever. This is
one of them. Last night was another. Waking up with Aubrey for the
second day in a row felt as natural to me as throwing a football,
which was scary weird.

We showered together, and I took her up
against the shower wall with water streaming down our bodies.
Afterward, we ate brunch.

“I have to go to work,” she said as we
finished. Sadness dimmed the light in her green eyes. The grizzly
on her necklace nestled between her breasts, filling me with pride
that she hadn’t taken it off. “I’m supposed to be there for the
noon lunch crowd.”

“I guess I’d better be going then.”

I said it, only I didn’t want to go. In
fact, walking out of her apartment would leave an empty hole in me
that I wouldn’t know how to fill. As a goal-oriented athlete, I
always went after what I wanted, and I wanted Aubrey. The
realization hit me like blind-side tackle. Life without her would
stretch into lonely infinity.

“I enjoyed it.” She thought this was
goodbye. I saw it her eyes.

“I have practice this afternoon, but we
should be done by seven or so.” I held my breath, fearing she might
shut me down like an old cell phone, even though that made no sense
whatsoever. Something just seemed…off, like she was donning armor
and pulling away.

Aubrey shook her head. Her ponytail bounced
from one shoulder to the other. “Brax, really, you don’t have to do
this. Let’s just say it was fun and go our separate ways.”

Panic twisted my gut, so I battered it into
submission. “Is that really what you want?”

She didn’t answer.

I held her waist with one hand and lifted
her chin with the other. “Look me straight in the eyes and tell me
you don’t want to see me again, because that’s sure as hell not how
I feel.”

“But I don’t see how—”

I put a finger to her lips and shushed her.
She was pulling away from me, wrapping herself in that protective
armor she wore for the cruel, outside world. Only, I didn’t want to
be on the outside, I wanted to be warm and cozy, cuddled up next to
her.

“I don’t see how we can
not
be
together,” I said. “Didn’t the past few days mean anything to you?”
I fingered my necklace that she wore.

She nodded, and her emerald green eyes
filled with tears.

I didn’t want to be the guy that made her
cry. I never wanted to be that guy. Ever. I tried to lighten the
tone and reminded her, “We’re fucking awesome in bed.”

“And you think sex fixes everything?”

“Pretty much. Always works for me,” I
quipped. When a lone tear ran down her face, my smile slipped and I
replaced it with a seriousness I rarely show the world. “I want to
be
with you, Aubrey. You and no one else. I want to give
this thing between us a shot. You’re a gutsy girl. Show some guts.
Take a chance and make this work.”

She chewed on her lower lip, her face a
kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions. “Brax, I don’t belong in your
world.”

“You do belong in my world, and any world
you want to be in. Don’t sell yourself short like that. Don’t ever
think you’re not good enough.”

She nodded, but I could tell she was still
not believing me, as if I were spouting bullshit. Well, I wasn’t,
not one fucking bit.

“You don’t know me—and trust me, I’m not
good enough for you.”

“Why would you say something like that?” I
frowned and scratched my head, totally baffled.

Aubrey chewed on her lower lip, as if waging
a silent war with herself. “I have a past you don’t want to get
mixed up in. Especially not if you’re going to try for the NFL.”
She looked up, her green eyes full of sadness, clearly resigned to
her fate.

Well, to hell with that. This guy didn’t
give up easily.

“What kind of past?” Fearing she’d make a
run for it, I looped my arms around her waist and waited. She
wasn’t dumping this on me without an explanation.

“I’m…tainted.”

I almost laughed. Hell, as far as I could
tell, everyone was tainted in some way, yet the seriousness of her
expression sobered me. “Explain, sweetheart. You can tell me.” I
planted a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“I’m bad news for you, Brax.”

“You are not. I never want to hear those
words again.”

“I am.” She absentmindedly rubbed her thumb
across my chin stubble.

“You’re going to have to give me more than
that, Aubrey.”

“Fine. You want it, you got it.” Her green
eyes shone with defiance and a brave fear. “My mom died when I was
sixteen. Up until then I lived a pretty sheltered life, going to
church on Sundays, that type of thing. Then it was just my dad, who
didn’t exactly give the right environment for a kid. He didn’t like
girls much, and I knew he didn’t want me there. I did anything I
could to get his attention, make him notice I existed. I was
hurting and alone. I partied all night, did drugs, drank a lot, and
rarely attended school. One night months later, I was pretty wasted
as usual. I don’t remember much, but they made a video…so what I
didn’t remember, I saw in living color.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“The guys. The younger guys in my dad’s
biker gang.”

“Your dad has a biker gang?” I tried to wrap
my head around that.

“Not like a huge organized gang, but they
had a loose structure, a logo, a regular meeting place…so, yeah,
it’s a gang. Some of them belonged to real gangs at some time or
another, too.”

“Okay.” I kept my voice neutral, not wanting
her to think I was passing judgment. When she didn’t continue, I
prodded a little. “What happened?”

“My twenty-two-year-old boyfriend got me
drunk and sold me to his friends for beer. I didn’t protest because
I was too wasted to give a shit. I had sex with them, and they
caught it all on video.”

She paused and looked at me. I didn’t quite
know what to say as I processed her words, but I nodded and pulled
her closer.

Aubrey continued as if she couldn’t stop now
that she’d started. “I just wanted to feel needed, and I thought
sex would help. If they did whatever they wanted to me, I’d be part
of their inner circle. I’d belong somewhere. I was an idiot. Within
twenty-four hours, the video was all over school and the biker
gang. And yeah, I got my dad’s attention. After he slapped me
around, he rallied my brothers and uncles, and they beat the crap
out of the guys while I watched. Dad said it was my payback for
being a slut. It was brutal, and I never want to witness anything
like that again. I left that night, dropped out of school, and
worked as a waitress. Those guys blamed me for the beating and
their being kicked out of the club. For a year afterwards, they
harassed me constantly. Every time I’d get a decent job, the video
would surface, and that’d be the end of the job. I needed to get
out of Seattle, so I picked a college on the opposite side of the
state. Once I moved, it stopped. Until a few days ago.”

“What happened a few days ago?”

“I got a text message with a picture taken
from that video clip. When I was making your burger, actually. I
don’t know who sent it, but now I know they haven’t forgotten.”

I made ones of those split-second decisions
that made me famous on the football field. I didn’t give a shit
about her past. I wanted her, wanted to make her happy, wanted to
protect her from these assholes. And more importantly: “None of
this changes how I feel.”

“Maybe you don’t think it does, but what
about your family? What about your teammates? How would you handle
it if
they
saw the video?”

“They won’t see it, but if they did, we’d
handle it together. They’re not going out with you. I am.” Sure, my
family would be upset, but if they couldn’t see beyond the tattoos
and some stupid video, that was their loss. It wasn’t like I hadn’t
been disappointing them all my life. It’d never stopped me from
following my heart before, and it wouldn’t stop me now.

“Brax, you don’t understand. Get mixed up
with me, and you could be damaged in the fallout.” She put her
hands on either side of my face, her eyes begging me to let her go
even as I knew my heart would never allow it.

I shook my head. “I’ll be damned if I’ll
allow a bunch of assholes from your past to come between us. Or
anyone. This just feels…
right.
”

Her eyes grew wide. “You mean that, don’t
you?”

“Uh,
yeah
.”

“Brax, you know the NFL is leaving no stone
unturned when vetting potential quarterbacks—especially after last
year.”

The top pick’s girlfriend had posted a sex
tape of her and her boyfriend, and it went viral. I remembered it
well.

“I don’t want to hurt your chances in the
draft,” she continued.

“You won’t,” I growled. I’d won a lot of
games from sheer force of will, and winning over Aubrey was one
challenge I wasn’t going to lose.

“Okay,” I said, “I’m laying myself on the
line right here and now. These past few days have been epic.
Awesome. Incredible. When I see something I want, I go for it. I
see you. I want you. And I’m going for you. I’ll chase you to the
ends of the earth, or at least to the city limits. I’ll take every
class you’re in. I’ll stand outside your window in the pouring rain
and sing love songs.”

She almost smiled. “You sing?”

“I’m trying to prove a point here. My
ability to sing isn’t important.”

“Maybe it is to me. Do you read poetry,
too?”

Her mouth twitched. She was toying with me,
and it gave me hope. I said, “For you I’d do that. Give us a
chance. Let’s see where this goes. Together we can make this
work.”

I nibbled on that sweet spot right behind
her ear I’d found last night. She groaned, tilted her head to give
me more access, then thought better of it and moved away.

“I’m going to be late,” she said.

I stepped in front of the bedroom door,
blocking her escape route. “You’re not going anywhere until you
agree to go out with me.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“I use any means at my disposal to get what
I want. You and I, baby, have magic. You don’t turn your back on
magic.”

A slow smile spread across her beautiful
face and lit up her green eyes. “We do have magic, don’t we?”

“Absolutely.”

I started grinning again, and so did she.
Staying on campus for Christmas break had started out as a lonely
proposition but led me to the best Christmas gift ever.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and
kissed me, a big wet, sloppy kiss on the lips. I had my answer.
Aubrey was mine, and I kept what was mine close to my heart.

Author’s Note

In another life I taught high school and
wrote young adult in my spare time. Those books never saw the light
of day, but I always wanted to return to the genre.

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of new-adult
books written in first-person, and I’ve fallen in love with
that
genre. It only makes sense that I’d want to give it a
shot myself, so I talked to my publisher about creating a new-adult
subseries of my Seattle Lumberjacks football books featuring the
rookie players on the team, starting with their draft day in
college.
Christmas Break
is an introduction to that. The
next book in The Rookies will be about Brax’s first year in the NFL
and all the challenges of newly found fame and fortune. And about
how he and Aubrey weather the storm of newfound celebrity.

COMING IN 2014

FROM BOROUGHS PUBLISHING

Seattle Lumberjacks: The Rookies series
#1

Rookie Mistake

About the Author

An advocate of happy endings, Jami Davenport
writes sexy romantic comedies, sports hero romances, and equestrian
fiction. Jami lives on a small farm near Puget Sound with her Green
Beret-turned-plumber husband, a Newfoundland cross with a tennis
ball fetish, a prince disguised as an orange tabby cat, and an
opinionated Hanoverian mare.

Jami works in information technology for her
day job and is a former high school business teacher and dressage
rider. In her spare time, she maintains her small farm and
socializes whenever the opportunity presents itself. An avid
boater, Jami has spent countless hours in the San Juan Islands, a
common setting in her books. In her opinion, it is the most
beautiful place on earth.