Fair Play (29 page)

I can feel his eyes on me, watching me take him all in. I drag my finger over the head of a snake on his sternum that coils around his ribs to his back and around to the front several times. It’s so intricate and detailed; every silver scale glimmers in the light. It’s an optical illusion. When you look long enough, it actually appears to be slithering around his torso, squeezing his body.

I like his nickname and what it represents, but this tattoo speaks of darkness and pain and suffering. It brings worry to the forefront of my mind, replacing the lust that was so blinding only seconds ago.

Adam hooks his finger under my chin, tipping it up until our eyes meet. He reaches up with his other hand to smooth the frown lines from between my eyes, watching his fingers as he does it.

“Don’t think, just feel,” he says.

Just feel. The idea of letting go of everything in our past for a few moments is appealing, so appealing that I can’t resist.

I scoot back and lean forward until I’m hovering on my hands and knees over him. I take his advice and feel—although it’s hard to ignore the stupid, beady-eyed snake staring me in the eye.

With my eyes closed, I kiss a trail down his torso, taking care not to miss one ridge in his eight-pack. His length brushes against my chin when I reach his navel and swirl my tongue around it.

I’m sure I must be clear of the snake, so I open my eyes and freeze. There on the inside curve of his well-defined V is a tattoo of a cell phone text box with a message in it.

Amethyst –
Congratulations baby!

Adam –
Thanks, I love you.

Amethyst –
I love you too, always and forever.

Adam –
Forever and always.
 

It’s the last text we exchanged the night before he left, and it’s tattooed on his body, permanently. What the hell? I try to move away, but his fingers thread through my hair on either side of my head as he gently pulls me up until we are face to face again.

“Why?”

“Because I loved you. I didn’t want to go, Ame,” he says, focusing on my lips as he holds me in place, hypnotically stroking my cheeks with his thumbs.

“I didn’t want to go …” he whispers before covering my mouth with his again.

I don’t want to be one of those fickle girls who will forgive and forget when a hot guy drops his pants, really I don’t. But Adam and I share a special connection, including thirteen years of history, and it’s physically impossible for me to pull away from him.

When we are this close, he could tell me he killed my favorite childhood pet, and I would shrug it off and beg him to kiss me. His lips move against mine, and his tongue does magic things to my nervous system.

He unties the tie of my sweater and pushes it off of my shoulders, and somewhere inside a relieved voice says, “Thank God, it’s getting hot in here.” His nimble fingers have my shirt unbuttoned in seconds, and he is pulling down the cups of my bra, exposing my breasts.

“You’re so fucking beautiful. God, I’ve missed you so much,” he says, sucking one hard, taut nipple to the point of pain. I gasp, arching against him, and he releases it immediately, licking and soothing it with his tongue.

On his way to claim the other one, he softly says, “There are so many things I want to do to you, Ame. I want to be inside of you again. I want to fuck you for days. I want to make you scream my name again. I want to taste every inch of you, claim every part of you, make you mine again please, Ame …” he’s seducing me with words and feelings from our past when a loud buzzer sounds over an intercom.

“Fuck, nobody is supposed to even know I’m home yet.”

The noise yanks me back through a wormhole to reality. The common sense and self-respect that’s taken me six years to build to a healthy level return in a rush. What the hell am I doing? This is horribly unprofessional—not to mention damaging for me emotionally.

I swing my leg over and scurry around, frantically looking for my sweater and his t-shirt. When I find the fuzzy plum sweater, I throw it on and hand him his Radiohead t-shirt. He grabs my wrist, but I can’t look at him. I keep my eyes trained on the floor while he speaks.

“Don’t, Ame. Whoever it is, I’ll send them away. I want you to stay, please.”

“Maybe if you’d given me a chance to say those exact words, we wouldn’t be where we are now. I can’t do this, Adam. It has to be professional from this second on, or I’m leaving.”

He holds out his hands, palms up in surrender, “Okay.”

“You mean it? No more hanky-panky. Keep your hands to yourself, and all that jazz.”

“Yes, if that’s what it takes for you to stay.”

“It is.”

“Hey, man, when were you gonna tell me …” A mammoth bald man wearing jeans and a tight red Henley, showcasing his perfect NFA physique, busts through the door, stopping short when he catches sight of me.

“Aw shit, sorry, you busy? I should have waited for Casey to let me up, but dude, you never have women up here. And uh, I still have a key,” he says, holding up a gold key.

Adam slips his t-shirt over his head, and I feel a fiery hot flush creep up my neck to my cheeks. I used to love the thrill of getting caught when we were younger. Now? Not so much. This is embarrassing. People in the sports world know me, and they have loose tongues. If this guy interprets this the wrong way, or the right way rather and opens his mouth, the whole world will think Adam and I are a thing. 

“Roman, this is my nurse, Amethyst Amero. Amethyst, this is, for all intents and purposes, my best friend, Roman.”

“Oh, cool. Okay. Gotcha, the nurse,” he says, shaking my hand a bit too hard with a grin as wide as a football field.

“You’re one fine nurse. Maybe I’ll get myself hurt one day, so you can come take care of me?” he says, wrinkling the skin on his head when he waggles his eyebrows.

“Knock it off, Roman. She’s off limits, and that’s workplace harassment, you know? She could sue me.”

Roman’s hands fly up in surrender. “Sorry, can’t blame a man for trying.” Roman shrugs, and his original cocky pig persona switches to boyish charm.

Roman is the best linebacker for the Redkings. He’s talented, beyond handsome, and he’s a worldwide heart breaker. Always the flirt, but he refuses to be tied down. Huh, sounds familiar. Maybe the NFA forces a lot of its athletes to be “players.”

“It’s fine. I work with professional athletes every day. I’ve got pretty tough skin.” I smile at him, and he stares at me until I look down at our still joined hands.

“Oh shit, sorry,” he says, dropping my hand. When I look at Adam, he’s glaring at Roman, but Roman is oblivious.

“So how long ‘til I gotta protect your ass again, Snake?” he asks.

“You didn’t do a good job the first time. Maybe the team will replace you,” Adam says.

“Nah, I’m way too pretty to trade,” Roman says, waving his hand dismissively.

Adam chuckles and I begin my retreat to the hallway.

“Where are you going?” Adam asks, his words full of worry.

“Downstairs to sort through your medication and get my schedule. I’ll be back in a while.”

“Bye, Roman,” I say with a little wave.

“Later pretty nurse,” he says, and Adam punches him in the leg.

“Ow man! I gotta earn a living with that leg!” he says, rubbing out the sting.

I shake my head and turn to leave when Adam stops me. “Ame, could you bring me something to drink with my pain pills, please?” he asks.

“Yep,” I say without turning around. I hustle down the hall to the nearest door, open it, close it, and press my back against it to take a million deep breaths.

I can’t believe I let that happen. I was wrong to think I could do this I should leave. I’ll call Brea and have her meet me in Florida ASAP.

When I open my eyes, I find I’m in Adam’s office. The light scent of a cigar lingers in the air. It’s in keeping with the rest of the house.

I walk toward the enormous cherry wood desk in the center of the room. The placement of furniture reminds me of the Oval Office. There are two couches that face each other in front of the desk and a huge gold rug that stops two feet from the wall showing glossy hard wood floors underneath. A floor-to-ceiling window is behind the desk and faces out over a garden in the yard.

I walk aimlessly around, dragging my fingers along the backs of the couches and over the wood of his sturdy desk. I sit in his Italian leather office chair and spin toward the window, sliding my phone from the pocket of my sweater. I dial Brea.

“You sure do make a lotta personal calls when you’re at work,” she says without a hello.

“I can’t tell the difference between work and personal anymore, Brea. I need help.”

She blows out a long breath and groans, “You have to stay.”

“What? No, Brea, it’s too hard I can’t control myself around him.”

“Control yourself how?”

I bow my head and pick at a loose thread on my sweater.

“Never mind, that pregnant pause says it all. You’ve crossed the line, haven’t you?”

“Well, not completely, we kissed and it would have gone further if his friend hadn’t barged in.”

“Thank God for untimely friends.”

I can imagine Brea in the break room at work flicking a pen between her fingers while she thinks about my situation.

“Can you stay a little longer? Like give me a couple hours until I’m off work to think on it?”

“I dunno, I really think I should go now and cut my losses …”

“You can’t go, Amethyst,” Adam says. I swing the office chair around to find him in a wheelchair being pushed into the room by Roman.

“I gotta go, Brea, call me when you’re off work.”

I lower the phone, clicking the end button before she even says goodbye.

“I’m sorry Adam, I would have told you but you know as well as I do this is impossible. We have too much history, too much unfinished business.”

“Exactly, unfinished. We need time to work through everything.”

“We can’t work through everything between the sheets, Adam. I can’t go there with you again.”

“Uh, yell when you need me man, I don’t wanna be intruding on relationship stuff,” Roman says, backing out the door. Adam doesn’t acknowledge him, he keeps all of his attention on me, watching like I’m about to bolt.

I sit up, straighten my spine, and lift my chin before I begin to reason with him.

“I’m sorry Adam, I can’t.

“What happened today,” he waves his hand in the direction of his bedroom. “It’ll never happen again if you don’t want it to, I swear.”

“That’s the problem, Adam. I don’t know what I want, I mean yes I do, I think I do anyway. I can’t think around you. You have no clue, no idea at all how bad you fucked me up when you left me,” I say, throwing my hands into the air and spinning the chair around so I don’t have to look at his face.

He draws a deep breath, blowing it out slowly.

“You’re right, I have no idea how much you hurt when I left you, but can you trust me when I say that it’s extremely important that you stay with me for a while?”

The tone in his voice strikes me as urgent. It’s as if he would beg if I put up a fuss.

I tip my head to the side and narrow my gaze. “This has nothing to do with your recovery, does it?”

His eyes dart away and back, and I know there is something else going on here. His expression presses me to agree with him, my staying feels personal and desperate. My belly fills with angst and my imagination begins to wander all over the place.

“Of course it does, it’s imperative that I get back to work and I can’t do that without you, but …”

“But what?” I say, leaning forward anticipating his answer.

“But nothing. I don’t want you to leave.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not. If you do this one thing for me, I’ll do anything you want. Anything. Just please stay.”

Wow, he is desperate, and a desperate man is scary. The only time men are desperate is when they are in serious trouble or in love, or if it’s really bad, both.

“One week. I’ll try for one week and if it’s too difficult, I’m out.”

I watch every muscle in his body simultaneously melt in front of my eyes. His relief worries me even more, but it’s obvious he’s not about to tell me the real reason he wants me to stay. I’ve got one week to get it out of him. I hope seven days will be enough.

Chapter Fifteen

Adam

Thank fucking God she agreed. If she hadn’t, I would have considered tying her up and hiding her away. I came so close to telling her the truth, but the truth will get her killed.

Vincent De Palma is the man pulling all of the blackmailing strings related to my father’s debt that was paid in full by yours truly years ago.

Vincent is also the greasy slime ball who has been injecting himself into Amethyst’s life. I’ve been watching him as close as he’s been watching Amethyst. Recently, he sent me some ominous messages about ending her life.

I’m not paying that asshole anymore and when I involved the FBI, he scrambled around like a bug in a hot skillet.

I knew he would be up my ass until the end of time. I had to do something. Every month, his demands increased and the threats became more serious. It’s only a matter of time before one of us breaks, and I refuse to let Amethyst be a victim because of something my stupid ass father did.

Good ol’ Dad has been back at it for about a year now. Guess it’s true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I’m through bailing him out though. He’s ruined the most important part of my life with his gambling, but no more.

“Thanks for having this available for me,” I say, patting the arms of the wheelchair.

“It’s part of my job. Do you want to go back to bed?” she asks.

“No, I’m sick of being in bed. Let’s go outside.”

“I don’t know if you’ve forgotten that it’s February in Virginia. It’s got to be double digits below zero out there.”

I shrug, “I don’t mind the cold, it’s exhilarating. Come on,” I say, waving my hand over my head, “I haven’t quite gotten the hang of this thing yet though, you mind helping?”

“What about Roman?”

“He can come too. We can make him start a fire in the pit and drink wine until our noses freeze off.”

She shakes her head back and forth vigorously, “No way mister, you’re on pain medicine. You can’t have alcohol.”

“Then I won’t take any. I hate them anyway.”

“I’ll agree to going outside, but only for a little bit. I like my face without frostbite.”

I bite my tongue to keep from saying anything. A beat of quietness hangs between us. I want to tell her I like her face too, I love it actually. She blinks twice, two slow, deliberate sultry-as-fuck blinks before she stands to cross the room. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing to me. She still thinks I’m dickhead numero uno and if I were her, I would think so too.

She rounds my wheelchair and points me toward the door.

“Okay, let the freezing commence,” she says, pushing me down the hall to the elevator. When she pushes the down button, the clicking of nails on the tile in the foyer below become louder.

“Lady, come on girl. Let’s go outside.”

I don’t even get the words out of my mouth before she’s barreling up the stairs following my voice. Amethyst swivels to avoid being pummeled by one-hundred-plus pounds of dog muscle. It’s too late though, she’s big but she’s fast.

“Whoa! Lady, I’m happy to see you too girl, but you’re going to …”

I reach out to grab her and end up pulling her into my lap to keep her from going down.

Can you say torture?

She’s wiggling around, pulling her knees up to her chest to protect herself from Lady’s kisses. I should call her off. I should yell at her for jumping but to be honest, I’d rather kiss her on top of her big sturdy head for putting Amethyst in my lap.

I let the licking and giggling continue until she buries her face in my chest.

“Make her stop,” she shrieks, and with much regret, I sternly tell Lady to sit. She retreats immediately and the elevator dings. Ame sits up to wipe the slobber from her cheek, and there’s no way she doesn’t feel my straining cock against her ass.

Oh, that ass.

The urge to thrust my hips up is all but uncontrollable. If my leg weren’t throbbing as hard as my cock, I may have given in to temptation.

Our eyes lock and the tension in the air between us vibrates like music pumping from a subwoofer at a concert. I tear my eyes from hers to focus on her full glossy lips that are mere centimeters from mine.

God, I want to kiss her again. Maybe she’s right; maybe we can’t do this.

No, I won’t hurt her any more than I already have. I need to be unselfish and respect her wishes.

“You okay?” I say softly and use my thumb to wipe some slobber from her cheek. She shakes her head and inhales sharply.

“Yeah, fine.” She arches her back to wiggle off of my lap and I help her with a little shove.

“You had to choose the biggest breed of dog, didn’t you?” she says, eyeing Lady.

“Well, you know what they say.”

“What? I like big dogs and I cannot lie?”

I roll my eyes and laugh at her joke.

“No, close though. Size matters.” I wink at her and she huffs a disgusted breath.

“Hey, you guys coming down any time this century?” Roman yells from the foyer.

“Yea, put your coat on. We’re going outside,” I yell back.

When Ame has me in the elevator, she releases Lady from her sitting position with a pat on her hip. Lady trots in, turns around, and sits at Ame’s feet.

“Now she behaves.” I reach out to scratch her behind her ear.

“She was just excited to see me.”

For the second time in fifteen minutes, I hold back another flirty comment. It has to get easier with time, doesn’t it?

“You’re a good judge of character, aren’t you girl?”

Lady’s tail thumps against the side of the small elevator when I say
girl
. I don’t invite women into my house, and I only refer to two people as
girl.
That would be Lady and my daughter Harper.

Ame doesn’t know about Harper. Nobody does really. Cherry and I have done an amazing job keeping her existence private. Cherry getting pregnant was an absolute nightmare. It was the summer after I was signed. I was young, dumb, and missing Amethyst like crazy, and it only takes once. I’m lucky Harper is the only thing I got from Cherry. It could have been much worse.

Not according to coach though, he freaked the fuck out. They had recently gotten me to abandon my wholesome monogamous lifestyle in the Midwest. The playboy image was sparking like fireworks, and the first thing I do before playing even one game is knock up a hooker.

One night of filthy, drunken, unprotected sex, and I had a permanent connection to a woman I’m embarrassed to have slept with.

We went to court, and I tried to get full custody claiming Cherry was a drug addict and a whore, but she cleaned up her act long enough to get the judge to rule in her favor. The court usually gives primary custody to the mother, that’s just how it is. The judge also thought it would be difficult, if not impossible, to raise a baby alone while playing in the NFA. Split custody was ordered with Cherry being the primary caregiver.

It made me physically ill to watch her carry Harper out of that courtroom, all smug and happy with herself for playing the good mother role so well.  She was back on her corner picking up men and doing drugs before the week was out.

Cherry knew what she was doing. She saw a cash cow and made the most of her moment in the spotlight. I swear that woman is as bad as Vinnie with the fucking blackmail. Always trying to get more out of me, threatening to expose to the media that I have a kid if I didn’t pay. I must have SUCKER stamped on my forehead or something.

“Well, of course. She’s a girl. We stick together, don’t we?” Lady’s tail thumping accelerates. The doors slide open and Roman is waiting for us, bundled up in a bright red down coat with fur trim around the collar. He has a thick scarf wrapped around his neck so only his eyes are visible and heavy ski gloves on his hands.

“He conned ya into going outside, huh? Fool loves the cold, something wrong with this one here,” he says, pointing at me.

“Looks like you’re used to this,” Ame says.

“Yep, every time I come over here he finds an excuse to go outside, so I make the best of it.” He claps his gloved hands together as if to prove he’s prepared for any kind of weather.

“Sounds like you’re a good friend,” she says to Roman.

“He’s really an asshole, but I keep him around for entertainment,” I say.

“Shut the fuck up, you can’t live without me and you know it. Come on, let’s get this over with. I hope you have some heavy gear. Once you get him out there, you can’t get him to come back in.

“Actually I bought a coat today, but it’s not that warm.”

“Roman my man, grab my stuff from the closet, will ya? And while you’re in there, bring the silver Bogna and the box on the shelf.”

“Aw, spoiling the pretty nurse already,” he says, and turns to get my coat with Lady trotting behind him wagging her tail. He has on so many clothes he looks like a big red robot when he walks. What a puss.

“What’s a Bogna?” she asks.

“It’s a ski coat, I got it for you because, as Roman explained, I love to go outside and I didn’t figure you would have one warm enough.”

“Why did you think that?”

I don’t tell her that I knew she would have a suitcase full of summer clothes. Coach told me she was headed to another job right before I went into surgery. Then he told me who she was going to take care of, and I refused the surgery until I knew she had been safely rerouted to Virginia, to me.

I can’t stand the thought of her staying with that pervert Jones in Florida. Jones is a class “A” freak who roofies women in clubs so he can take them home and play with them like dolls.

Everyone in the National Football Association knows it. I can’t believe the company she works for hasn’t flagged him yet.

She’s fidgeting, trying to keep herself from pacing. She paces when she’s nervous or indecisive. She’s worried about accepting another gift.

“Consider it part of your equipment for this job if it makes you feel any better.”

My flimsy excuse relaxes her. I’m glad. She’s gonna need that coat.

If I know her like I think I do, she’ll Google the brand and the price tonight and return it tomorrow. She’s a hard woman to give a gift to. She didn’t used to be, but then again I could never afford gifts that cost much. Working at a bike shop all through high school didn’t pay great. I spent a good portion of the money I earned buying groceries when my dad had gambled all of our food money away.

Lady’s nails click on the tile as she returns with Roman. He hands Ame my coat and she helps me into it first. I don’t like being dependent on someone else for the most basic things. I should be helping her into her coat, not vice versa.

Roman holds up her new coat and she slides her arms into it. As soon as it’s on, a little moan of appreciation escapes her lips. Roman’s eyes say that it’s not only me who appreciates every little sound this woman makes. His brows lift high and he nods slowly while he watches as Amethyst zips up her new fifteen-hundred-dollar coat.

“Open the box,” I tell her, and Roman points to the box he set on the breakfront a few minutes ago.

Lady is sitting patiently, watching us all prepare to brave the cold. She probably thinks we’re a bunch of nuts bundling up like this.

Amethyst hesitates, and Roman lifts the lid and hands her a matching scarf, hat, and glove set.

“We gotta get outside. I’m sweating my balls off in here honey. Let’s go.”

“Well all right then,” she says, turning to me, “Thank you, I appreciate the outerwear. Do you have a blanket or something I can throw over your legs?” she asks.

“We can grab one off the couch on our way through the living room,” I say.

Amethyst sets out weaving her way through the house following my directions until we reach the French doors off the kitchen. Roman snatches a blanket and throws it at me to cover myself with along the way.

Outside, there is a path around the pool that’s been recently shoveled. Lady races ahead and jumps up to snatch falling snowflakes from the air. Then she sticks her nose in a drift and throws it up like she’s caught something.

I have such a good staff here. They shovel this path regularly because they know how much I love it out here. Every one of them has been with me since the beginning and every one of them is loyal to the core.

“Holy Lord Almighty, it’s cold out here,” Ame says when the frigid air smacks her in the face.

“I’ll bet you’re glad I got you that coat now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah well, you’d be sitting out here without me if you hadn’t. Where to now?”

“Follow the path.”

The wheels of the chair scrunch under the thin layer of snow that has fallen since the path was cleared. It’s freezing but the cold feels good to me, always has. I never feel more alive than when I step outside on a below zero day.

“Guy is nuts wanting to be out here. Fuck, Adam, why couldn’t you be a normal best friend and sit on the couch and play video games with a dude?” Roman says.

“Video games are stagnant. This, this is exhilarating. It gets your blood pumping, makes you feel alive.”