ROMANCE: BAD BOY ROMANCE: M.V.B. - Most Valuable Baby (Sports Secret Baby Romance) (Contemporary Interracial Pregnancy Romance) (2 page)

“Well, when you have time, dear, I’d love to show you around. Thanks for taking the time to stop by this morning.” He stood right in front of her. She couldn’t lie to her father. He always seemed to be able to pull the truth out of her effortlessly.

“Sure thing, Daddy.” She gave her father a hug. He stood a little taller than Sable. He was still wide from the days when he packed on size and muscle as a pro, but he’d put on some weight since he left the field and turned to coaching. She couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t a coach, but there were photos of him in uniform on the field all over their house. They were hung side by side with photos of him as a coach and family pictures where he stood with Sable, her two older pro brothers, and their mom.

Sable wasn’t interested in the game the way her brothers were, but she couldn’t help feeling bad every time she saw the disappointment in her father’s eyes when she turned down his offers to take part in his passion.

CHAPTER THREE

“Again,” Coach Armstrong called.

Dylan didn’t know what he was doing wrong. He’d run the drill countless times. He knew the steps. He knew where the ones were. He could run it with his eyes closed. He felt he was even doing better than on his best days in college. For quarterbacks, everyone ran the same drills. It was all about how the quarterback put himself in the right place at the right time to launch the ball.

“Again. This isn’t college, son.” Coach Armstrong stood with his arms crossed and his clipboard held against his chest. He had stopped watching the other players on the field several drills ago, and he was focusing all of his attention on Dylan.

He missed a step and tripped over one of the little orange cones they used for markers during drills. He went down on his side suddenly, as if he’d been sacked. No one laughed. No one reacted at all, other than the coach.

“Alright, kid. That’s what I wanted to see.” He looked back down at his clipboard and started to walk off.

“Hold up, Coach! What did you want to see?” Dylan hopped up and tested his weight on his ankle to make sure he hadn’t injured himself in the fall. He jogged over to Coach Armstrong.

“I just wanted to see how many times you could do the drills under pressure without screwing up.” He cracked a rusty old smile at Dylan and patted him on the back.

“So, how’d I do?” Dylan asked hesitantly.

“About like I expected.” Coach Armstrong winked at him and turned his attention to the other players on the field.

Dylan let out a rough, exasperated breath and kicked at the grass on the field. It had been like this all week. They were busting his chops just to see if he could take it. He could, of course, but it didn’t make it any easier. He stretched his back and turned to watch the starting quarterback run a handful of drills with effortless grace.

“No one’s giving
him
a hard time,” Dylan muttered to himself.

“You’ve got some smooth moves out there,” a voice startled him from behind.

He turned around, and it was
her
, Sable Armstrong, the coach’s daughter. She looked up at him with a smile spread nicely across her face.

“Thanks, I guess. It’s Sable, right?” He didn’t want to seem too eager. He had to save face a little from the last time they had met, when she had him stumbling over himself. Pretending he wasn’t sure of the girl’s name was one of his go-to moves. It was intended to keep her from thinking he was too into her. This was the coach’s daughter, after all, and he wasn’t supposed to be into her at all.

“That’s right. I’m glad you remembered.” Her smile grew a little brighter, and her eyes sparkled. She playfully ran a hand down his arm. Her touch was so soft and smooth. He could have used her touch all over his tired body.

Oh yeah, it’s working
, he told himself.

“So, how’s practice going?” She talked like they were friends. She sounded like a salesperson trying to sound like a client’s best friend to get him to buy something.

“It’s practice,” Dylan answered with a sigh, “but it’s not like the practices I’m used to.”

“Well, it is the pros. Hey, have you had a chance to get out and enjoy the city any?” She touched him again. He knew she was trying to make a connection, and he was okay with that. He was sure she had her reasons for reaching out to him over everyone else, but he had his reasons for going along with it. Those reasons stood in front of him underneath her clothes.

“Not really. We’re stuck here all day, and no one really wants to get out of here when we’re done with practice,” Dylan told her. He wasn’t really sure if they were even allowed to leave the facility after practice. It seemed like they weren’t, judging by the way everyone acted about it.

“Well, why don’t we hit the town tonight? I’ll take you out to eat and maybe show you around,” Sable offered.

“I don’t know,” Dylan tried to decline. He’d found himself in trouble from going out and partying on the town before. To make things worse, she was who she was, and getting caught with her would have been the kind of trouble that caught him kicked off the team. Plus, he figured she wouldn’t take no for an answer if she really did want to take him out.

“Come on, you’ve been working pretty hard this week. You deserve a break. You let me work out getting you out of here, and we’ll go grab some dinner.” She didn’t wait for an answer before walking off in the direction of her father.

Dylan stood and watched as Sable talked to Coach Armstrong for a few minutes. The view from the back was just as nice as the front. Her pants weren’t clingy and tight, but they definitely hugged the perfect curve of her ass. Dylan laughed to himself.

He couldn’t believe his luck. He hadn’t even mentioned trying to find any girls to the other guys. They all seemed pretty serious. The atmosphere surrounding training was very intense. Partying was not on the list of training drills. He was also willing to bet that it wasn’t on anyone else’s mind but his.

“If we go now, you’ll be fine,” Sable whispered urgently in his ear when she came back.

“Wait, we’re still running drills. I need a shower, and I’m not dressed for going out. I’m still dressed for practice.” He held his arms up to show her his uniform pants and the padded undershirt he wore to ease the impact of getting sacked by defensive linemen.

“Okay, look, go inside now and grab some clothes for tonight. Meet me in the parking lot. You can get a shower at my place,” she said firmly, gripping his arm in her petite hand.

“Yes, ma’am. You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said and turned to run back inside.

CHAPTER FOUR

So, this is what life is like in the pros
, Dylan thought as he stripped down in the bathroom at Sable’s loft apartment overlooking downtown. From the tall floor-to-ceiling windows set in the brick wall running along the side of building, he had been able to see the stadium out past the older buildings like the one she lived in and the modern glass towers. He wondered what the view was like at night, and he could feel his excitement stirring as he thought about the possibility of coming back to her place after dinner to find out.

He stepped into the shower and closed her frosted glass shower door to let the hot water cascade over his body. It felt good to be in a real shower again. The water pressure in the training facility showers was pretty lacking. Sable’s water pounded his flesh and penetrated deep into his muscle tissue to massage away the soreness and stress of the past few days.

He looked at all the products she had on the ledge in the wall of her shower, most of which he didn’t recognize. He searched through the bottles for shampoo and shower gel or body wash. He took the first body wash he found and squirted some in his hand. He wasn’t so sure about all the different scrubs with their different purposes. He just wanted to wash off his sweat and smell better for his delicious little date.

When he finished washing and shut off the water, he thought he heard the bathroom door close. He opened the shower door and looked into the bathroom to find a towel waiting for him on the counter by the sink. He grinned at the towel, realizing she’d been in the bathroom. She’d seen him in the shower, even if it had only been a silhouette in the frosted glass. He’d figured something was up when she’d invited him to her place to take a shower. Now he was pretty sure he’d been right.

“So, what’s for dinner?” He stepped out of the bathroom in a dress shirt and blue jeans over his boots. He’d brushed his hair out of his face and splashed on a little cologne.

“I was thinking steak. There’s a nice steakhouse…” Sable’s voice trailed off when she turned around and saw him. He saw the desire in her light eyes as she looked him up and down. She devoured him with a single look.

She wore a tight black evening gown that hugged every curve of her petite yet shapely figure. She threw a shawl over her shoulders and grabbed her little black clutch purse. Her dark hair bounced in tight little ringlets over her shoulders when she walked past him. He wanted to grab her and suggest staying in when he saw her waist up close. It was the perfect place for him to put an arm, but he only allowed himself a hand on the small of her back as they left her apartment.

“You were saying,” Dylan reminded her in the hallway of her building.

“Yes. There’s a nice upscale steakhouse just a couple of blocks from here. They’ve got the most succulent steak you’ll ever sink your teeth into. I figured we’d start there and see where the night takes us,” she said with a teasing, suggestive grin on her face. Dylan knew what he wanted to sink his teeth into, and it wasn’t a steak.

He grabbed the door for her and held it open to let her walk through it before him.

“And a gentleman, too. You Southern boys know how to treat a woman,” she said in delight.

“You know, Sable, I find it hard to believe you don’t have gentlemen up here,” Dylan said, not really meaning to dodge her compliment, but the stereotype that Southerners were so much more polite than everyone else rubbed him the wrong way. He felt like everyone should have been raised to be polite and, especially, to treat women with the utmost respect.

“Well, Dylan, you’d be surprised.” She grabbed his arm and pulled herself close to him.

You also don’t get many women this forward back home
, he told himself as he put his arm across her shoulder to block her from the cool breeze. It seemed a bit early in the year for it to start cooling off that much at night, but the weather wasn’t the only thing he had to get used to, apparently.

CHAPTER FIVE

Sable’s date definitely stood out in the classy setting of the upscale, five-star restaurant. Vintage specialized in steak and wine. It was
the
steakhouse for people who wouldn’t be caught dead in a steakhouse. The tables were covered in white tablecloths with candles as centerpieces. The chairs were wide and welcoming. Sitting in them was like having a personal couch pulled up to the table.

She wondered if Dylan had ever been in a restaurant like Vintage before. Surely, as celebrated as he had been in college, someone had taken him to a nice restaurant. He showed everyone where he was from with what he wore, she thought, and it turned her on to feel like she’d taken him out of his element by taking him there.

Dylan wore a wide dark red dress shirt that didn’t cling to his toned body the way his t-shirts did. It still managed to emphasize his size and build, though. His jeans were tight like they were in TV ads. She tried not to be obvious about it, but her eyes had cut to his crotch to see how the fabric cupped his manhood a few times. She had been checking out her prize since he’d stepped out of her bathroom fully dressed.

With his golden brown waves pushed back from his face and his chiseled facial features, he looked like he should have been a model or a movie star instead of a football player. Of course, being the latter meant there was a certain measure of athletic prowess she could look forward to enjoying later in the evening.

“So, what do you think?” Sable asked her date after they were seated and had ordered their wine.

“It’s very…cozy,” he answered slowly, pausing a moment as if he couldn’t find quite the right word. Despite the clean white linens and open expanse of the dining room, Vintage maintained a very comfortable, almost romantic atmosphere by keeping the lights low so that patrons were able to keep their focus on the people at their tables.

“Have you ever eaten somewhere like this?” she ventured to ask, hoping she wasn’t coming across as rude. She just really wanted to know everything she could about this gorgeous man sitting with her.