ROMANCE: SPORTS ROMANCE: Bad Boys of Sports: A Complete Collection (Alpha Male, Football, Hockey Secret Baby Romance) (Contemporary Sports Romance) (3 page)

Chapter Six

Blaze

I never thought I could be jealous of a shirt.

But, I’d sacrifice my soul to be the fabric that’s hugging her. Shit. Caroline said Emma looked good. The hint of dark circles underneath her eye made her even better somehow. Her sweetness had a biting edge. I’d come storming in and dragged her out using my celebrity prowess.

“I need to go home now, Blaze. I’m sorry.”

Shit. What I wouldn’t do to just get her to have a beer with me. She has walls up; that’s for sure. I can feel them almost tangibly as I stood next to her. Her eyes darted to the bus stop behind me. It’s clear to me that those gorgeous baby blues don’t want a thing to do with me.

Why the fuck am I standing here then?
Move, Blaze. Leave her be.
If she’s not interested, then I should just leave.

“I’ve got to catch the bus,” she said with and a sharpness in voice. I hear embarrassment in her voice too, and it infuriates me. She should be taken around in a damn carriage. God, I must be a masochist for chasing this.

She moved to go, but I’ve gotten too far to let her slip past me.

“Let me drive you home.”

Her mouth twists. I curse myself for never fully appreciating those lips.

“I don’t know…”

“I insist. It’ll be quicker.” Maybe it’s dark circles from a lack of sleep.

She nods, giving in. “Okay, Blaze.” A real smile creeps up on my face.

My truck is at the end of the street. I grab the door for her, watch her lean away from me as she climbs in. When I circle to my side, I sigh then, so she doesn’t hear my disappointment.

The steady hum of my truck makes up a bulk of the conversation for the first two minutes. She leaned up against the window, eyelashes fluttering as she stared out at the passing terrain. A few unfamiliar faces waved when they saw me pass, but I can’t bother to cater to them just now.

“Everyone loves you here,” she said.

“People like football. A lot.”

She snorted softly. “Don’t downplay it. Where’s that famous ego I’ve read about?”

My smirk was automatic. “I’m not that bad. I don’t bite.”

Her hands directed me to her apartment. My eyes scanned the cramped units, pushed closely together. Pink dusted her cheeks.

“I never even went to school.”

I stared at her then, mouth dropping wide open.

“What?”

It hadn’t sounded like a planned confession. Her breath caught. I leaned toward her, my hand reaching out.

“I never went to school.” Her voice breaks as she tore open the handle. For five seconds that felt like an eternity, her pained eyes burned into me. “Goodbye, Blaze.”

Never in my twenty-six years of living has a woman physically run away from me. But as I already knew, Emma was not an average woman.

Chapter Seven

Emma

“I’m going to die of embarrassment,” I confided in Melissa the next day before planning to head out.

The redhead smiled sympathetically. I’d told her a tiny bit about what was going on. She needed to know after I came in, running from some guy dropping me off in a truck. I conveniently left out the part where he was a famous football player.

“He’s still interested,” she said with an amused air. “It’s obvious. So, what if he’s your friend’s brother? You’re an adult now. Those things don’t matter after high school.”

Chloe tugged on my sleeve with a playful grin. My heart thundered wildly against my chest.

“Maybe you’re right about that, Mel, but it’s more than that…”

Caroline had invited me over to catch up. She said that Andrew was off with Blaze and her father to do some male bonding. I exhaled in relief when I got off the phone with her. As long as Blaze wasn’t there, it should be okay.

I had to admit; it felt incredible to see Caroline again, alone this time. Without Andrew around, she slipped back into a warmer accent and cracked more jokes like she did in high school. I’d missed her infectious laughter, though I tried to keep myself from the loneliness of missing it. Now that she was sitting here, next to me, those feelings came rushing back.

“So, how excited are you to get married?” I asked her. She gave a toothy grin.

“Very,” she said and then shot me a strange look. “But sometimes, I wonder if I’m making a huge mistake. That maybe I should, you know, travel some more and find myself, yada yada, before I settle down for good.”

I shrugged, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “You love him, don’t you?”

“I do.” Her grin seemed anything but torn. I laughed as she poured another cup of coffee for us. My arms stretched upwards as I felt the exhaustion from yesterday’s events hitting me.

As I did, someone laughed quietly behind me.

I nearly jumped when Blaze came into view. She frowned at him while I tried not to gawk. He was shirtless, with gym shorts slung low on his hips. My eyes tried not to stare at his body for fear of both of them catching me. His confident smile showed no signs of his half-naked state.

“Why are you home so early?” she asked with a suspicious glance.

“Your fiancé and Dad are bad at physical activity,” he fired back with a confident air. “I told them to play a few more rounds since I crushed them.”

She hummed. “Well, I’m going to call Andrew to see if he wants to go to dinner. Would you like to join us, Em?”

I blushed as I felt his gaze on me. “It’s okay; I have plans tonight. Thank you though.”

Panic seized me as Caroline nodded and then floated out of the room, leaving me very alone with a mostly naked man that made me squirm just by staring at me.

He took her place on the couch with an amused expression.

“Nice to see you not running away from me for once.”

My cheeks had to be as red as the wine bottles in the rack behind him. I cleared my throat and squared my shoulders, drawing up any strand of confidence I had left in me. “That’s one of my hobbies. Running away from situations, you know.”

The stab at humor brought a dark chuckle from him. My skin erupted into goosebumps. Damn.

“Do you remember when Caroline ran right into a pole?”

I giggled. “You mean when she drank for the first time? Yes.”

“She had a bump as big as a baseball on her forehead. Our parents were pissed.”

“I remember you drove her to the doctor, but they found out anyways when the hospital called to chew your parents out about underage drinking.”

He cackled wildly. “They got used to it between the two of us. They used to punish us by making us run laps around the house. If it had been this house, I’d probably have died.”

“That’s why you guys are better runners,” I said with a laugh.

His face glowed with mischief. A cold sweat covered me.

“You seem to like running from me.”

My mouth was dry. His teasing glance held me still.

“Remember the last time, when I chased you at her graduation party? We were all drunk and playing hide n’ seek.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat as the room’s temperature soared. Our eyes couldn’t seem to move from one another. My fingers itched to feel his skin, the grooves of his hardened muscles. I wanted to see if they felt the same – the same as I remembered.

“Oh yeah, that night,” I whispered.

He nodded. “That night.”

It was the night we’d come together in a collision of desire and passion. We explored one another’s bodies while the rest of the party carried on in a drunken stupor. They hadn’t even noticed we were gone. Caroline was passed out by nine-thirty.

A game was suggested to keep the party going even though the guest of honor was down for the count. I’d been looking at him all night, and he’d been looking right back. In the shadows, I hoped that maybe I wouldn’t feel as guilty when I finally pressed myself against him and told him to kiss me.

A kiss that turned quickly into a trip to a friend’s house who was out of town.

“You said that it was wrong because of Caroline,” he continued. The door she’d gone out to talk to Andrew outside on the phone hadn’t opened again. We would’ve heard it if it did. How long were we going to be alone? My heart pounded fast, too fast.

“Blaze.”

He’d cornered me, but he didn’t know it. He couldn’t know. My stomach twisted.

“Come to the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. As my date.”

My mind screamed at me to reject his invitation, but my chest was softly blooming warm with memory, thinking about the way we’d come together that night.

“I’d like that,” I agreed. Whether I could do it, I didn’t know.

At this moment, that didn’t seem to matter.

Chapter Eight

Blaze

The only decent bar was halfway across town. It had the lighting of a dungeon, scowling bartenders, but a mean drink inventory.

A hand clapped my back as my old high school teammates cheered our reunion. They’d demanded I carve out some time for them, even though I’d rather be bothering a certain woman for a date before Caroline’s rehearsal dinner. Still, I was excited to see them.

Two hours later, I was draining the last of another beer. Shrill laughter and vapid comments filtered through my buzz. During the time we’d been here, our table had managed to grow to three. It was flattering, sort of. My thoughts on this type of attention were always mixed.

The worst were the women sidling up beside me with painted smiles.

“Blaze, I just love you.”

“Honey, look at those guns.”

“You’re such a great football player. Is it hard? You must be stressed.”

“Can you take a picture with me? My girlfriends are gonna be so jealous.”

All I could think about was the woman who’d spent the last four years running from me.  I replayed in my head the moment we had earlier – the lame comment I made, my request for a date, a jab at flirting. It was on repeat over and over again, and I rolled my eyes at myself. The alcohol was starting to seep into my brain. Hanging around old friends always made me drink more, and I ordered another beer. The bartender subtly mentioned that he would comp mine. Not that I needed it.

At some point, a platinum blonde in towering platform heels with near-orange skin tone draped herself on my shoulder and whispered in my ear about what she wasn’t wearing underneath. I sighed.

“All right, that’s it for me. I’m going,” I announced. Before anyone could protest with drunken drawled venting, I slipped out of the door after slipping a forty dollar tip to the bartender. My friends would be there for the rest of the night, for sure. He was going to earn that tip. I smirked, thinking of the disappointed squeals of the women, as I strolled down the sidewalk. Sorry, ladies, but I’m trying to catch a tricky one.

Before I knew it, my feet were taking me towards her place. The path was easy to get there. Nobody was going to mess with me even on the dark streets. My hand knocked on the bottom door. Nobody seemed home, making me scowl.

Shit. Did she live on the first floor? I thought I saw her run to an apartment on the first floor. Several lights in nearby units began lighting up.

“Whoops.”

I skirted around to the side of the building where the balconies were. When I hoisted myself upwards, Emma’s face appeared over the railing. She had a black silk robe thrown around her, hair still damp from a shower. A stupid grin crossed my face as I grabbed the bottom of her balcony.

With one movement, I lifted myself up and over the railing. She stumbled backward, nearly flattening herself against the sliding glass door.

“Are you insane?” she cried.

“No,” I said, brushing off the dust from my clothes. “Just drunk. A little.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Is that supposed to be better?”

I leaned towards her. Her nostrils flared.

“I want you,” I breathed.

“You reek of alcohol,” she whispered. “You’re drunk, and you just scaled my building to flirt with me on my balcony.”

“Is–is it not working?”  My sluggish brain crawled. I thought women were supposed to like spontaneous amorous gestures.

An irritated, yet oddly arousing, expression crossed her face. She huffed, putting her hands on her hips. Something inside clattered. With stormy eyes, she dragged the door open.

“Mama?”

Oh, shit.

“I need to put my daughter to bed because someone’s drunk ramblings woke her up,” she said evenly. I blinked and stared dumbly at the little girl. She was the cutest thing even with my hazy vision.

“I had no idea,” I said.

She scoffed. “I need to put her to bed. Wait in the living room.”

I slunk in beside her, feeling three-hundred percent less confident than I had when arriving. Shit, shit, shit. It was ten minutes before she marched back into the room. It was even worse because she looked incredibly sexy when she was angry.

“I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “You need to sober up, Blaze.”

My drunken brain wouldn’t let me off that easy.

“Is she mine?”

Her mouth dropped. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“You don’t know all the boys I slept with in high school.”

That felt wrong. Like a clumsy lie, but I was quiet.

“I–I don’t want to talk about it,” she pressed.

But, she was flustered. I frowned and stood there awkwardly.

“I’ll go.”

Her cheeks were dusted with pink. The anger drained from her face as her expression shifted into something softer. She looked towards the couch.

“You can sleep it off here,” she said and then bit a half-smile, “You can’t scale any more buildings, though.”

Chapter Nine

Emma

Nothing was worse than waking up to realize that your crush from high school and current interest was drunkenly climbing on the side of your building to profess his desire for you.

It sounds like it could be romantic if it happened in a story. Maybe it would’ve been different if he hadn’t been so drunk and loud. My neighbors were going to chew me out tomorrow morning. I pressed two fingers against my forehead to halt the oncoming headache. I couldn’t think about that.

All that I was thinking about was the lie I’d told him. That there were other boys I’d been sleeping around with. Of all the things to say… I bit my lip too hard and tasted a drop of blood. Damn. It was eating me up inside.

When I finally drifted off into sleep, it wasn’t long before my eyes sprung back open, this time, to running water. My eyes went to the clock – it was only two in the morning. He must’ve woken up to take a shower. The memory of our conversation came back like a flood.

I groaned, burying my face into my pillow as heat crawled up my neck. I can’t believe I told him that. But, how could I–how could I possibly confess to him now? He’ll be furious I hadn’t told him. Won’t he be? Maybe even worse; he could be disappointed, or regretful. He could think I’m lying to muscle child support from him. He could even reject Chloe, my sweet angel.

I liked him–really liked him. I liked him more than I remembered and thought was possible. Even his playboy status was starting to drift to the back of my mind. The water shut off, and I licked my lips. We should talk.

When I found him, he was toweling off his hair with only a pair of boxers on him. He froze when I opened my door. My eyes flew to Chloe’s door.

“Let's go to my room.” The last thing I needed was for my daughter or my neighbors to see a sports superstar naked in my living room. He nodded.

“Sorry, I thought a shower would sober me up. I hope it's ok that I used it.”

The smell of my soap on his skin made my head dizzy. He folded the towel in his lap, sitting on the farthest end of the bed. For the first time in his life, he seemed embarrassed.

“I'm an idiot,” he said, running his hand through his wet hair. “I can't believe I did this.” He shook his head in shame, droplets of water landing on my bedspread.

I couldn’t suppress the chortle that came to my lips. “You certainly gave Romeo a run for his money. I don't think he climbed up to Juliet’s balcony by scaling a building.”

A sensual grin spread across his face. There was a spark of cockiness beneath it too, but it was one that I was finding that I enjoyed. We laughed together, trying to keep quiet so we wouldn't wake Chloe.

“If a journalist ever found out about this, the media would have a field day,” he admitted.

“I guess I can keep it a secret,” I said playfully. “That was the last thing I expected from you.”

He covered his hand with one face, groaning into it. “I've completely lost my street cred with this, haven’t I?”

“Not completely.”

“A silver lining,” he mumbled. His eyes lifted to meet mine. The string lights hung in my room made it feel like we were out of a storybook. I bit my lip, feeling a wave of humiliation at that thought. His half-smile was shutting every logical part of my brain off.

“You know, I've always laughed the most when I'm with you,” I whispered. “You do unusual stunts, but they're fun.”

His smile turned to a confident smirk in a second. I rolled my eyes but couldn’t keep myself from smiling back.

“Hey, I’m an athlete. You just can't compliment me; it goes straight to my head.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure it's not just a Blaze thing?”

“Maybe.” That smile again. It looked less smug and cuter by the second.

The air conditioner hummed as it kicked on, but my skin was still on fire. I trembled, running a hand up and down my arms, trying to keep him from seeing his effect on me. But who was I kidding? He was trained to read body language.

“Emma,” he said. “You okay? Are you cold?”

Far from. My lips pressed together. The pressure in my chest was going to explode.

“You may feel embarrassed,” I told him and sucked in a deep breath. “But, I have to admit – I’m kind of happy right now.”

His eyes glistened. “Emma.”

“I’ve always liked you,” I confessed, eyes darting down to stare at the comforter, cheeks flaming red. The weight of the bed had shifted before I knew he’d moved. All of the sudden, I fell back against the pillows. His arms were on either side of me, as he leaned into me. My breath hitched.

“Is that right?” he asked in a husky voice.

“Of course,” I muttered. His glittering eyes sent a shiver of excitement down my spine. My hands rose to grasp him around the neck, fingers diving in his thick hair. His chest trembled as he hovered above me. It might’ve been the last inch of his restraint. I listened to his labored breath for one more instant before his lips were on mine.

Heaven is nothing compared to the feeling of returning into those arms. I moaned as he kissed my lips. His rough hands flew up to grab my sides, toying with the thin fabric of my robe. I gasped as he rolled his pelvis against mine, creating a delicious friction.

How could I have ever let him go? My hands pressed against the back of his head. I needed more of him. My touch was wild as I bucked against him. He groaned with pleasure at the motion but pulled back to stare at me with penetrating eyes.

“Emma,” he whispered in a breathy tone. “Are you sure you want this?”

I kissed away the uncertainty with the fervor only known to me when I’m around him. He met my lust with lust, pushing hard on my lips, making me moan louder.