Dirty Player: A Rough Riders Novel (16 page)

I was dressed and in the kitchen, drinking coffee and mixing him a protein shake when he walked in dressed in workout clothes, running shoes already strapped to his feet.

“Not trying to take care of you,” I said before he could snarl at me for the shake. “Old habits die hard.”

“Thank you. That was nice.” He took a sip and pulled the cup away from his mouth. “Would you like to explain what happened earlier?”

I shook my head. Nope. I didn’t. I still wasn’t certain myself. “I have to get to work. I’m swamped and everything’s happening so fast.”

I meant the business and the street fair and my own personal fear of failure, but I allowed Oliver to take it as between us.

“I see.” He drained the last of his shake and reached for his keys. “Am I taking you back to Beaux’s?”

“Stamped is closer. You can take me there.”

***

“If you think you’re the only person shaken from this attraction between us, you’d be wrong.” He spoke so quietly when he pulled in front of Stamped that I almost didn’t hear him.

The ride had been quiet and tense, neither of us speaking minus the directions I had to give him.

I’d had one hand on the door handle to make my quick escape, but when he dropped that bomb, I turned to him.

“Maybe you’re right to run,” he said and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Maybe it makes me a bigger prick than you think I am to make it so you can’t.”

“You consume everything, everyone around you. I don’t want to disappear in your shadow.” I looked at Stamped, the first thing to have potential to be all mine, the first thing in my life. “I’m just out of a five-year relationship. Rebounding maybe?” I shook my head. That wasn’t what this was turning into, at least for me, and I didn’t want to cheapen it. “I don’t know what I want right now.”

I didn’t miss the teasing tone in his voice. “I think you like when I consume you.”

I flashed him a look over my shoulder, part annoyed, part scared, equal parts amused. “You know what I mean.”

He pulled his eyes off me to the front door of Stamped. The windows were covered, but the metal sign out front had been hung before the game yesterday. It was polished and perfect, giving a sense of what was inside. And behind those covered windows, I was really freaking proud of what I’d done in a week.

“Maybe you’re right,” he finally muttered. “But I’d still like you to give me a tour of your place. Show me what you do.”

“Why?”

He gave me a shrug, looking as uncertain.

“Fine.” I dug my keys out from my purse and opened the door. “But no making fun of my stuff.”

The beauty of an online store was that I got to have my anonymity. No one bought anything from me because I was the sister of an NFL player. The downside was that I never saw anyone’s reactions when they bought my jewelry and fell in love with it. Were they as thrilled as they pretended in their thank you notes I received or were they just being polite?

Seeing Oliver walk through my small store as I opened the door and led him through made my pulse race in a way it hadn’t yet around him.

I’d always had Beaux’s support. It was what we did for each other. I’d made decent money in college selling to other college students. I made decent money now with my online-only store, in addition to making simple items in bulk and selling them to online boutique clothing stores like Modern Vintage.

Yet seeing Oliver Powell walk through my building, glancing through the display cases and running his fingertips along the edge of the glass like he was afraid to leave a smudge, created a lump in my stomach..

“You make all of this?” he asked, staring at some simple, thick bracelet cuffs. “How?”

I cleared my throat and walked to him, setting my purse near the register counter on my way. “In the back. I have a workroom where I design and make everything.”

“Show me.”

I looked at the clock on the far wall. That space was personal. And a disastrous mess. Letting Oliver into that sacred space of mine would show him more of me than I wanted to reveal.

I didn’t answer. I stared at the door that led to the workroom and private restroom. That lump in my stomach grew larger.

“Shannon?” Oliver asked. “Can I see it?”

It was a tipping point to something I didn’t fully understand. I would essentially be baring myself to him, not my body, but my soul and all my innermost desires…if he could see it through the chaotic mess I lived in.

He walked toward me, his presence growing larger and heavier until he was next to me. From the corner of my eyes I could only see his profile, the way lines popped and appeared at the outer corners of his eyes when he ran a hand through his hair and exhaled harshly.

“I’m guessing this is how I felt when you saw me with Ralph and Winne.”

I laughed before I could stop myself. “Stripped raw? Vulnerable?”

I couldn’t look at him. My palms were sweating and my pulse was racing.

“I didn’t know why I wanted you there, then you were and I didn’t know what the fuck to do about it.”

Another harsh laugh fell from my lips. I swiped my mess of a hair off my neck, which burned under his seeking gaze.

I nodded once, understanding what he was saying in a way I didn’t think anyone else could.

He held himself away from people—whether from his past or maybe because of his notoriety, I didn’t know.

I just knew I did the same. I was Beaux Hale’s sister, and with that I was used to putting up walls, not allowing many people to get close to me for fear of being used. Patrick had broken through and then blown it to smithereens. Only Melissa had ever been someone I fully trusted.

Granted, I could walk through malls without recognition or being hounded for autographs, but there were plenty of times my name had been paired with Beaux when pictures of us out for dinner or at the ESPY awards surfaced.

“Okay.” The word was a whisper, pulled from my throat before I could choke it down.

He followed me through the rest of the store while I stalled and moved as slowly as I could. I realized halfway there that Oliver wasn’t following me. He was lingering, looking at every single piece of jewelry I’d made with softness in his eyes. He had an appreciation for what I poured my heart into.

Damn him and his hidden kindness.

I was trying to walk away from him, and he was pulling me closer to him without a word or a touch, just his respect.

My keys jangled in my hand, getting his attention from a selection of leather-wrapped cuffs with silver accents around the edges. 

“I have a friend who would love these,” he said, pointing at a pair of braided leather cuffs, gold metal stamped along the border. They were edgy and country and I loved them. I’d made them the other day after walking past a bar where country music had filtered through the doors.

The music, the sudden realization I was in the South now and everyone loved their country down here, had inspired a whole new selection of designs. Those were the only two I’d completed.

“I just made those the other day,” I admitted, feeling something churn in my stomach at the mention of a friend. A female one.

He was allowed to have them, after all.

I turned away and unlocked the back office/workroom before he could see that it’d bothered me. I had no right.

“Holy fucking shit,” he whispered when he walked up behind me. He still wasn’t touching me. I suddenly wanted him to be. “Did someone break in?”

Chapter TWELVE

OLIVER

I didn’t know where to look first as I took in the crowded and destroyed space. Wherever I looked, it was a disaster. Buckets of metal, different sizes and different colors with smaller buckets and drawers pulled open, their contents scattered all over the place.

Tools and paper littered the tabletops. I spied a small area with a laptop, and remnants of takeout and bills and more paper and more tools covered what I assumed was a wood desk. It was hard to tell.

The room looked like it’d been invaded and trashed by someone desperate.

Her laughter pulled my eyes off the space and to her, where a furious red heat bloomed on her cheeks. “No. I’m just…really messy.” She waved her hand out, but she didn’t need to—it was obvious and I had never been so surprised by anything about this girl until this moment.

And why this was what shocked me, rocking and knocking something hardened loose inside my chest, I had no idea. “But you’re always so put together.”

I was baffled and I couldn’t hide it.

“Beaux’s made fun of me for it, for like ever, I think.” She shrugged and walked toward what I assumed was her desk. She picked up a pile of papers and set them down again. “I’ve never been good at cleaning, or picking up, and my mind works better in the chaos. Does it scare you?”

Strangely, my dick twitched and hardened beneath my shorts. I saw her guarded and careful, quiet and held back, almost too proper and perfect in the few times I’d seen her. This…this rattled me…made me see her in a different way. A woman who was frantic and hurried and creative, someone who lived inside her head more than out of it. 

“No. It doesn’t scare me.”

She caught the gravelly tone in my voice and quickly glanced away. “So this is it. This is where the magic happens.”

She picked up a set of pliers and tossed them into the bucket. From the top of it, I saw handles to other tools. Behind it, some sort of table saw and a handheld circular saw.

I thought of her wielding it, slashing through metal, and my dick hardened further.

This wasn’t sexy. It was a disaster and messy, but I wanted to be making a different kind of magic.

Her jewelry was incredible. Beyond what I could have possibly imagined. I had pictured tiny jewels and flamboyant rings. Typical charms on silver and gold chains.

Nothing I thought of came close to the creative magnitude that had stolen my breath as soon as I saw it.

She was letting me see it, despite thinking we were moving too fast, despite wanting to run from me. A part of her, I knew, felt the same way about me that I did about her. There was a pull between us, magnetic and strong and fierce. Neither of us necessarily wanted it, but it also couldn’t be denied.

Running was futile.

Burning it out, impossible.

I memorized plays and studied my opponent for a living. I studied game films and had played football long enough to adjust my game plan in a split second on the field when I saw a defender barreling down on me.

For the last seven years, since I’d played the field since Serena walked away, her pockets lined with millions, no one had ever made me want to change my game plan.

This woman…this sexy as fuck, intelligent, beautiful, kind, guarded, and fucking messy as hell woman rocked everything beneath my feet.

I struggled with what was happening inside me before I realized she was watching me, waiting for my judgment.

“You’re talented,” I admitted. A strange buzzing whirred maniacally in my ears. “Incredibly talented. Everything I can see is absolutely stunning, and I’m not just saying that to get in your panties.”

I flashed her an awkward look, one I hoped like hell she let slide.

My chest burned. My shirt or my skin was too tight. I needed to get out of there and I suddenly understood her reaction that morning in the shower.

I was too much for her.

She was too much for me. She made me feel too much, think too much, question fucking everything.

“Thank you,” she muttered, the bright red on her cheeks fading to a dull pink. 

I had the urge to reach out and smooth it away with my thumb. Tell her how much she impressed me. Spill my guts at her feet and hope like hell she didn’t stomp all over them.

I shoved my hands to my hips to stop myself. She had shown me her inner sanctum, and doing so had blown everything to smithereens.

“I should let you get to work,” I mumbled, looking around everywhere except at her.

“Okay.”

She didn’t stop me. Didn’t move or seem to notice the insanity burning deep inside me. And it was all her fucking fault.

“I need to go work out.”

“I’ll let you get to it then.” She set a stack of bills she’d been flipping through down on the desk and walked toward me. “I’ll walk you out.”

“Okay.” I stepped back and out of the room, hoping like hell the open warehouse feeling of the front area would fill my lungs with a cooling breath. Everything buzzed brighter and hotter as she walked me to the front door.

I could barely look at her when she pulled it open, stepping aside so I could walk through. What in the hell would she see on my damn face? The look of a man who had just realized that for the first time in over a decade he actually thought he was falling for some woman?

It was bullshit. I’d known her over a week, seen her a total of four times—five if you counted this morning. I didn’t believe in that “first sight” fantasy bullshit unless it was lust.