Dirty Player: A Rough Riders Novel (2 page)

It wasn’t uncommon for people to comment about my brother and me. With different fathers, we looked nothing alike. I got all my mom’s features—short and curvy and all dark, from my long, chocolate brown hair and brown eyes to my olive skin. Beaux was some perfect genetic mutant with his height and build, and was the light to my dark. Shaggy blond hair he kept longer on top and trimmed short on the sides, fair skin that burned before it tanned. For anyone who didn’t know us, we were nothing alike.

We were also not only best friends, but the only family we had, and that made us close. We touched a lot and hugged, and that was often misconstrued.

This wasn’t the first time I had been mistaken for a woman wanting in his pants.

I tilted my head to the side and dug out a receipt from my purse.

“Can I get your autograph?” I smiled sweetly at Powell. 

One side of his lips twisted up.

“Don’t fucking think about it,” Beaux said to Oliver as he reached for my pen, his voice still that deep and uncommon growl. “Walk away and save your shit and hazing for me for some other time.”

Powell grunted, staring at my pen and paper before his eyes zoned in my breasts.

He was an asshole.

He was also beautiful.

The way he licked his lips while he stared at my body, his look said he totally knew what was going on beneath the fabric of my thin tank.

My nipples pebbled and hardened from his intensity, and when he swept his eyes back to my face, the heat in them had nothing to do with the sun at his back.

“See you later, I’m sure.”

Beaux shoved his shoulder while I watched Oliver Powell walk away. The view from the back was as good, if not better, than the front. I wasn’t the only woman watching him, either. Shouts and calls echoed in the air as women cried for him to come back to the fence, to sign more breasts and skin. But he sauntered away, nonchalant and unhurried, acting like he hadn’t just broken his contract.

I figured he made enough millions that he preferred to pay his fines versus doing shit he didn’t want to do. What’s a ten-thousand-dollar fine for refusing to sign at training camp on fan appreciation day when you make fifteen million dollars a year, plus endorsements?

“Ah, fuck,” Beaux moaned, pulling my attention back to him. “Don’t fall for him. And please don’t fuck him.”

I snorted, unable to help myself. Being recently fucked over by a fiancé didn’t exactly have me wanting to jump in the sack with anyone.

“What’d you say to him?”

Beaux’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “Enough that he’ll leave you alone.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Fuck, no. If he knows you’re my sister he won’t leave you alone. I saw the way he looked at you.”

“Really?” I couldn’t help the appreciative tingle that flooded my veins. This was Oliver Powell. I mean, yeah, he was a dick…but I also bet he had a great one. He had new women around him all the time. Beautiful women. Women way out of my league.

Beaux groaned again and pushed me down the line. “Wait for me in the lot after I’m done here. Got something I want to show you. And stay the hell away from Powell. He’s everything we knew he’d be like, but worse.”

My face scrunched up. Not from the dismissal, but from the warning. The awareness.

Beaux had basically just told me that Powell was being a gigantic asshole to my baby brother. I should have been incensed on his behalf. The problem was I couldn’t erase the way his hazel eyes had frozen on my assets…and lingered longer than necessary.

But that was trouble, and months ago I’d walked away from another kind of trouble.

This was my time, my fresh start, to do whatever I wanted and be whoever I wanted.

Being Powell’s one-night stand was never going to be any of those things.

Even if I knew it’d be highly entertaining and memorable.

***

“You…I…what is this place?”

“This is your store.”

I peeled my eyes off the old, red-bricked building that sat in the arts district in downtown Raleigh. Turning to look at Beaux, my mouth still hanging open, I continued to gape. “What?”

He spun a ring of keys around his thumb before flicking them in my direction.

I caught them right before they hit the pavement. When I looked up again, I held back the urge to throw them at his face.

“Why did you—”

“Shut up. You’ve wanted this for years and never moved forward because you listened to that asshole say you couldn’t do it. Now you have it. Be thankful, Shan.”

I scowled at him. My little, dumbass, huge brother. 

“Do you remember what Barclay said about rookies? What rookies need to remember?”

“I’m not a fucking rookie.”

He wasn’t. He had three years’ experience in the league, but with this contract, these new millions terrified the hell out of me.

“You’re not supposed to take care of your family,” I said, reminding him what the retired NBA player had said on the news one night. Said that every professional player had the desire to set their families up so they could live large on the millions that new pro players suddenly acquired, and it was a huge mistake.

A career could vanish with one misplaced hit. Millions could disappear overnight.

I pulled my stunned gaze off Beaux and back to the building. It really was beautiful. Big without being too large. We hadn’t stepped inside and I already loved the place.

It’d be the perfect home to take Stamped, my online jewelry business, to the next level.

Plus, a two-bedroom apartment above it.

All mine.

And yet I hadn’t earned a penny of it.

My stomach flipped and I shook my head, handing the keys out to Beaux. “I can’t let you do this.”

He ignored the keys and slid his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans. Jeans he’d had since college, because while he made millions and spent it extravagantly on me, he barely used any of it for himself. Unless it was for the annual summer RV tour he took, partying it up with friends from all over the country.

“It’s already done. Papers signed. I closed last week. I’ve also got you a booth at the summer arts festival in a few weeks, and I’ve ordered you new business cards with your new address.”

My jaw hit the pavement. “What?”

I stared at my brother. This was too much. Too much money. Too much space. Too much responsibility. The only good thing I’d done in my life was making sure he succeeded. I’d essentially failed at everything else. Barely passed college, had shitty taste in men—a recently learned development—and couldn’t hold down a real job to save my life.

My jewelry business was a fantasy, a hobby, something I did to pass the time—and while it brought in a decent amount of income and I’d dreamed of doing something bigger with it, I never thought it’d be possible. I didn’t have the confidence that I could pull it off.

This…this scared the shit out of me.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered, my voice thick with emotion.

Beaux stared at the building. “When I was eleven, you walked me to the middle school fields one night, and when I asked you what we were doing there you said, ‘I have a surprise for you.’” 

My eyes began burning at the memory—his first practice. “Beaux—”

He didn’t look at me, but he did reach out and take my hand in his, squeezing the keys for the building in front of us into my palm. “You dumped a duffel bag onto the ground, slapped the pads and a helmet on me, and watched me practice. You sat there for two hours doing your homework while I learned plays for the very first time. If you think for one damn second you haven’t earned all of this success and money as much as me, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”

“Mom—”

“Mom wanted me to play football. She talked about it all the time. But she was all talk and working for food and then unable to do anything, while you were the one who worked to make my dreams come true, Shannon. Let me do this for you. Take the gift, do something you love with it, and finally get a slice of your own dream.”

Truth fell from my lips before I could stop it. “What if I fail?”

He turned to me then, his lips tilting up at one corner of his mouth. Then, he threw my words back in my face, the same words I’d said to him when he’d learned he was starting quarterback for his high school football team as a sophomore. I’d graduated the year before and was attending community college to be close to home. With over eight hundred kids in each grade, and a football team with a huge history of winning State Championships, a sophomore starting for varsity had been unprecedented. “But Shannon…what if you don’t?”

“I hate you,” I whispered, sniffing over the tears burning my eyes.

My hand squeezed around the keys in my palm, gripping them tighter.

I’d give Beaux anything. I’d do anything for him.

If this made him happy, I’d do this for him, too.

“I know you hate me.” He tugged me forward, uncurling my fingers from the keys so he could slide them into his own palm. “You just love me more.”

I swiped my fingers beneath my eyes and blew out a shaky breath. This was it.

My future. My dream.

Coming to fruition when I knew I’d never have the guts to try it myself.

“I know,” I murmured. 

He slid the key into the lock and opened the door. 

“I think you’re pretty awesome.”

“You’re not so bad for a bitchy big sister. Now let’s go see your new place.”

Chapter TWO

SHANNON

I wrapped the towel tighter around my body and stared at the mess I’d made in Beaux’s guest room.

It was a record disaster in record time, even for me. After he’d given me a tour of the building and the upstairs apartment, I’d finally submitted to his plan, his idea…his faith in me.

Yet none of it was ready and I’d left almost everything I owned back in Des Moines—where Patrick was probably currently fucking his co-worker all over my favorite couch and throw pillows.

“Ugh.” I groaned and dragged a hand through my hair. The memories of him came hard and fast, unbidden, and difficult to erase once they were there.

The legs wrapped around his waist. The heels digging into his still-clothed ass as he took her—

“Shannon?” Beaux’s voice rang through the doorway as he opened the door. “You okay? I knocked…shit! Cover up!”

His hand went to his eyes as I swirled around, clinging to my towel.

“What the hell?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t wearing clothes?”

I gaped at him, all six foot five inches clothed in jeans and a plain V-neck shirt, and looked down at my towel. It covered everything.

“You should have knocked.”

“I did. You didn’t answer.”

“I’m covered, you idiot.”

He peeked through his fingers before cringing. “Just like when I was ten.”

Idiot. I was thirteen and just out of a shower. He’d gotten a full view of my naked preteen body. He claimed it scarred him for life.

Laughing, I tightened the towel around my body and rolled my eyes. “You’re so stupid, Beaux. Seriously. I’m more covered now than I will be in the dress I was planning on wearing later.”

He’d talked me into hanging out with his teammates. I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t trying to seek attention. I’d had enough of being alone in the last few weeks, crashing on my best friend Melissa’s couch while I cataloged every single one of Patrick’s faults I could recall.

She’d been my best friend since college, where we’d met during our Introduction to Design class. She’d let me stay at her place after I left Patrick until I could figure out what else I wanted to do. I’d been gone from Des Moines for barely over a full day, and I already missed her like crazy.

“You’re wearing…what?”

I laughed at his aghast tone.

“Just this.” I held up a slinky, silver, sequined mini-dress with fringes at the bottom that only hung down mid-thigh. It’d been a Halloween costume, not something I’d wear to a bar. I had no idea how it had ended up in my suitcase.

His eyes bulged like I knew they would and a muscle popped in his neck. “You’re not.”

“I am.” I loosened my towel a smudge, taunting him. “And if you don’t leave now, you might see more than you bargained for.”

He spun on his heels, the sound of the door slamming behind him barely drowning out my laughter.

“Don’t wear the fucking dress!”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” I shouted back, laughing harder.

My brother. The protector and athletic mutant.

The NFL quarterback superstar.

The moron.

When we were together, we still acted like teenagers.

I dropped the towel and reached for a silky black dress instead. It dipped down past the center of my cleavage. One thin strap provided support across the back and hit almost as low as the fringed dress.