Dirty Player: A Rough Riders Novel (25 page)

“You ready for the game this weekend then?” I asked as my mind replayed dinner and everything after that.

“It’ll be hard. Miami’s a good team and they have a great defense. If we can make our long-pass plays, though, and if Kolby can continue doing what he’s best at, it should be a good game.”

“That’s good.” My eyes drifted closed as I responded.

“You going to come?”

I heard a hint of hopefulness in his voice and turned to look at him, forcing one eye open. “I could,” I admitted, “but I really need to keep working on getting Stamped up and running.”

Oliver’s mouth tightened for a moment before he smoothed it out by licking his lips. “Okay. Although I have to admit I don’t know if it should scare the fuck out of me that I’m not going to like sleeping without you while we’re gone or if I should just be happy about it.”

It pleased me to no end—his open honesty and how much he seemed to show me that he really did like me. How much he wanted me around.

“I think you should just be happy about it.”

“I’ll think of a way to be with you anyway.”

His eyebrows wiggled. I was sated, sore, and exhausted. It took that silly brow wiggle and a slow, teasing brush of his lips against my cheek to reenergize me.

“Do you know what I like?”

“What?” he asked, his eyes filled with wicked, scrumptious delight.

“Sleeping on a bed that isn’t crooked.”

I pushed at him when he chuckled. His arm loosened and I took the opportunity to roll away from him and toward the floor, landing on my knees facing him.

“Fine,” he groaned playfully. “Go get cleaned up. I’ll fix the bed so I can fuck you until it breaks again.”

He flashed me a look full of promise before I reached for a shirt on the floor and scurried to the bathroom.

I took my time, hearing him bang around with tools he’d probably grabbed from the dining room table, and when I came back to my room he was standing up, dropping the mattress back onto a now straightened bed frame.

“Fixed?” I asked as I flung my hand towel onto a pile of dirty laundry on the floor.

Oliver’s eyes followed the dirty towel as it landed on the heap, and he smiled.

Then he reached for me, tossed me back into the bed, and pushed my legs wide with his knees between mine. 

“Yes. Let’s see how many times in one night we can break the damn thing.”

I laughed. “Another round with your stamina might break
me
.”

His eyes darkened and went intense in a way I hadn’t yet seen. Dark lashes framed shaded eyes, but it was impossible to miss the seriousness in his gaze.

“Never,” he whispered, cupping my cheek with his palm. “I don’t ever want to do that.”

Chapter NINETEEN

SHANNON

“Well, this is a nice surprise,” Oliver drawled as he made his way to where I was standing, backside propped against the hood of my silver Honda. “What are you doing here?”

I slid my sunglasses to the top of my head and smiled. “I thought since you had the evening off and I needed a break from Stamped, we could go do something.”

After the drama he’d had with Serena earlier that week, it had occurred to me that while we’d gone out for dinner a couple of times, we spent a lot of time between the sheets and not a lot of time talking. So that day I’d decided to surprise him when he got done with an early practice.

The next morning, the team flew down to Miami to get ready for their first game of the season.

Oliver glanced around the parking lot at the practice field and a line dipped between his brows. For a moment I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Perhaps he wanted to stay home and be alone, concentrate on the game ahead.

“We don’t have to—”

He interrupted me and wrapped his hand around my waist, pulling me to him while he held a duffel bag in his other hand. “No, I do. I’m just surprised to see you and I feel like an ass for not realizing we haven’t been out much.”

“Well”—I grinned and rolled to my toes, tilting my head back to kiss his chin—“we have been pretty busy doing other things.”

He kissed my cheek and squeezed me tight before letting go. “All right, then. Let’s do this, but I’m driving.”

I laughed at the way he glanced at my car, like there was no way he was letting a woman drive him around. 

“I wanted to go somewhere near my place, though.”

A luscious look flickered in his eyes. “Then I’ll bring you back here in the morning.”

Considering that implied we were spending the night together, how could I argue with him? 

“So where do you want to go?” he asked once we were settled in his car and pulling out of the lot.

“I was thinking Mexican. There’s this great little restaurant down by the university I’ve been wanting to try.”

 “Mama Casita’s?” he asked, barely giving me a glance. “I love that place. They have live Mariachi bands that play there on Thursdays.”

“Which was why I wanted to go,” I replied, grinning that he knew that information. When I’d walked by Mama Casita’s while exploring the arts district, it seemed like any other restaurant from the outside, small, one-story brown brick building with the lettering of the name written in typical bright colors. Yet last week when I’d been walking down the sidewalk, the music had caught my attention and I’d wanted to go inside to check it out.

Oliver kept his eyes on the road in front of us and placed one hand on my thigh, squeezing firmly. “Trying to get me to dance with you again?”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, if you think you can keep up with me.”

He shot me a brief look and licked his lips. “I’m pretty sure we both know I can keep it up.”

“Good.” I smirked. “Because I have plans for you tonight.”

The attraction between us, that electricity that was always there, simmering below the surface, sparked to life.

“How was practice?” I asked, my voice huskier than usual. Darn the man and his sexiness. I had to change the subject before we ended up in bed before our night began.

He flashed me a knowing look at the question and began running his thumb along the inside of my thigh. I had thrown on a simple dress earlier. The summer heat was killing me, so I’d grabbed a lightweight, baby pink dress with a pleated skirt, fitted bodice, and spaghetti straps. As Oliver began touching me, it felt like I was already naked.

“Tough. Feels like Pomville is treating every one of our games this season as if it’s his last. He’s not cutting us any slack.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah, but sometimes it makes me feel like I’m getting too old for this.”

A frown pressed his lips down. I knew just as well as Oliver did that at over thirty years old, he couldn’t have many years left.

“Given any thought to what you want to do after?”

“Not a clue. Tell me about your day.”

His Adam’s apple dipped down his throat as he swallowed harshly. I took the hint: no more talking football—at least not involving the end of his career.

I did as he wished and filled the rest of the car ride with talk of Stamped and moved on to telling him how Melissa and I met and how she started her own graphic design business. She was working on revamping my website again, so I’d spent most of the day emailing her back and forth while she sent me proof designs.

When Oliver pulled into a parking space in front of Mama Casita’s, I smiled at the sound of music already filtering out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk.

Oliver reached into the backseat and came back with a frayed Georgia Tech baseball hat. He slid it on his head, pushing it down low over his eyes. “There, now I’m ready.”

I grinned and gestured to his hat. “I’m not sure wearing a hat with your Alma Mater on it will hide your identity very well.” Another thought flickered in my mind and my smile vanished. “If you don’t like going out in public, we don’t have to. I just thought we could have some fun.”

His lips pressed together before he answered. “I don’t mind ending up in photographs and I actually do love the fans. I just don’t always like having meals interrupted. Most of the time it’s fine, though.”

I’d been by Beaux’s side enough to know that when one fan spotted you, the phones came out, the napkins were slid onto tables, and soon the quiet meal you’d wanted ended up with cold food, ice melted in drinks, and a constant stream of autographs being signed.

“How about a compromise?” 

His eyes widened in surprised, like he couldn’t believe I’d get it. “What?”

“We go in, get an order to go, and I get one dance while we wait for our food. Then we can go eat it somewhere more private.” 

I had the perfect place in mind. Mama Casita’s was near the NCSU campus and I’d heard it had beautiful parks.

“How is it that you always seem to know exactly what I need?”

His hand was at the back of my neck and his lips were on mine, his tongue seeking entrance into my mouth, before I could respond.

***

“You have a great arm,” Oliver said, his hands extended to catch the pass I’d thrown. 

“I learned from the best.” 

“I don’t know if I’d call Beaux the
best
.”

I clapped my hands and opened them, signaling for him to throw the ball. “Fine, I learned from one of the best. Happy?”

He threw the ball into my outstretched hands perfectly. When I did a hip-shake for a celebration dance, Oliver’s gaze turned serious.

“Yes, I’m happy. Very.”

We’d danced our Mariachi dance and laughed ourselves silly. I learned that while Oliver could move like a God in the bedroom, a master on the football field, and could roll his hips seductively to hip-hop music, he absolutely sucked at other forms of dancing.

We’d gotten our food after one song, like I promised him, and then we’d left Mama Casita’s, Oliver holding on to my hand with one of his and our order of food in another, and gone straight to the perfect area of the university.

Fall term would start in a couple of weeks, so for the time being the campus was rather empty and Oliver had guided us to a small park that overlooked a nearby lake. When I’d started cleaning up our mess, he’d run to his car really quick and come back tossing a football in his hands.

I blinked away the emotion that his simple statement caused and threw him the ball.

“Your dad do this with you?”

He’d mentioned his parents a few times, but most of it was in passing.

“Of course,” he replied. “Every day when we were done working on the farm, he’d have me out in the backyard throwing passes.”

“Are you close?” 

“Close as we can get, I suppose. He never really understood my passion for football, and I think a part of him still wishes I had stayed close and taken over their farm. But he’s also always been supportive of me, behind me a hundred percent. Both of my parents were.”

“It’s good you had that.” A small wave of sadness rolled over me.

“Your mom wasn’t like that?”

Unlike Oliver, Beaux and I had pretty much done everything on our own, always. “Mom tried to support us, and she did with her words, but she was always so busy working that she didn’t have the time to do much else.”

He caught my next pass and tucked it under his arm before he started walking toward me. “What about your dad? Where was he?”

I snorted. “Drowning himself in a bottle of whiskey at the local bar.”

“You know who he is?” His eyebrows arched in surprise.

Shrugging, I started walking toward the picnic table where we’d left bottles of water he had picked up. “Yeah, I mean, I know his name and he lived in town. But he and my mom weren’t really together when she got pregnant, so he didn’t feel any obligation to stick around when she got knocked up. It’s not like he would have been any help. I only knew he was a worthless drunk.”

He scratched the scruff on his cheek and frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was like, but I bet it sucked. What about Beaux’s dad?”

I scrunched my face. “My mom’s not a slut, you know.”

“I never said she was, Shannon. I’m just asking.”

I squeezed my eyes closed and exhaled a breath. “I’m sorry, I’m defensive, but neither of our stories are pretty, I guess, and you come from such a normal family.”

“All families have their problems.”

“I know.” I took another sip of water before explaining. “Beaux’s dad was a one-night stand from a time when my mom worked the front desk at a hotel. All I know is that the hotel was fancy and the patrons had money. Lots of it. She didn’t talk about it much, and I think she was ashamed, but she told me when she was sick that she was just lonely during that time. One small child, all on her own. She had a high school degree but nothing that could earn her enough money to give her kid what she wanted.”

“That sucks,” Oliver replied and set the football down on the picnic table. “I can’t imagine what that was like for any of you, really. The fact that both of you have done so well for yourselves is a testament to her and your characters.”