Big Time: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

by KB Winters

  I hadn’t been sure what to expect at the game, but I never expected the surge of pride in my chest and the swell of love as I watched him play his heart out. He was a beautiful monster, effortlessly tackling guys, some even larger than him, and then he’d get back up and do it again.

  I was proud. Actually, I was in awe. I was also really, really hot.

  Langston in his football uniform was enough to get me twitchy, but watching him play the game and tackle guys with ease—my panties were soaked by halftime.

  I couldn’t wait to get him alone, after the game, and show him just how riled up he made me.

  “You’re blushing,” Park said, digging her elbow into my ribs as I stared at Langston’s ass.

  I laughed. “I am not. It’s just warm out here.”

  “Uh huh,” Park said, coughing slightly. “Nothing to do with the way men’s asses look in football pants?”

  I giggled and rolled my eyes. “Fine! You caught me.”

  “I can’t blame ya. I haven’t been able to stop staring at number 31 since we got here…” I followed her lusty eyes to a tall, broad shouldered player on the other side of the field.

  “Park, he’s not even on our team.”

  “Baby girl, I don’t give a damn whose team he is. All that matters is that he knows how to—”

  I slapped a hand over her mouth, stopping her before she rattled off a list of positions that were exclusive to the Kama Sutra in front of a pack of impressionable girls that were on either side of us.

  “TMI, Auntie Park,” I huffed.

  She rolled her eyes but I was relatively sure she wouldn’t finish her sentence so I dropped my hand. “Just sayin’…maybe your stud muffin could get me his digits.”

  “I’ll see what I can do…” I snarked.

  The game went on for another hour and despite a nail-biter fourth quarter, Langston and the Cannons kicked ass and walked away with the victory. Since it was the first home game of the official season, there were fireworks in the distance, mad cheering, and dancing throughout the stadium. The girls and I lapped up every minute of it. When it was over, we took our time leaving the stadium and I compulsively checked my phone to see about getting a message from Langston to set up a time or place to meet. I knew he’d be swamped with interviews and postgame press, but I hoped he’d get a chance to see the girls before they needed to get back in the limos and head home.

  More importantly, so that I could give him the piece of news that had been rattling around inside my mind for the last four hours since opening the envelope in my office.

  “Hey! Girls! Wait up!”

  We all pivoted in the middle of the concord and spun to find Langston, still wearing his uniform, covered in sweat, dirt, and grass stains, jogging toward us. The girls erupted in another round of cheers and I smiled over their heads, wondering how hoarse all of them would be tomorrow.

  Langston let them all pile on him and I glanced around, noting how many fans and media stopped to observe the warm welcome—most of them snapping pictures or videos on their phones—but Langston didn’t seem to notice at all. He was absorbed completely by seeing the girls he’d obviously been missing since his last day at Harvest House weeks—nearly months—before.

  Finally, he pried free of them and came over to plant a kiss on me. His lips were salty from sweat and slightly chapped but I didn’t mind. “Hey, pretty girl,” he whispered, stroking a finger up the side of my face.

  “Thank you, for everything,” I said, smiling at the girls that surrounded us. “I’m pretty sure you made their entire year.”

  Langston laughed. “Least I could do. Besides, after the off season from hell, I wasn’t sure I’d have too many fans on my side. I needed a little help.” He winked at the girls.

  “Well…I do have one more piece of news that will make your night even better…” I teased, smiling at him.

  His green eyes, sparked with light and fire, shifted back to me. “What’s that?”

  I fished the paper from my purse and handed it to him. “You probably haven’t seen this yet, although I’m sure your copy is at home. It’s a follow up in regards to the letter of recommendation I made. You’ve been granted permission to become Kenzie’s legal guardian and foster dad.”

  Langston’s mouth dropped open as he stared at me for another long beat before scrambling to pull open the letter and read for himself. His eyes flooded with glossy tears as he read the words on the paper, cementing his fate and putting him on the path to adopting Kenzie, if that was what he decided he wanted in the future. I brushed my hand over his forearm, stroking small circles on his smooth skin. “You did it, baby,” I said, barely able to manage more than a croaky whisper.

  A tear slipped over Langston’s lashes and he grunted.

  “God, I’m turning into such a fuckin’ marshmallow,” Langston complained, using his thumb and forefinger to pinch at his eyes, discreetly swiping away the tears pooled in the corners.

  I leaned into him, smiling as he pulled himself back together. “You can get as ooey-gooey as you want…as long as you stay hard where it counts.” I traced my fingertips down his arm.

  Langston choked on a laugh and flashed me a wicked grin. “You ain’t never gotta worry about that, pretty girl.”

  And later that night, after we left the dazzling stadium behind, he took me back to his house and showed me exactly what that meant.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Langston

  Oh, the difference a year can make. Shit, it hadn’t even taken that long. But as the football regular season came to a close, my life was the polar opposite of where it was twelve months earlier at the end of the previous season.

  All of it for the better.

  I had everything I ever wanted, even if it was nothing I was looking for. Sometimes life took over and gave you what you needed.

  Cassie was not only the love of my life, but the catalyst for revitalizing my entire career. Sure, I’d been one helluva football player before we’d met, but the city I played for—the team I played for—all too often regarded me like the class clown in high school. I wasn’t taken seriously as a man—only as a player. Which, at the time, had been enough. But now…everything had changed.

  “You girls need anything before I leave?” I asked, stopping at the large, arched doorway to the kitchen. Kenzie was in her wheelchair, still unable to walk or stand without a lot of pain from the plates and screws holding her hip together, and Cassie was standing at the sink, washing her hands, a black and hot pink apron tied around her waist.

  God, they were a beautiful sight.

  Cassie turned off the water and wiped her hands on the front of her apron as she turned to face me, a large smile across those perfect lips that I still couldn’t stop kissing anytime I got within range. “I think we’re good. The cupcakes and brownies are in the oven. Catering will be here setting up while we’re at the game.” She glanced over at Kenzie. “Can you think of anything?”

  Kenzie shook her head. “Nope! Just go kick some ass, Dad.”

  My heart twinged. The same way it did every time the small—but powerful—word left her mouth. I was still working through the legal red tape to adopt her, but as her foster dad, Kenzie had taken to using the term over the last few weeks. It was all surreal—and amazing.

  The best season of my career was coming to a close. My team was competing for a spot in the playoffs for the first time in three years. I was crazy in love with the most beautiful woman in the world. And the sweetest girl in the world adored me and called me dad.

  Damn!

  I shook my head, still staring at the pair of them.

  “You all right?” Cassie asked, cocking her head.

  I grinned. “Couldn’t be better.”

  And damn it, that was an understatement.

  ****

  “You got your head in the game, Rose?”

  I lifted my chin at the sound of Clay Vex’s voice. He chugged back half a bottle of Gatorade and then did a
little boxing jump back and forth, getting warm. He was in full game mode, ready to fight to the death. We’d both busted our fucking asses all year long, waiting for, working for this moment. The game that would either send us to the playoffs—or send us back to the playbook, figuring out something new for the following season.

  I shuddered at the thought. It had been three long years since our last shot at the playoffs, a streak of bad luck with injuries, late season trades gone awry, and coaching staff issues.

  There was no room for error tonight. We had to play tough, from the first whistle to the last.

  “I’m good, Vex,” I growled, every nerve cinched tight.

  “All right, man,” Clay held up his hands and stopped his incessant bouncing. He lifted one foot and then the other, drawing circles in the air. It was the same damn thing every time. His routine. I should’ve been used to it, and normally I was, but tonight was different. Everything had me on edge.

  At the house with Cassie and Kenzie, I was fine, listening patiently as they reviewed their plans for the after-party. The sounds of their happy chatter had comforted me. But as soon as I’d left the house and hit the highway to the stadium, something changed and left me in a piss-poor mood.

  Before Clay had a chance to piss me off any more we were called out of the locker room. I snapped my helmet from the bench beside me, slamming it under my arm as we made our way to the tunnel.

  ****

  We played our fucking guts out for three and a half quarters, leading the whole way. And then it happened—the crunch heard around the world.

  With sheer minutes left in the game, and only yards away from scoring the clenching touchdown, Clay was sacked by a damn hippopotamus and went down with a sickening crunching sound.

  That was followed quickly by an excruciating scream that I felt in my own bones as Clay rolled on the ground. The ball went tumbling away and was scooped by up a defender, but luckily our running back jumped on him before he had a chance to go anywhere.

  The agony stricken expression on Clay’s face told me everything without a word.

  “Fuck—” It was all I could manage to say as the breath in my lungs vaporized.

  We were doomed.

  With Clay out of the game, and the ball turned over, it was up to me and my defense to hang onto our one-point lead. With just over three minutes on the clock, and we had to keep them from getting into field goal range or we were done.

  We all waited with wide eyes as two team trainers raced to Clay to help him off the field. The crowd was silent as a midnight graveyard. After what seemed like hours, the trainers managed to convince Clay into getting up from the cold ground. His face went tight, like he was biting back a string of fuck you’s. My stomach churned like I was on a yacht in the middle of a thunderstorm.

  It’s all on my shoulders now.

  This was it, we either stop them right here or the season is over.

  Fuck! This is what I lived for. I dreamed about this moment my entire life.

  Clay was done and there was not a thing any of us could do to change that. I tightened my chin strap and prepared for battle as I watched Clay being taken off the field, wedged between two trainers, unable to put any weight on his left foot.

  “Okay, rally up, gentlemen—” The intensity in Coach’s voice matched his eyes as he looked around the small huddle of my defensive team, his eyes locked onto mine. “Rose, you and your boys have come a long way this year. Their kicker is good, and he’s hit four from over fifty yards this year. We gotta stop ’em here and now. There is no tomorrow, this is it, this is what you all have been working your asses off all year for. I think it’s high time we show the world what the Cannons are made of.” He paused as his eyes locked onto each of the ten other men heading out on the field with me. Now get out there and put a cork in these mother fuckers. Got it?”

  As we took the field, the crowd came alive. The whole fucking place felt like a war zone. My war zone.

  The Stormers broke huddle, the roar of the crowd was like nothing I had ever heard or felt before, it was beyond deafening.

  As their quarterback came to the line, I glared at him, shook my head and said, “No way mother fucker.”

  Not today.

  Not on my fuckin’ watch.

  They didn’t call me the Monster of the Midwest for nothing. I wasn’t going down without leaving my damned guts on the field. This was flat out war—do or die—loser went home and the winner lived to play another day.

  I grit my teeth as the ref blew his whistle to resume play. The crowd was alive and standing on their feet screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs. The Stormers’ quarterback took the snap and dropped back to throw a pass, it was a long one, streaking through the chilly air like a missile, dead locked onto a receiver. Our safety, Billy Ray White was with him step for step and at that perfect moment he leaped up and knocked the ball away.

  It was their second down and ten—two minutes and thirty-seven seconds to go—ball on their twenty-four-yard line. The next play was a hand off up the middle that I could see a mile away.

  I shot through a gap and dropped him for a one-yard loss—third down, eleven yards to go and the clock was still running. On third down, one of our outside linebackers got tripped and the Stormers picked up a first down with a fifteen yard pick up.

  As the two-minute warning hit, I jogged over to the sidelines to talk things over with our defensive coordinator and head coach. As I approached the sidelines I could sense the tension in the air, but the coach was playing it cool. This wasn’t his first rodeo and something about the way he looked at me sent a calm through me.

  We talked about formations and coverage and waited on the whistle to blow again. Before I headed back onto the field, I looked up in the crowd of eighty thousand plus people and had no trouble finding my girls, all of which were on their feet jumping up and down sporting matching team jerseys with my number and their names on them.

  Even Kenzie was cheering me on. My heart melted as I soaked it all in. Just before I turned to trot back onto the field, I noticed both Cassie and Kenzie start waving at me. My pride soared as I gave them my signature ‘Monster’ pose and the crowd reacted as I hustled back onto the field for the final two minutes of the game.

  The Stormers had the ball. First and ten on their own thirty-five-yard line. They needed to reach the Cannons thirty-five for a decent shot at a long field goal. This was what we practiced for every day—this is what we dream about. There was not a man on the field that would trade their spot right now for anything on this planet.

  Not even a hot piece of ass.

  The first play after the two-minute warning was a bomb down the sidelines that got busted up once again by Billy Ray White. Billy was playing the game of his life and we all rallied around him as the crowd’s roar continued. The Stormers quickly lined up and the second play was a delay up the middle—a delay I was waiting on—and I dropped their running back in his tracks for a two-yard loss and nearly caused a fumble.

  The clock was ticking and the crowd was up on their feet. You could have dropped an H bomb and nobody would’ve known—or cared. On third down and twelve, the Stormers ran a bootleg that picked up fifteen yards across the middle.

  It was first down and ten—the ball rested near mid field. The Stormers had only one time out remaining and more than likely would save it to bring out their field goal kicking unit. They ran a quick out route that picked up five yards, but Billy Ray kept the runner in bounds and the clock kept ticking as the Stormers lined up on the ball again.

  It was second down and five on our forty-seven-yard line. They only needed about ten more yards for a long field goal attempt. With precious seconds ticking away, the Stormers lined up on the ball. They ran another quick out route that picked up seven yards—but their receiver was once again unable to get out of bounds.

  The crowd was up on their feet—it all came down to this one play. The Stormers decided to save their last time out to bring in
the field goal unit and take one more shot at picking up a few yards. With ten seconds left on the clock, they snapped the ball, I see their running back on a slant route across the middle and I break on it. As the pass left the quarterback’s hand, I knew it was mine. I cut right in front of their receiver and intercepted the pass.

  My fingers dug in like talons and I kept my grip. I looked up and saw nothing but green between me and the end zone some sixty yards away. I took off on a sprint like never before and crossed the goal line just as the clock ran out.

  The crowd went insane, the roar deafening over the field. I raised my fist in triumph and gave my Monster pose for all the world to see.

  The Cannons were going to the playoff bitches!

  The team piled on me and Billy Ray like a pack of groupies on a couple of rock stars outside their party bus.

  With the confetti still falling down onto the field, the media pounced. I spoke with the reporters who approached me, all waving their microphones in my face. After the first battery of interviews, a woman in a business suit came over to introduce a pack of children that were being recognized for winning a local charity drive. The second grade class had raised the most money of all the participants and won the one-on-one VIP treatment.

  The players who had wrapped their interviews were greeting the families and the boys and girls who won the contest. There were high fives, fist bumps, and lots of wild chatter as the kids raced around, clearly over excited about being on the field among the rain of confetti that was now mostly from the wind blowing around the stuff dumped out at the end of the fourth quarter.

  As I spoke with the charity spokeswoman, a small boy raced over to me, holding up a brand new t-shirt and a black permanent pen. I took the pen and the shirt. “What’s your name, bud?”