by Max Monroe
Lifesavers.
Random wrappers and receipts.
By the time I came across the most viable item—a half-empty bottle of Bath & Body Works hand sanitizer, I yanked it out of my bag and waved it in the air like I’d found Willy Wonka’s Golden fucking Ticket. “This! He left this,” I said way, way too loudly for the short distance between us. I took a breath and lowered my voice before adding, “He left this in my…uh…purse…and I wanted to give it to him.”
“Hand sanitizer?” The man looked at it, reading the label, and grinned. “Citrus explosion? Hmmm, I always thought Quinn was more of a vanilla-scented kind of guy.”
“Well…he really likes it. The citrus explosion, I mean…” I paused and internally grimaced at my own words.
God, I sound ridiculous…
But what the hell, right? I was already this far deep into the hand sanitizer/citrus explosion story. Why stop now?
“I think it’s a good luck thing or something,” I lied. “And he just…uh…lost it last night…and I have it…and I just thought I’d stop by real quick to drop it off for him.”
He quirked a brow. “And what’s your name?”
“Catharine Wild,” I responded and held out my hand.
“It’s nice to meet you, Catharine,” he said and shook my hand. “I’m Wes Lancaster.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Wes.”
I honestly had not a clue what Wes and the Mavericks’ relationship was, but I was hoping he had some kind of job that gave us a security free pass.
“Give me just a sec to make a quick call?” he requested and I nodded.
Wes pulled out his phone and turned his body slightly away from mine as he tapped the screen and lifted it to his ear.
Oh God. I hope that security free pass I was just hoping for isn’t actually a security pass to kick my crazy ass out of here…
“Hey, Bennett,” he greeted into the receiver. “Is Bailey close by?”
I stood there awkwardly, uncertain of what I should do with myself as he continued his phone conversation.
“Let me talk to Phillips, then,” he said curtly, and a moment later, he asked, “Does Bailey know a Catharine Wild?”
Wes stayed silent for a moment before adding, “No shit?”
I had no idea what had just been said, but whatever it was, it had him turning back toward me with an intrigued smirk on his lips. He ended the call shortly after that and slid it back into his pocket.
“Well…” He grinned and motioned toward the gate entry doors I’d spotted earlier. “If you follow my lead, I think I can help you find Quinn Bailey.”
“Really?” My eyes widened in surprise. “Do you have friends in high places or something?” I asked, teasing, and he just smirked.
“I guess you could say it’s something like that.”
It didn’t take us long to make our way past the giant security guards manning the front entrance, and honestly, they didn’t even bat a fucking eye or ask for any kind of identification when Wes walked toward them.
All it’d taken was a simple, “She’s with me” for them to not be disturbed by my presence.
We walked in the direction of the center of the stadium, and besides the occasional staff member that passed us by, the place was an empty shell. The boring concrete walls absorbed any contact sent their way and made our footsteps sound louder than normal.
People waved and greeted Wes as he walked past them, and he returned the sentiment with a simple nod or quiet hello.
Apparently, he was a pretty popular guy inside this stadium.
Maybe he’s like one of the concessions managers or something?
Once he directed us down the cement tunnel that led to the field, my initial view of the pristine green turf urged a rush of butterflies into my stomach. They flitted and flipped, and if I went by feeling alone, they reproduced like fucking rabbits until they moved up into my chest and tightened my breaths.
Any minute, Quinn would realize I’d driven all the way down to the stadium to say hello.
All of a sudden, the realization of what I’d just managed to get myself into was too overwhelming. Personifying a cat with dew claws still intact, anxiety clawed at my throat.
Would this come across as too weird?
Would he be concerned I was secretly some crazy, obsessed fan or something?
Oh. My. God.
Abort! Abort! This is not a good idea!
I shuffled my feet in place, at any second, ready to turn and hightail it out of there.
But my hourglass of time had run out once we reached the end of the giant tunnel.
“Just wait right here,” Wes said. “I’ll be right back.”
Time to face the impulsive music, Cat.
“Hut, hut!” I called around my mouthguard, one sharp spike of my toe into the turf beneath me. Sammy hiked the ball, a perfect spinning spiral to settle right in between my waiting hands.
One step, two, I dropped back and shuffled my feet as my eyes scanned the field in front of me. Pads clashed and grunts sounded, and with a quick shove off of his coverage, Sean broke free into the open field twenty yards out.
I snapped my arm back and let it fly, and I got in a millisecond of watching the ball sail through the air before my back met the ground and a harsh burst of air left my lungs.
Fortunately, this was one of my guys doing the tackling, so he shifted off of me quickly and reached down with a helping hand to get me back to my feet.
Game situations were a little different. Tackles ten times harder, insults and shit-talking filling the air like a thick fog, and I hadn’t even gotten started on the behind the scenes—away from the refs’ eyes—pinches, kicks, grabs, and little maneuvers meant to cause pain. Things most people wouldn’t understand until they were stuck under a pile of bodies, holding the football tight to their chest, while everyone within their reach tried their damnedest to make them drop the fucking ball.
“Sorry, Quinn,” Martinez apologized. “Couldn’t stop my momentum.”
I smiled around my mouthpiece and gave him a sound slap to the helmet. “Don’t worry, Teeny. I need a little warm-up for all the bell-ringing Pittsburgh is gonna do.”
His smile turned menacing. “Not if we have anything to say about it, QB.”
The whistle sounded, two sharp bleats in a row, and I turned to look for the culprit. Coach Bennett had a hand in the air and Mr. Lancaster, the owner of the Mavericks, was standing next to him—both of their eyes were on me.
I glanced back to Teeny, but Mr. Lancaster called my attention back with a shouted, “Yo, Bailey!”
Spitting out my guard and pulling my helmet from my head as I moved, I picked up the pace to a jog and headed for the side of the field. Mr. Lancaster turned and headed for the tunnel, and Coach Bennett jerked his head to indicate I should follow.
I turned my jog into a run.
Getting called over by the owner of the team during practice wasn’t exactly a regular occurrence. He was a good-natured guy, and he joked around with the best of us, but he was also my boss, and I’d skimped a little on sleep last night even though I’d physically needed it. I hoped he couldn’t tell.
I sure as hell couldn’t. In fact, I felt like I was on top of the world today, and my arm had been even better than usual. Apparently, late-night text-sex with Catharine Wild was good for my game.
I wonder what the real thing will do for it.
Shaking off those thoughts and preparing to face my boss, I made it to the mouth of the tunnel in no time. Half of what I found was expected.
The other, pacing, muttering, fucking adorable half I couldn’t have guessed for all the money in the world.
Mr. Lancaster’s eyebrows rose as he jerked his head toward the interior of the tunnel. The air was electric with energy as my gaze locked with Catharine pacing back and forth across the concrete. A few locks of her dark hair shook across her shoulders as, unless she had magically started hearing voices, she berated herself.
/> My heart beat wildly in my chest, almost out of control, really. Just last night, I’d come all over myself to thoughts of being inside her, and she’d brought herself to the brink with a few hot words from me.
But now her skin was real, and the light that poured out of her didn’t have to transcend cellular waves to seep into me.
God, she’s something, I thought as she fell a little deeper into her personal torment. Ironically, I imagined she looked now much how I’d looked as I’d gone on a one-person trip to Crazy Town within the confines of my truck last night.
I was hesitant to stop the show, but the hard lines of my boss’s face said, quite strongly, Get the fuck on with it.
“Cat?” I called softly, hoping to ease the roughness with which I startled her.
Her body jerked violently and whirled, before settling into a pose of casual indifference—a very forced, false, comical version of casual indifference.
“Hey, Quinn.” She gave a little, arched wave.
I smiled, and Mr. Lancaster looked down to his feet.
“What are you doing here?” I asked gently. She looked like a frightened animal, all tense limbs and quivering fur, and I didn’t want her to think I didn’t like the fact that she was here.
I was surprised, but by all accounts, I was fucking thrilled to see her.
“Uh…You’re… This hand sanitizer,” she stuttered. “You…left it. And I wanted to make sure you had it so you could be…uh…clean.”
Mr. Lancaster’s eyes climbed back to mine, and they were positively dancing.
I focused my attention on him, wading through any embarrassment by knowing it would all be worth it when I finally got to put my hands on Cat. “Could you maybe give us a minute?”
He smiled without shame. “Not really. I want to know why someone showed up here in the middle of practice asking for my quarterback.”
Cat’s question was no more than a mutter, but in the silence of the tunnel, neither I nor Wes Lancaster had any trouble hearing it. “His quarterback?”
I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth, raked my teeth over it, and popped it back out before scrubbing a hand on the back of my neck and explaining. “Uh, yeah, kitten. This is Wes Lancaster. Owner of the New York Mavericks.”
“Oh, son of a bitch.”
Mr. Lancaster looked down to his feet once more, but I knew by the ear-to-ear smile I caught on his face before it disappeared, he thought she was just as amusing as I did.
“I’ll just…” Cat paused, fighting to gain enough composure to keep going. Her embarrassment was potent—at a nearly lethal level—enough that the walls seemed to be moving in and the air felt thicker. But she didn’t run as fast as her cute sparkly sandals would take her, and she didn’t avoid my eyes. She was magnificent. “I’ll just go. I’m so sorry I interrupted like this—”
“Cat, wait,” I said, just as Mr. L chimed in at the same time. “No, no. I’m going.”
Cat and I both shut our mouths as Mr. L looked between us and made up his mind. “Practice is practically over anyway. I’ll let Coach Bennett know you’ll be back tomorrow.”
Gratitude nearly blinded me with its ferocity. “Thanks,” I said sincerely, hoping he knew how much I appreciated his understanding.
He nodded and let his lips curve up into a barely there smirk. “Looked good today, Bailey. Keep it up.”
“Yes, sir,” I agreed. I’d maintain anything I could that pleased the owner of the team, and I’d do it double if the thing I suspected was the cause was getting sexual with Catharine Wild.
She was silent as he stalked back out of the tunnel and toward the field until he reached the end. “Um, thank you!” she yelled suddenly, like the feeling took a while to take hold but had finally overcome her.
Mr. Lancaster turned back and flicked out a wave. The sun at his back made it hard to see his face, but I had the strong sense he was smiling. Thank God his wife, the team physician, Dr. Winnie Lancaster, had a spirit similar to Cat. She was playful and fun, and showing up at a professional football stadium unannounced was exactly the kind of thing one of her nutty friends—especially Sean’s crazy sister, Cassie Kelly—would have done.
Thanks to that, he had experience in letting things go.
I walked the few steps that separated us, my helmet dangling from my fingers on one hand. The other set buzzed with my adrenaline, and when the ache inside them became too much, I had to pinch them together to relieve some of the pressure.
“Cat,” I whispered, heat and sex and feeling inside that one guttural word.
“Quinn, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe—”
I started shaking my head as she spoke, but her words only got faster.
“I showed up and asked your boss to get me into the stadium to see you. I assure you I don’t normally do things that are this crazy—”
Her gasp was sharp but short as I closed the rest of the distance between us with a mere step and sealed my lips over hers.
The hand sanitizer fell from her hand and hit the floor with an audible snap, and her arms wove their way around my neck. I dropped my helmet, put my hands to her hips, and pushed her back until her body hit the wall.
Arousal flooded my entire body, hardening my cock beneath the layers of football gear and sending my tongue delving deeper. She tasted perfect, just as I’d remembered, like freshness and sugar-coated candy. I breathed her in, clenched my fingertips into her hips, and groaned.
Fuck. We needed to find somewhere private, and we needed to do it fast. If we didn’t move before the rest of the team came into the tunnel, there’d be hell to pay and mockery to endure.
No doubt a good razzing by a few of my teammates would ruin the moment.
“Come on,” I whispered against her lips, just barely coaxing my tongue to come out of her mouth. I skimmed the skin of her arm before interlocking our hands, and I grabbed my helmet with the other. “Come with me.”
Her nod was slight, but her body made up for it in willingness as she moved her legs at a jog to keep up with me. I scoured the hallway, looking for the door I knew I’d seen hundreds of times on my way to the locker room but had never opened.
Ah, there!
Pure joy made a bid to make me jump when I saw the words Supply Closet in big, block letters. But for once, the blood in my dick problem inhibited a brain signal and the result was good.
My breath stuck in my throat as I put my hand to the handle and twisted. The knob moved with ease, clicking the lock out of place and going with the door as I opened it into the room.
I made a mental note that Santa sometimes granted really important wishes for good little boys year-round. If I ever had any free time, I’d have to pen a strongly worded thank-you letter.
I pulled Cat inside with a soft tug and shut the door behind us. Silence rang out so loudly, I truly thought it had a noise.
Seconds passed as we stood there staring. I found the means to come unstuck first. Just like before, I pushed her back with a gentle grip of her hips until her body met the support of the wall. Her eyes burned, everything she was anticipating bold and bright and right out in the open for me to witness.
My skin hummed, waiting for her touch as if her hands on it were its only destiny.
I leaned in close and nipped at her ear before skimming my nose along the smooth skin just below. She shivered, and a hint of lemon settled into my sinuses.
“Hey, Kitty Cat,” I whispered, watching as her nipples pebbled beneath her thin tank top.
That was all it took to make her steal control. Her arms wound around my neck, and the rest was history.
Lips, teeth, and tongues, I gave her everything I had as I marked her as my own. Nibbles to her throat, soft tugs on her lower lip, and a thorough exploration of her tongue with my own, and I was just getting started.
Unfortunately, the sound of cleats and shouting in the hallway as the team filed in widened her eyes and took her focus away from where I wanted it—namely, on me.
; I sighed and dropped my forehead to hers, my dick rearing like a wild stallion in my uniform pants.
Our breaths eased slowly, dialing down the volume of our panting, and I smiled. “Does you showing up here mean you’re ready for another date?”
She smiled. She tried to limit it to a grin, but her happiness refused to allow it.
“Maybe.”
“Tonight?” I asked, and she nodded before I finished the word.
My chest felt light enough to make me float.
I kissed her again and let our lips linger there well after the real action was done.
“I have to go,” she whispered softly. I nodded.
I didn’t want her to, not even a little, but my fucking teammates would be out of the showers and littering the halls in no time.
I pulled her to me again, sealed our lips, and gave her a closed-mouth kiss.
My body didn’t want to extricate itself from hers, but I forced it, making a swift, clean break and opening the door slowly to check for people.
With the coast clear, I grabbed her hand and pulled her out, back down the tunnel toward the field and the hallway that led to the parking lot.
She smiled and waved as I sent her on her way.
“I’ll text you about tonight,” I promised with a wink. Her dimples sank in the center of her cheeks. And then she was gone.
I watched the space where she’d been, willing my body to calm down enough to go hit the showers with the rest of my team. It took some work, but I finally got myself under control after a couple of minutes.
With a smile and a small shake of my head, I turned to head back to the locker room and spotted it. Right there, against the wall of the tunnel, where I’d had her body under mine and my lips against hers, lay the bottle of hand sanitizer she’d used as an excuse to see me.
With a few steps of effort, I had in my hand. I swiped my thumb over the name.
CITRUS EXPLOSION.
My phone pinged with a text notification, and I snagged it off of my bed to find a message from Quinn.
Quinn: ETA 5 minutes.
It was the fifth text I’d received from him in the past hour, all of them similar in nature, each one noting an official countdown to his arrival.