Her father is the sole owner of the Gainesville Cougars. Declaring that his precious baby girl is a crazy stalker would be career suicide, and admitting it publicly would do nothing but make me the laughingstock of the locker room.
“She’s staying with family here,” I say. “For the summer.”
“Jesus, Zane.” Her hand lifts to her heart. “You’re already fucking her, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“You want to.”
“My personal life is none of your business, Carissa,” I say. “And for the record, Delilah hates me, so don’t get your panties in a bunch over something that’s probably not going to happen anyway.”
There. Hopefully that’ll make her back off. The last thing I need is her terrorizing Rue’s niece, involving her in this craziness.
Carissa laughs, crossing her lanky arms beneath her fake tits. “You’re not that dense, are you? She brought you cookies. Don’t be a moron. She’s totally down to fuck.”
“Anyway, I think we’re done here, so . . .” I shoo her away, glancing over her shoulder at the parked Audi in the street.
“Zane.” She sighs, reaching for me, but I jerk my arm away. “It’s not fair for you to hate me so much.”
I refuse to engage in this bullshit stall tactic of hers another minute.
“Do I need to file the restraining order?” I know my threat is empty, but it’s the only card I have left to play.
“You would never.” She calls my bluff in two seconds flat.
“I will if I have to.” I take a step closer, leering down, which elicits a smile from her. And maybe I shouldn’t. It’s like giving a temper-tantrum-throwing toddler attention. I’m rewarding her for bad behavior. But she needs to hear me one last time. She needs to listen up. “You’ve been doing good, Carissa. You’ve been staying away, keeping your distance like I asked. Why’d you come here today?”
She brushes a strand of dark hair over her shoulder and licks her curling lips. “I already told you. I was driving by and saw you coming in here with a girl. I was curious. Can’t blame me for wanting to check out my replacement.”
“You weren’t replaced, Carissa. I never had you. I never wanted you. You were never mine to replace.”
“I’m sorry. I meant Mirabelle’s replacement.”
Just like that, she pulls the rug out from under me. My breath grows weighted in my chest and my body is anchored for war.
“Don’t,” I seethe, “ever fucking say her name around me again.”
By the time I’m done seeing red, the door has been slammed in her face and I’m standing in the middle of my foyer.
“Everything okay out there?” Delilah’s voice trails from the living room.
“Yep.” I hook my hands on my hips, take a deep breath, and pull my shit together because I’ll be fucking damned if I let someone like Carissa rain on the parade that is Delilah Rosewood sitting in my living room at this very moment.
“What was that about?” she asks when I return.
I take the seat beside her and stretch my arm across the back as I settle in. It takes everything I have to pretend like there aren’t fifty tons of explosives coursing through my veins, but something about seeing Delilah’s expressive dark gaze and observing her cool, collected mannerisms brings me a sliver of peace.
“That,” I say, “was my stalker.”
Delilah laughs. “You have a stalker? Like a real-life stalker?”
I exhale, eyes rolling back. “Yeah. It’s hilarious.”
“She’s so sweet. There’s no way.” Delilah won’t stop snickering. Glad my personal drama can be someone else’s cheap entertainment.
“A girl gets stalked by a guy and it makes the five o’clock news. A guy gets stalked by the team owner’s daughter and he’s just supposed to keep it to himself or brag about it like it’s a goddamned rite of passage.”
“When you say she stalked you . . .”
“Followed the team from city to city, hung out outside locker rooms, faked press passes to get into places she wasn’t supposed to be, snuck into hotel rooms on the road, convinced her daddy to give her all-access passes to team parties and events, hid in bushes outside my house, sent me creepy-ass love letters, snuck into my home when I wasn’t here, detonated an atomic bomb in the direction of my personal life . . . do I need to continue?”
“Damn.” Delilah’s smile has long since faded.
“She’s bat-shit crazy. I’m surprised she didn’t snip off a lock of your hair when you weren’t looking.”
“Now you’re just being dramatic.” Delilah clucks her tongue. “She seemed nice enough, you know, in spite of me not having known all of that. We talked about how you first met.”
I about choke on my spit.
“She said she was interning for a newspaper and got to do a one-on-one interview with you,” Delilah says.
“Yeah, no. That’s a lie. Everything that woman says is a lie. Don’t believe a word she said to you today.”
“You don’t even know what all we talked about.” Delilah playfully smacks my chest.
“I don’t need to know. Carissa is a liar. She lies.” I shrug as I state the facts. “And I’m only going to say one more thing before we move on because I’m not going to sit here and talk about the woman who made my life hell for the past three goddamned years.”
“Okay, fine. What is it?”
“Next time you’re in my house, do not open my door and let random people inside.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little presumptive?”
I scratch my temple, brows up. “What am I presuming?”
“That I’m going to be a regular fixture over here.” Her elbow is bent, resting on the arm of the loveseat as she situates herself farther away.
“Because you’ve only been here a couple days and already you can’t stay away from me.”
She rolls her eyes, trying not to smile. “Don’t flatter yourself, de la Cruz. I only came here with cookies to make a peace offering, not because I couldn’t get enough of bumping into you all over Laguna Palms.”
De la Cruz.
She’s warming up to me.
“Don’t act like you don’t love it,” I tease.
Her eyes squint and her nose wrinkles. She’s horrible at pretending she’s mad at me, but I’ll let it go because she’s so fucking adorable looking all scrunch-faced.
“I kind of look forward to it . . . if I’m being honest,” I say.
Our stares catch.
Her expression softens, her lips move, but nothing comes out.
Boom.
That’s how it’s done.
“I just want us to get along.” Her request seems gentler now. “I don’t want to spend my summer worrying about fifty thousand ways to avoid you every time I step outside.”
“Then don’t. Don’t avoid me. Embrace this as what it is.”
Her chin rests against her hand as she studies me. “Dare I ask what you think this is?”
“Do I really need to say it? Isn’t it obvious?”
Delilah releases a heavy breath. “Clearly it isn’t or else I wouldn’t be asking.”
“You want to fuck me.” I can’t help but grin ear to ear like an arrogant asshole because I know I’ve nailed it.
It’s going to happen.
She’s going to lick her lips and blush and act like she’s all indecisive, and then I’ll move in for the kill.
Screw Coach’s orders.
I can break the rules just this once.
Just for her.
“Go to hell.” Delilah rises, throwing a couch pillow in my face and storming toward the door. It slams, and I watch from the living room loveseat as she marches back to Rue’s house.
Chapter 7
Delilah
My heart pounds in my ears, drowning out my thoughts, and my feet carry me down the sidewalk with quick, determined steps. It’s a good thing the agent and buyer are gone already because I need to get inside Rue’s house an
d take a minute to figure out why the hell I ran out of there scared shitless when all Zane did was speak the truth.
I do want to fuck him.
So badly.
I want to fuck Zane de la Cruz so badly it scares me.
And I didn’t even realize it until he just put it out there like that.
My body was all, “Yes! Do me right here, right now! Slap my ass and pull my hair while you’re at it.” And my head was all, “Absolutely not! This guy is an asshole, get the hell out of here immediately unless you want to be yet another one of Zane de la Cruz’s many conquests.”
My defense mechanism kicked in, and I bolted, and now I’m standing at Rue’s door, trying the security code over and over and getting a red light instead of a green one.
He’s the antithesis of the kind of man I’m usually drawn toward, and I know he could crush my heart in two seconds flat if I so much as entertained any kind of mutually beneficial, physical situation he might be seeking.
And Rue.
Damn it.
Rue would be so upset with me. And she’d literally chop off his balls. And that’s just not something I want to be responsible for.
I try the code one last time, slower now, pressing the keys harder, and waiting a full one-Mississippi between each number.
Green light.
Thank God.
I’m greeted with a burst of cold air, a quiet house, and loud thoughts.
Heading to my room, I plop down on the bed and grab a book in a feeble attempt to distract myself from what just happened. My eyes are laser-focused on the words, my fingertips grazing the thick paper, but it’s no use because my mind is still next door, running an instant replay of my conversation with Zane.
I slam the book shut and push it aside, swapping it out for a pillow instead.
Maybe I should nap.
If I’m asleep, then I can’t think about him.
And if I can’t think about him, then I won’t think about what it might be like to sleep with him.
Using a method that I learned in a one-credit graduate study techniques class I took last fall, I quiet my mind using simple breathing exercises as I try to envision my mind as a white canvas. Any thoughts that float in are carried away on a light breeze.
Mentally, I repeat my mantra: Be still. Be present.
And it works . . .
. . . for a minute.
That smug, dimpled smirk of his fills my mind’s eye, and I can’t stop picturing the way his white teeth play off his muscled, tawny skin and golden, honeyed eyes.
He’s deliciously sexy. He makes me want to yank my hair from my perfectly twirled top knot, tear off my clothes, and offer myself up to him like some desperate bimbo who threw caution out the door the second she found herself being eye-fucked in the living room of an NFL legend.
Whoa there, sister. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror across from my bed, and I barely recognize me. My chest rises and falls rapidly, my lips are swollen from all the biting I’ve subjected them to, and my hair is falling in tendrils around my face.
And my body. My body is . . . lit.
I get it now. I get why girls throw themselves at these men. It’s all the muscles and testosterone. We can boil it down to basic human nature and genetics. At our simplest, we’re creatures who are born to procreate, and men like Zane – men who are healthy and attractive – tend to ignite a hormonal frenzy in our monkey brains, especially when a woman’s cycle is nearing its peak, because good health represents fertility.
Rolling to my back, I smile.
There.
I just explained all this nonsense with simple science.
I’m not crazy. I’m just a woman at the mercy of her insanely frenetic hormones. My body is programmed to respond this way in response to any man who looks like Zane.
The image of his wet swimming trunks clinging to his generous bulge at the pool the other week comes to mind, and I can’t help wondering how big he is down there. Clearly he’s packing something sizable . . .
Slipping a hand down the waistband of my leggings and squeezing my eyes tight, I bite my lip and do something I’ve never done before – fantasized about someone I actually know.
Every other time, it’s usually some made up, sexy fantasy guy who clearly doesn’t exist in this universe but he miraculously suits all my needs physically and cerebrally, because the mind is a woman’s largest sex organ.
I slide a finger between my slick folds and glide it farther down, shoving it deeper inside me with the kind of desperation I’ve never experienced until now. My thighs shake as my clit swells, and the rocking motion of my hands back and forth bring every part of me to life.
It feels amazing – but it’s still not enough.
I settle into the center of the bed, focusing, concentrating as my fingers do the busy work. Taking my lower lip between my teeth, I’m getting closer with each frenzied second.
Al…most…th-
I freeze when I hear the doorbell chiming from down the hallway. Flying off the bed, I yank my pants up, smooth my shirt, and make a beeline for the door.
“Hi Zane.” I’m blushing as he stands on the front stoop of Rue’s house. Blushing hard. My cheeks burn hotter than the Florida midday sun.
His hand lifts toward me, gripping my phone. “You left this.”
“Oh. Thank you for bringing it over. I really appreciate that.” Could I possibly sound any more formal?
A text message from Aunt Rue displays across the screen.
GOING TO BE A LATE NIGHT. GIRLS AND I ARE GOING TO UBER IT HOME. DON’T WAIT UP!
I shake my head, smirking, and close out of that text. Aunt Rue’s social life is more exciting than mine, and I don’t know whether to laugh or do something about it.
“What’s so funny?” Zane studies my smile like it’s rare and fascinating.
“It’s nothing.” I tuck my phone behind me. “Aunt Rue is going to be out late tonight polka dancing with her friends. I just found it amusing.”
“Amusing because she’s seventy-five or amusing because you’re a third her age and you’re staying home and doing nothing while she’s out having the time of her life?”
“It’s a Tuesday night,” I scoff. “Don’t give me shit for staying in on a Tuesday night.”
“Is that what day it is? I never keep track in the off-season.” He scratches his left temple.
“Is that supposed to impress me?”
The corners of his lips curl. “There are a lot of things I could do to impress you, Delilah, if I wanted to. But I don’t think you could handle them, so I’ll spare you.”
“Please.” I roll my eyes.
“Why are you all flushed?” He lifts a hand to my cheek, but I swat it away. “You sick?”
My jaw slacks, and I don’t know how to answer him. I’m a terrible liar. Always have been.
“What were you doing when I knocked?” he asks.
“You rang the doorbell.”
“No, I knocked first. Several times. And I knew you were home so I kept knocking. And then when I rang the doorbell, you came flying out here looking all flustered.”
“It’s warm inside,” I lie. Terribly. “I think the AC is broken.”
He peers over my shoulder toward the half-opened front door where gushes of frigid air leak outside and envelope us on the front steps.
“You’re a horrible liar, Delilah.” He steps past me and shows himself into Rue’s house.
“What are you doing?” I follow. “You can’t just come in here. If anyone tells Rue you were in her house, she’ll have a conniption.”
“Don’t worry about Rue. She’s gone until later, right? No one saw me come in. We’re good.” He heads for the kitchen and pulls open the hidden pantry door beside the fridge.
“Now what are you doing?” I ask. “And how do you know your way around Rue’s kitchen?”
“When the clubhouse was being remodeled, Rue held all the HOA meetings here,” he says. “And before she
decided to hate everything about me, I used to come over and help her fix shit around the house. Grab things she couldn’t reach. Hang curtains. Move furniture. That sort of thing. I know every square inch of this house.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that.” I watch him yank out a package of cookies with a handwritten label I can’t decipher. “Rue doesn’t hate you. What are those?”
“Pastissets,” he says with a Spanish accent, shoving one in his mouth. He chews before licking powdered sugar from his fingers. “Cookies from Spain. My grandmother used to make these when I was a kid, and Rue always has these stocked in her pantry. She orders them from a European bakery in New York City. Pays an arm and a leg to have them shipped fresh. Want one?”
I shake my head no. “Why don’t you order some for yourself?”
“I do. We both get a shipment on the first of each month. I’ve eaten mine already.” He smiles a boyish smile and puts the package back. “You’re missing out.”
“You should get going,” I say.
“Why? You have a hot date all of a sudden?” he scoffs, and I spot a hint of powdered sugar on his cheek that I’m half tempted to lick off.
But of course, I would never.
“I have things to do,” I say.
“Like?”
“Don’t worry about it.” I lift my brows before pointing toward the foyer. “I’m sure you have places to go and people to bother, so . . .”
“Actually, I’m completely free tonight.” He lifts his hands behind his head and takes his time walking to the door.
I roll my eyes when he’s not looking. “I’m sure you’ll find some way to fill that void.”
“You want to hang out?” His question appears to be earnest, judging by the lack of a smirk on his face or a twinkle in his eye.
I point to myself. “Do I . . . do I want to hang out? Tonight? With you?”
“Okay, let me rephrase that,” he says, stepping closer. “You’re hanging out with me tonight.”
I laugh. “Nice try, de la Cruz. I’m afraid I don’t operate that way.”
There’s a stir in my core, something igniting, and my lips are fighting for a chance to twist into a grin a mile wide.
FILTHY - a Football Romance Page 6