Wicked Player (A Rough Riders Novel Book 3)

by Stacey Lynn

  But was I ready to take us public? For the first time in my professional life, I knew that moving forward with Elizabeth wouldn’t just change everything.

  It risked everything as well.

  Seeing her in my number?

  Being with her was worth it.

  I headed that way. A gaggle of kids were jumping and laughing. The healthier ones on their feet while the sicker ones were sitting in wheelchairs. And I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t moving straight toward Elizabeth, the reporter, to answer more questions. It was her, laughing with the kids and showing how genuinely good she was that made me realize what I’d spent weeks trying to deny.

  I started falling for the pretty little blonde as soon as I walked into that room weeks ago when she wore nothing more than a smile and white lace panties and I’d kept falling for her, when I saw how hard she worked and how much she loved the kids at the hospital.

  This was a woman who had the potential to give me everything I’d always wanted.

  At the wall in front of the kids, several teammates stood, signing autographs for the kids and their parents.

  I headed there, forced my feet to move as I focused on settling my heart.

  Her gaze, wild with excitement, head thrown back in laughter at something one of the kids at her side said to her landed on me and sobered.

  A pink hue slid to the apples of her cheeks. The hint of her tongue slid across her bottom lip as her gaze went hazy.

  Had I not been dressed for the game, that look would have made me drag her to the ground so I could myself to the hilt deep inside of her.

  Damn.

  “Hey! How are my brave favorite fans doing?” I called to the mass of kids screeching my name as I grew closer.

  Kolby Jones, one of our other starting wide receivers, slapped my pads and our center, Matthews, gave me a chin lift. They signed a handful of notepads, shoved in their direction by the kids.

  “Dude,” Jones said. “Some of these kids want to take our jobs from us someday.”

  “Yeah?” I scanned the small crowd of excited faces and pointed to one of the kids in a wheelchair. Brandon was still too sick to come, but this kid looked like it was a risk for him to be there as well. “How about you? You want my job someday?”

  “Nope.” He grinned, all teeth and stretched lips. “I’m gonna be Quarterback. But for Dallas.”

  “You’ll have to work hard.”

  He slapped his hands on the armrest. “As soon as I’m outta here I’m gonna start training.”

  I laughed with the kid. He looked eight or ten. I guessed he was older. That was the thing about kids being sick, they grew old souls but their bodies took longer to catch up.

  He shoved his football in my direction and I took it, scribbling my name on to it. “You get out of that, you get a hold of me. I’ll grab Beaux and we’ll teach you everything he knows.”

  “Wow. Really?”

  I tossed the football back into his lap and capped his pen. “Absolutely. What’s your name?”

  “Hunter.”

  “I’ll see you around, Hunter. Thanks for coming today.”

  Closer to him, without looking, my skin prickled with awareness. If Elizabeth had looked at me like she wanted to jump my bones a few minutes ago, there was something a lot deeper in her gaze when I met hers now.

  “Hey. You came.”

  She flipped her hands in the air. “Wouldn’t have missed it.”

  I gestured toward her jersey. “Because you needed an excuse to buy a new jersey?”

  She pinched it with her fingers and tugged it away from her stomach. “What? This old thing?”

  A look passed between us. That recognition, and if I had any doubt she knew who had her blindfolded and strapped to a cross only three nights ago, it’d make me a fool to try to pretend otherwise now.

  Not when I wanted her so bad and enjoyed being around her so much.

  I leaned in as close as I could and still keep it professional. There were cameras and kids all over the place. “We’ll talk later. Keep your phone close.”

  It was the last time I’d ask Tristan for anything. After we talked, I’d no longer need Tristan to schedule anything between Elizabeth and me again.

  It was a statement, not a question, and I meant it as such. I wasn’t giving her the option to back away.

  “Okay,” she said, and her eyes gleamed. Based on that, I figured I didn’t need to worry, but I’d spent too many years keeping my private life private to risk taking chances, even if I was pretty certain she was definitely worth all of it.

  We got slaughtered by Philadelphia.

  We played our hardest and got outplayed. Our butts whooped.

  It was the first time I walked into the locker room knowing I’d played my best, we’d done everything we could and it hadn’t been enough.

  It was also the first time I didn’t give a shit.

  I had a whole other game play running through my mind and itched to get started on it.

  By the time I showered and changed after the game, I bypassed the sports reporters. Beaux usually answered the post-game conference anyway, and the kids from the hospital had left at halftime.

  Elizabeth had been there after the game, in the same field level suite, with the other reporters invited to attend with the hospital kids. A few hospital staff remained.

  And Connor Hopkins had been hovering near her back, still wanting her.

  Well, the fucker could keep trying, but there was no way he was getting his hands on her ever again.

  After tonight, she was going to be all mine. Completely.

  Twenty

  Elizabeth

  “You’re pretty mopey. You that upset about the loss?” I asked Blake. My brother gave me a strange look from across the table. Whatever. He’d been rude all day.

  They’d ribbed me all evening once I showed up late for dinner. I was still in my Rough Riders’ jersey, for some reason thinking it was a good idea to buy one with Gage’s number. The team had played amazing today and still hadn’t been able to pull out the win. By the time I showed up to my parents’ house, all the men were acting like I was the cause of the loss. The fact they’d already lost one and had the hardest schedule in the NFL didn’t seem to register with any of them.

  How my mere presence at a football game could affect a win, I had no idea. Somehow, I was supposed to have Hayes’ Super Fan abilities to ensure Hale didn’t get sacked or our offense didn’t make a ridiculous amount of false start penalties.

  Men.

  “No,” he grunted and shoved a bite of my mom’s lasagna into his mouth.

  Next to him, Haley patted his hand. “He’s not upset about the game. He’s been like this all week.”

  “Oh?” my mom asked. That got her attention. Marcia Hayes had superpowers for all things, dying to fix what was broken in her children’s lives. When Connor and I broke up, she randomly showed up at my apartment to bring me comfort foods because nothing cured a broken heart like a mother’s home cooking.

  My dad, Ron, had held up a beer and scowled and said, “Any man who doesn’t see you’re the most precious gift on the planet ain’t worth your time, darlin’.” Like Blake, he was a man of few words. A vet in the Marines, he’d worked as a firefighter ever since he was discharged. He was now one of the battalion chiefs overseeing several forestations. He worked twenty-four-hour shifts several days a week and even when he wasn’t living half his life at the stations, he was always ready to roll out if a fire started. He breathed his job like it was his life and loved it only a smidgeon less than he loved his family.

  And even if I was raised in a house full of boys, I’d had Dad wrapped around my finger since I could toddle into his lap and suck my thumb, resting my head against his chest.

  Yeah. My parents and family rocked, even if they were a little bit overbearing, a whole lot in your business.

  “There’s nothing wrong, Mom,” Haley said. She’d been calling my mom mom before Blake and she
even graduated high school. That was what my mom insisted on and when Marcia Hayes declared something as fact, we learned early on to fall in line and go with it. “But Blake and I do have something to share. We were just waiting until Jaxon got here.”

  He was gone. Again. He was usually the only Hayes outside my dad allowed to miss Sunday’s dinner due to his job having uncertain hours. But this was two months in a row which was something even he tried not to do.

  “Jaxon has a job on the coast. Gone until it’s taken care of.”

  Arched brows rose on my forehead and I turned to my dad. “Taken care of?”

  He shoved a breadstick into his mouth and took a bite. “You know he can’t talk about it.”

  As the owner of a security firm, he often couldn’t talk about his work, but that sounded ominous even for me. Whatever. I learned long ago that Jaxon was the black sheep of all of us. How he could survive the Hayes family and not be loud and obnoxious but stern and serious was beyond me. He took overprotective to a whole other level and more than one of my friends or boyfriends when I was younger was terrified of him at first sight.

  To me he was just an overgrown snuggly bear. If that bear was ready to rip out your heart with his claws at any moment if you crossed him.

  “News?” my mom asked. “Tell us. It’s good news, right? Like the best kind of news I’ve been wanting to hear since y’all said ‘I do’ years ago?”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Blake said. His jaw jutted out.

  “Really?” I squealed.

  “Yes!” Haley nudged him with her elbow and her gaze whipped through the rest of us. “We’re having a baby!”

  “Oh!” My mom jumped from her chair so quick it toppled to the floor. She rushed Haley and threw her arms around her. “Congratulations! This is the best news!” She shook Haley back and forth, grinning at my dad. “Isn’t this the best, Ron? We’re going to be grandparents!”

  My dad grunted something that sounded like he was happy. I was stuck on Blake’s sullen expression.

  “Why don’t you seem happy about it?”

  “Because,” Haley said. “He’s terrified something bad’s going to happen. He won’t let me lift a finger. Won’t let me leave the house. Practically had a coronary when I was carrying a basket of laundry the other day.”

  “Right.” I nodded. My brothers were notoriously overprotective. “Because women are dainty little creatures who haven’t been birthing babies since the beginning of time.”

  “Yes.” She patted my mom’s arms still wrapped around her. “That’s pretty much it.”

  “I’d take advantage of it,” Heather said. She pushed back from her chair and I followed her. We both pulled Haley to her feet and gave her a hug.

  “This is exciting news! I’m so happy for you,” I told Haley.

  She hugged me back equally fiercely. “Thank you. We’re excited. Aren’t we Blake?”

  “Yup.”

  I shoved his head. “Don’t be a grouch. You’re going to be a dad.”

  “Yeah, and if it’s a girl, I’m royally fucked.”

  He grabbed his beer and took a healthy swallow. I slapped him on the back of the head and turned back to Haley.

  “Tell us everything!” I gushed.

  I spent the next several hours surrounded by family. We talked about the game. They gushed over my reports I was doing on the hospital and Gage. I feigned professionalism every time his name was mentioned so I wouldn’t blush, but the entire time, I had my phone waiting in my back pocket.

  And when my phone finally buzzed, it was nearly impossible to not grab it immediately.

  I waited a whole two minutes before I checked it.

  Smiled when I saw the message from Tristan.

  Eight pm. Room four. You know the drill.

  Twenty-One

  Gage

  It was different tonight. Different than I’d ever experienced and I hadn’t seen her yet. Tonight, I was already in the room. I stood in the corner, arms crossed over my navy blue T-shirt. I had a harsh bruise on my side from a tough tackle courtesy of Philadelphia’s cornerback. I’d spent time once I got home soaking in an ice bath even after my shower and the game. Then I’d showered again, popped some pain pills. The time couldn’t go by fast enough and stretched on forever.

  So I wasn’t all that excited about the fact she was running late. Or that it’d taken so damn long for her to confirm the meeting in the first place.

  But damn. My hands were already hot. Palms ready to slap them against her petite, heart-shaped ass.

  If only she’d get there. I checked my phone again.

  Ten minutes. Was it possible she wasn’t going to show at all?

  Before I could linger on that thought too long, the doorknob turned. The light behind her from the hall left a gentle glow over her features.

  She’d changed since the game. No longer dressed in blue jeans with rips at the thighs and knees and a skintight jersey bearing my name, she sauntered into the room with a pale pink dress, curving over the slope of her breasts. Thin straps I could break with a quick yank. It fit her chest, an extra piece of fabric belted around her waist and the pleats billowed out from her hips, the skirt creating a fullness that fell to just above her knees.

  She was beautiful, gliding in on matching pink heels, stilettos that looked deadly and yet she didn’t wobble despite the fact she was blindfolded.

  The door closed behind her, a lamp in the other corner of the room the only glow. I waited until she stepped forward, had her hand on the dresser to steady herself and helped guide her toward the bed.

  “You’re not alone,” I said. I propped the heel of one boot against the wall and as she walked in, I dropped it.

  “You’re here?” Her fingers clasped together in front of her and she turned toward the corner where I stood. “Blindfolded again?”

  “For now.”

  I pushed off the wall and stepped to her. “Take three steps back so your calves touch the bed, but don’t sit.” I stopped her when her back was to the bed. Easier for me to place her on it. Her waist was so small my hands could practically wrap all the way around her. When she’d been blindfolded, I’d taken her in a variety of positions, and yet none the way I wanted now. Her straddling my hips, arms bound behind her, wrapped in my hand. Her small tits bouncing as she rode me. As she used me for her own pleasure. All that hair flying. Her chin tilted up. I’d imagined it a dozen times, fantasized about how small she’d appear while she claimed what was hers even while I still had command of her body.

  One corner of her lips tipped up. “Are you going to touch me?”

  Yes. I’d get there. Soon, as long as this conversation went the way it needed to go. “We have to talk.”

  “Well.” She smiled, pretty pink lips stretched happily. “That’s something new and kinky.”

  This woman. How I wanted to bend her over my knee and spank her until she came from the friction of her clit pressed against my jeans.

  Patience.

  I dropped the preamble. To get through this, we had to rip it off.

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I succinctly said, “You know who I am.”

  Her hand went to her blindfold.

  “I didn’t say you could remove it.”

  Her hand fell back down. She tangled her fingers together and twisted the fingers on her other hand. It was the first time I’d seen her nervous.

  “You know who I am,” she said, instead of answering the question. “You’ve known for longer.”

  I detected a whisper of annoyance as she spoke and pushed it out of my mind.

  “Yup.” There was no point in denying it.

  “Please, Gage—”

  “Don’t.” I stepped forward, cutting her off. My jeans were at her knees and then pushing in between them. I bent over, taking her to the mattress and pinned her in with my hands just above her shoulders. “Don’t say my name. I can leave right now, and you can never prove this was me in here with you.”

  She li
cked her lips and that frown line of hers dipped between her eyes, above the black satin. “I don’t understand.”

  God she smelled good. Inches from her, it was near impossible not to strip her down, lay her bare, have her straddle me on the lounge chair where I could hit the end of her with my dick.

  “You’ve met my mom and dad. You know what they do. This gets out, what I like, what I do…how do you think they would take that? How do you think their congregation would handle it? And the children’s hospital? With me as their poster boy, what would the ramifications be if it came to light I enjoyed beating women?”

  She jolted as if I’d slapped her. “Wow.” Her hands went to her cheek and she brushed back her hair into a ponytail, let it fall. She looked away from me, mouth dropped. “Wow. And I thought…” she didn’t finish the thought. Instead, her head whipped back to me, blonde hair trailing in the air behind her. If I removed the blindfold, I imagined arrows darting from her pretty blue eyes. “I would never do that.”

  “And before you remove that blindfold, I needed to hear it. I’m not trying to be a dick, Elizabeth.”

  “You’re failing.” Her arms crossed over her chest. That sweet little grin of hers formed a perfect scowl.

  “And in a second, you’ll have a decision to make. We can forget I’m a dick and get to the good stuff. Maybe.” I stepped closer. My hand went to her waist and slid up her side to below her breasts. “It all depends on the choice you make.”

  “Oh? I get to make choices now in how these nights go?”

  “Once. And not the whole night. Just whether it really begins or ends.”

  “Ends?”

  “Your choice. But you have to know the cost.”

  “Okay…”

  I ran a finger down her arm. Back up. To the fragile little strap. I tugged on it, pulled it over her shoulder and kissed her collarbone. “We can have one more night, Elizabeth. Exactly how the others have gone, maybe even better. And if you choose that option, that’s it.” The scent of her reeled me in. Sweet and flowery. God. She was tempting.

  “And my other choice?” Her voice was a mere breath. Melodic even through the roughness. At the base of her throat, her pulse thrummed.