Dirty Baller: A Secret Baby Sports Romance

by Vesper Vaughn

  “You must be Ivan?” I ask. Ivan Maier is the manager of Hounslow.

  He doesn’t glance up at me right away, instead scribbling a bit more in his notebook. He puts his pen down and looks up at me. “And you must be our newest arrogant berker.”

  I hold out my hand. “Ryan Mackenzie. That’s right.”

  He takes my hand. “You going to behave here?”

  “I’ll do my best,” I say. I look around the room at the photos of teams over the years and the case of trophies. “Bit quieter here than where I’m used to.”

  “We don’t tend to let the players hang out at a bar early in the mornings. The team is already changed and waiting for you in the locker rooms.”

  I’m late. I feel like a fucking daft prick. “Sorry, I thought I’d be here early.”

  Ivan stands up and walks over to the door. It’s crooked on the hinges. Jesus, this place is utter shite. “Downstairs. We start at seven in the morning sharp. Don’t be late next time.”

  The locker room, all sweat and muggy air and masculinity, grinds to a halt when I walk inside. Everyone is glaring at me. I find an open locker and shove my bag into it, pulling out my trainers.

  “Hullo,” I say to the room at large.

  Everyone is sitting down except for the captain who is going over plays on a white board.

  “Right. Everyone, this is Ryan Mackenzie. You should know him from the gossip pages more than his work on the pitch. I think his crowning achievement at his last football club was six different drink driving penalties.”

  They all laugh.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I reply, finding a seat. “Let’s move on from that.”

  The captain crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m the captain. I’ll be telling you when we move on from something.” He claps his hands together. “Starting with warmups. I think we’ll do thirty laps around the field to get started.” Everyone groans. “You can thank pretty boy here for that. Since he decided to be late on his first day, I think the whole team should be punished for that to really teach him a lesson.”

  Players bump into me roughly as we file out onto the pitch. I get my legs under me and start running. Immediately, the sunny day isn’t nearly as pleasant. Sweat pours from my hairline and into my eyes.

  I run to the front of the pack and make sure I stay there.

  I might just be a pretty boy to them, but I need to show them that I can play a mean game of football. If they’re going to hate me, I want it to be for how bloody good I am out here, in my element.

  I’ll show them all who I really am. I’m more than a party boy with a bad temper.

  I’m Ryan fucking Mackenzie.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HAYLEY

  I’m late.

  Like, really, really late.

  Ryan, of course, left me before I woke up. I kind of don’t blame him.

  I mean, it’s not like this was meant to be anything more than a one-night stand. I stand up and stretch, feeling the soreness between my legs.

  And that was one hell of a one-night stand. I stumble out of the room with my clothes clutched to my chest.

  Just my luck; the cleaning crew is on this hallway. One of the maids nods a hello at me. I can tell she’s hiding the judgment in her eyes, but only barely. I slip as quickly as I can into my room and double-check the clock.

  Yep. I’m two hours behind. No breakfast for me.

  I take a taxi out to Hounslow; it’s almost two hundred dollars. I’ll expense it, but I know that Sandra won’t be happy about it. The Tube would put me even further behind; the good news is that a lot of the rush hour traffic has cleared out. I slip the driver an extra twenty pound note and tell him to drive faster.

  We pull up next to the pitch and I stumble out of the taxi onto the grassy median, pushing open the chain link gate and walking up the steps of the old wooden clubhouse. The players are out on the pitch sweating like it’s a hundred degrees out here.

  I guess the English aren’t used to sunshine. This would be light jacket weather in most of the United States. I open the door and step inside. I feel suddenly like I’m back at my grandfather’s house. Wood paneling lines the walls and neon beer signs glare at me.

  “Mr. Maier?” I ask the man sitting at the table.

  He stands up to shake my hand. “Call me Ivan. You must be Ms. Childs. Pleasure to meet you!”

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” I say hurriedly.

  He waves away my apology. “The players had a long, long warmup today to welcome the new recruit.” He pauses at the confusion in my eyes. “We have a new player who just joined the team today, so everything is a little up in the air.” He runs a hand through his thinning hair. “Unfortunate that you’ll be documenting our team when we’re not at our best, but never mind. This is how things work out.” He holds the door open for me. “Practice is nearly over and I was just about to speak to the team. After you, madame.”

  I walk back down the stairs and wait for Ivan. He steps around me and through a set of red metal doors on the bottom floor. I walk into the space and gasp. This is the locker room. “Are you sure I should be in-“

  Ivan laughs. “You have the run of this place. Go wherever you need to. You need to get a good story, don’t you?”

  I gape at him. “I guess-“

  The doors burst open and soon my body is buffeted by nearly two dozen sweaty, muscular British men.

  I suddenly feel a little faint, and it’s not from the sudden increase in temperature. I stare at the ceiling as the guys start to strip down to nothing.

  Ivan yells. “Alright, boys, listen up. We’ve got a new guest here for the next few weeks. Ms. Hayley Childs from the United States. She’s writing a piece for her magazine about British football.”

  I feel all eyes on me. I’m the only woman here, of course, and I’m being looked at like I’m a piece of raw meat and the team is a pack of coyotes.

  “Hello,” I say nervously.

  “Where’s the new meat?” Ivan asks, and I suddenly wonder if he just read my mind.

  “We left him out to pick up all the balls and cones,” a tall, ripped guy says from a few feet away. “Thought we’d teach him a lesson.”

  Everyone laughs.

  “Alright, settle down and get changed. I’ll go get him. Poor sod,” Ivan mutters as he walks through the doors to my right.

  And on that note, I’m all alone with all of these men. One of them walks over to me. He’s blonde and wiry.

  “Terence Jones,” he says, reaching out a sweaty hand. He has sparkling green eyes and an accent that would get him laid thirty times over in any bar in the States.

  “Nice to meet you,” I yelp at him. He’s totally shirtless and it’s hard to not look at his physique. I stare determinedly over his right shoulder.

  “So you’re one of those nice American girls I always hear so much about.” He leans against the wall and grins at me. This must be some sort of record for me. Usually men look the other way when I walk down the street.

  “Um, yes,” I reply, not really knowing how to take this.

  “Maybe I can show you around sometime-“

  I’m saved by the doors opening and Ivan returning with the new player.

  The new player.

  Oh no.

  Ryan looks depressed, his arms filled with soccer balls and a pile of cones barely cinched between his fingers. He’s about to drop all of it when he turns to his right and sees me with Terence.

  His jaw drops and so do the balls.

  All of them.

  All over the floor.

  “Bloody hell,” he says, looking at me. Then he glances at Terence and his eyes go stony. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was the striker for this team until you showed up, you prat,” Terence says.

  Ryan shakes his head. “Not you, wanker. Her.”

  Ivan looks between the two of us. “You know each other?”

  “Oh yeah. Really, really bloody well,” Ryan says, his cocky
grin from the night before returning to his face.

  Ivan shakes his head in confusion. “Alright, well, Ms. Childs is here writing a piece on the team. I told her she has total access to everything and everyone here so she can make her story the best it can be. I would tell you all to be on your best behavior, but I’m sure Ms. Childs is hoping for some sort of impropriety to titillate her American audience.” He laughs at his own joke.

  Ryan and I are still staring at each other. The space between my legs aches as I look at him, remembering all of the things he did to me last night down there.

  All. Of. The. Things.

  “Get the balls cleaned up,” Terence says to Ryan. They obviously don’t get along. “And put your dick back in your pants. Have you never seen a woman before? Up north where you come from only filled with guys?”

  Ryan flashes me one last grin and bends down to pick up the mess he made.

  “I’m going to be outside,” I say to no one in particular. Most of the team has stripped entirely naked already and I know Ryan will be all too eager to join them just to make me blush.

  “Where are you going, Hayley?” Ryan asks as he lines up the balls on the rack.

  “Outside,” I reply shortly, not stopping. But Ryan follows me.

  “Hey,” he says, grabbing my shoulder. “Not even going to say hello to an old friend?”

  “You’re not my friend,” I reply, more harshly than I mean to.

  He laughs. “Yeah, you think I’m all that excited about seeing a one night stand at my place of work?”

  I bite my lip. “I think you should keep that information to yourself, actually.” I walk over to the metal bleachers and Ryan is still following me.

  “You going to put in how you fucked me in your piece? Because I really do love being a part of a good story. Especially if it’s about my cock.”

  I roll my eyes. “You weren’t really all that much to write home about.” I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Normally I avoid confrontation like the plague. But here I am, talking back to this impossibly handsome, gorgeous, muscular man.

  He laughs. “I like seeing you with a little bit of excitement in your voice, Hayley.”

  He says my name and it sounds like pure sex to me with his accent. I wasn’t lying the night before when I said I could listen to his accent all day long.

  “You should go get changed,” I say to him. “Before someone sees you out here-“

  Terence comes jogging up. “Not interrupting anything, am I?”

  Ryan grimaces. “Would it stop you if you were?”

  “Not really,” he retorts. “I thought, as the player who has been with the team the longest, that I could escort Hayley around and show her the pitch.”

  “I think she’s seen a pitch before,” Ryan says.

  “Then maybe I’ll show her something else,” Terence says challengingly with a glint in his eye. He steps closer to Ryan, who’s dropped the soccer ball he was holding in favor of pushing his hands onto Terence’s chest.

  “You put a finger on her, and I’ll kill you,” Ryan says.

  “Ooh, is pretty boy already not keeping his anger in check? I heard that’s why you’re here. Needed a bit of cleaning up. Is that right?”

  Ryan shoves him again and Terence pushes him back.

  “Stop!” I hear yelling and I realize it’s me who’s doing it. “Please, stop. Please.”

  Ryan takes a swing at Terence just as Ivan steps out of the locker room.

  “Boys! Stop it!”

  Ivan has to pull Ryan off of Terence. Terence is laughing. Ivan definitely isn’t. “You. Ryan. In the locker room. Go cool off.” He puts his hands on his hips. He looks pissed. “Terence, do not provoke him.”

  “Provoke him? This wanker just showed up here and he’s already getting into fights. I thought the whole reason he came here was so he wouldn’t do that anymore. And you’re yelling at me?”

  “The boy’s a better striker than you could ever hope to be, Jones. Leave him alone.”

  Ivan looks over at me. “Well, looks like you’re getting your juicy story a little quicker than you hoped you would.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “Terence, maybe you could show me around the pitch.” I’m desperate to end all of this fighting. I hate being a witness to it, much less being the cause of it. It makes me feel guilty.

  Terence holds out his hand and I take it as I step down from the seats. My mind is still half on Ryan as Terence leads me around the pitch, explaining to me the finer points of the game. I keep chastising myself each time I find myself concentrating on Ryan’s green eyes and his enormous….well. His package. It could take up an entire borough of London, easily.

  But I shouldn’t be thinking about him. I should be focusing on Terence.

  “That’s all great,” I say to Terence now that we’ve looped back around. In all honesty, I haven’t heard a word he’s said. “I’ll probably have some more questions for you later.”

  Terence leans forward and smiles. “I’d be happy to help you with anything.”

  I nod absentmindedly, not really listening. I stick my pen into my bag and turn to leave. “See you tomorrow.”

  And then he spanks my ass.

  My ass that is still red and raw and tender from another footballer taking his turn spanking and grabbing it. But that spanking was consensual.

  This definitely is not.

  “Excuse me!” I yell, spinning around, my face on fire. “I did not give you permission to do that.” It sounds ridiculous, me putting it like that. Alison would have punched him in the nose and then racked him in the balls.

  Terence looks confused. “I thought you were hitting on me earlier.”

  “When?”

  “I dunno. The fact that you wanted me to show you around the pitch.” He shrugs like this is no big deal. If I were him, I’d want to crawl into a hole and die of the secondhand embarrassment. Actually, I’m suffering so much embarrassment on his behalf I’m nearly wanting to die myself.

  “Well, I guess I read you wrong.” He walks back toward the locker rooms. “Sorry you’re such an uptight bitch.”

  First, he doesn’t even apologize and then he calls me bitch.

  I’m fuming, but having spent a lifetime of being a shy, unassuming female, I have no comeback for him.

  None.

  I have half a mind to call Ryan out here so he can beat Terence into a bloody pulp.

  Ryan…

  I take the Tube back to the hotel and open the door to my room, hesitating as I look at Ryan’s door next to mine. I know that if I knock on it later, we’ll end up having sex again.

  I don’t want that.

  Alright, I do want that, but the last thing I need right now is to be banging one of the subjects of my article. This piece is make or break for my entire career.

  Fornicating with one of the subjects is strictly against the ethics of journalism.

  So I won’t go to his room.

  I’ll just…go to the bar and maybe run into him down there. Yeah.

  That’s all.

  I can interview him for the article, if he happens to be there. And we can sit with an entire table between us and a whole bar full of people there as witnesses.

  There’s no way he can get his hands on me the way I want him to if we’re in public, right?

  This plan is foolproof. Entirely, utterly foolproof.

  I’ll go to the bar and drink. Talk to Ryan. And we most certainly won’t end up having sex again.

  No, definitely not.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RYAN

  I stay behind in the locker room to make sure Terence is really gone. If I see him again, there’s no way that I won’t punch him in the face. Fighting and my anger management problem are the entire reasons I’m stuck in Hounslow instead of up north with my mates.

  I have to toe the line, as Ivan reminds me on the way to the Tube.

  “Keep your nose clean, head down, Mackenzie. And you’ll do just fine he
re. We’re lucky to have gotten a player like you. But if you end up causing more drama for this team than is necessary, I won’t hesitate to kick you out on your arse. Understood?”

  I nod and wave goodbye to him. I’m still fucking angry, and want nothing more than to get back to my hotel, shower, and then bang on the door of the woman I fucked last night.

  Which is completely and utterly unlike me.

  Not the fucking part. That is just like me.

  I mean the part where I want to fuck the same woman again is unlike me.

  But God help me, I cannot get that redhead out of my mind. The way she smelled. The way she tasted in my mouth, a mixture of sweet and salty. How she yelled out my name as she climaxed for the fourth time in the space of an hour.

  I fuck supermodels who are a foot taller than Hayley and fifty pounds skinnier.

  And yet…

  All I can think about is her.

  I spend the Tube ride thinking over my blue balls and nearly get off on the wrong floor at the hotel. I hurry in the shower, thinking that even if she isn’t a one-night stand, at least she’s leaving the country in a few weeks.

  This is short-term, no matter how I slice it.

  I towel off and pull on my nicest black polo and dark jeans, shoving my feet into black suede trainers. I spritz myself with an extra dosage of cologne.

  Fuck. Am I actually making myself pretty for this woman?

  I shake my head and walk outside, banging on the door next to mine.

  She doesn’t answer. I knock harder. “Hayley,” I say.

  A woman comes out of the room four doors down, giving me a suspicious look. I stop knocking. The last thing I need is for the press to run a piece on me saying that I’m some sort of angry hotel predator.

  I give up and take the lift down to the bar, resigned to the fact that I won’t be seeing Hayley tonight.

  But when I walk into the bar, I realize something.

  It’s my lucky night, two nights in a row.

  Hayley is sitting there in a v-neck tee that reveals more of her cleavage than I would have guessed she was comfortable showing off. Yet there it is, rising and falling with each breath she takes.

  She already has a pitcher of Pimm’s and is sitting at our table.