Not Before Game Night (Bad Boy Bachelors of Orange County Book 4)

by Khardine Gray

  “What is your biggest achievement so far in your career?” That was actually my third question. The second was about the season, but since he’d sounded so vague on that first question, I thought I’d skip it.

  “Getting the chance to play,” he replied. He said that like it was a given and the absolute correct answer.

  “That’s your biggest achievement? The chance?”

  He smiled. “Do you know how many amazing, amazing football players there are in this country who never make it for one reason or another?” His gaze clung to mine.

  “I’m sure there are a lot. I just thought you may have an example of a game you did something amazing in, or something.” I tucked my hair behind my ear.

  “No, sweetheart, that’s not me. My achievement is the chance I have to play each game. That chance gives me a shot to be as amazing as I want to be. Without it I wouldn’t be able to do fuck all, no matter whose son I am.”

  Maybe it was because of my expectations in the answers I thought he’d give why he threw me. I expected him to sound a lot more assholish and pompous with every answer overdone. His answer actually had the integrity Gage spoke of yesterday.

  “That’s very admirable. I never thought of it like that. I’m sure your fans will like it.”

  “Do you like it?” he asked with that wicked smile.

  “It’s a good answer, but it doesn’t matter what I like.” Already I could feel the heat creeping into my cheeks. It started at the edge of my neck and trickled over my skin.

  “Maybe it matters to me.” A slow, easy smile spread across his handsome face.

  Maybe I needed to pick a safer question. But which was best? He seemed to be able to put a spin on anything and either give me something I never expected or insert some innuendo or hidden message.

  I scanned over my list and picked question nine.

  “What do you like to do in your spare time?” That seemed safe in my head. However, as the words left my mouth, I realized it might not have been. After all, didn’t I just spend an unhealthy amount of time on Google seeing for myself all that Cole Buchanan did in his spare time? Did I really want to hear it from the horse’s mouth?

  As if to confirm my fears, the smirk he gave me told all, and my breath hitched in anticipation.

  “Draw or paint pictures of naked women,” he replied with a little chuckle. It sounded like the kind of laugh you’d hear from a villain who’d just backed his prey into the corner.

  “Excuse me?” I squinted and contorted my face into a scowl.

  His smirk turned into a very amused laugh. “You should see your face. You look cute when you’re rattled like that.”

  “Do you expect me to write that?”

  “Sweetheart, you can write whatever you want. That though, I figured you wouldn’t write that.”

  “So, can you tell me something else you do in your spare time? You seem to like cooking.” He was an excellent cook.

  “I don’t cook in my spare time. I love good food and love my mother’s cooking, so I just cook what she taught me to make. That’s an everyday thing. What I do in my spare time is what I told you.”

  The man was insufferable. Just insufferable. I would have taken a second or two to think it was sweet that he liked his mother’s cooking if he wasn’t being so difficult.

  “So, in your spare time you draw or paint pictures of naked women, like some kind of pervert, or a creeper?” I gave him a cold, hard stare.

  “Why do you sound so angry?” he threw back.

  “I am not angry, just shocked by you. What is the matter with you? No normal person does things like that.” I shook my head at him, then I realized he must have been lying. “It’s a lie, isn’t it? You drawing or painting? You think this is some kind of joke. I’m here to interview you. It should take a max of half an hour, but I’ve only asked you four questions.”

  The smile receded from his face and he got up, walked around to me, snatched my notebook, and sat down next to me on the sofa.

  The closeness was unbearable, and he made it worse by moving right up into my face like he was checking something. Something in my eye.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting it right,” he answered, then he flicked over to a fresh page in my book, took my pen from my hand too, and behold, started drawing.

  Drawing me.

  At first, I really did think it was a joke, but as his hands got to work, my mouth dropped.

  In five minutes, he drew a picture of me sitting as I was with everything precise about me. From the wayward strand that escaped the rest of my hair and curled under my ear, to the surprise in my eyes. I could actually see the emotion in the picture.

  When he was done, he handed me back the book and stood up.

  I continued to stare at the image of myself, lost for words, lost in his talent… doing my best not to get lost in him.

  I gazed up at him and looked him over. “I didn’t know you could do this.”

  “Yeah, the only other person who knows I can do that is my mom.”

  “Really? Why would you tell me, then? Or show me?”

  He raised his shoulders into a shrug. “Want to see more?”

  I nodded, paralyzed against my will, or maybe it was his.

  He kept his gaze trained on me as he backed away, and I got up to follow him.

  We went up one flight of stairs and through a large set of oak wood doors. The lights came on, revealing a big hall. The sort my parents had for dinner parties in their mansion.

  In Cole’s hall were paintings and drawings of naked women, but they all had wings like fairies, and they weren’t really naked. Well, not naked in the sense that you couldn’t see their private parts in full.

  It was all just enough. The wings either covered their bodies, or he’d covered it with shadows or other mythical animals.

  It was like I’d stepped into a dark fantasy dimension. The kind that lured me to walk right in, deeper into the room, so I could look at each painting.

  They were all so beautiful, and the further I got, the more I realized that they kind of followed a chronological order. So, the latest ones were at the front of the room. The older ones were a little different, like he’d had more time to add more intricacy to the image.

  I stopped short from proceeding when my eyes landed on the painting of the only naked woman of the batch. And that wasn’t what made me stop.

  It was because she looked like me.

  I had the urge people who wore glasses had to reach for them and put them on so they could check that what they were seeing was real. Except I didn’t wear glasses.

  I didn’t need them either to know what I was looking at was totally real, and it was indeed me.

  Of all the fairies he’d drawn, I was the only one who really looked like a fairy. He’d even given me the pixie ears with my trademark studs in my ear. Back in high school, I’d worn a pair of studs that looked like little bows. I was looking at them in the painting.

  He’d painted me sitting on a white horse and made a point of placing my hair to the side so you could see my breasts. He’d also positioned me on the horse so you could see everything from the waist down too. That was all striking, but what got me was the tear he’d painted on my cheek. The tear on my cheek and the wealth of sadness he’d captured in my eyes.

  I’d never really taken the time to appreciate art, but maybe it was because I’d never seen anything like this that had such an effect on me. There was a definite eloquence about the painting that made me want to stare.

  I knew though that it was more than that.

  This painting was me, and it wasn’t done in recent years. He’d never seen me naked until yesterday, and there was only one night in my life when I’d looked the way this image depicted. That was the night he rejected me. I moved to look at him but didn’t quite make it. To my left were more paintings. More of me.

  There were about twenty of them, a mixture of drawings and paintings. All of me when I was y
ounger. Much younger, and I was always a fairy. There wasn’t a single one of me without those wings.

  These weren’t naked and didn’t seem as dark as the rest. They were lighthearted and carefree.

  There was one of me sitting on the grass overlooking the football field that made me smile. There was another of me in the bleachers at the stadium watching the players.

  Aware that he was near me, I turned to face him, not sure what to say. Not sure what to ask.

  What was a person supposed to say after discovering something like this?

  “They’re beautiful,” I breathed.

  “They’re you. Of course they would be,” he answered. It was so odd to hear him say something like that.

  “You think I’m beautiful?”

  “Yeah.”

  I glanced back at the paintings. “Why would you do this? Why would you paint me? Cole… why are there so many of me?” I wasn’t sure which question I wanted answered first. “They’re all from years ago.” Many years ago.

  “You were different. Original. Different from everyone else.” He quirked a brow, and I just stared.

  This was one of the worst high school bullies I’d ever known. He was the one guy who’d made me feel so bad about myself. This, however, was truth.

  What I’d thought previously wasn’t true, and this was the real him. The real Cole.

  He reached out and touched my cheek. It was the first time I didn’t think to back away, or like I shouldn’t have him touch me.

  “Muse,” he said with his trademark smile.

  My lips parted, and I moved to him too when he lowered his lips to mine. All thoughts of my article went out the window, all thoughts of everything gone from my mind.

  He captured my lips with the possessive need of his and captured me too, in a big way.

  Something happened inside me as he kissed me. Something striking against the passion, wild chemistry that sparked between us and the insatiable desire that made me want to allow him to take me. I wanted him to take me worse than before. Worse than ever.

  The need was so great it shocked me that I could want someone so badly. He cupped my face and moved with me over to the wall where he practically devoured my mouth and sent me over the edge. The feel of his hard body beneath my palms drove me wild.

  He ran his hands down to my breasts to cup them, and God did I want him to touch me like he did yesterday.

  Yesterday…

  I’d nearly lost myself to him yesterday, and I could have now too. I would have wanted to lose myself in him over and over again, like he was mine.

  As I thought that, it hit me.

  He wasn’t mine. A man like him belonged to no one, just himself.

  Gage’s words filled my head. He’d said guys like Cole just wanted fun. That wasn’t something Gage made up to put me off. I saw it for myself. All of it, all online for the world to see. One woman after another.

  Tonight, I could give myself to him, and it would mean everything to me. He’d be my first, but to him I’d just be a number. This week’s woman. Or God, tonight’s woman.

  I pulled away from him on that painful thought, and he looked at me like I’d just slapped him.

  “Fucking hell, Vanessa. What? Why? You clearly want to be with me. What’s the problem?” He gave me a penetrative stare.

  I shook my head at him. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  I started backing away now. “I’m not one of your women, Cole,” I blurted.

  He gave me an incredulous stare. “What?”

  “I’m not a groupie or something you can pick up just to pass the time with because you’re bored.”

  “Do I look bored to you?” he countered, stepping closer.

  “You know what I mean.” Frustration got the better of me and clouded my thoughts. “I’d sleep with you tonight, and it would be nothing to you because you do this all the time, while it would be significant to me.”

  The words flew out of my mouth before I could take them back. Just like most things when it came to Cole, I didn’t think first before talking. The fact that frustration was fueling my thoughts just sabotaged me even more.

  There weren’t many inferences a person could draw from my declaration. Just two in-your-face ones, which I could see dawning in his eyes.

  The first was that I would think it was significant because I had deep feelings for him, and we both knew it wasn’t that.

  So… the only other reason it could be significant for me was because it was something I may not have done before.

  Like had sex.

  I didn’t think I’d ever seen Cole look shocked before.

  This was a first, and despite the beauty of the night with all his amazing paintings of me, I could have been that girl I was so long ago. Humiliation washed over me, and I just wanted to flee.

  “Oh my God,” he breathed.

  It looked like he was going to say something else, but I didn’t stay to find out.

  I left.

  Chapter 9

  Cole

  I figured it out.

  It took me all of two seconds to figure it out.

  Significance…

  It was that word. I was a quick study, but it didn’t take wit to figure that one out. It was only shock that froze me to the spot and stopped me from chasing after her.

  My dear Vanessa was still a virgin.

  Had to be that. It was in her eyes. I saw it there, clear as a bright summer’s day without a cloud in the sky.

  It was purity, virgin purity. That was what I saw in her eyes. Purity. The same purity I’d seen back when she was sixteen.

  And… that was the thing that made me want her even more.

  Obsession was a bad thing. I knew that all too well, and that was why I never had any expectations.

  I’d answered that question of hers quite rightly when I said I didn’t look forward to anything for the new season. Being a Centaur would be great for my career. I was where I wanted to be, and that was great. Great team with great players. It meant the chance of different achievements and a number of possibilities.

  None of which I’d know, so to me it was fruitless to dwell on what could be.

  With her though…

  Thinking about making her mine wouldn’t be fruitless. Not one bit.

  Not one bit at all.

  I was hardly able to focus over the next few days. Like a mindless automaton, I went through the last few sessions of training on autopilot.

  On Monday night, after the last meetup, I went to the bar with the guys for one last drink.

  Denver was the loudest of the bunch. He sat next to me gibbering about how many women he was going to have this season. He placed another bet. This time with Sam, who everyone knew to be the biggest womanizer.

  If anyone thought I was bad, they needed to take a good look at him. He made me look like one of the patron saints.

  The two of them were betting on who would get laid the most. Apparently, just last season, while I was there thinking about what a good example Denver was with his girl, who’d even come to surprise him at the last game, he’d slept with a hundred women. Him. Denver.

  What a fucking asshole of a prick. A hundred women.

  This season, he planned to double that. His theory was, he’d use the time during the break on the away games. Starting with game night when he was sure Coach wouldn’t cut his dick off. The wager was five hundred grand.

  He looked to me as he took a swig of his beer.

  “You’ve been quiet,” he noted.

  “Not a lot to say,” I answered.

  “Want to join in the bet? You’re the betting man, aren’t you?” Sam asked, and Matt laughed.

  “Biggest bet of all,” Matt told him. “He’s going after the Cartwright Princess. Vanessa the ball buster. Bet she’s good in bed with that fire, man. Her pussy will be—”

  He didn’t get to finish. I reached for him across the table and grabbed him around hi
s neck.

  One move.

  One very swift move was all it took, and my grip around his neck was so tight he started to choke.

  “Jesus Christ, Cole!” Denver called out and grabbed my arm.

  He pulled and it was only then that the blind fury of red that flashed through my brain faded and I released Matt, leaving him gasping.

  Fucking prick.

  As the guys all looked at me like I’d lost my mind and Matt started coughing, I pointed at him and resumed my former bully mode I’d tamed down in recent years.

  “You… fucktard. Don’t you mention her name again. Don’t talk about her, don’t think about her. If you do, you’re fucking dead. Got it?” I glared at him meaning every word.

  He nodded with the fear of God in him, and I walked off leaving all of them behind to stare after me.

  Sure, I might have just lost my bond with them, but I didn’t care. It was part of what obsession did to you. It made you lose focus and snap.

  I couldn’t have him talk about her like that.

  She was mine, whether she wanted to be or not.

  The flight to Chicago the next morning was pretty much standard like other trips. Like the Patriots, The Centaurs had a private jet.

  Usually, I’d be the life of the group in a setting like this, but I stuck to myself, sitting in the back with my headphones cranking up the music so I wouldn’t have to listen to everyone else.

  As far as I knew, the only other guys who weren’t joining in on various conversations were Gilly and Eric, who were at the front. I actually hadn’t really spoken to them much since joining the team, but it was clear to me that they were different and almost kept themselves to themselves since they had their women.

  Vanessa was on my mind big time.

  I hadn’t actually meant to show her those paintings, and to be honest, I was glad she didn’t ask me too much more about them. Although admittedly, what she’d asked was quite enough.

  Why did I paint her? Why were there so many?

  Why did I do it?

  Of course, the question she wasn’t asking that was glaring was, why did it look like I was so into her and turn her away that night when I could have had her?