Scoring Off the Field

by Naima Simone

  “And because I asked you to,” Dom answered her question, his palm warm and reassuring on the small of her back.

  “Oh right,” she grumbled.

  “Hey.” He stopped in the center of the foyer, halting her with a touch to her hip. The maître d’ moved from behind the reservations stand and headed in their direction, but Dom didn’t spare the tall, thin man dressed in all black a glance. All of his attention remained focused on her, and she fought not to fidget under all that intensity. God, those eyes could pierce right through her. “I know you said before that sometimes Brian makes you uncomfortable. If you’re really that uneasy, I can take this lunch by myself and meet up with you later at the house. I don’t want you to feel pressured into staying.”

  After a brief hesitation, she shook her head. “No, I’m good.”

  And she was; she could’ve said no when Dom invited her along. But that internal clock ticking away inside her head reminded her that not only was her time with him as lovers on a countdown, but so were the days or weeks she had left in Seattle. If the interview went well tomorrow, she would be one step closer to moving thousands of miles away. She didn’t want to waste one second. If Dom wanted her with him, then she was going to the damn lunch.

  But she’d keep her fork handy in case an unwanted hand traveled too close.

  “You sure?” he pressed.

  “I’m sure,” she insisted. “Now let’s go before the nudnik rings your phone off the hook looking for you.”

  She shifted forward, smiling at the hovering maître d’. After a moment, Dom followed, his palm resuming its former position on her lower back. “Yeah, well, try not to call him a pest to his face,” he muttered in her ear.

  Before Dom could give the host his name, the man beamed. “Welcome to The Terrace, Mr. Anderson. Your party is waiting for you. Please allow me to show you to your seat.”

  “Thanks,” Dom replied with a nod of his head.

  His demeanor reflected nothing of the orphaned foster kid from Dayton, Ohio, who’d attended a state university on a scholarship. In his light brown sports coat, white button-down, and dark gray pants, he exuded elegance, wealth, and sophistication. Even the medium-length, tousled hair brushing his jaw didn’t detract from the image; it added a sexy confidence that had always been there before the football contracts, media spotlights, and razor commercials. It didn’t surprise her at all that heads of men and women turned as he strode through the restaurant with a grace that was both athletic and sensual.

  You’re staring, her smug, bitchy inner voice taunted. She snatched her gaze from Dom’s strong profile and trained it on the spectacular view of Lake Union ahead of her through one of the three walls made up entirely of glass. At least if she was staring at the beautiful water, charming houseboats, and the colorful homes dotting the shore, she could appear less…taken.

  When she’d agreed to Dom’s offer of a no-strings, friends-with-benefits arrangement yesterday, it’d been a no-brainer. After all, other than the sex, what he proposed wasn’t so different than what she’d been doing for the past decade: pretending she wasn’t in love with him; settling for friendship. Now they were just screwing like rabbits. She could handle it.

  No sweat.

  And, this morning, if she’d had to shore up the cracks and holes last night had knocked in her emotional shield like a wrecking ball, then to finally be in his arms had been worth it. She only had to continue the charade for a little while longer.

  “I was just about to call you,” Brian said by way of greeting, rising from the table and dragging her back into the present. He shook Dom’s hand and tugged him into one of those back-slapping hugs men who weren’t really close did. That salesman smile didn’t waver as he turned to greet her, but it did tighten a bit around the edges. “Tennyson. How good to see you again. I didn’t know you were joining us today.”

  She extended her arm before he could even consider drawing her close. Not that he would dare “accidentally” touch her while Dom stood there to witness it. Still, better to be safe than sorry.

  “I invited her along,” Dom answered smoothly, pulling out a chair for her. Once she was seated, he lowered into the one beside her, his thigh brushing hers. “Hope it’s not a problem.” His tone suggested it better not be a problem. She cringed. So subtle.

  “Not at all. Not at all,” Brian assured him. “I’m always delighted to see our Tennyson.”

  She struggled not to roll her eyes.

  “I’ll send your server right over to take your orders. My name is Raymond,” the maître d’ said. “If you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to ask.” With a deferential nod, he backed away from the table, and not less than ten seconds later, a waiter in a spotless white shirt and black pants appeared beside their table.

  “Good afternoon. My name is Anthony, and I have the pleasure of serving you today.” He proceeded to ramble off the chef’s special dishes of the day along with the wines paired with the meals. Once he paused, they placed their orders. Assuring them they’d chosen well, he disappeared.

  “Well, I spoke with the editor at Sports Unlimited. They would like to do an interview including a full photo spread…” Brian set his iPad on the table and started the meeting.

  The next forty-five minutes passed in a blur of conversation covering possible endorsement deals, preliminary negotiations about Dom’s next contract with the Warriors, and various interviews for the next few weeks. Tennyson recorded notes about the interview dates in her iPad. She wouldn’t be working for Dom by the time the last two events took place, but she needed to pass along the information to her replacement. If they could ever find one. That reminded her… She jotted down a memo in red for Thursday after her telephone interview for the position in Dayton. As soon as it was over, she would be pulling out the qualified applicants in the next batch of résumés.

  “…So I’ve arranged with her agent to have you escort her to the Los Angeles movie premiere. Let me tell you, she was very excited.” Brian chuckled, picking up his glass of wine.

  Tennyson jerked her head up just as Anthony set a plate of crème brûlée in front of her. Escort? Premiere? She’d been so lost in thought over how to trick Dom into choosing a new personal assistant, she’d zoned out on the conversation. And had apparently missed Brian trying to hook him up with a starlet.

  Her stomach bottomed out, but nausea quickly rushed in to fill it. Fixing her gaze on the delicate dessert and lush fruit, she didn’t dare look at Dom. What could she say? I don’t want you to go on a date with this actress who probably makes Charlize Theron look like Quasimodo. Their arrangement didn’t include exclusivity or demands on each other. She wouldn’t have objected before yesterday; she couldn’t today. Though no! scraped at the back of her throat, she deliberately scooped up the heavy cream. The rich dessert might as well have been a mouthful of ashes. She tasted nothing but the hurt she had no business feeling.

  “Pass,” Dom said.

  She snapped her attention from the crème brûlée to Dom, and both she and Brian gaped at him. What?

  The agent slowly lowered his glass to the table, his eyes slightly narrowing before he shook his head, a “c’mon” smile curving his lips. “Dom, this is the supporting actress in a movie that already has Oscar buzz. You can’t buy this kind of publicity. Look what Gisele did for Tom. Made them a super couple in the world of sports, raising both their profiles. Two beautiful superstars together? People eat that kind of thing up.”

  “No.” His flat refusal brooked no argument. “I’m not arm candy for anyone.”

  Brian scoffed. “Since when? What about the actress from that superhero flick?”

  “Brian, let. It. Go,” Dom stated, and Tennyson stiffened at the steel edging the flat tone.

  “Fine, fine,” the other man relented, throwing his hands up in the age-old sign of surrender. “Whatever you say. I’ll let her agent know.”

  “Good.” Silence hung over the table, and it vibrated with tension. A lo
w buzz broke the quiet, and Dom pulled his cell from his pocket. After a quick peek, he stood. “Sorry. This is Coach. Be right back.”

  He moved away from the table, leaving her with Brian. She filled her mouth with more of the dessert, studying the blueberries and strawberries dotting the plate.

  “So, you’re fucking him.”

  Shock rippled through her in icy waves. Her spoon clattered to the dish. Brian contemplated her, a sleek, dangerous cat ready to pounce, its tail slowly swishing back and forth.

  “C’mon now, don’t bother trying to deny it.” He propped his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. “It’s pretty obvious. You two have always been close friends,” he said, giving “friends” an ugly emphasis, “but today something’s changed between you. You’re sitting closer. He’s even more solicitous than usual. There’s a tension here,” he wagged a finger back and forth between her and Dom’s empty chair, “that only exists between two people who are screwing.”

  “Whether we are or not is none of your business,” she stated, relieved her voice didn’t reveal how shaken his crude, blunt observation had left her.

  “Oh see, that’s where you’re wrong,” he objected, leaning forward, all semblance of the affable agent gone. In his place sat the flint-eyed shark who devoured weak prey. “When his personal relationships interfere with his career, it’s completely my business. And you, Tennyson, have always been a distraction. From the very beginning. But now that you’re having sex with my client, you’re worse. You’re a liability.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” she snapped. Anger bubbled inside her like a geyser ready to blow. But underneath the rage lurked bruised pride and insecurity. Because Brian only voiced the worry and self-doubt that’d she’d lugged around for years.

  She feared being a burden to Dom—emotionally, physically, financially. The terror of being a crippling responsibility to him haunted her like a ghost in her soul.

  “Did Dom tell you I first approached him during his junior year at Ohio State about entering the draft? I was ready to take him on as a client, but he refused to leave college because he couldn’t leave Ohio until you finished high school and aged out of the foster care system. Then, when he eventually did enter the draft a year later, he made sure more than half of his signing bonus went to pay for your college education instead of his own expenses. He hired you—an inexperienced kid—as his PA instead of the many highly qualified applicants I presented to him. Like I said, you’ve been a distraction when his main focus should be on the game and his career. Especially now, with the renewal of his contract coming up.”

  He shook his head, a subtle sneer curling a corner of his mouth. “And now, he’s turning down appearances that will make him even more of a household name and put him firmly in the eyes of the public who don’t know a first down from going down. He’s never had an issue with being on the arm of a beautiful woman before, so the problem has to be you. Now that you’re in his bed, he’s even more emotionally involved and turning down priceless opportunities. You’re a liability, Tennyson. And if you really cared for Dom, you would walk away, let him lead his life, let him be great without an albatross weighing him down.”

  Each word smacked her harder than the previous one. She tried to deflect, to justify each point he hurled at her. Like Dom wasn’t more emotionally involved with her just because they’d added sex to their friendship. A condition of their…arrangement was no emotional entanglements. But, she couldn’t deny that Dom had agreed to similar engagements in the past where he accompanied an actress or model to an event. Had she not been able to hide her discomfort, and he’d turned it down in deference to her feelings?

  You’re a liability.

  Let him be great without an albatross weighing him down.

  If you really cared for Dom, you would walk away.

  The accusations sliced through her, leaving her heart, her conscience, and her pride in ribbons littering her feet. Was that how everyone saw her? A little lost puppy trailing after him, begging and happy for the scraps he kindly threw at her? A hindrance that held him back from reaching his full potential, not just on the field but in the business of football?

  All this time, she’d protested to Dom about needing to live her own life, walk her own path. The irony that he could’ve been thinking the same thing for years, that he could’ve had his own life and made different choices if not burdened by her, twisted her stomach into knots.

  Dom’s rule had been clear—nothing changed between them just because they were sleeping together, and they would remain unencumbered and friends. But things were already changing, just as Brian pointed out.

  “Sorry about that,” Dom said, returning from his phone call. He dropped into his seat, sliding an arm along the back of her chair.

  “Everything okay?” Brian inquired, his scrutiny briefly dropping to the proprietary half embrace.

  “Yeah, just something about practice tomorrow.” Dom cupped her shoulder and squeezed. “You good?” he murmured.

  She forced a smile, hoping it didn’t reflect the turmoil and confusion whirling inside her head like a cyclone. “I’m fine.”

  Dom studied her for several long moments, and she met the piercing gaze that she sometimes swore had X-ray vision capabilities. Seconds later, he must’ve been satisfied by what he glimpsed—or what she allowed him to glimpse—because he nodded.

  Brian shifted the conversation back to deals, contracts, and upcoming events.

  And she tried to pretend that the curdling in her stomach was because of the dessert’s richness and not due to the uneasy sense of foreboding that she and Dom had committed a huge mistake.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dom closed the front door of his house behind him, his attention completely focused on the woman walking toward the staircase. He narrowed his gaze on the straight line of her back, the tense set of her shoulders, the stiff gait that replaced her usual fluid, relaxed manner. If she were facing him, he’d bet his Wonder Woman coffee mug that the skin above the bridge of her nose would be wrinkled with a small frown.

  For a woman who had trouble expressing her feelings, she was shit at concealing her thoughts and emotions.

  And since he’d returned from his phone call with Coach Declan during lunch an hour ago, she’d been quiet. Too quiet. Something was bothering her, and so far, she’d refused to confide in him. But Tennyson could duck and dodge with the best of them, and he didn’t have the patience to wait her out.

  “What’s wrong?” He trailed her up the stairs, his longer legs eating up the distance between them in several strides. Once she cleared the last step and stood on the second floor, he grasped her elbow, halting her. She stiffened in his hold as he tried to turn her around, but after a moment, she stopped resisting. Pinching her chin, he inched her head up so her eyes were studying him instead of his Adam’s apple. “What’s wrong, Tenny? And don’t tell me nothing. I know that’s woman-speak for shit’s about to hit the fan,” he teased.

  But she didn’t roll her eyes or even lay into him about being a meathead sexist. Instead, she remained silent, confirming his suspicion.

  “Talk to me, sweetheart,” he murmured.

  “You shouldn’t call me that,” she replied.

  Frowning, he rubbed a thumb over her full lower lip. “Call you what?”

  “Sweetheart. And you shouldn’t do that, either.” She jerked out of his grasp and stepped back from him.

  “Tennyson, what the hell?” Irritation flashed inside him. If only God had blessed men with the ability to read a woman’s mind. Because they were damn confusing. “You want to tell me what that’s supposed to mean? I can’t come near you now and can only call you by your name?”

  “We have an agreement. Nothing changes between us except for having sex. Before, you wouldn’t have called me sweetheart or touched my mouth. So don’t do it now.”

  He shifted forward, eliminating the space she’d inserted between them
. The irritation deepened, stirring into a simmering anger. This—whatever was going on—was about more than his stipulation on the benefits aspect of their bargain. He hadn’t forgotten it. Hell, he’d been reminding himself of his own rules all morning.

  The protectiveness that had always been a part of him when it came to Tennyson had somehow magnified between yesterday and today, evolving into a possessiveness that would’ve made his caveman ancestors knock their clubs together in approval. He’d invited Tennyson with him to lunch because he wanted to spend his day off with her, even if it meant sharing a couple of hours with Brian. But when they’d arrived at the restaurant and Brian’s scrutiny had passed over her, lingering just a bit damn too long on her legs and breasts, he’d had to strangle the urge not to snap his longtime agent in half like one of those dry sesame-seed pretzel sticks on the table.

  This need for her left him reeling in a mixture of lust and disquiet. Even now, what she said made sense. But he wanted to kick a hole in the wall she’d thrown up, battering it until she let him in. Until she didn’t hide anything from him.

  The conflicting emotions were a red penalty flag thrown on the field of his own private battle. Caution. Back away. Emotionally and physically.

  Moving back and granting them both breathing room, he thrust his fingers through his hair, glancing away from her. The temptation of her. Because though she’d instructed him not to caress her, he hadn’t suddenly gone spontaneously blind. He couldn’t not stare at the lush curves or imagine his tongue sliding between them. Couldn’t not meet her dark chocolate eyes and not see them glazing over with passion.

  Cursing under his breath, he exhaled and wrestled the jumbled thoughts and runaway desire under control. Control. Shit. He’d become known for his cold focus and exacting discipline. Tennyson twisted all that into a joke. “Let’s start over. What’s bothering you?”

  “You,” she accused, shoving her curls out of her face. “What was that at lunch?”