Block Shot: A HOOPS Novel

by Kennedy Ryan

  The song still blasts from the Echo, and I’m buried under my pillow. I moan, rubbing my legs together like a horny cricket.

  “Alexa, shut the hell up,” I say impatiently.

  The music stops abruptly, but the voice from Quinn’s app triggered by the five am workout on my schedule takes up where Alexa left off.

  “Girl, you better get that ass up and out the door.”

  “What the hell?” Zo asks from behind me, his voice sleepy and confused. “All these alarms and bells and shit. How do you ever sleep in?”

  “I don’t.” I toss the covers back and throw my legs over the side, talking myself into standing up, when a muscled arm reaches around my waist and drags me backward. “Zo, I have to get up.”

  “No, you don’t.” He presses me back into the pillows and settles between my legs. “Sleep in with me.”

  He dots kisses along my neck and squeezes my breast. My nipple lifts involuntarily under the persistence of his thumb. He slips a hand into my pajama bottoms, and I know what he’ll find. Dread twists inside my belly.

  “Dios,” Zo says, sliding his mouth down my chest, taking my nipple through the silk pajama top. “Tan mojado.”

  So wet.

  Guilt clogs my throat. I can’t do this. Not with him after dreaming about damn Jared Foster. I hate this. I’m so disciplined in every waking moment of my life, but I have no control over my unfaithful subconscious and its contrary longings.

  “I really need to get up, Zo,” I whisper, biting my lip and training my eyes on the ceiling instead of looking at him.

  His large palm cups my bottom, pulling me into his erection, into his eager thrust. My body doesn’t care that I was dreaming about Jared. Doesn’t care how disrespectful it would be to sleep with Zo right now, that it would feel like a betrayal. It just wants to be filled. It just wants to fuck.

  And so I do.

  I flip through the pages of the preliminary contract, a frown puckering my brows. Sutton Lowell, Vancouver Titans’ President of Basketball Operations, sits across the conference room table, waiting. When I reach the last page, I look around the room, ostensibly searching, and then under the table. I half-stand from my seat and peer out into the reception area just beyond the glass wall separating us from his staff in their cubicles.

  “What are you looking for?” he asks.

  “Another zero.” I shove the contract across the table to him. “I think you’re missing one.”

  “Banner, come on.” He leans forward, looking me directly in the eyes. If he’s searching for softness, I can tell him right now he won’t find it. Not on this.

  “You need to max Zo out, and you know it.”

  “You really think you have the leverage for a maximum contract? You know his numbers were down.”

  “At the end of the season, yes,” I concede. “Not all season and not his entire career.”

  “We need that cap space to do some rebuilding with younger players.”

  “I’m well aware.” I slide my iPad into its leather sleeve. “But I fail to see how that affects my client. If he doesn’t get a max contract now, then when?”

  “You need to back down on this,” he says, voice quiet but stern like he’s lecturing a recalcitrant child. “The owners—”

  “The owners can kiss my ass, Lowell.” I stand and stare him down. “If you don’t appreciate the rare talent that Zo is and has proven to be for a decade, I’ve already heard from several teams who will.”

  “You can’t meet with other teams,” he says, eyes widening in outrage.

  “Funny.” I touch my chin, fake contemplating. “I negotiated Zo’s contract myself and I don’t remember seeing that stipulation anywhere.”

  “I thought it was understood. A gentleman’s agreement.”

  “Ohhh. A gentleman’s agreement. So it’s a man thing. About time being a woman worked to my advantage.”

  “Banner, you know what I mean. If you even think about talking to other teams—”

  “I’m not thinking about it,” I say, brandishing the words like a knife. “I am talking to other teams because I knew you’d pull this shit when his numbers were down at the end of the season. Any excuse not to pay him what he’s worth.”

  I press the heel of my hand into the conference room table and lean forward.

  “I don’t want your balls, Lowell, but I will take them.”

  Frustration settles between his brows and around his mouth, but he doesn’t offer anything else. I head for the door and toss a warning over my shoulder.

  “I don’t care where you get it, but you better find my zero.”

  What a day. Despite all my bravado in Lowell’s office, I feel less certain about Zo’s contract than I ever have in an off-season. His numbers are down. I don’t know why. It’s the first time in ten years he finished down. I’m thinking about taking care of one client when another calls. I answer with Bluetooth, negotiating the back roads to my house from downtown.

  “Kenan, hey,” I answer, smiling. Kenan makes me smile. He’s so big and serious and daunting but has one of the best hearts around underneath all the bluster. He and Zo remind me of each other, and I’ve known Kenan almost as long.

  “Hey, Banner.” His deep voice comes quietly and he sounds weary.

  “Everything okay?” I ask, on alert.

  “Yeah. Just more drama with Bridget.” He clears his throat. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Is she trying to make it harder to see Erin?”

  “I got it,” he replies more sharply than I anticipated. Probably more sharply than he meant to. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be short. It’s just . . . I don’t want to talk about Bridge. I didn’t call to talk about her.”

  “Okay.” I put aside my ass-kicking reflex. Any woman who would cheat on Kenan, and with a teammate, deserves an ass kicking, but he won’t let me at her. “So what do you need?”

  “August and I want to do a charity golf tournament,” he says. “The homeless situation in San Diego is at a record high, and we want to help with funding.”

  “You’re right.” I pull into my driveway and open the garage but don’t get out of the car quite yet. “My family still lives there, and it’s worse every time I visit. What do you need from me?”

  “Work on sponsors.”

  “Of course.”

  “I assume you’ll start with the brands I already endorse.”

  “Yeah. I think we can count on them, but depending on the scale, we may need a few more.”

  “We want to have significant impact.” He sucks his teeth, a rueful sound. “Well as significant an impact as you can have on something this huge and unfixable.”

  “Right. True.” I switch from my car’s Bluetooth and bring my phone to my ear. “I’ll knock on some doors starting tomorrow.”

  I mentally shift a few things around so I can devote an hour or so to finding possible sponsors.

  “Great, and you’ll have help,” Kenan says. “So don’t think this is all on you. I know how much you have on your plate.”

  “Help?” I get out of the car, lock up, and let down the garage. “How so?”

  “Jared Foster will be coordinating with you,” Kenan says. “From Elevation. You know him, right? August’s agent? His brother?”

  I cross around the front of the car but, at the mention of Jared’s name, lean against the passenger side door and release an extended breath.

  Seriously?

  I go ten years and barely see the man, and now he’s behind every bush and around every corner. I do not need this. It’s bad enough I dreamed about him and had to guilt-fuck my boyfriend after. It’s bad enough I see him at my gym and at conferences and it just feels like everywhere lately. Now I’m expected to work with him and remain civil?

  Remain faithful?

  It’s a whisper, a warning from my subconscious. The same place harboring hot, dirty dreams about the man I should hate. The same place that quivers when he’s too close.

  “I n
eed distance,” I mumble.

  “Huh?” Kenan’s confusion reaches me over the phone. “What’d you say? You still there, Banner?”

  “Uh, yeah.” I push off the car door and enter the house through the garage. “Just getting home. I’ll coordinate with Foster.”

  “Good. Let me know what you need from me.”

  “And Kenan?” I place my bag on the marble counter and give him my full attention for the last few seconds. “Don’t worry about Bridget, okay?”

  The silence on the other end is thick with his discomfort. A fiercely private man. A proud man whose name was dragged through the mud by a whore.

  Yes, whore.

  She cheated on this amazing, kind, marvelous man with his teammate, and the whole world pulled up a seat to watch his humiliation with 3-D glasses and popcorn.

  Whore.

  From the moment I met Bridget, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I knew she was an opportunist. I questioned her character immediately. I come from a family where fidelity, loyalty is as important as love. Maybe even more. I’m not sure my father always loved my mother, but I know he never cheated on her.

  “She’s not getting all your money,” I say firmly. “And she’s not getting sole custody. I have ideas. Let me work with your lawyers.”

  Let me at her.

  “Okay.” He releases a resigned sigh. “I’ll tell my lawyers they’ll hear from you.”

  My clients know my integrity is unmatched, but right and wrong are the only boundaries I draw around my actions. I’ll do whatever it takes for them.

  Killer with a heart.

  Jared again. It’s like the universe keeps bumping me into him, even inside my own head.

  “Hola.” Zo hugs me from behind just as Kenan and I disconnect.

  “Hey, you.”

  I lean back into the warm, comforting length of him. We’ve been best friends a lot longer than we’ve been lovers. Whatever this is percolating with Jared, I can’t let it come between Zo and me. I’ve always had Zo. We literally started in this business together. He launched us the day he chose a green, untried intern as his agent.

  “Long day?” He brushes my hair aside and kisses behind my ear.

  “Yeah.” I cross my fingers that he won’t ask about the meeting with Lowell. I know I can get him the max contract he deserves, but it will take time and it won’t be pretty. I need him to leave me alone and let me do my job without the pressure.

  In the silence that follows my one-word response, I can almost hear him asking the question in his mind and then thinking better of it. After a moment, he briefly tightens his hands at my waist before letting go. He reaches into my bag and lifts my phone.

  “See this?” He holds it in the air. “It’s off for the rest of the night.”

  He powers it down and grabs my hand, leading me back to my bedroom.

  Please don’t want sex.

  He peels my blouse off, unhooks my bra, bending to kiss each nipple. He looks up and I smile but keep my face only vaguely interested.

  “You’re tired.” He kisses my cheek. “Shower. I already have steaks on the grill.”

  I go limp with relief. It’s ridiculous. Zo is one of the country’s most eligible bachelors. A humanitarian. Handsome. Wealthy. The kindest man I know. And I’m relieved over a sex pardon?

  I shower and pull my wet hair into a loose knot on my head, slip on my fave “at home” dress. It’s like a hooded sweatshirt but with cutoff sleeves and hangs almost to my knees. Barefoot, I pad out to the patio, lured by the smell of grilled meat.

  Zo already has salads on the table, so we’re just waiting for steaks when the doorbell rings.

  “I’ll get it.” He presses my shoulder until my butt hits the seat. “You sit.”

  As soon as he’s gone, I want wine. He’s done everything else. I can at least do that. I walk back into the kitchen, distracted by the rumble of two distinct deep voices. I assumed it was a package being delivered or something, but my curiosity gets the best of me. I walk toward the voices in the front room and stop in my tracks.

  My nemesis in my house.

  Jared Foster is everywhere. In my dreams. In my conversations. In my thoughts. And now in my damn house.

  “Why are you here?”

  The words barge out, rude and rushed, before I remember my manners.

  Both men turn to me, and I’m struck by the contrast and by the sameness. Both beautiful men. Both oozing confidence. Zo is a couple inches taller. Physically, he’s dark and Jared, in the late evening sun framing him in the arch of my front door, is gilded. Breathtakingly bronzed and beautiful. But beneath their skin, he is the darker of the two. There’s a barely beating black heart under that Tom Ford suit. He and Zo know each other by sight, reputation and not much else. Zo heard someone ask me about attending Kerrington with Jared Foster once. That’s all he knows about our connection. The three of us stand trapped in an awkward silence for a few moments. Awkward for me at least, but a pleasant smile curves Jared’s lips.

  “Sorry to show up unannounced,” Jared says, darting an apologetic look—that I don’t buy—at Zo. “I tried to call.”

  “I turned her phone off,” Zo says, eyes steady on Jared’s face. “It’s after hours and she needs to rest.”

  “I get it.” Again the false apology of a smile. “I’m exhausted, too.”

  Lies. He practically vibrates with energy even at the end of the day. The man’s a damn robot with no off button.

  “But we have a meeting tomorrow,” Jared says, shifting to me. “And when I couldn’t reach you, I thought I’d come by and make sure you’re prepared.”

  “What meeting?” I walk deeper into the room, conscious of my bare legs and feet and face. Of the hair piled messily on my head. I’m always armored when I see Jared. I need to be, and I feel strangely vulnerable having him in my house. Even with Zo standing between us, it feels too intimate.

  “Did Kenan talk to you?” Jared asks. “About the golf tournament?”

  The smell of the steaks seems stronger all of a sudden. Zo must notice, too.

  “Excuse me,” he says, watching Jared watching me. “I’ll check on the grill. Good seeing you again, Foster.”

  They offer each other civil smiles. Zo drops a quick branding kiss on my lips while cupping my neck with one hand, the other hand at my waist, uncharacteristically possessive. He doesn’t need to know I slept with Jared to recognize a male threat. I feel threatened, too—but by the dream that held me hostage this morning.

  “Rápido, mi amor,” Zo mutters by my ear and heads back to the patio.

  Jared watches his departure with a wry smile. It’s our first time alone since the confrontation at the hotel. Since I blocked his shot. It feels weird to just dive right into discussing the golf tournament without at least addressing what happened.

  “Look, if this is really about Lamont,” I say, slipping my hands into the front pocket of the dress. “You deserved that. I’m not sorry, and you know he’ll do better with me anyway.”

  “Ah, yes.” A sardonic press of sinfully full lips. “The Rookie Whisperer.”

  “Whatever.” I shrug faux carelessly. “Lamont will be under intense scrutiny, and we both know he has some issues that could derail him. I’ll take care of him.”

  “You’re right. I don’t play babysitter to grown men making millions of dollars,” he says. “I agree he’s better suited to you. I thought he was signing with Mitch, in which case I would have been doing him a favor.”

  “He was actually. I intervened after hearing Mitch’s choice words about me at the bar that night.”

  Jared grimaces as close to contrite as I can expect from him.

  “I am sorry for what I said, Banner. I was . . .” He searches my face, but seems to be searching for words, too. “Wrong. I was wrong.”

  It’s just words, probably empty ones, but his admission soothes a sting I didn’t realize I still carried.

  “Apology accepted.” I clear my throat
and, I hope, the air. “Since we have to work together for our clients, let’s put it behind us.”

  “Right,” he says briskly, donning a businesslike expression like he would put on one of his silk ties. “We have an appointment tomorrow.”

  “How do we have an appointment tomorrow? You didn’t consult my schedule. I don’t know who we’re meeting with or what we’re meeting about.”

  “Should we sit?” he gestures to the sofa.

  No way I’m sitting on a sofa with Jared Foster and Zo just outside. I wouldn’t straddle the man but don’t trust my subconscious. Look what it made of an argument in the hall. There’s no telling what it will concoct even from these few minutes together.

  “No need to sit,” I reply. “Just tell me how you have commandeered my schedule and I can get back to my dinner and my boyfriend.”

  Knowing he disapproves of my relationship with a client, I don’t miss the chance for a dig.

  “Okay.” He exasperates me by stubbornly remaining unoffended and suppressing a smile. “We’re having lunch with a huge potential sponsor. It’s all but done.”

  “I know you’re not used to playing well with others, but this is pretty high-handed even for you.”

  “I called your office and your assistant said you were free for lunch.”

  “Why would Maali give you that information?” I can’t believe my usually lips-are-sealed assistant would be that forthcoming.

  “Don’t blame her. I can be pretty persuasive.” He chuckles when I roll my eyes. “So lunch tomorrow with Kip Carter.”

  “Wait.” I frown and rack my brain. “That name sounds familiar.”

  Jared rubs the back of his neck, wearing reluctance like a red flag. “It’s Bent’s father.”

  I’m momentarily too mad to speak, but that doesn’t last.

  “Are you kidding me?” My words bounce between us like a medicine ball. “Bent who saw me naked and laughed? That Bent?”