The Red Zone

by Knight, Amie

  Hazel’s eyes landed on me and even though her lips weren’t smiling, her eyes sure were and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she knew exactly who I was. Her next words sealed the deal.

  “Well, hey there, Mister Quarterback.”

  I grinned so wide, I felt my cheeks hurt. I pushed my hand out across the table and gave Scarlett a quick glance that sent her scurrying for her beer glass and throwing the liquid back while I shook a very knowing Hazel’s hand. From where I was sitting, it seemed like Scarlett had called in a little help to get her through the night.

  Hazel leaned over the table and reached for Mason’s outstretched hand next. “How you doing there, Mason?”

  He grinned at her. “I’m doing pretty well. I was just getting ready to ask Ms. Scarlett here on a date sometime.”

  My head snapped to him. Over my fucking dead body. It just came flying out of my mouth. “I think she likes younger men, dude.” I was being an ass, but he was trying to steal my girl.

  Jesus, I was out of my fucking mind. My girl. I couldn’t even get her to return my texts and I was over here being a territorial asshole, but I couldn’t help it.

  Mason studied me with inquisitive eyes. He wasn’t a damn fool by any means and he’d been seeing through my bullshit since I started with the team. I imagined he could see through it now.

  Like a smartass, he said, “I imagine the next thing you’ll tell me is that she has a thing for quarterbacks instead of linebackers.”

  My quick gaze landed on Scarlett chugging her beer while her eyes darted back and forth between Mason and me. “Damn straight,” I said to Mason, but making sure to look at Scarlett.

  “I’ll be back. I’m gonna hit the head,” Ollie interjected.

  “Do you need me to go with you?” Scarlett asked, batting her lashes, and I held in a laugh.

  Looking at her like she was a lunatic, Ollie answered, “No, I’ve been peeing all by myself for quite a few years now. I think I can handle it.”

  He started walking off and Scarlett eyed me before calling out to him, “Are you sure?”

  Ollie shook his head and kept on walking, so a panicked Scarlett just kept right on drinking.

  Hazel was watching Ollie walk toward the bathroom when Mason interrupted. “So, Hazel, what do you do for a living?”

  Her head turned to his, smile in place. She was cute, in an innocent kind of way. “I manage the video game store a couple of blocks from here.”

  “Cool. Are you a gamer?” Mason questioned, intrigued with the tiny enigma that was Hazel.

  “Sure am,” Hazel answered distractedly, looking around the bar. I had a guess who she was trying to find.

  Mason didn’t seem to notice. “Sweet. Maybe me, you, and Scarlett could get together and do a little gaming.” He shot me a cocky grin that made me want to kick his ass.

  “Would y’all excuse me? I think I left something in my car.” And Hazel was gone in a flash.

  “I think Ollie said that Scarlett is busy with work. I doubt she has time to play games with you, Mason. Fuck off.” I glared at him. The fucker. He was grinning. He knew what he was doing.

  “Lukas!” Scarlett yelled, clearly scandalized by me telling Mason to fuck off. “Here,” she said, reaching into her purse and producing a red bag of Skittles. “Have some candy and calm the fuck down.” She drunkenly threw the Skittles down in front of me. “Taste the rainbow and take a damn chill pill.” She finished the last of her beer and put the mug back on the table as gracefully as possible. Which wasn’t that graceful at all.

  I pushed the bag of Skittles back toward her. “I don’t need to taste the rainbow, Red. I already know my favorite flavor.”

  Rolling her eyes, she asked, “And what’s that?”

  My face dead serious, I answered, “Red.”

  She pushed her lips out and gave me a whatever look. “That’s not a flavor, Luk.”

  My eyes roved the expanse of her face. “Why don’t we test that theory?”

  Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of red. “Bathroom,” she squawked before standing up and dashing to the bathroom as quickly as possible for a girl who wasn’t too steady on her feet at the moment.

  I shot Mason a look.

  He just shook his head. “Your game sucks, dude.”

  I just kept looking at him.

  He rolled his eyes and brought his beer to his mouth before saying, “Well, go on. Before she catches an Uber and leaves your dumb ass here.”

  I raced to the bathroom like a bat out of hell and parked my ass in the hallway and waited.

  Okay, this was fine. I was okay. Everyone was okay. This was not a time to panic. I mean, I was a little drunk. But I’d have to blame sexy ass Lukas and Mason for that. Admittedly, I’d been avoiding Lukas for a few days since our ballroom lessons. As he’d driven away that night, I’d realized Lukas and I could never be friends. It was a lie on his part and even more a lie on mine. It was never going to work. And now with him and Mason here I was stressed to the max. Ollie had told me that he thought our neighbor Mason might be interested, but I thought he’d been blowing smoke up my ass. I figured I was having drinks with friends. I now knew that wasn’t the case. Goodness gracious, but those two both putting the moves on me were just a little too much for a girl like me. And where the hell had Hazel and Ollie run off to? I’d specially called her so I wouldn’t be alone in this situation. How dare she leave me in my time of need? And I was drunk. She’d broken the hell out of girl code. I hoped whatever she was doing was worth it. And then I thought about what she and Ollie might be doing and I felt sick to my stomach.

  I’d escaped to go to the bathroom, so I made myself pee while I took deep breaths and then after I washed my hands, I gave myself a pep talk.

  “He is just Lukas Callihan. He is not God. You can resist him. You are his sister’s teacher. He will probably leave and break your heart all over again. You can abstain. And you will.”

  Feeling strong and tipsy, I yelled, “Hell, yeah!” as I left the bathroom and plowed right into a hard wall of muscle. “Oomph.”

  I almost fell back on my ass hard, but two strong hands wrapped around my upper arms and held me steady. I blinked and two molten brown eyes smiled down at me.

  “You okay?” Lukas questioned.

  I nodded frantically because he was so close and my willpower was so low. All of my inhibitions had flown the coop, the alcohol only hurting my resolve in the long run. I wanted to lean in and kiss him right on those gorgeous lips. Damn him. “I’m great. Perfect! Wonderful!” Oh my God, why couldn’t I shut up? “And why the hell didn’t you tell Mason we knew each other?”

  Using his pointer finger, he tapped his own chest. “Me? Why the hell didn’t you?”

  I threw my hands out in front of me. “Because it was awkward after you didn’t!”

  He grabbed my arm and dragged me down a small, dimly lit hallway near the bathrooms until we were alone. “Speaking of Mason. I don’t think you should go out with him.”

  “What?” Of course I wasn’t going out with Mason. I had no intention of dating Mason. I wasn’t interested in him, but I didn’t think that had anything to do with Lukas.

  He ran a nervous hand through his hair and I almost softened. Until I saw his jaw tick and he ground out, “I don’t want you going out with Mason.”

  My eyebrows landed at my hairline. “Excuse me?”

  I couldn’t be hearing him right. He did not get to tell me who I dated. “He’s not the boss of you! Girl power!” Drunk me wanted to yell.

  “Mason’s not for you, Red.” He had the audacity to look mad.

  I scrunched up my face and crossed my arms. “Oh, please, tell me then, Luk. Who is for me?”

  He stepped toward me and pushed in with his big body until he had me pinned between him and the wall behind me. He placed his hands on either side of my head and brought his head close to mine. I sucked in a breath at how close he was. His smell. God, it was addictive and intoxicating and if I had
n’t been drinking beer all night I would’ve blamed that scent alone on how drunk I felt.

  “I’m calling dibs, Scarlett.”

  I shook my head back and forth, trying to clear it. “Dibs?” I questioned. “Dibs?” I asked again because what the hell was he talking about? But the possessive look on his face said it all. And I didn’t like it one bit. Oh, no, he wasn’t. I wasn’t a pork chop or a few Skittles. “You can’t call dibs on a person, Lukas. What the hell is wrong with you?” Oh, the alcohol was out in full force now.

  “I already did,” he said from between clenched teeth, his face hard, unyielding. His nostrils flared as he took a few deep, calming breaths, but I was still hella fired up. “Come on, Red. I think you can feel this thing between us.” He leaned even further into me and I caught that fresh pine wood scent that made my head spin and my knees weak. Like the girl from every romance movie I’d ever seen, I swayed in a bit, all the while loathing my poor choices.

  This man. He made me angry. I was his sister’s teacher. It was unethical as hell. He could break my heart. He had. It had only been a teenage crush, but nevertheless I’d felt destroyed. What would I feel like as an adult? An adult who wanted to be married and have children. And then I dared. I dared to dream about this sweet smelling man with his expressive eyes, plump pink lips, and square jaw covered in the most delicious scruff I’d ever seen in my whole life coming home from work all sweaty and dirty. I wouldn’t make him dinner or greet him at the door with a highball of his favorite scotch. No. Oh, I’d give him a bath. I’d put him in the tub and soap him up with my bare hands, ditching the very idea of a washcloth and touch him in all the places I’d been dying to touch him since I was fourteen years old. Apparently drunk me loved baths and abs.

  “I don’t feel anything,” I denied vehemently, lying through my teeth. I felt a lot, mostly right between my legs.

  He smiled. The devil. “You do.” His eyes bore into mine. “Right here.” He tapped the spot right over my heart through my shirt with the tip of his pointer finger.

  I brought my own hand there, rubbing the spot dramatically. “What? No! That’s just heartburn. I had tacos for lunch.”

  “Fucking adorable.” A low chuckle hit me straight in my girly parts and I pressed my thighs together and closed my eyes. He was winning. He was winning and he wasn’t even trying. Because once that chuckle hit my ears, I was back in that bathtub and soaping up my hands for round two with the best pair of abs in the land. They’d be hard beneath my soft hands and I’d let my slippery palms travel up to the expanse of his wide, smooth chest with the most perfect nipples that ever existed in my imagination.

  “What’s it gonna be, sweetheart?” His breath across my lips snapped me back to reality like a bucket of ice-cold water over my head. Not my lips. Not a kiss. That would break me. I cleared my throat awkwardly even as my face burned. My fantasy vanished into thin air and once again I was pressed up against a six-foot-four tall muscled wall of total manliness and we weren’t all wet and sudsy. And that was a damn shame because I was just getting to the juicy part of my bath time story and it just happened to be below his waist and under a mound of bubbles.

  He moved in even closer if that was possible, totally invading my space and intruding on my barely hanging on sanity. And that’s when I felt it. Long and thick and hard right up against my stomach, and heat rushed through me while my belly did so many somersaults you would have thought a gymnast was living in there.

  But I had to get control. I was Ella’s teacher, first and foremost. And this man was just another guardian I had to deal with. He wasn’t the good-looking, carefree boy I’d tutored in grade school, and I wasn’t the nerdy girl with braces and a pile of insecurities that could rival Mount Everest. I was confident. I was a badass. I was a woman. Not a silly girl anymore.

  It was like he could read my thoughts because his tongue came out, darting across his full bottom lip, and my eyes nearly crossed. And I was suddenly back in high school and mooning over the star quarterback like a lovesick little girl. Run for your life, my mind screamed while my stomach brushed his erection and purred like a damn cat. My inner teenager was such a slut. And inebriated me wasn’t much better.

  Just no. Taking a deep breath, I summoned my innate redheadedness and got my shit together before saying, “There’s only one thing I feel between us, Mr. Callihan.” I somehow managed to sound sultry and sexy like every redhead I’d ever seen on TV instead of the hot mess I usually was. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and gave it a suck before releasing it with a smirk.

  His eyes dashed to my lips, eating them up, and his pure look of desperation only spurred me on. “Fuck, but I really like it when you call me that.”

  I settled my hands on his broad shoulders and leaned over until my lips were right at his ear. Standing on tiptoe slowly, I made sure my stomach brushed low and hard against the bulge in his pants before whispering, “And your cock isn’t my problem.”

  I pushed off him lightly before landing on the balls of my feet and pivoting on a heel. I wanted to run from that dark hallway like my behind was on fire, but instead I stepped forward slowly with an intentional swing to my hips I hadn’t even premeditated. It just came natural, this teasing thing. Lukas wanted me! He wanted me! Like really wanted me because I’d felt it. I was awesome. A rebel. A renegade. A total badass.

  For good measure, I threw a look over my shoulder that I hoped screamed sexy seductress that you’ll never have and not pathetic girl who didn’t know what she was doing. The small smile that played at his lips and the challenge in his eyes as I looked back told me all I needed to know. He definitely wanted me. Bad. Ohhhh, how the freaking tides had changed. And it felt good. Game on, Lukas “Last Minute Lucy” Callihan. Game freaking on.

  As I was leaving, he said, “I’m not through with you yet, Scarlett Knox.”

  And a heady feeling washed over me. The absolute thrill of being in control. Of being the one he wanted. Being the wanted was so much better than being the wanter. Excitement buzzed in my drunk girl veins right along with a gallon of beer. And even though I knew him not being through with me yet was probably not a good thing, I couldn’t help but absolutely bask in it.

  I walked back to that table feeling like I was on top of the world. And that was the last thing I remembered.

  God, something smelled so good. It smelled like I’d imagine heaven. But only if heaven were full of hot, musky, naked men. And maybe that was my heaven. Who was I to judge God’s plan? But that smell, I was attracted to it like a moth to a flame. So, I moved toward it and buried my face in it.

  My mouth watered as my nose hit soft skin and a hard body part. “Mmm. Heaven,” I moaned, using my arms and legs to wrap myself around that smell. It was warm, too, and I couldn’t get enough of that warmth and that pine scent. I was holding on for dear life and nuzzling and pretty much trying to bury myself.

  Something warm enveloped me in its embrace and I sank further into that smell, wanting to stay there forever.

  From the top of my head to the tips of my toes I was toasty and that smell was practically me now. We were one and I wasn’t the least bit mad about it.

  I ran my nose down a smooth expanse of skin and felt a low, rumbling sound from beneath me.

  That sound made me stretch and curl around the warmth below me like a cat lying in the sun.

  “You keep doing that, Red, and I’m really gonna show you heaven.”

  Instinctively, I froze. I knew that voice. But that couldn’t be right. Because I was in my bed and I’d never ever let Lukas into my bed. Because that would be dumb and I wasn’t an idiot. Was I?

  I lifted my head that felt heavy and achy and popped one eye open slowly. I slammed it back closed because it was him. He was there and if the angle I’d seen him at was anything to go by, he was under me. For fuck’s sake, no! I laid my head back on his chest and pretended I hadn’t seen shit.

  “That bad?” he asked, his voice an echo through my body, an
d I knew he was referring to my epic hangover, but when I said “yep,” I was referring to the fact he was in my bed and his bare chest was under my ear, so yeah, it was bad. Like really bad.

  But still I wrapped my arms tighter around him and he clenched around me as well. God, even in my sleep I knew I wanted him. In fact, I was directly on top of him. Clinging to him like a damn spider monkey. I was pathetic in high school and I was pathetic now, too.

  I let out a long breath and breathed in his scent one more time before I made myself move.

  But when I went to move off him, he pulled me tighter to him and ran his hands down the length of my back before they landed square on my ass and stayed there. “Stay,” he ordered.

  And who was I to argue? I was comfortable and he was sexy and still as sweet as I remembered and damn if I wasn’t swooning. Even with an aching head and raging hangover, the man had me smitten.

  He ran his hands over my ass and up my back before trailing back again, over and over, and I moaned softly because it felt so good. So sexy, but so good, too.

  “We need to talk, Red,” he said softly, continuing to stroke me.

  “No,” I mumbled right between his pecs where he smelled divine. “Less talking, more stroking.” He had me now. I was in the enemy’s clutches and I was staying there.

  His chuckle vibrated in his chest and I smiled despite myself. This was a bad idea. An epically bad idea and yet I couldn’t stop it. It was inevitable. Us. This thing. It was unstoppable and I felt completely powerless. How much longer could I keep up the fight? How much longer did I want to?

  “While I appreciate how adorable you’re being right now, there’s something I want to say. Something I need to tell you.”

  And then I realized. He was rubbing my back and my behind. My behind that was only covered in my panties and I was pretty sure I was only wearing my sleeping cami. And he didn’t have a shirt on. I hadn’t checked for pants yet, but it didn’t feel like he had any on, because the coarse hair of his legs against my smooth ones was wonderful.