“So what happens after the game?” I asked Joy as we walked to where a driver was waiting to take us back to the hotel, which was about a ten-minute drive through downtown Houston.
“Some guys go out to dinner with their families, and some get their treatments, massage or chiro or acupuncture and relax until they can go to bed. But late afternoon games like this, usually you find some at the bar at the hotel if their families aren’t here.”
The leather seats of the car gave my fingers a new place to tap, and Joy noticed with a wry smile.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not usually so fidgety.”
She patted my hand and closed her eyes as she leaned her head back against the seat. “It’s okay. It’s exciting.”
The car pulled up underneath the large overhang of the hotel, and the driver emerged to open the door for us with a deferential tap to his black hat. I smiled at him and waited for Joy before walking through the marble and glass lobby. No one looked twice at us, and before she exited the elevator on her floor, she gave me a soft pat on my cheek.
“Proud of you, sweetie. You did well today.”
“Oh, I didn’t do anything, but thank you.”
Joy shook her head. “You’ll see how wrong you are by the end of the season. I think it’s going to be a good one.”
On the quiet elevator ride up the next two floors, I thought about her words, rolling my neck against the constant hum of energy still thick in my veins.
The only sound in my room was the air conditioner, and as I sat on the edge of the king bed, white duvet cover neatly folded and white pillows perfectly placed, I knew I couldn’t stay in my room all night.
Five minutes later, I found myself in the empty hotel gym, earbuds blasting G-Eazy and Halsey while I jogged on the treadmill. I made it a few miles before a stitch in my side forced me to slow, and my phone started acting wonky, leaving me without music. I used my towel to dab at my neck. In the wall of mirrors, I studied my reflection, wondering what people thought when they saw me now. The perception of me, with one title, had inevitably shifted.
Through nothing I’d done, I was now something more powerful than I’d been a month ago. It wasn’t about the money either, because I’d had money before my father passed away. People treated you differently when you were wealthy, of course. But this was something else.
I looked the same. But I didn’t feel the same.
Turning slightly, I studied my black leggings-covered legs that worked just as well as they had before. My white tank and pink sports bra were nondescript, my ponytail high on the top of my head. So why did I look different in my own eyes? Were the perceptions of others that powerful that they could change my perception of myself?
“You need a drink,” I said out loud.
But since the gym was still blessedly empty, I laid on one of the mats and did some crunches and squats, and some light weight work for my arms. An hour and a half after I’d walked through the glass doors, I got back in the elevator and took a long draw from my water bottle.
I punched the button for the twentieth floor and sank against the wall. Just as the doors were about to shut, a hand shot out and stopped them.
The hand attached to Luke Pierson’s tattooed arm.
His head snapped back when he saw me in the corner.
“Oh, hey.”
I smiled. “Hey. Great game today.”
His eyes started at my mouth and moved slowly as if he didn’t care that I was two feet away from him and could clearly see all the places he was looking. And he looked. Luke Pierson was doing some intentional looking. Down the line of my neck, the V of my sports bra, over my simple black leggings and then back up. His dark eyebrows bent in confusion. Or pain.
I chose confusion.
“I felt like I’d go crazy if I didn’t get some energy out,” I explained.
“Yeah,” he said, eyes locked in on my mouth. “I get that feeling after a game too.”
Just as the doors almost closed, a young woman yelled out to hold the door. I leaned forward to hit the button, and Luke shifted backward as one, two, three, then four, five, and six teenage girls piled in.
They were giggling and laughing, chattering happily, and completely unaware that Luke Pierson was sharing an elevator with them.
He stood next to me, his arm brushing mine with every deep inhale that expanded his broad chest. I shifted next to him, raising a hand to dab at the sweat still gathered along my collarbone. His chin dropped to his chest, and I noticed him close his eyes.
Air left my nose in a hard puff, and he cut a look over to me.
One of the girls laughed so hard that she pitched sideways, causing Luke to jolt into me. To steady himself, he grabbed the railing along the back of the elevator. His fingers, tight to the metal, pressed against my lower back when I found my original spot.
Through my shirt, I could feel his knuckles, and I didn’t move forward. He didn’t move his hand. Except then he did. He pushed it over a few inches so that the length of his arm was across my back.
If I turned to the side, he’d have his arm around me.
At the fifteenth floor, they exited in a loud rush of giggles, some glancing back at us with flushed, excited cheeks.
Once they were out, Luke pulled his arm away, allowing a few inches between us.
I turned my head to the side to look at him, and his eyes were on my face.
Okay, if this went on much longer—this limited, full of subtext speaking, the small touches that clearly were not accidental, the bonfire hot eye contact—I would combust. My heart would ooze out of my chest because his stupid sexy laser eyes were turning my bones into gelatin.
“What floor?” I asked when he still hadn’t moved.
Luke blinked, and I swear, my heart matched the quick movements. The air felt heavy and thick, and I licked my lips to see if I could taste it.
He was staring at the circular buttons, the number twenty lit up like an emergency beacon.
“You never hit a button,” I explained when he still didn’t answer.
“Same as you.”
“Oh,” I whispered. Why was I whispering? “Good.”
The doors shut, locking us in together.
Good. Excellent.
15
Luke
I’d never experienced silence like the one that filled that tiny elevator. Allie was within arm’s reach, sweat making her chest shine under the harsh lights.
I wanted to lick it off.
My eyes pinched shut as the numbers dinged with each floor we passed. It was almost as if something had been suspended between us since the photo shoot, set into place when I laid my hands on her on my back porch. I didn’t know what it looked like, this thing hanging in the air.
But, slowly, inexorably, it tugged me in her direction, making the space between us smaller and smaller even if I hadn’t moved yet. Something inside me felt horribly off-balance, except for moments like this, when it didn’t feel horrible at all.
It felt right.
Her mouth opened as if she was going to speak when her phone went off. The disappointment I felt was sticky and uncomfortable, and I wanted to wash it off me.
With a deep breath, she read something on her phone and gave me an inscrutable look.
“What is it?”
The elevator stopped.
On our floor.
With one hand, I held the doors open for her, but she didn’t move.
“Sports Illustrated just emailed me a preview of the issue, in case I wanted to see the pictures before it hits newsstands.”
I nodded slowly, pushing against the doors when they tried to close. “Okay. Are they good?”
Of course, they’d be good. I had eyes. They could’ve done the shoot with her looking exactly like she was right now. Scrubbed free of makeup, hair piled on top of her head, and sweat making her shine, she’d be fantasy fodder for every man with working eyes.
She certainly was for me.
“I can
’t get them to load.” Her cell phone went dark in her hand. “Crappy signal in the elevator. I’ll just use my laptop.” She swallowed audibly and lifted her eyes to mine. “In my room.”
The door tried to close, and I slammed my hand harder than necessary. She licked her lips and watched my face carefully as she walked out, her shoulder almost brushing my chest on her way out. I blew a long breath from my lips. That thing, the cord, the binding agent, the chemical pull between us tugged me further.
Off the elevator, there were two directions she could have gone. Given I had no clue where her room was, I watched carefully as she paused next to an ornate side table and gold-framed mirror.
“Do you want to see them?” she asked, her eyes glowing wide in her face.
Remember when I said I felt off-balance?
That was a gross understatement.
With those words, the intent behind them, the hallway empty and hushed behind her, and tension vibrating between us like someone had struck a tuning fork with a sledgehammer, I knew that I was tiptoeing along a cliff’s edge.
No harness. No safety net. If I slipped off the razor-thin line, we’d both tumble over into the unknown. But on Allie’s face, given what she must be seeing on mine, she knew it as well as I did.
I swallowed, my eyes never leaving her mouth. It was a perfect mouth.
“No,” I said, but it came out like a question, filled with uncertainty.
Her lips curved slightly. “Are you sure?”
“No.” No uncertainty there.
The slight curve turned into a full-blown smile, her white teeth showing now, along with a flash of pink tongue. It would be soft and wet, her tongue.
“Well, that sounds like a personal problem, Luke.”
Why did I like the sound of my name on her lips so much?
When I didn’t speak, Allie turned and made a slow right; the same direction I needed to go to my room. What was I doing? This was complicated on an entirely different level than I was used to. My hands gripped the sides of my head, and I forced a hard breath through my nose.
But complicated or not, I wanted her.
That wasn’t complicated. It was quite simple.
Allie wanted me, and I wanted her.
Normally, this was the moment when I remembered all the reasons I wouldn’t indulge in a night of release, of spent energy and sweat-slippery skin. The consequences were never worth it to me.
This was different.
She was different.
In a few stretched-out seconds, I realized that Allie might be the only woman who would understand our precarious position. She didn’t want me for my money or position; I didn’t want her simply because she was willing and available. Despite the complications, she drew me in, yanking on whatever it was that had its hooks under my skin, under hers as well.
And I didn’t want to fight the pull anymore.
I strode purposely, taking a right like she did, and she was standing in front of her opened door, the key just barely out of the lock, eyes on the exact spot where I turned around the corner.
“Change your mind?”
I didn’t speak.
“Good,” she said as if I had. Then she walked in her hotel room. Before I entered, I gripped the doorframe with both hands and let the breaths saw in and out of my chest. Maybe I wouldn’t touch her. Maybe she’d show me the pictures, and then I’d be back in my dark, quiet hotel room with nothing but a sterile bed waiting for me.
Maybe.
Allie paused by the desk and glanced over her shoulder at me. Questioning, bright eyes, soft, smiling lips.
Or maybe not.
I pushed back and followed her, decision made. With the flick of my hand, the door slammed shut behind me. She was facing the desk again, and when I saw her brace a hand on the brilliantly clean surface, I saw the tremble in her fingers as she clicked a few buttons on her laptop screen.
“Whoa,” she whispered when the page loaded.
I came up behind her, close enough that I could feel her heat but not touch her. The top of her head was just under my chin, so I could easily see over her shoulder at what she was staring at.
The cover was the exact shot predicted by the photographer. The last one he’d snapped, and even though I’d been there, even though I’d felt the explosive heat of that moment captured on film, it was like a punch to the gut to see it.
“The Wolves’ New Alpha” read the title. Catchy. But what might have been cliché and silly wasn’t. It only made the picture even more powerful.
Allie looked petite in front of Jack and me with that football balanced on her hip. Jack was smirking at the camera, his arms crossed like mine. Allie’s red lips were open in a slight inhale, her eyes blazing blue in her flawless face. She looked fierce and strong and feminine.
But it was me standing behind her that was the most shocking. I looked savage. Territorial. My eyes burned into the camera with warning. With want. Her trembling finger came up and touched the screen just where I was staring.
“You look ...” she said quietly, her voice raw and soft, “like you’d rip someone’s throat out.”
“Yeah?” My head dipped so I could smell her hair. “That’s not what I remember thinking about when they took that.”
Her chin lifted, and my nose was in her ponytail. I took a greedy pull of air, and her phone clattered to the desk as she braced both hands on the surface.
“Wh-what were you thinking about?”
For a moment, I closed my eyes and simply breathed her in. The surging, overwhelming want made my hands curl into fists so that I kept from sliding them around her hips and under her shirt.
“You,” I admitted in a rough voice. She emitted a soft mewling sound, and her back arched slightly, bringing her bottom snug against me. I dropped my forehead against the back of her neck and touched my lips to a delicate knot in her spine.
I’d been thinking about how she would smell, and now I knew. Something sweet and citrusy. I’d been thinking about how her bare skin would feel under my hands. Something I needed more experience with. What I’d felt so far wasn’t enough.
So, so far from enough.
“Luke,” she begged.
My fists uncurled, my fingers wrapping around her slim hips with ease. I pulled her flush against me, dragging my tongue up the gentle line of her neck until she angled her face toward me.
Slowly, Allie turned in the circle of my arms, her hands sliding up my stomach and chest, around my neck and into my hair.
With gentle pressure, she pulled my head down until my lips hovered over hers, neither of us willing to concede the last inch. My lips curled into an amused smile, and her eyes narrowed.
“Kiss me,” I told her, my tongue darting out to lick my lips.
“You kiss me,” she volleyed back. She wasn’t averse to playing dirty because she arched her back again, pressing her breasts against my chest. I had to grit my teeth to keep from ripping her shirt in pieces with my bare hands, the desire to see and feel and taste so strong that she must have injected something into my bloodstream with that simple movement.
My hands curved down and gripped her bottom with rough fingers, and it made her forehead crease in agony.
“Why are you so stubborn?” she whimpered.
“Just me?”
Allie exhaled a soft laugh, and I sucked in the sound like it was the only way I could gorge on her. I’d take it. The thrumming of my heart was so violent, I knew I’d take anything she’d give me at that moment even if it was just this insane stalemate with no concession from either of us.
“Damn you,” she groaned, surging up on her toes.
Her lips were soft and sweet, and I angled my head so I could go deeper, deeper, deeper. Her tongue curled around mine, and I licked the tip of it. Her fingernails dug into my scalp when I sucked her tongue into my mouth. My arms wrapped tightly around her waist, boosting her up onto the surface of the desk. Allie snaked her legs around me, trapping me against her, her hip
s writhing in a slow circle.
The kiss was demanding, but it was nothing compared to the drumbeat of vicious, biting desire that had my hands moving everywhere. Into her hair, along the smooth, feline curve of her back, under her shirt, where she was sleek and smooth.
She pulled away on a gasp, and I tracked biting kisses along her jaw while her hands scrambled to get underneath my shirt. Her fingertips dragged down the line of my abs, and I rocked into her, mindless from want and reckless in my drive to claim every part of her.
I wanted inside. Over. Behind. My hands filled with her skin, and my tongue slid over the parts of her that would be pale from being hidden from the sun.
I pulled back long enough to rip my shirt over my head, and Allie bit her lip as she watched.
“Look at you,” she whispered, dragging a finger down the line that bisected my stomach, along the trail of hair that disappeared into my jeans. My muscles jumped when she did it again, with a light, torturous pressure.
I jerked my chin. “Your turn.”
She tilted her head and leaned back on the desk. “Say please.”
I propped my fisted hands on the desk and rocked into her slowly while my lips hovered over hers. With satisfaction, I watched Allie’s eyes flutter shut when I hit just the right spot.
“You’re such an asshole,” she moaned.
Bending down, I dragged my nose from the base of her throat to the V of her sports bra and then gently bit down on the top curve of her breast. Allie arched up into me.
“I want to see you,” I spoke into her skin.
“Yes,” she hissed.
That was when my phone rang, a harsh, violent tone between our heavy, panting breaths.
It was Faith’s ringtone. I dropped my head against her throat and worked to control my rapid heartbeat.
“Shit,” I whispered and straightened. Allie slumped against the wall with a pained, frustrated expression on her face.
I dug the phone out and took one more slow inhale before I picked up the call.
“Hey, turbo. Can I call you back in five minutes when I’m in my room?”
“Sure, Daddy! You played so good!”
The Bombshell Effect Page 13