by Jamie Knight
“Leave me alone!” I yell. “Let me go!”
“Shhhhh,” he says, putting his hand over my mouth. “The more you scream, the worse it will be.”
I’m elbowing him, kneeing him, trying to bite his hand, doing everything in my power to fight back but it’s of no use. He starts dragging me to a bench in the middle of the room.
But I’ve never been as thankful in my life as I am when I hear the door to the locker room open.
“Hold it right there,” someone says.
I can’t see who it is, because the asshole stranger has had ahold of my hair and was pulling it to keep my head down as he dragged me over to the bench. But I can tell he wasn’t expecting this “intruder,” since he grips me even harder and says, “I was just…”
“You just nothing, you fucking dirt bag,” the voice says, as the man it belongs to crosses the room.
I can tell this much by hearing footsteps and making out the bottom of his shoes as they quickly approach.
And then, almost as soon as it had started, my nightmare ends, thanks to the guy with the strong voice beginning to pummel the stranger who had me in his grip. As soon as the stranger lets go of me, I look up and see the gorgeous eyes of my rescuer.
It’s Elias Turner.
I don’t know what he’s doing here, but I’m sure glad he is.
“Thank you!” I start to sputter, at the same time as he’s asking me, “Are you okay?”
In that brief amount of time, my attacker is getting away, barreling out of the locker room as if his life depends on it – and, knowing Elias’ strength and the anger that resounded in his voice as he called out to the intruder, it probably does.
“I’m fine, I think,” but I’m looking down at my arm where the guy had been holding me tight.
There’s a big red mark, and even a slight gash that is bleeding, from where he had put his nails into me.
“Let me see,” he says, coming up to take a closer look.
It’s mostly just a surface wound and no big deal. But it feels nice to have someone else here, looking after me, so I don’t tell him that.
“I’m going to go get that motherfucker,” he says, after he sees that it’s not too bad. “I can’t believe I let him get away…”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, putting a hand on his arm, to encourage him not to take off after him. “You wanted to see if I was okay. I appreciate it. I think he’s too far gone now and that even someone with your speedy sports stats can’t catch up with him. And I don’t think he’s coming back. Thanks for scaring him off for me.”
Now just stay here with me for a little bit, I want to beg him. Don’t leave me alone.
I feel too stupid to say it out loud. But he seems to hear the words anyway, gathering me into his arms and saying, “I’m so glad you’re alright.”
“Who the fuck would do something like that?” I ask him, my voice trembling more than I’d meant to let it.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But I’m determined to find out.”
Chapter 3
Elias
I’ve never in my whole fucking life been so glad to be so absent-minded. After I got off the field earlier, my mind had been on the big game coming up, and I’d rushed to my car so that I could get home and try to rest.
This isn’t something I’d admit to anyone, but I get mad anxiety thinking about choking under pressure. It keeps me up at night, with insomnia, and if I don’t follow a strict bedtime routine, I’m likely to not be able to get any sleep at all.
It’s like I’m a fucking toddler or something. But it’s the only way I’ve been able to deal with the stress of being a star wide receiver for one of the best teams in the country.
Once I’d gotten to my car, I’d realized I’d left my phone in my locker and had to head back to get it. When I’d first approached the locker room, I’d been surprised to hear voices, especially one of the female variety.
But then I figured that a reporter had been able to be snuck in for some special quid pro quo. Coach Kramer hated it, but it wasn’t incredibly unusual for a player to trade secrets with a reporter, for favors of a different variety, if you get my gist. I just hadn’t expected anyone on the team to be willing to do so during such a crucial time for us.
Coach Kramer had already given a big speech about how we weren’t to talk to the press or do anything that could ruin the team’s good name or good vibes leading up to the Superbowl. Of course, he’d managed to let that leak to the media, and most journalists knew better than to try to even ask any of us, knowing we wouldn’t break the code. I didn’t expect any of my teammates to break the code, anyway, so I wasn’t sure what kind of journalist would be ballsy enough to try.
But then I’d realized that the situation was not what I’d assumed, which, to be frank, involved rough sex and some loud noises during orgasm. And the guy in here wasn’t a teammate after all!
I had no idea who he was and at first, I hadn’t even recognized the girl. I had just been trying to jump in and help out.
Now that he’d let her go and her hair is out of her face, I realize I do recognize her, though.
“You’re Stacy Allen,” I inform her, as if she hadn’t already known this. “I mean. Hello. I’m Elias.”
This was a dumb thing to say, too, since of course she knows who I am. Any journalist worth her salt would, and Stacy might be rather new to the scene, but she is already worth a lot of salt. But I am just so completely dumb founded that I’m not even making sense.
I hadn’t even realized I’d taken her into my arms. I had been operating merely on pure instinct and adrenaline by this point.
But, wow, Stacy Allen.
Talk about a journalist with balls, or, um, ovaries.
She is rather legendary around here.
Stacy doesn’t know it, but all the players are impressed with her, and not just because she has curves that would rival a supermodel’s, and a pretty face that is somehow a perfect cross between girl next door cute and make-up ad sexy.
No. Almost all the female sports journalists are attractive – it seems like some sort of requirement to be in her industry – and, while Stacy outshines them all, it isn’t that. It’s that even though we know she’s new to her job, fresh out of school and still in training by her infamous hard-as-nails boss, she’s tenacious as fuck.
No one seems capable of walking off the field or out of the locker room without giving Stacy at least a little something she can run with. And even when we try hard not to – like tonight, for example, since we’re under strict orders from the coach to keep our mouths shut, no matter what – she seems to observe what’s going on so well that she can make a story out of anything she sees happening around her.
Suddenly, I begin to get a little worried that I’m hugging her. I know she was under attack and that I was trying to prevent it, but it could definitely look bad.
Would she use even this gesture of kindness as fodder for an article?
I mean, it’s certainly newsworthy, and I can’t fault her if she wants to go public with the grave injustice that was taking place before I stopped it. But will she include the fact that I’m looking down at her with admiration and respect in my eyes, at the very thought of having Stacy fucking Allen in my arms?
And what about the fact that I’m looking at her not only in admiration, but lust? And that it’s making me get a hard-on as she’s pressed up against me, her belly up against my cock, because she’s rather short and I’m tall, and her head lying right under my pecs?
It’s inappropriate to be so turned on by someone whose life I just saved. Even if she is the hottest woman I’ve ever seen, who is so great at her job that everyone, including me, has no choice to take notice.
Chapter 4
Elias
I step back and Stacy looks up into my eyes, her own dark brown lashes blinking once, twice, three innocent, yet almost teasing, times at me.
“Hi,” she says, finally answering me. “You know my na
me.”
Of course I know your name, I want to say, but I don’t.
“Yes. And I’m sure you already knew mine, too,” I tell her.
She nods and even manages to get a smile out, because obviously she does know that.
“I’m so sorry that that just happened in our locker room,” I tell her. “Should I call the cops?”
She shakes her head and bites her lip.
“Nah,” she says. “I doubt they’d be able to find him, and it would just create bad press for the Leviathans at a very vulnerable time. We both know how Coach Kramer would hate that.”
“Yeah, but anything that needs to be done in the name of justice is more important than worrying about what Coach Kramer says,” I insist.
“We both know he’ll be so mad, which is kind of funny, because this is a big deal and some of the other stuff he’s gotten mad about being leaked to the press has been so silly.”
I look at her without saying anything, because I’ve thought the same thing myself.
“I mean, he was always on Marvin Ward’s case, but who doesn’t scrutinize the quarterback, right?” she asks me. “Yet then there was the whole thing with Bryan Anderson for allegedly partying too hard and enjoying one too many cocktails, and then Jameson Kendrick having to clean up his act to the extent that he was parading around a fake fiancée, even though no one really believed that shit.”
“Fuckin’ A,” I agree. “And then, of course, knowing Jameson, he had to go and actually propose and turn it into the real deal.”
“Probably just to get back at Coach K!” Stacy laughs.
Now I’m even more impressed. She’s rattled off the history of scandals on our team faster than some of my fellow teammates would be able to do, and some of this happened before her time, while she was undoubtedly still in college.
It feels like I’m laughing around with one of the guys. I have to remind myself that I’m not supposed to be this friendly with her. Not only did she just get attacked, which is very serious business, but the sad fact of the matter is that any reporter is practically the enemy.
At least, Coach Kramer says to view them that way at all times, because you never know when they’ll pretend to get on your good side just to get dirt on you and smear your team’s reputation.
Don’t be ridiculous, the practical part of my brain is screaming.
But I stand up straighter and back away slightly, and put on a sterner tone when I say, “Well, I’m glad you’re alright,” anyway, just to safe.
It’s not as if Stacy staged being attacked just to try to get me to talk to her and get a good scoop. There’s no way she would have known I or anyone else would be coming back to the locker room.
If I’d have been just another couple minutes later…
I hate to even think of what could have happened. She shudders some, as if she’s thinking the same, now that I’ve backed off our chummy chatter and forced us both to focus on reality again. Or maybe she’s just bristling at the fact that I stepped away.
Stacy also has the reputation for being rather uppity, but I’ve always thought she was just stand-offish and shy. Some of the guys say she’s had a privileged upbringing, with well to do, over protective parents, and that she wouldn’t hesitate to drop a story about a relationship gone badly, a secret baby mama, or a wild party, because she’s never had to see what life is like when you have achieved a dream and have it taken from you.
“I appreciate you caring about the team’s media blackout rule,” I tell her, trying to get back to business. “But I promise you I’ll do everything I can to find out who tried to hurt you. I swear I’ve never seen him around here before. I have no idea how he even got in.”
“I don’t know who he is, either,” she says, “and I know all the players’ names and stats like the back of my hand.”
There’s that haughty attitude she’s famous for showing. But I can’t help but think it’s a defense mechanism.
After all, she was just in a really bad situation. And she’s probably feeling very vulnerable, especially since I had her wrapped up in my arms but pushed her away, as my own defense mechanism of sorts.
“There has definitely been a lot of drama in this locker room and on the team in general in the past, but none of us would want to let anyone hurt you,” I continue to reassure her.
“I know,” she says. “I already said I know it wasn’t a player for the Leviathans.”
I can’t help but cringe at the tone of her voice, but she notices and softens.
“Sorry,” she apologizes. “I’m really grateful to you for saving me. I don’t mean to be snippy.”
“It’s fine,” I tell her. “You’ve been through a lot. Do you want me to drive you somewhere? Are you headed home?”
“There’s no need for that,” she says. “I wasn’t that hurt. I can easily take care of myself.”
“Okay, if you insist.”
I’m honestly kind of glad she turned me down, because I worry that I’ll make a move on her that I’ll regret, even though now is not the time, even if she wasn’t a reporter.
I can’t help but feel attracted to her. What red-blooded male could, with those wide hips and small waist in front of him, that big butt and those full breasts to match?
“There’s one thing you can do for me, though, that might make me feel better,” she says.
“What is that?”
“Just answer one question for me. Are you going to be in the starting lineup for the Superbowl?”
That’s an easy question. I’m always in the starting lineup. But I can’t even give her that much or else I know Coach K will want to bench me.
It would be a really dumb move, during the Superbowl. But he’s known to value loyalty more than he’s known to make smart moves.
“Look,” I tell her, “you know as well as I do that I can’t answer that. But what I can do is let you be the one to ask that question at the press conference we’re having tomorrow night,” I tell her.
“Really?” she asks, looking as if I just told her she’d won a million dollars.
“Really.”
Official press conferences are the only times we’re allowed to talk to anyone from the media from now until the Superbowl. They’re very orchestrated events that Coach K makes sure to have completely under his control.
Usually, the most experienced reporters are the ones who get questions fielded from them. But I can pull some strings and make sure it can be her.
“Thank you so much,” she says, practically skipping towards the door, as if almost forgetting what had just happened to her. In that sense, my mission is complete. I want her to rest easy tonight knowing that everything is going to be okay. And not just okay, but good, even, because she’ll have tomorrow to look forward to.
Whether or not I’ll get any rest myself remains to be seen, since this little interruption has thrown me completely off schedule. Still, at least I did my good deed for the day.
Now I just have to find out who would want to hurt her, I think. And, as we say goodbye to each other and I watch her fine ass walk out the door of the locker room, I admit to myself that I also have to figure out how to keep my hands off her while I do that.
Chapter 5
Elias
I get to the press conference early because I’m determined to get more one on one time with Stacy. I’ve been telling myself to only think of her as the victim of an attack who I rescued and am trying to help find justice for. Or, even better, as the reporter I can’t get close to, lest she turn on me and leak any possibly negative information she can find out about me – and, fuck, is there a lot of it, in my past – all over her news outlet.
I’ve even been reminding myself of her haughty reputation and how she thinks – or more like, anyone with her job seems to think – that they have the right to ruin peoples’ lives for money. In short, I’ve been telling myself to think of her as anything but what I really think of her as, which is a person who is not only funny and
smart but also drop-dead gorgeous.
I’m not one to talk myself out of doing what I really want to do, though. And what I really want to do is fuck Stacy’s brains out. I know she wants me to do that, too, from the way she looks at me with her innocent yet teasing eyes. The way she was eager to stay in my arms a bit longer than was necessary after I rescued her. The way her voice kind of “purred” when she talked to me.
At some point, and I can’t even pinpoint when it was, I decided to stop pretending I didn’t want what I know I really do want, and start going after it, just like I always go after what I want. I know Coach K would be so mad at me, but I justify it to myself by saying it’s for the good of my health and for the good of my performance for the team. I’ll never be able to get to sleep again – fuck, I’ll never be able to concentrate enough to play well in the Superbowl – if I don’t get this out of my system.
I know exactly where I’ll find Stacy: in the prepping room for reporters from her news outlet. If I knew her as well as I think I do, she’ll be the only one there, since it’s earlier than anything is supposed to get started, and she is nothing if not impeccably ready at all times.
Sure enough, as I knock on the door, it’s Stacy who lets me in. She’s alone, just as I was hoping.
She opens the door absentmindedly, while looking down at the little notebook she always carries with her, lost in thought. She obviously assumes I’m another reporter and is too immersed in what she’s doing to look up at me right away.
But I’m looking at her, alright.
How could I not?
She looks sexier than I’ve ever seen her, and that’s saying a lot, because she always looks sexy.
She’s wearing a black skirt suit with a white button-down silk shirt underneath. The top button reaches just above her breasts, providing me a lovely view of her just a small amount of cleavage that is peeking out from underneath. The skirt falls perfectly over the curves of her hips and reaches to her thighs, giving me a pleasant view of her toned legs.