The Hardest Hit

by Teague, AS

  They released their grip on her, and Landon shrugged a shoulder. “So? Will you?”

  Mel stepped to stand in front of where I was kneeling, and I opened the black box, revealing the six-carat cushion-cut halo diamond ring that I’d picked out for her a few weeks ago.

  Her eyes that were wet from crying filled again as her mouth fell open.

  “You wanna hear my secret?”

  Her head bobbed in agreement as a tear rolled down her cheek. I wanted to wipe it away, but I was down on the ground and she was standing over me.

  “Nine years ago, the most stunning woman I’d ever seen stole my heart, and I spent almost eight years without it because I let her slip through my fingers time after time. But then she showed up and refused to leave, and I got my heart back. But the heart you returned was better and stronger than ever, and for the last year and a half, I have done nothing but dream about spending the rest of my life making you feel the way you make me feel. Whole. Complete. Happy. So, I need to know, Melanie Holstein… Will you be my wife? Will you let me spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel the same way I do?”

  Mel sank to her knees in front of me and grabbed my face in her hands. “I have a secret too. I told you once that I didn’t need grand gestures, that it wouldn’t impress me. But I lied.” She broke off on a sob, her face breaking into a wide smile. “This is incredible. You are incredible.”

  “Is that a yes?” I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face, and my heart pounded as I waited for her to confirm.

  “I can’t wait to trade secrets with you for the rest of my life.” She nodded. “Yes. Absolutely yes. I want you, and I want the boys, and I want us.”

  I pushed to my feet and wrapped my free arm around her waist, hauling her body to mine. Our lips crashed together, and I kissed the woman who had always been my forever.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” the stadium announcer boomed, “I believe that she said yes.”

  The crowd erupted into a near deafening roar, and I pulled away to slip the ring on her finger. It glittered in the light and looked perfect on her finger, just like I knew it would.

  I opened my arm and gestured to the boys, and they ran over, all three wrapping their arms around us.

  “I love you so much!” Mel shouted over the din of the crowd. “I love all of you!”

  I squeezed my family tight and fought back tears as the crowd began chanting my name.

  “They love you!” Mel laughed.

  “Of course, they do. I’m Aiden Shaw.” I smirked. “But they don’t love me nearly the way I love you.”

  Also by A.S. Teague

  Want more of Griff and Brooke?

  Catch up with them in The Hardest Route

  * * *

  Want to spend time with the entire Reed Family?

  Find them in When You Became Mine

  * * *

  The Undisputed Series:

  Undisputed

  Unraveled

  Undone: An Outside the Cage Novella

  The Undisputed Series Box Set

  * * *

  The Bars Between Us

  The Hardest Route

  Brooke

  It was a bad idea.

  I’d known it the moment Melanie had suggested it. But even the knowledge that I was going to end up regretting it hadn’t stopped me from throwing some clothes in a bag and hopping on a plane with my best friend.

  Destination?

  Sin City.

  Las Vegas, Nevada.

  After three days of staying up all night in the casinos and clubs and sleeping all day, it was our last night there. Melanie insisted we do it right. As though the hours we’d spent shaking our asses in clubs had been doing it wrong.

  “When are we going to get the chance to come back here?” she pleaded, shoving the short black sequined dress in my direction. “Put this on already and let’s go.”

  I reluctantly took it from her, convinced the tiny scrap of material wasn’t going to fit.

  It did.

  Like a glove.

  Albeit, a glove that was too short. But even I couldn’t deny that in that dress, I looked incredible.

  “Wow,” she breathed when I walked out of the bathroom, her eyes nearly popping out of her head. “Maybe I should wear that dress.”

  I grinned and spun in an exaggerated circle. “No take backs.”

  When I came to a stop, I looked her over. She might have been busy fawning over my appearance; however, she looked damn good herself. Where I was petite—barely five feet tall—Mel was all long legs and statuesque beauty. She always joked that she needed a taller best friend so that she didn’t look like a drag queen in our pictures together, but there would be no mistaking her for a man in that dress.

  She threw an arm around my shoulders and steered me to the hotel room door. “Let’s go find some fun.”

  “God, I hope we don’t go to jail tonight,” I groaned as I pulled the door closed behind us.

  Her head thrown back, she howled in laughter. “Jail? Ha! I’m planning on going back to Atlanta with a husband, not a record.”

  I shook my head. “Of course you are.”

  She nudged me with her elbow. “When was the last time you got laid?”

  “Jesus, Mel,” I scolded, glancing around, relief washing through me as I took in the empty hallway. “Could you be any louder?”

  She nodded smugly. “I could. Would you like me to ask again in the elevator?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re so bad.” The elevator doors opened, and we stepped inside the crowded car, jamming into a corner.

  “Soooo,” she drawled, resuming her inquisition.

  Before she had the chance to repeat her question in front of a dozen strangers, I dropped my voice to a whisper and answered, “A long time. Too freaking long.”

  As the doors opened, spilling us in to the casino that was in the lobby of the Planet Hollywood Hotel, her eyes lit. “Let’s change that then, shall we?” She grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the mob of people.

  Two hours later, we were seated at a poker table, glass of wine number-who-knows-what in hand. There was a stack of chips so high in front of Mel I wasn’t sure how she could see over it. Apparently, along with being the life of the party and looking like a damn super model, Melanie Holstein was also a professional poker player—or at least she seemed like one to me.

  I looked at the meager stack of chips in front of me and sighed. I wasn’t going to be able to pay rent next month if I didn’t quit soon. “Mel, unless I want to live on the streets of Vegas, I’m gonna have to call it a night. I think I lost, like, five hundred bucks just now.” Saying the words aloud made my stomach turn. I wasn’t a gambler. I wasn’t a risk taker. It was only when I listened to my best friend that I stepped outside of my comfort zone and took chances. Hence the reason I was here in the first place.

  She looked away from her cards and winked. “I got ya.”

  “No way. You’ve had me all week. I’m going to be paying you back for this trip until Christmas.”

  She took a swig of her wine. “It’s my thirtieth birthday. That literally only happens once. And we’ve spent the last year working our asses off.” She eyed me with a sly smile. “When was the last time you did anything that wasn’t work related?”

  I thought hard. There was that one time… Nope. That was a medical conference.

  There was also that time we went to the… Shit. We were only there because I had a meeting the next morning.

  Okay, three years ago, we’d… Damn it, was three years ago really the only argument I had? Wow, I really needed to get out more.

  “Fine. I won’t argue anymore.”

  Her face split wide, and she swayed toward me to whisper. “That’s my girl. Now, don’t be obvious, but there is a fuckin’ hottie at the table across from us who has been eyeing you since we sat down.”

  I leaned back, my eyes cutting to the craps table. There were five men crowded around, cheering, as Adoni
s himself threw the dice. They landed, rolling to a stop, and from the reactions of his friends around him, they were the numbers he’d been hoping for. As the guys continued to cheer and clap him on the shoulder, his eyes left the table and crossed the space between us, colliding with mine.

  As though I had actually been in a traffic accident, the air that had just a mere second earlier been occupying my lungs whooshed out, leaving me breathless.

  And then, like the cool and collected woman I was, I died. On. The. Spot. Because Mel’s description of fuckin’ hottie wasn’t enough to describe the man when a slow smile curled his perfect lips. He had the most handsome face I’d ever seen, all sharp angles and chiseled lines. His hair was dark and tousled, and his eyes were such a light blue that even from across the room I could see were framed by thick lashes.

  I blinked and tried to pull myself out of the trance, but I couldn’t stop staring at his dimples that led into a set of the fullest lips I’d ever wanted to feel on my face.

  “Yessss,” Mel hissed beside me.

  “I… um… think he’s looking at you,” I said out of the side of my mouth.

  “Pshhhh.” She elbowed me. “That’s all you, girl. The guy beside him is a different story though.”

  I didn’t have a clue who she was referring to. The second our eyes connected, everyone around him had disappeared, just like in a cheesy romance movie. I licked my dry lips and nodded as she finished, “Mister Dreamy over there, though, only has eyes for Brooke.”

  “Who’s Brooke?” I whispered.

  The sharp burst of laughter that erupted from her lips stole my attention, and I ducked my head, grabbing the forgotten wine glass in front of me and draining it. “Shit, I think I just had an out-of-body experience.”

  “Hopefully, you’ll have another one later tonight. Let’s go talk to them.” She scooped up her pile of chips and dumped them in to her clutch, blowing kisses to the men at the table who let out disappointed grumbles at our departure.

  “No, no, no,” I whisper-yelled as she dragged me by the arm to the group of guys. “Mel, stop. We can’t just…” She gave me a gentle shove, and I teetered in my heels, careening right into the back of the Greek God himself. I was going to kill her for this later. That was, if I didn’t die from embarrassment first.

  Mister Dreamy turned. The confusion on his face vanished as his face split in to a wide grin, his perfectly straight teeth gleaming, that dimple in his cheek becoming so deep that I wanted to get lost in it.

  “Woah, you okay?” he asked, his deep voice sending a shiver down my spine.

  I nodded, a flush creeping up my neck as my mouth refused to cooperate with my brain.

  He dipped his chin in a silent dismissal before giving me his back.

  Ooooookay. That was fun… and a touch mortifying.

  Why had I agreed to this trip again?

  I turned, ready to call it a night and plot Mel’s untimely demise when I felt a hand grab my arm.

  “Hey, where ya goin’?”

  I paused, looking at the large hand that engulfed my elbow, and peeked over my shoulder. “Uh…”

  Stupid brain! Work already!

  I glanced to Mel laughing with one of Dreamy’s entourage. Her hand was resting on his large bicep as she winked at me before turning her attention back to the group of guys. She said something that made them all bellow with laughter, and I rolled my eyes. It was just like her to turn a group of men into putty in under a minute.

  A waitress materialized with a glass of wine, and I knew that it was Mel’s doing. She wanted me to talk to this guy almost as much as I wanted to, so I sucked in a deep breath, painted on a wide smile, and turned to the man who was still holding my elbow.

  “Sorry about that,” I told him on a nervous laugh.

  One side of his mouth lifted adorably, as if such a thing should have been possible on a man that gorgeous. “It’s okay. I’ve taken worse hits than that.” Dropping my elbow, he grasped my hand instead and brought it to his lips. When they brushed across my knuckles, my knees buckled, and I worked to stand upright.

  Jesus, it really had been too long since the last time I’d had a man if I was getting faint over a light kiss on my hand.

  “I’m Griff.”

  “Brooke,” I replied.

  “Well, Brooke, it’s nice to meet you. Are you from around here?”

  I laughed. “Is anyone actually from Vegas?”

  He shrugged, that dimple making its third heart-stopping appearance of the evening. “No one I’ve met. So, what are you doing here if you’re not a local?” His hand was still gripping mine, and the longer he held it, the less I wanted him to let go.

  “Celebrating my friend’s birthday.” I tilted my head to where Mel was still shamelessly flirting with the Chris Hemsworth look-alike and finished, “My best friend over there kidnapped me, dragged me on a plane, and we ended up here a few days ago. It’s a surprisingly similar story to how we made our way from the poker table to over here.”

  He laughed. “Sounds like a good friend.”

  I nodded. “Everyone needs a Mel in their life.”

  He tipped his chin to look down at me, his blue eyes sparkling with humor. “It’s her twenty-first birthday? No better place to celebrate it than Vegas.”

  I nodded. “Definitely, but we’re not twenty-one.”

  He put his free hand up and said, “Wait, let me guess.” He stroked his chin and made a show of looking me over, pretending to really think about it.

  “Are we at a carnival, and if you guess wrong, I get a prize?” I looked around the smoky room. “I’m really disappointed there are no giant bears here for me to choose from.”

  His lips cracked in a smile. “You look like you’re my age. I’m gonna say twenty-three.”

  I choked on the sip of wine I’d just taken. “You’re twenty-three?”

  “Well, I will be next month.”

  “Twenty-two then?” I squeaked.

  He nodded as my heart pounded.

  I was a damn cradle robber. Twenty-two was still a kid. Jesus, what was I doing?

  “Am I right?” he asked, his voice filled with excitement.

  I took another slug of my wine. I needed to get out of here. Instead of excusing myself and making a mad dash to anywhere but this gorgeous guy’s presence, I quipped, “Where’s my prize?”

  “Damn,” he muttered, looking around the crowded lobby as a sly smile spread over his face. He dropped my hand and stepped back. I worked to hide my disappointment as he spread his incredibly long arms out to his sides. “Right here!”

  I was confused. Not that he wasn’t the best prize in the entire state of Nevada, but I had no idea what he was referring to. “You’re my prize?” I stated dryly.

  With the sexy smile still firmly in place, he jerked his head. “Yep. You said you wanted a bear, well, here I am.”

  “Are you a grizzly or polar?” I smarted.

  He winked. “Chicago.”

  “I’ll be perfectly honest,” I told him, holding up my half empty glass. “I’ve had a lot of wine. And I literally have no idea what the hell that means.”

  He laughed loudly. “I’m here celebrating too.” He jerked his chin at his guys still huddled around Mel. I finally took the time to appraise them and realized that they were all probably his age. I needed to find a way to tell Mel that we were certified cougars. Not that she would care.

  “The guy your girl is laughing with is my best friend, Aiden.” He tipped a beer bottle I hadn’t noticed him pick up at the blond-headed man on the other side of Aiden. “That’s Quinn. Beside him with the bushy brown beard is Trav, and finally, that giant of a man is Shane.”

  I pressed my lips together and nodded again, not sure what the names of his friends had to do with him being a bear or why now was the time to introduce them all to me.

  “You really don’t recognize any of us?” he asked. “Not even Aiden? Come on, every woman knows who he is.”

  I squin
ted across the room at the man I was supposed to know and then looked back. “Not even the slightest bit of recognition.”

  “Wow. Okay then. Blunt and arrogant it is. My boys and I flew out to celebrating me being drafted by the Chicago Bears.” He beamed with pride as he waited for my response.

  I had none.

  I blinked.

  And then blinked again.

  “Congratulations?”

  His eyes sparkled with humor. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you’re not a sports fan?”

  “The only thing I cheer about is when the waitress refills my glass.” I held the empty one up and wiggled it in the air.

  I knew next to nothing about football. The extent of my knowledge was that I lived in Atlanta and we had a professional team. The only reason I knew that was because Sundays in the fall meant traffic was a nightmare.

  “So, you play football, huh?”

  He nodded. “Wide receiver. Played quarterback in high school, but turns out my hands are better at catching than throwing.”

  I opened my mouth and then clamped it shut again. “And you’re celebrating being drafted by a professional team?”

  “Yep. Aiden over there went in the first round to the Packers. Shane went to Minnesota, Quinn to Arizona, and Trav…” The sheer happiness in his smile dimmed. “Trav didn’t get picked up by anyone. But he’s still got a shot. I’m sure he’ll be picked up in free agency.”

  His voice was optimistic, but his eyes were disappointed. I put my hand on his bicep, surprised by how firm it was under my fingertips, and squeezed. “That’s amazing for you and your friends. I’m sure Trav will end up with a team.”

  He looked back to me, and I offered a warm smile.

  “Hey, you wanna get out of here? The smoke in here is killing me. I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten emphysema from our week here.”

  I should have said no. I should have pulled my hand from his sexy-as-sin arm and walked away.