Player: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (14 page)

“
Y
ou left early
.”

An hour after Natalie stormed off, I step into the player’s parking garage to see her leaning against my car, glaring at her phone. She looks up briefly, her eyes narrowing at me.

“Sure did,” she mumbles, glancing back at her phone.

I clear my throat. “Do I get indication of
why?
”

“Why what,” she say evenly, pointedly not looking up.

“Why you left.”

She does look up then, clearly trying to look emotionless, even if its written all over her face. “Not my scene.”

I frown. “I mean, you hang out, drink champagne, and chat with the other wives. Jesus, they’re not
that
bad,”

The door to the parking garage behind us bangs open, and the giggling sound of cheerleaders pours across the parking lot.

“
Byyyee Austin! Call me!
”

I cringe, ignoring them as I turn back.

To a
furious
looking Natalie.

I roll my eyes. “Oh, that.” I grin. “
That’s
why you stormed off?”

“Can you please open the car so we can go home now?”

“Nat, it’s all just part of the show, you know.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a show I don’t need to watch.”

Her face is heated, eyes furious and wild, and I grin. “So, jealous then?”

She shoots me a look. “No, I just have pride and respect and self-worth,
ass
.”

“You know, that is
exactly
why I married y-”

“Stop.” The word comes sharply out of her lips as she shakes her head. “Look, just stop, okay?”

I stop short as Natalie takes a deep breath, looking away before finally whirling back at me. “Look, this job is whatever it is, but I just don’t need to watch that, alright?”

My jaw tightens. “It’s not
real
, Nat.”

She shrugs. “Hey, you’re the one paying half a million dollars to clean up his image. I figured shamelessly flirting and making out with cheerleaders while your
wife
is twenty feet away might not go over so well with that whole thing.”

“Just looking out for me, huh?”

She rolls her eyes and turns away. “Sure, fine.”

I pull my keys out and unlock the car.

“I wasn’t
making out-
”

“Don’t split hairs.”

We get into the car, shutting the doors and letting the silence settle over us.

“Okay, look, I get it,” I say quietly after a second.

“
Thank
you.”

“You’re jealous, and feeling insecure, and-”

Natalie groans loudly, pushing her fingers through her hair and shaking her head. “
God
, are you arrogant.”

I frown. “Look, it’s the
role
, okay?”

“Spare me.”

I whirl at her, my temper flashing. “Okay,
princess
, you want to get real?
Fine
. It’s your
job
to stand there and wave at me at practice, okay? It is
literally
what I’m paying you to do. If it’s not your fucking
scene
, by all means, go back to your mother or your trust fund.”

The car goes silent.

“Fuck,” I mutter, running my hand through my hair, still damp from the showers. “Nat, I’m sor-”

“Just take me home.” She spits out before turning to press her cheek against the passenger side window. “I’ll stay at your fucking practice next time.”

I rev the car into gear and peel out of the lot.

We drive in silence through the LA traffic on the way home, Natalie pointedly ignoring me and staring out the window.

I glare at the back of her head. She’s acting ridiculous. None of the shit with those cheer girls back there
means
anything, and I’d have thought that’d be perfectly fucking clear by now. It’s all just part of the “star” status.

I mean I’m the starting quarterback for a fucking PRO team. I need to be the biggest swinging dick in the room every fucking time I walk onto that field. I need to
own
the respect of those guys out there, and if part of that is the image that I’m banging my way through the cheer squad, then
that’s what it takes
.

Except she’s also got a point, even if I’m mostly sure she’s just jealous. I
am
going to fuck up this new image thing if I don’t change a single thing about my act. Getting a wife was part one,
acting
the part of the husband is the other, and on that note, I’m failing.

“David Beckham,”
Derek had said the other day when I touched base with him.
“Just try and channel Beckham”

“David Beckham married a Spice Girl.”

“And now he’s selling Fruit of the Loom to soccer moms.”

I frown into the LA traffic in front of me.

Well David Beckham never had to go toe-to-toe with Natalie fucking Ames, or he’d be whistling a different goddamn tune.

* * *

I
sigh
as I put the car into park in my driveway, turning to her. “Look, I’m sorry I was a dick,” I say, turning to her.

Natalie shrugs.

“I didn’t mean to sideline you like that, and I’m-”

“It’s fine.”

Natalie gets out the car and slams the door.

This fucking girl.

I’m muttering and gritting my teeth as I follow her into the house.

“Look I said I was sorry,” I growl, following her into the kitchen.

Natalie shrugs again as she opens the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water. “Great.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “What’s your problem?”

“Nothing,” she snaps, shooting me a look.

“
Bullshit.
”

She shrugs, bringing the bottle of water to her lips and taking a sip. And for a half-second, I forget everything. For a frozen second, as I watch her tongue slip across her bottom lip, and as she slips a finger through a tendril of her sable hair, I just get fucking caught in it all.

God
damn
is she beautiful.

Even petulantly mad like this, even testing me with this little attitude thing she’s doing, she’s like no other girl I’ve ever met. She’s defiant and good, and wild, and not trying to get something from me - well, aside from what we discussed.

She takes another sip from the bottle of water. “It’s-” Natalie sighs, and her big blue eyes suddenly dart up to mine. “I’m just trying to process this whole ‘keeping you interested’ part of the job I never thought about.”

I grimace. “You talked to the other wives, huh.”

Natalie nods. “Yeah,” she says quietly.

I shake my head, scratching my chin. “Shit, sorry about that.”

“I just…” She looks down, picking at her nails. “I don’t want six months to go by where I walk away this big
victim
of you and your…
whatevers
.”

“It’s not going to happen like that.”

“Of course it will, Austin.” She shrugs in this way that stabs something through me, like she’s giving up. “You’re
you
, and with your reputation, it’s just-”

“Natalie-“

“Look, am I not good enough?”

I freeze, my jaw dropping a little as she looks down, wringing her hands.

“What?”

She suddenly shakes her head. “No, I’m- I’m sorry, that was stupid.”

“No, Natalie-”

“I’ve just had too much champagne. Seriously forget it, please.”

She suddenly whirls and dashes out of the room, running her fingers through her long dark hair as she disappears.

No way.

No damn way is she walking away from me and from this again.

I take one more second to think about what the fuck I’m doing before I storm after her.

* * *

I
find
her in her room, standing in the open double French doors that lead out to the terrace.

“You’re too good.”

She whirls, having not heard me coming up the stairs. “What?”

I step into the room.

“Austin-”

“I said you’re
too
good.”

Natalie blinks. “For what,” she says quietly, her fingers toying with one another, clasped in front of her.

I take another two steps towards her, watching her teeth drag over her bottom lip as she watches me.

“For me to corrupt. For me to tarnish.”

I move even closer, until I’m standing right in front of her, my eyes burning into hers.

“Sounds like an excuse,” she says, her eyes darting across my face.

“It is.”

She swallows thickly and I step right into her, reaching up as I lock eyes with her and pushing a piece of her hair away from her face.

“It is, because not a fucking second goes by with you in this damn house where I don’t want to tear your clothes off and taste every fucking inch of you.”

Natalie’s eyes go wide, and her breath catches as her cheeks flush hot.

“Not a day, huh?” She breathes.

“Not a damn
day,
” I growl.

She swallows again, her chest rising and falling with the tension of her breath. “So,
today
, for instance-”

“Today I want to tear that shirt off of you, toss you down on that bed, push your skirt up to your waist and bury my tongue in your pussy.”

She gasps, her eyes growing wider than I’ve ever seen.

I smirk. “Too much?”

Slowly, she shakes her head side-to-side, and it’s the last crack in the dam around my self-restraint before the whole thing just gives.

“Good,” I growl.

And then I kiss her.

I mash my lips against hers,
hard
- swallowing her moans as my hands slide down to her waist and push her back against one of the posts of her bed.

Her hands grab at my shirt, pulling me into her as her tongue slides across mine. My hand moves to her hip, tightening on her thigh and pulling her leg up to my waist. Natalie’s moaning, gasping into my mouth as I grind against her, kissing her fiercely as we grind into the bedpost behind us.

She’s pushing my t-shirt up over my chest, gasping as she pulls away from my mouth. She drops her lips to my chest, kissing, sucking, and biting at my skin as I yank the shirt from my head and toss it aside. I cup her jaw in my hands, bringing her back up to claim that mouth.

I yank that conservative fucking top out of her skirt, pulling away to tear it from her body. I drop my mouth to her neck, making
damn
sure I leave bruises in their wake as I nip and kiss my way down to the tops of her breasts.

I’m tearing at her bra pulling it from her arms and growling as I drop my mouth to those perfect, pert little nipples. Natalie cries out when I wrap my lips around one, darting my tongue across the bud as my hands slide down to the edge of her skirt.

I’m pushing it up her thighs to her waist, and she doesn’t stop me this time.

And I’m fucking
hungry
for it - going damn
insane
for the need to taste her.

My fingers hook into the waist of her panties. I pause, waiting for her to stop me, or say no. But she only moans even more fervently into my mouth, her nails raking through my hair and down over the stubble of my chin as her lips bruise against my own.

I yank her panties down her legs before making her yelp as I push her back across her bed. I shuck my jeans off, kicking them away as I crawl over her. My muscles bunch as I ease down to claim that mouth again, kissing her even fiercer when she moans and wraps her legs around my waist.

And then she’s pulling back, her eyes wild and her lips pink and swollen from my kisses. “I still- I mean.” Heat flushes into her cheeks, and she moans as I silence her again with a searing kiss before she pulls away again.

“No sex.”

My hands slide up her thighs, and she gasps as my fingers find her soaking wet and dripping for me.

“Define sex,” I growl into her ear.

She moans as I slide my thumb over her clit, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth as her eyes flutter shut.

“No fucking.”

I growl. “And what if I’m not going to be able to stop myself from licking every drop of honey from between your legs.”

She moans, biting her lip and whimpering for me as my thumb drags lazy circles around her clit.