Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (26 page)

I couldn't look away. I think I smiled at her.

For a split second, I wished I wasn't grinding down here on the field, but that I was up there with Teagan, sitting next to her, curling our fingers together. Even with thousands of fans screaming my name, I only cared about what she thought.

Passion. Obsession.

I couldn't tell the two apart. Hell, maybe they were the same damn thing? Either way, for a flash of an instant there, I couldn't decide where those words belonged. Football. Teagan. A career. A future. Something worth fighting for.

My head got so jumbled up that I wanted to scream.

This is exactly what you've been avoiding!
I yelled at myself, knowing I was taking risks, making mistakes, screwing up. I
wasn't
in the NFL yet. Until that contract was inked in blood, I was still just a college player with no money and no education. If I did anything—
anything—
at all to jeopardize that, I was a moron. I was worse than a moron. I was a disgusting sack of shit who left the only mother figure he ever really knew and the girl he'd loved since he was seven and a guy who let years and years of hard work and sacrifice get flushed down the toilet.

Fuck.

Fucking Teagan.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I turned away from her and tried to breathe.

Passion.

Obsession.

Thrill.

Teagan.

I gritted my teeth and curled my gloved hands into fists. I'd invited her here to show her how far I'd come, to prove myself blah blah blah, but in reality, maybe I was just being selfish? I wanted her here. For me. Because I liked her and I was wondering how the hell I was ever going to let her go again.

“You alright?” Kai's hand on my back popped the air around me like a bubble, let in the sound, the raucous horrible wonderful crash that was Autzen Stadium, a place where the best teams went to die. It was so goddamn loud in here that other teams had accused us of piping extra sound in just to throw them off their game.

I smirked.

We didn't need to cheat to win; the Ducks had
me.

“I'm fine,” I said, shutting down my mind, pushing Teagan out of it.

I'd play this game, win it, remind myself that I'd already chosen between football and Fletcher.

I'd remind myself that what I lived for, what I'd chosen, was
this.

During the first half of the game, I managed to keep my thoughts in check by pointedly
not
looking Teagan's way. But I knew in the back of my mind that she was fifteen, maybe twenty, feet behind me. If I turned around and jogged over there, held up my arms, she could jump into him. That's how close we were.

Unfortunately, Mason Fenna noticed her, too, and he waved and sauntered and acted like a complete a-wad. I did my best to ignore him, too, but when the second half of the game started, I couldn't take it anymore. My focus was on the game, yeah, but I needed to see her face, she if she was watching me.

When I glanced over my shoulder, seconds away from taking the field again after half-time, I saw her looking at me. Staring at me. Studying me. Her face was painted in tribute to me, her lips decorated with my number, her eyes zoned in on my back. I lifted up a hand, did a little wave that got caught by the cameras and flashed up on the fucking Jumbotron. The crowd tittered and the people sitting on either side of Teagan turned to look at her, to check out the girl that was stealing my attention away from the game.

I snapped my face forward and gritted my teeth.

When I hit the field again, I took my aggression out with my plays, my runs, my passes. I made sure we smoked the shit out of the other team. As the game was nearing its end, we were up by seven, and I knew that come hell or high water, we were going to win the day. Period. I wasn't about to invite Teagan over here to watch me lose.

I smirked and waited for my chance, getting the ball in my hand and running it to get the clock down, icing my enemies with that sprint.

“Touchdown, DUCKS!”
I heard the announcement over the loudspeaker, felt the blood thumping in my head.
“An incredible play by Tyce Winship, one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever put on a Ducks uniform. I'm telling you, the kid has a real career ahead of him.”
The words swirled around and through me as my teammates jumped on me, patted my back, hooted and fucking hollered. The student section in the corner of the end zone went ballistic, like a herd of wild dogs, howling and baying and cheering.

Game. Set. And. Match.

I cheered, slapped helmets, danced around like a fucking idiot.

But I never forgot that Teagan was watching me.

Her eyes burned into me, drew my own up so that all I saw for the next few minutes was her face. I didn't see the other team when we slapped hands, congratulated them on a good game. Didn't see my coach, my teammates, the crowd as they yelled and rippled in a wave of flags and color and hands and jeers. I only saw Teagan and the way she made me feel, the way those emotions battled with the rush of the game, fought for control of my heart.

I watched her as my team jogged their way towards the tunnel to head back into the locker rooms. Five minutes after the final whistle, the fans would be let loose to walk the turf, take photos, get a sense of what it was really like down there in the pit. But right as I approached the blackness, I found myself coming to a stop, putting my right hand on the cement wall outside.

As soon as I crossed this threshold, I wouldn't be able to see Teagan anymore, see the way she stood up and moved to the railing, leaned over, her red hair spilling over shoulder in a braid. Even from here, I could see her pale fingers curling tight around the metal, her nails green and yellow and marked with my number. Marked by me. Mine.

Shit.

I started breathing hard, flicked a glance over at the rapidly disappearing bodies of my teammates, and then straight back to Teagan. I felt my cock respond to the sight of her in my jersey, the way it draped her shoulders and shrouded her in my scent, turned that possessive urge into a raging fire that I couldn't stop. Sweat poured down the sides of my face, and I was fucking tired, and I was aching with adrenaline and testosterone and rage.

Seconds dragged past.

Seconds, but we only had five minutes.

I took off before anybody could realize I was missing, sprinting down the sidelines like I'd sprinted along the paths in Alton Baker Park. I skidded to a stop in my cleats, moving up to the cement wall at the edge of the field.

“Tyce?” Teagan asked, her voice audible even through the enormous roar of chatter from above and around. I had no idea how I heard her. Or maybe I didn't. Maybe I just saw those painted lips of hers move with the single syllable of my name.

I wanted them wrapped around my cock.

I wanted to fuck her.

Even if I couldn't have her, or if it would hurt her, or if it would hurt me. Didn't matter. Didn't matter.
Less than five minutes.

“Come here,” I said or maybe I shouted it. Maybe she couldn't hear me either, but I guess she read my lips because she climbed over the railing onto the grass that covered the top of the wall. I gestured her forward before somebody saw and tried to stop us. But what were they going to do anyway? In five minutes, the crowd would be released onto the field. And I was Tyce fucking Winship, and I'd just won this goddamn game for my team, and I
wanted—
no, no I
needed—
Teagan. Now.

She leaned down, putting her hands on my shoulder pads while I reached up and put my hands on her hips, yanking her down and into me. My body was sweaty and dirty and disgusting, and my muscles hurt, and I really needed a fucking shower.

“Hi,” she said as she gazed into my eyes through the shield on my helmet. Her mouth was slightly parted and her pulse jumping. I reached a hand up and smoothed a thumb over it, feeling her body's reaction to me like a drug. Her pupils were dilated and her forehead dotted with sweat. And that jersey. That fucking jersey. I thought maybe that was what really did it for me. Seeing her dressed in my clothes turned everything I'd ever felt and thought about Teagan on its head. I suddenly saw her in my shirts with nothing on underneath, mussy and groggy and smiling in the morning. I saw her in my bed naked when I went to sleep at night.

I might not be able to have any of
that,
but at least I could have
this.

I was going to take what I needed from her, right here and now.

I reached down and took Teagan's hand, curling my gloved fingers around her pale ones. “What are we doing?” she asked as I forced her to jog after me towards the tunnel. “Where are we going?” Her voice was breathy and patchy, and she panted as she ran after me, but she kept going, following me into the pitch blackness and down, down, down.

At the halfway mark, I stopped, turned, shoved her back into the wall.

“Tyce,” Teagan said, her voice high and reedy, like she was about to come in her panties just from looking at me. I reached up and tore my helmet from my head, tossing it aside and letting it bounce along the pavement beneath our feet. I was panting so goddamn hard in that moment, sucking in breath after anxious breath as my eyes flicked over her face, down her throat, across the full swell of her chest.

I stepped forward and cupped the back of her head with a golden glove, leaned down and captured her mouth with mine. I kissed her hard and fast, frantic with time and need and desire.
Less than five minutes.
I bruised Teagan's mouth with my own, slide our tongues together, made her dizzy when I pulled back and looked her straight in the face.

“We have five minutes,” I said and then we were working together to shove her pants down one leg, over her sneakers. Mine were next, pushed down halfway off my ass, my cock springing free from my cup. I lifted Teagan up against that stone wall, slammed her back into the cool cement and let her curl her fingers in my sweaty hair. It was stuck to my forehead, probably a hot mess, but she looked at me like I was a god. I felt like a god there in that tunnel in the dark with thousands of fans screaming and pounding the pavement above our heads. In an instant, my coach or a security guard or one of the boys, they could come down here and find us screwing.

I didn't care.

Seriously. I didn't give a shit.

My hands curled around Teagan's bare ass as I found the molten slickness of her core and thrust my way in, pushing her into the wall as she gasped and tears sprung up at the edges of her eyes. It wasn't fair. I'd taken her virginity in a second, right up against a tree like it was nothing. And here on her second time, I was ramming her into a wall, but I couldn't make myself stop. I couldn't figure out what I wanted other than this, and I didn't know how to say no. If she'd told me to stop, I would've, but she didn't.

She whimpered and buried her face against my shoulder pads, her hands reaching down and cupping my own ass with her long nails. She pulled me into her, let me slide my cock as far as it would go as we panted and groaned, grunting like animals in our less-than-five-minutes-left.

I didn't even try to keep my voice down, confident that whatever noises I made would be drowned by the crowd. But if someone did happen to hear or see, then let them see. Let them look.

Teagan Fletcher was
mine,
and I didn't care who knew.

Tyce was a monster in his gear with sweat dripping down the sides of his face, off the tip of his nose, catching on that bruised swell of his lower lip. I bit at it, kissed him, ran my tongue up his jaw like I knew what I was doing.

I didn't.

I was twisted around, bent and confused and hurting. His cock still hurt this time, but it wasn't as bad. It was … full. I felt full and empty at the same time. Tyce and I were having sex, he was inside of me, he was looking at me with this dark intent that I couldn't understand, and yet I'd never felt like we were further apart.

I wanted to stop or say no because I knew this was only going to hurt
me
in the end, that he could shrug this all off and walk away like he'd done before, I but I couldn't. I liked him too much. Missed him too much. And even if I'd never had another 'friend' on this earth that I'd let pick me up and slam me into a wall, I went with it.