Playing Hard: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (13 page)

I saunter down the street, hands in my pockets.

I know I’m supposed to meet Ava out here on the street in front of the restaurant, for maximum exposure. I glance around, but I don’t see her anywhere. I can’t help wondering about what she’d wear to a fancy place like this — whether she’ll stick with her usual mid-calf skirt and sensible heels, and a blouse that covers up everything from the neck down. I want to laugh, but
I’m
the one that girl’s been driving crazy, so I guess the joke’s on me.  

I turn as I hear the photographers suddenly start muttering amongst themselves, their flashbulbs going off in unison.

There’s a car pulling up at the curb: a limo, sleek and black, like the one Ava and I rode back to campus in the other day. The restaurant doorman opens the car door, and a long leg emerges. I catch a flash of stocking above the short hemline of the dress, held up by a garter belt.

Nice.

I grin a little — just because I’m preoccupied with Ava Westwood’s virgin ass at the moment doesn’t mean I can’t take a good long look at someone else’s goods. And these goods are worth looking at. After finding myself totally unable to get turned on by anything other than Ava for the past two weeks, this is actually kind of a relief. Maybe I can wander over and introduce myself, especially if Ava doesn’t get here anytime soon.

I run my hand through my hair, my eyes travelling up the leg and over the shapely body as the woman emerges from the car. She has her back to me as she steps out, and I run my eyes over her little peach of an ass and the curve of her hips, before the lines of her body disappear under the winter coat that’s draped over her shoulders. Her hair is in some kind of complicated updo, strands falling down the back of her neck, like they’re just waiting for me to push them aside so I can run my tongue over her pale skin.

Very nice.

I start walking toward her. Ava’s not here anyway; can’t hurt to make a bit of small talk, even though I’m sure it’ll make that fuckwit Murray and Coach Jackson go mental, seeing as I’m supposed to be reformed now and not hitting on every hot girl who crosses my path.

Then, she turns, and I see her face for the first time.

Holy fucking shit.

It’s Ava.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AVA

This is definitely the shortest hemline I’ve ever worn. I keep having to resist the urge to yank it a few inches more down my thighs.

It’s far from the shortest dress Darcey owns, but I’m a little taller than her. So when I came up with the idea to borrow one of her dresses for this date, this seemed to be the best pick. It still feels
way
too short, though.

At least the heels aren’t a problem. I might not choose to wear them every day, but since my dad never remarried after my mom died, I’ve attended enough galas and black tie events with him to get used to wearing them.

Still, the doorman of Balotelli’s feels the need to take my hand to help me out of the car as I stand up, as if I might topple over if left to my own devices. It’s the kind of treatment Darcey gets pretty much everywhere she goes — men falling over themselves to buy her drinks, leaping out of their seats to offer them to her — while I, in situations where it’s not immediately apparent who my father is, usually fade into the background. I don’t really mind, and I’m certainly not going to change the way I dress just to get male attention. I dress for comfort.

But just this once, I wondered what it might be like to dress like
this
— like a girl who’s going on a date with Blaketon University’s most famous football star, at one of the most exclusive restaurants in town.

Just this once, I kind of want to know what it’s like to be the kind of girl other than the one I’ve been my whole life: studious, quiet, always ready to support my father, always doing what’s best. Always doing the sensible thing.

Sure, putting on a short dress and high heels might not be the
wildest
thing I could do, but baby steps. Plus, I don’t know if I actually want to
be
wild. I just don’t want to be so buttoned down. Uptight. Which I apparently am, at least according to Darcey and Riley.

Licking my lips, I glance around, looking for Riley.

When I spot him, it’s as if all the air has been sucked out of my lungs.

I’m used to seeing him in either track pants or jeans — I never considered how he might look in a suit.

I was, I now realize, deeply foolish to never consider it.

He walks toward me with the same swagger and confidence he always has — the type that makes my mouth water, while at the same time making me want to slap him for being so arrogant. Even though he’s wearing a suit jacket, the cut of his muscles is still perfectly clear under his white shirt. The straight-legged black pants he’s wearing don’t do anything to disguise the bulge of his thighs, either. He looks as if he’s just stepped out of a magazine page advertising cologne or something like that — all sharp angles and black suit, looking way better than I ever expected him to. If I’m being honest, I had half-expected him to show up in his sweats and flip-flops, just to be a jackass and piss me off.

Not that he doesn’t also look spectacular in sweats and a t-shirt.

I swallow, trying to get my libido under control.

Behind me, there’s the flash of cameras going off, and I
really
hope my dress is covering my ass. Despite all Darcey’s reassurances that I look, in her words, ‘hot as fuck’, I’m still getting used to having this much skin on display.

But I can tell by the way Riley’s eyes are traveling up and down my body as he walks toward me that he likes it.

I hope I’m not flushing red. This dress leaves literally nothing to the imagination, and everyone will see if I blush now.

And I’m trying desperately not to remember that the last time I saw Riley, I was showing him my underpants. And that he’d shown me his right before that — like he was just expecting me to jump on it right there and then.

The problem is, I’d wanted to.

Really
wanted to. I’d spent kind of a lot of alone time thinking about just
how much
I wanted to.

I don’t know whether to be more annoyed at him or myself — him for just assuming it would work on me, or myself, for the fact that it totally did.

“Ava,” Riley says, as he arrives at my side.

His eyes are still glued to my legs. The faux fur stole I have wrapped around me is covering my boobs, otherwise he’d probably be staring at those. I mean, I
hope
he would.

Wait, do I?

Oh God, I’m so confused.

Between his lingering gaze, the cold air against my warm skin, and the flashbulbs going off behind me, this whole scene has taken on some kind of bizarre air of unreality.

“Who’d you borrow the dress from?”

And suddenly, just like that, it’s broken.

I blink.

“What do you mean?” I snap.

Riley shrugs. “It just doesn’t look like the kind of thing you’d wear,” he says.

For a moment, I forget that yes, I did actually borrow the dress from Darcey precisely
because
this is the sort of thing I’d never usually wear, and just stare at him in outrage.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask him again, though gritted teeth. As angry as I am, I’m
highly
aware of the photographers behind us. One fight Murray might be able to finesse, but two might be tricky.

“Just what I said. I didn’t think you’d have something like this in your wardrobe.” Riley cocks his head, letting his eyes slide up and down my body again. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like it.
A lot.
It’s just not what I was expecting.”

For a moment, I stare up at him, not sure how I should take his words. “What
were
you expecting?”

“I don’t know. I was just thinking of something more…
you.
Don’t get me wrong, you look hot as hell, but c’mon, do you really expect me to believe this is how you’d usually dress? I’ve
seen
the way you dress. Like a Catholic schoolgirl.”

“Like a… like a
what?
” I sputter, temporarily forgetting about the photographers. Or else just ceasing to care. Whatever.

Riley shrugs again. “If the shoe fits,” he says mildly. “Anyway, I liked it. I like this too, though. You look sexy.”

I just stare up at him. I feel like there should be some kind of hidden message in his words, but….

… Maybe there isn’t. Maybe just he means what he says. I might find Riley infuriating as all hell, but I’ve never thought he was anything less than direct.

A little
too
direct, at times, even. I mean, he’s never made any secret of who he is or what he wants.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” Riley’s voice breaks into my thoughts.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re not sure whether you want to kiss me or slap me,” he says, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips.

“I want to do neither,” I retort, even though that’s
exactly
how I feel.

“Good. Can we go in, then? Because I’m starving,”

Oh my God.

I swallow down my irritation and smile through gritted teeth. “Of course.”

We turn, and I have to resist the urge to pull away as I feel Riley’s hand slide over my back to rest above my hip.

It’s exactly the kind of thing a guy would do when escorting his girlfriend up the steps of a restaurant for a date, after all. I’m sure, to the photographers that are here, we look exactly like a regular couple.

And I’m sure any other girlfriend would feel this rush of heat through her body at her boyfriend’s touch, the same tingling along her spine as his fingers rub slightly against her as they walk. It’s all perfectly normal.

Except for the fact that we aren’t perfectly normal. We’re not a real couple, and I
shouldn’t
be feeling this.

I’m not allowed to. Reacting to Riley’s touch like this is totally against everything I’m supposed to be doing.

But God help me if even the light touch of his palm against me, even through the material of the dress, isn’t setting me on fire, and isn’t making me want to do nothing so much as take his hand and shove it between my legs.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

I’m in so much trouble.

I look down at my unfinished pasta, my stomach feeling too unsettled to eat anymore. Usually I’d have gobbled it all up by now and asked for seconds, but tonight, it’s like a little worm of anxiety is crawling around inside me, making it impossible for me to enjoy my meal.

Riley doesn’t seem to be having any such trouble — he’s already finished his own food, and is clearly waiting for me to either eat mine or send it away so he can get dessert.

In the end, I wave to one of the waiters to indicate I’m done, and he’s with us in a moment.

“Was everything to your satisfaction, miss?” he asks, his expression concerned.

“Oh yes, it was lovely,” I say. “I guess I’m just not as hungry as I thought.”

He nods knowingly, before whisking the remains of my meal away.

“Is he going to bring a dessert menu?” Riley asks. “Because I could really go for some dessert.”

“You basically inhaled your meal,” I say. “How do you even have room for anything else?”

Riley grins. “It’s offseason. It’s one of the times of year I can basically eat whatever the hell I want without the team’s nutritionist getting on my tits about it. So hell yeah I’m going to take advantage of it.”

“You diet?” I don’t know why I’m surprised — of course athletes have to stick to diets. It makes perfect sense.

“Yeah.” He flexes his arm a little, and my eyes are immediately drawn the bulge of his biceps beneath his suit. “That’s why I get so annoyed when everyone’s all like, ‘Riley Knox is just a party boy,’ ‘Riley Knox doesn’t have any discipline’. Look, I work hard as hell — training, keeping my weight where it should be, studying plays ’til my eyes bleed. I take the game
seriously
, and it’s why I’m here. But then I still got slapped with academic probation last year because I let my GPA fall below 2.0.”

“A 2.0 GPA isn’t exactly hard to maintain,” I point out.

Riley exhales in frustration. “Maybe not for you, but it’s not like my school was known for its academic reputation.”

“What school did you go to?” I ask, and straight away I want to eat my words. It’s just a natural question for people I meet — part of networking. Chances are I knew someone they knew at school, or my dad knows one of the staff there.

Riley’s laugh is cold. “Oh, I’m sure you know it,” he says, heavy on the sarcasm. “Metal detectors at every entrance, more security guards than teachers, missing windows, no paper in the classrooms so good luck learning how to write a fucking essay. It was a real good learning environment.”

I drop my eyes. I have no idea where to look — and I realize how shallow and silly I must seem to Riley, growing up surrounded by wealth and access to the best education money can buy. And not just in terms of schools, but in all the opportunities I’ve had to travel and meet people and see things. I didn’t spend a summer inside of the United States until I was sixteen. Before that it was all skiing trips to Switzerland, art galleries in France, lazing around on the beach in Bora Bora. After that it was interning for my dad’s friends, learning about business and making connections with the people my age who’d one day be running the companies themselves.

I can’t imagine just how different our lives have been up to this point.  

“I wish everyone would just drop the pretense — I’m not here on an academic scholarship. I’m only here because I know how to play ball. It’s that simple. Who cares about my grades?”

I swallow. What can I say? It doesn’t seem right, somehow, to agree with him — as if the only thing he has to offer is football.

“That must be hard,” I finally say lamely. “I mean, feeling like they only want you for one thing.”

Riley just shrugs. “I know what I’m good at,” he says. “Everyone uses their skills to get ahead, right? And I’ve just got one skill in particular.” He cocks his head, smirking at me. “Well. Two.”

I look down, trying to ignore his obvious hint. I’m trying not to lick my lips — I’m sure he knows by now it’s what I do when I’m feeling nervous. Or turned on.

It’s insane how much he can turn me on, just with the power of suggestion.

I’m in
so
much trouble.