After All These Years (One Pass Away #2) (2 page)

THREE YEARS LATER

“YOU GREEDY BASTARD.” Marcellus Weeks, tight end for the
Knights, shook his head in amazement. “No one needs three women at a time.”

“It isn’t about need,” Sean McBride informed him. “They were
there. They were willing. What would you have done?”

“Run home to his wife with his tail between his legs,” Gaige
Benson quipped.

Marcellus threw his used towel at Gaige, missing by three
feet.

Picking up the towel, Gaige slung it back, hitting the other
man in the face. “And that is why they pay me the big bucks.”

“QBs,” Marcellus said with good humor. “Arrogant pricks,
each and every one.”

“The hell with you pussies. I want to hear more about our
boy’s walk on the wild side.”

Sean grinned at Sol Fellows. Before the big linebacker had
tied the knot last spring, the two of them had closed down more than one club.
It seemed more and more of his buddies were moving past their party days. He
didn’t begrudge them for their need for home and hearth. However, he missed the
camaraderie. Tossing back shots of Jack and scoping out women was more fun with
a group. His posse was dwindling fast.

“Wild side?” Sean said with a shrug, his eyes twinkling. “Hell,
son. That was just a slow Wednesday.”

“Oh, man. You’re killing me.” Sol groaned. His wife was
eight and a half months pregnant. Sex was not in his foreseeable future. “If
there is any justice in the world, your dick will fall off from overuse.”

The men exited the locker room. Practice was over and the
Knights’ facility was almost empty. They headed toward the parking lot,
laughing companionably.

“Stamina is my superpower. My dick takes a licking and keeps
on ticking.”

“I need details.” Marcellus clasped his hands in mock
pleading. “How much licking are we talking about?”

“They passed me around like an all-day sucker. The blond —”

“Ixnay on the dirty talk.” When Sean shot Gaige a confused
look, the quarterback motioned with his head. “Innocent ears at twelve o’clock.”

The other men turned. Five feet away, Riley Preston leaned
against her car. Sweet and friendly, the team considered her their unofficial
sister. Growing up with brothers, Sean felt a special connection to the owner’s
daughter. He liked her goofy charm and big, earnest blue eyes.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Seeing Riley’s wave,
Sean smiled and lifted a hand in greeting. “Do you think she heard anything?”
he whispered to Gaige.

“That kid has ears like a bat.”

“Maybe she didn’t understand what we were talking about.”

Gaige almost choked on his laughter. “Jesus, Sean. She’s
twenty years old and hangs around professional athletes. She may not give them,
but she knows what a blow job is.”

“Shh,” Sean frowned. “What the hell, Benson?”

“Hey, beautiful.” Gaige ignored Sean’s last comment. He gave
Riley a friendly hug. “No classes today?”

“I had one this morning. Hi, fellas.”

Riley smiled at the men, making sure she didn’t single out
Sean. From the very beginning, she made a point of keeping her feelings to
herself. It would be humiliating if everyone knew how she felt. Loving Sean was
hard enough without being the butt of the team’s jokes.

The men returned her greeting.

“Are you waiting for your dad?” Sol asked.

Other than Gaige, none of the team knew of her strained
parental relationship. Something about the QB made her want to spill her guts.
She often confided in him about her father. Her mother. School. However, she
didn’t mention Sean. Never Sean. That was a line she never crossed.

“My car won’t start. I called for a tow truck, but they said
it would be about an hour.”

“I’ll give you a lift.” Sean’s smile was easy. With no
effort, he made Riley’s heart beat faster.

“I don’t want to put you out.”

Riley hoped she sounded sincere. Disabling her car had been
easy. Her high school automobile maintenance class had finally come in handy.
When the mechanic looked under the hood, the problem would be easily fixed and
just as easily explained. Things came loose—on their own. There wouldn’t be any
reason to suspect subterfuge.

“I like the company.” Sean draped a friendly arm around her
shoulders. “See you guys tomorrow.”

Gaige and the other men watched Sean escort Riley to his
midnight blue Ferrari.

“He has no idea?” Marcellus asked incredulously

“Not a clue.” Gaige shook his head.

“Amazing.” Sol sighed. “Sean was born with babe alert. If
there is an interested female within a fifty-mile radius, he can scope them
out. He’s around Riley all the time. Why can’t he see her painfully obvious
crush?”

“In Sean’s eyes, Riley isn’t a woman.” Gaige walked toward
his car, his teammates at his side. “She’s a girl. A little sister.”

“She’s twenty?”

“Yes,” Gaige said.

“Well, shit.” Marcellus suddenly felt old. He had been with
the Knights for ten years. He had watched Riley grow up. In a blink of the eye,
she was a young woman and he was sliding down the back end of his career. Where
had the time gone?

“We should be grateful for Sean’s blinders.” Gaige looked
over his shoulder as the blue sports car zipped out of the parking lot. “The
day will come when Sean opens his eyes and sees what’s right in front of him.”

“Train wreck in the making?” Sol wondered.

Gaige’s smile didn’t quite reach his green eyes. “I don’t
know. Something tells me one day we’re going to find out.”

“HOW IS SCHOOL going?”

“Good. I love my classes.”

Riley wiped her hands on her jeans. She didn’t find herself
alone with Sean very often. Manipulating the situation seemed like a good idea
at the time. It had been a calculated risk. Gaige might have offered her a
ride. If he had, she would have taken it without hesitation. It would have been
disappointing, but not the end of the world.

When Sean fell easily into her plans, Riley was thrilled.
Riding in his car with plenty of time to talk—it was exactly what she wanted.

Finding something to say was harder than she expected. When
she was alone, she carried on long, involved conversations with him. However,
those were in her head. She was witty and interesting. She flirted like a pro.
Not too slutty. Sexy. In her head, she was amazing at doing sexy.

The reality was another matter. Sean asked about school. She
could have mentioned all the parties she went to. Her numerous boyfriends. It
would be a lie, but he didn’t need to know that. Instead, she told him she
loved her classes.
Fascinating, Riley
.

She wanted to slap her forehead. Nerd alert! She knew the
kind of women Sean liked. Bookworms need not apply.

“It’s Friday. Have a hot date lined up?” Sean winked.

“Sure. And I might end the night with a blow job.”

Riley wanted the earth to open up and suck her in. Why? With
a million things she could have said, she chose that? Sure, it was on her mind.
She heard what Sean and the guys said. They didn’t think that kind of talk was
for her ears. Innocent Riley. God. She didn’t know which was worse. The fact
that Sean believed she was an inexperienced virgin, or that it was true.

“Riley!”

Sean sounded shocked. Appalled. Riley sat up straight. Maybe
this was a good thing. She could deal with a little embarrassment if it meant
Sean began looking at her in a different way. She was twenty. He was
twenty-five. It was time for her to make her move.

“What do you think I do on my
hot dates
, Sean?” Riley
challenged.

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

She could tell Sean was uncomfortable. He bragged up his sex
life with the guys. He probably let loose the dirty talk with his many, many
conquests. However, one mention of a blow job and color stained his cheeks.

“I’m surprised you can still blush.”

“Me too,” Sean mumbled. “You shouldn’t talk like that,
Riley. It isn’t…”

“What, Sean? Ladylike?”

“Riley-like.”

Riley wanted to tear her hair out
. Riley-like? What did
that mean
?

“I’m not a little girl, Sean. How old was the last woman
you…?” Riley was going to say dated. Sean didn’t date. He enjoyed and moved on.
If she wanted him to think of her as an adult, she needed to use adult
language. “The last woman you had sex with?”

“Age is different than experience.”

“I have experience.” Riley waited for the heavens to open
up. When lightning didn’t strike her down, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Bull—”

“Go ahead. Say it,” Riley dared him.

“Bullshit.”

“See. I didn’t collapse in a fit of the vapors. There isn’t
anything you could say that would shock me, Sean.”

“Don’t be so sure, little girl.” Sean shifted the car into a
lower gear before he pulled off the highway. “With all the things I’ve seen and
done,
I
can still be shocked. You have no idea what goes on out in the
big bad world. And I would prefer to keep it that way.”

Riley felt her heart melt. She was ready to let it go, happy
that Sean cared about her. He ruined the moment by calling her little girl and
patting her hand. He wasn’t a man touching a woman. He was a man placating a
child.

Three years. She had been waiting patiently. When Sean was
drafted by the Knights, Riley accepted that the age difference would have put
him off. She had been seventeen and still in high school. At twenty-two, he had
graduated college and had a newly signed NFL contract.

Never shy, Riley had let him know who she was. He liked her.
She knew that. She put up with the big brother/little sister vibe because she
knew her time would come. If he wanted to fool around with every bimbo that
flashed her cleavage his way, so be it.

Riley hated watching how easily Sean’s head could be turned.
However, she was the only one. His teammates followed his love life with good
humor. As long as he showed up for practice and did his job, they didn’t care
what Sean got up to after hours. The press and the Knights’ front office weren’t
so lenient.

Sean McBride’s reputation had arrived in Seattle before he
did. He partied hard and played harder. Management gave him a warning after the
first fight. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t to blame. Sean would have walked
away when a drunk started flinging insults. He didn’t care what anyone said
about him. He had heard it all. When the man went after Sean’s companion, the
trouble started. When he demanded the guy apologize, Sean received a face full
of beer for his trouble. Even then, he didn’t throw the first punch. Witnesses
said the drunk attacked Sean, giving the wide receiver no choice but to defend
himself.

A swollen right hand hadn’t kept Sean out of that week’s
game. It was easier to turn a blind eye when your rookie sensation made game
winning catches. Harry Coleman told him to tone it down, and Sean agreed.
Unfortunately, where Sean partied, trouble followed.

Two more fights during his rookie season had Gerald Preston
pushing for Sean’s release. The shareholders, including Riley, pointed out that
they wouldn’t be able to find a replacement with Sean’s talent. Gerald tried to
push the issue. He had figured out his daughter’s role in getting the Knights
to draft Sean. Nothing would have made him happier than to kick the cocky
bastard off the team and out of town. He believed it would have served him—and
Riley—right.

The team was never going to terminate Sean over a few
fights. However, they didn’t like the negative publicity. When Gaige stepped
in, incorporating Sean into his group of friends, the antics died down. The QB
became the stabilizing influence needed by a young man suddenly faced with more
money and fame than he had ever known.

Riley loved that Sean stopped getting into trouble. If he
dropped the never-ending stream of women, she would jump for joy.

Sean drove up to her parents’ house, stopping the car by the
front door. Riley often thought of moving out. She was in college and most of
her friends either lived in the dorm or shared an apartment. Finding a place
away from Ambleside Road made sense for a young, single woman. It would have
done wonders for her social life to have a roommate closer to her own age.

“I’m thinking of getting a place of my own. Or with a
friend.”

“Really?” Sean put the car in park. “Why?”

“Because I’m twenty. And in college.”

“I guess you are.” Sean laughed. “When did you go and grow
up on me?”

“I swear, if you pat my hand again, I will punch you in the
mouth.”

“Hey,” Sean called out when Riley jumped from the car. Using
that famous wide receiver speed, he caught her before she could enter the
house. “You’ve been prickly the whole trip. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She sighed. “Everything.”

Riley had to tip her head back. She loved how tall he was.
She loved the way the sun brought out glints of red in his almost black hair.
She loved his smile. His hazel eyes. She loved Sean. Period.

“Can I help?”

“Kiss me.”

“Sure.”

Riley knew it wasn’t that easy. Sean aimed for her cheek. A
nice, brotherly kiss.
The hell with that
. A second before his mouth made
contact, she turned her head. Lips to lips. Finally. Before he could react, she
threw her arms around his waist and held on for dear life.

“Riley!”

She recognized her mother’s gasp, but Riley didn’t care.
Sean tried to pull away as gently as possible. She had no intention of letting
him go. Her arms tightened. Her lips opened. Who knew when she would get
another chance like this one? Audience be damned, she wanted Sean to kiss her
back.

With more force, but not enough to hurt her, Sean
disentangled himself.

“I’m sorry.”