Blindsided (16 page)

As if his fingertips, which are digging into my skin almost painfully, are telling me that I belong to him. That my body does, that I’m his, that it’s his—no fucking arguments.

I ignore it though. I won’t let him make me believe that I’m his, because I’m not. I’m my own. I belong to me and no one else. But if he wants to believe it…

“That definitely came out wrong,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean a
date
date.”

“Fuckin’ better not have,” he whispers back, his voice harsher than mine.

I won’t tell him that Cole’s dad has been quietly dating my mom for the last few years. Or that he’s always been closer to my brother than a dating prospect. Cole knows my feelings on the Hollywood lifestyle, and I know his on the jet-setting fashion world. We decided way back when we were seven that we could never date because it would just be impossible.

Besides, his fashion style is awful.

“A friend date,” I clarify, sliding my hands up his chest.

“Damn right it is. Seven days, Leah. You said you were mine for one week.”

“And I didn’t lie. Just like you didn’t about letting me go at the end of it, right?”

“Right.” His jaw clenches through his lie.

Because that’s what this is; it’s a tangled web of lies that weave into and around each other. The longer we pretend, the more intricate the web becomes and the more the untruths combine with reality to make something that’s neither truth nor a lie.

And we’re hovering, balanced preciously in the middle. Our words are neither truthful nor untruthful. There are obvious words that are so full of shit it’s hilarious. He’ll let me go. I don’t want him. Then there are the truths. But I’m starting to believe there’s only one truth in this whole weaved perception.

And that’s that I’ll walk away in five days.

I have the strength. I have the desire to. I won’t stay. I don’t trust him, and I have more respect than that.

“I’ll call Cole and let you know,” I say softly, breaking through the tense silence that accompanied my thoughts.

“Yeah,” Corey responds, his voice tight. He leans in once more and touches his lips to mine. “And, Leah?”

“What?”

“You better be wearin’ my motherfuckin’ jersey.”

I smile against him. “Sure thing, cowboy.”

S
eeing a jersey hanging in a locker with my name on it is something that still doesn’t feel real to me. Since being drafted four years ago, I’ve played more games than the average newbie, but looking at that jersey makes me feel exactly the same as it did the first time I saw it.

It’s a reminder that this is real, that I play for one of the biggest teams in the NFL. It’s a rush of adrenaline, a boost, and I hope to fuck that this feeling never gets old. I want to feel this way every single fucking time I open my locker door. I want to feel the rush every time I see my name lettered on the back of the jersey, every time I hear my name called on the team roster.

I take the game day program and sit down, scanning it. It might be preseason, but it’s the same as always. The schedule never changes—what happens might, the outcome will, the team does, but the timing never changes. That routine keeps us disciplined, strong, determined.

Unlike the other guys, I can’t sit still. I won’t sit still until later when I head for a massage, because game day makes me antsy. Preseason or fucking not. The nerves inside are always too strong for me to stay in one spot for too long. They won’t head to the bathroom to meditate until later, but it’s the first thing I do.

It’s how I keep calm and focused when I’m on the field. If I don’t meditate as soon as I get my ass through the locker room door, I’ll go batshit crazy. I have my father to thank for that. He taught me to go first, to let go of the stress before everyone else does. He taught me that even the seemingly insignificant games matter as much as the big ones do.

And that’s where I stand now—in the locker room with the program clutched tight in my hands. I breathe deeply. I clear my mind of everything except the game. The ball. The field. Right now, that’s all that matters. The game. Winning.

Nothing else is more important than winning today.

This is my third season, and after losing the Super Bowl last year because of that stupid bullshit injury I got, I’m determined to win it this year. I don’t care if we have to take out the biggest teams or injure the league’s best players. We’re gonna fucking get there. We’re gonna show America who’s boss in this beloved sport.

Nothing about the fight to win this year will be easy.

That’s all this is. It’s a fight to be the best and prove you’re the best. I know I’m the best young quarterback out there. Now I just have to prove it to the rest of them because they still doubt me. They said that my injury in the Super Bowl was inevitable. I said, “Fuck off.” It was bad luck, pure and simple. I got caught wrong—or right if you were the defensive team—and had to step back. And now, months later, I still say, “Fuck off.”

I say, “Fuck off and watch your motherfucking back.”

As everyone heads into the bathroom for their meditation, I make for the shower. Energy runs through my body and invigorates it as the water beats down, and I shake my arms out as I head for my locker. I can feel it now, the excitement and adrenaline that always floods me after a shower. It’s as if the simple act of standing under the intensive hot water flow wakes me up and prepares me for everything.

Phil Collins’s “In The Air Tonight”
blasts through the training room as we get taped up. Reid is sitting next to me, getting acupuncture in his shoulder. I wince when the needles go in, and he smirks.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“Fuck that.” I eye the needles sticking out of his skin. “That’s like the seventh level of Hell.”

“Hey, if it means I can catch whatever is thrown at me tonight, I’ll go it through Hell ten thousand times. This is our hardest preseason game.”

Fingers dig into my shoulders, and I hiss as the masseuse hits a big knot by my shoulder blade.

“Jesus Christ, Corey. You got a sailor in there tying your muscles up?” Flora pushes a little harder and works it out.

“Sure I do, Flora.” I grit my teeth. “He’s in there just so I can see you every week of the season, sweetcheeks.”

She barks out a laugh. “I’m nearly fifty, boy. Your charm ain’t working on me.”

“Would you believe me if I said that it was sarcasm? Ow!”

“Well now.” She works down my spine, having freed another knot. “Aren’t I good enough for the famous Jackson charm?”

“Only when you’re not breakin’ my back.”

“You want a massage, you’re gonna get one. It’s not my fault you got knots tighter than my pops was.”

I bite my tongue as she works her magic across my back, loosening up the last part of me that was holding any tension. A massage works pretty much the same way as sex, and I know which I’d rather have.

As I wander onto the field I know like the back of my hand, I scan the seats where the crowd will be very soon and wonder if Leah will be here. She never said that she would be. She never texted me like she’d promised, and that pisses me off. It knots the muscles Fiona just untangled, because fuck. I don’t care if she’s here with Cole. I don’t care if the guy wants her until he’s blue in the face.

I’m also a fucking liar, because the idea of someone going to a game with my girl drives me fucking crazy, even if I paid for it. For her. Because I’d do just about fucking anything at this point to get her to realize hat I want something more than she’s expecting.

Shit. I don’t even know what I want from her. It’s somewhere between sex and a casual fuck. Something that makes no logical sense, but the thought of her screaming my name sends all sorts of shit through my mind. Things that should be thought with my dick and not my head.

Because I can’t afford this shit right now. Preseason or not, I need to stand on this field and instill fear into the defense opposite me. I need to send a warning to every other team in the league. And if my head keeps thinking about the way she’d look beneath me, her hair wrapped around my fingers and her eyes glossed over as I move inside her, we’ll be in dangerous territory.

Very fucking dangerous territory.

I push my wet hair from my forehead and sling my bag over my shoulder. We won by a mile. We slammed the defense, and ours fucking destroyed their offense.

“You didn’t fuck up.”

I look up at my car. Leah’s sitting on the hood, her knees bent, her arms spread behind her. I could slip right between her legs, climb up, and fuck her so easily. Instead, I drop my bag, place my hands flat on the hood, and lean forward.

“I had you screaming my name. How could I fuck that up?”

Her smile turns to a sexy grin. “I knew that would do it. I was disappointed though.”

“There’s always a catch, isn’t there?”

“You didn’t celebrate.”

“What?”

“I wanted to see your robot. You didn’t celebrate.”

I slide my arm around her back and pull her to me. Her body hits mine and I cup the back of her head, leaning her back on the hood of the car. My lips find hers, and I kiss her hard, savoring the taste of candy on her tongue as she flicks it against mine. She curls her hands around my neck and pushes her body to mine. I don’t know who’s controlling this kiss anymore. I don’t know if I’m holding her against the car or if she’s clasping me against her.

I just know that it feels good. Too fucking good. Addictive. She feels incredible below me, her legs bent at the knees and her fingertips digging into the back of my neck. When she pulls back and takes a deep breath, I look into soft, blue eyes on fire.

I put that fucking fire there.

The swell in her lips is from mine and the red on her chin is from the stubble on my chin she loves.

She’s mine. I know this much is true. It’s more than a fucking game, more than a try. It’s something so simple. Something so much more than seven days of seduction.

Four days to go and she’s fucking mine. Her smile, the glint in her eye, the grip of her fingers—it’s all mine. More than she’ll ever know, she’s mine. Off-season, preseason, regular season, playoffs, Super Bowl. Leah Veronica fucking belongs to me because I said so, because her body said so.

Because when our bodies come together, shit gets crazy.

Convincing her of it will be a whole other ball game, but when she’s on my car, wearing my team’s jersey, her body alight for mine, she belongs to me.