AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Quinn Bailey, the best quarterback we’d had in years and an accent-wielding Southern boy to boot, however, didn’t budge, his mouth curving up into a smile as Winnie finished wrapping his wrist.
A job he, without a doubt, could have completed himself.
“Yo, Mr. L,” he called, and—I couldn’t help it—I smiled. The fucker was too goddamn likable. I wasn’t sure if it was his shaggy but still-clean-looking hair or the genuineness of the hook at the corner of his amused mouth, but he just wasn’t a guy you could stay mad at.
“Isn’t it your turn in the training room?” I asked him, but his smirk only deepened. We both knew it was, and he read right into all the inappropriate things that had prompted me to ask a little too fucking well.
Winnie Winslow and her unbelievable legs. And eyes and hair and face. Fuck.
Every single glorious part of her and all the things I thought about each one seemed to hang between us like very delicate bombs waiting to detonate. His scrutiny had a greater effect than making the moment awkward, though—it forced me to acknowledge something I otherwise refused.
I’d been spending a whole hell of a lot more time on this side of the Hudson River, conveniently located at one beautiful female physician’s place of employment, which also happened to be a workplace where I was the boss. Nearly every goddamn day for the last three weeks.
And, as I studied the line of Winnie’s throat and followed the skin as far as I could into the neck of her shirt, it was abundantly clear why the stadium suddenly held so much goddamn appeal.
And if Quinn and I had noticed, as one of the very few employees in the Manhattan office with me, Georgia probably had too.
Fuck. Where one half of the Brooks power couple went, the other shortly followed.
It was only a matter of time before Kline and Thatch were kidnapping me and torturing me with pillow fights and padded bras until I confessed all of my Winnie Winslow-themed sins.
What? Is that not how female sleepovers go?
“Is there something I can help you with, Wes?” Winnie called, pulling me from both my fantasies and my nightmares and bringing the training room into stark refrain.
Several sets of eyes were on me, and more than one was curious. I was hoping it was the fluorescent lights that made Winnie’s seem so challenging—unflattering lighting and all.
A smirk ghosted her pink lips, pulling them together in the softest of purses when she noticed how good a job she’d done at making me uncomfortable.
Jesus, my brain told my dick. Do you see this? We don’t need this.
I tightened my jaw against the litany of inappropriate, telling words I wanted to spew.
“Nope,” I said instead. “Just making my rounds. Heard word of you Googling pictures of players’ penises, and I had to see for myself.”
Okay, so maybe my jaw didn’t quite contain all of the inappropriate words.
A couple of guys burst out laughing, but the smart ones just watched, looking between us with big, bowling-ball-round eyes.
I’d one hundred percent, unmistakably broken character. Wes Lancaster of old—the one whose blood flowed freely throughout his body rather than congregating traitorously in his dick—never would have said that to an employee. Not in private and definitely not in public.
Martinez took it as liberty to continue their rhetoric, moving to push his pants down off of his hips.
Winnie caught sight of it out of the corner of her eye—her focus was pretty plainly, angrily on me—and let out a ladylike shriek. “Jesus, Teeny! No. I didn’t Google your penis. Do not show it to me.”
“What exactly did you Google?” I asked, unable to stop myself. And fuck, the damage was already at least partially done.
Winnie sighed heavily, leaned a hip into the exam table, and crossed her arms over her abundant chest.
Every goddamn set of eyes in the room went right to the exposed skin there.
As I used the clench of my fists as a tranquilizer, I looked around the room to see every man working to contain his ridiculously large reaction to a very simple movement. Discreet adjustments and subtle shifting of hips. If bells were attached to our arousal, we wouldn’t have been able to think for all the ringing.
God, we really were animals. You’d have thought she flashed a nipple, but she was actually wearing a very business-appropriate white blouse that covered everything.
It’s just that when we (men) try enough, our vision is X-ray adaptable. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.
“Stats. Past injuries. Athletic history,” she replied with a raise of her eyebrows and a challenge in her eyes. She wouldn’t back down. I knew it as well as I knew the back of my own hand, that every hit I delivered she’d volley right back. Every demand I had, she’d assuage, and every fucking fantasy I had for the next ten years, she would play a starring role in.
I hated that I wanted her so badly.
I never want this feeling to end.
I wanted to keep prodding, to find out the whole story. But any viable excuse for being here had just about dried up, and I’d already completely spent my allotment of unprofessional behavior for the day.
“Well, I’ll let you guys get back to it.” I got several nods and chin jerks without pause, everything seemingly back to normal, and Winnie seemed to take a deep breath for the first time since I’d arrived.
A sign that I affected her too.
I moved to the door and turned back just before crossing the threshold, asking the room the only thing the Wes of old would care about. “Ready for Miami?”
Cheers and curses and several derogatory statements about the people in Miami and the city in general filled the room raucously.
Thank God we had an away game this weekend.
I’d be way too busy to worry about Winnie Winslow.
Being in Miami for two straight days had made me more than thankful I lived in New York. The humidity was thick enough to choke on, and don’t even get me started on the heat. For the past forty-eight hours, I’d perspired more than the jocks I took care of. More than the geysers in our beloved Yellowstone National Park. More than one of those fake rain fountains Joey thought made a good decoration for his apartment on Friends.
Lord Almighty, I’d even switched my preferred Secret deodorant out for an overpriced stick of Old Spice from the hotel gift shop. Smelling like a man was far more appealing than smelling like a sweaty foot. Plus, I couldn’t stand to contort myself under one more goddamn hand dryer trying to alleviate the growing wet circles rolling out from my armpits like a wave.
Luckily for me—and my clothes—and likely by very calculated design, the Mavericks had played a night game under the lights versus an afternoon game under the blazing Florida sun. Early season like this, I would have ended up looking more roasted red pepper than golden goddess.
We’d kicked some serious football ass, shutting out Miami with a score of twenty-four to nothing, and I made no qualms about claiming that victory as partially my own. I was new to the game, but I put minds at ease and provided temporary relief so minorly injured players could keep going. I was a very small cog in the Mavericks wheel, but there nonetheless.
Quinn Bailey had played an impressive game, ending the night with three touchdowns and three hundred passing yards, and our defense fought tooth and nail every single down, preventing Miami from capitalizing on even a field goal. I was proud of these guys who were quickly, and quite surprisingly, becoming some of my favorite people. Concealing my squeal of excitement on the sidelines took concerted effort all game long, but I had a reputation to uphold. One that wasn’t off base in the slightest, but had become essential to my effectiveness as a leader of this team.
Surrounded by a bunch of burly, rambunctious football players, it worked best to be the take-no-shit, tough broad who could run as one of the guys—but was smarter than all of them put together. And I had a feeling growing up as the little sister to four obnoxious, older brothers had prepared me for that.
I was only six months into this role as the Mavericks’ team physician, but for the most part, I loved my new job. I loved the schedule and the fact that I no longer had to deal with crazy on-call hours at the hospital, and I even enjoyed the occasional travel requirements. And most importantly, thanks to clear expectations and familiar ground, I loved that I felt at home.
In fact, the only thing that made me feel unsettled at all was a someone—Wes Lancaster.
I couldn’t even say that the way he made me feel completely mixed up was all bad—or bad at all. God, if I was honest, the feeling was nothing short of good.
But he was my boss, and more than that, he was probably the least appropriate man on the whole entire planet to be lusting over.
Unreadable, cocky, confident to the point of goddamn annoying…and so opposed to a commitment with a woman with children, I’d paid witness to him saying it more than once.
I just wish my body could understand the motherfucking slop mix of English-Spanish my brain had adopted since landing in Miami.
No bueno, Winnie. Not this asshole. Comprende? it had asked as I’d caught myself staring at his veiny, tan, way too exposed forearms under the beating sun at the final practice.
If the self-induced, Wes Lancaster-inspired orgasm I gave myself in the quick, lukewarm shower I’d just taken was any indication…no. It did not comprende even a little.
