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I can feel the bass from the club shaking my bones as we walk past the line outside. A cluster of fans surges toward us as the bouncer opens the velvet rope. I try to be decent. I sign a phone case, nod at a guy in a Fury T-shirt, shake hands.

Some jagoff yells something about tonight’s game, and I let it roll off, because he’s not wrong.

"Smile," Spinner says, because apparently I’m grimacing.

I grunt at him, and the three of us head inside. Rookie somehow procures a drink immediately, and Spinner makes a beeline for the back of the room, where I hope like hell Briar’s friends have a table. My thighs are shaking from exhaustion.

Spinner shoves a bottle of beer into my hand, and I glance at it to make sure it’s not some disgusting fruit-flavored variety before I take a few swigs. I’m aware that Spinner is talking to someone, and I see Cleo “Ducky” Drake and Tatum Cross from the women’s team.

And then I see Briar.

I nearly drop my beer at the sight of her in a sleeveless top that’s cropped so her stomach shows above tight black pants. She turns to shout in Ducky’s ear, highlighting her ass in those pants. I nearly make the sign of the cross because I am, for sure, in the presence of something holy.

She laughs at whatever Ducky says, head tilted back, completely unaware of the room. I stare at the line of muscle from her neck to her deltoid, and my mouth goes dry. I can’t believe I sat across from her for an hour at Gianna’s today and managed not to rip her clothes off. Christ, I’m fucked.

Spinner jabs me with his elbow, sending waves of pain through my battered body. “Go say hi to your girlfriend,” he shouts. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Yeah,” Rookie laughs. “Quit staring like a creep.”

She looks up as I walk toward her. The song changes, and Ducky and Tatum start dancing, excited. I lock eyes with Briar, and the room melts away. How have I worked in the same building as this woman and not spoken to her before all of this?

She smiles shyly as I cross the room and stop at a normal distance. “Hey.” She stretches up on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. Right. Because we’re a couple. In public. “Rough game.” She makes a sympathetic face. "DC is good this year."

I don't want to talk about the game. I don’t want to do anything other than stare at this woman, whose muscular body is the stuff of fantasies. She should be in textbooks or something like that. Then I remember I don’t have to stop at looking at her. Our friends, in fact, are expecting at least a little more. I stoop down to talk in her ear. “You want to dance?”

Surprise morphs her face, but she nods. “Sure.”

I chug the rest of the beer and sway my hips. We’re moving awkwardly, like teenagers at prom. I think our friends are nearby. I’m not willing to look away from her to check, but I’m also not ready to trust myself with my hands on her waist, so I just move to the beat. And it’s fine. She even twirls, hair flying behind her in a brown curtain.

Then the song changes.

It bleeds from up-tempo into something lower, slower, with a bass line that moves differently. Briar turns. Someone behind her jostles her, and she stumbles into me … and stays. Her back presses against my front, and the song pounds through us both. Holy shit. She starts to move.

Spinner and Rookie appear in my peripheral vision, each with a new woman, then multiple women as the song continues. My hands grip Briar’s hips as she sways side to side, her movements easy and loose. She fits against me perfectly—barely shorter than me in the heels she’s wearing.

I feel how firm and powerful her body is as she shakes her ass against my crotch and fuuuuck.

I step back before she feels exactly what’s happening to my body in response to this environment.

She glances over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “You okay?”

I nod, but I’ve stopped moving. "Another drink?" I say.

"Sure.” She grabs my hand, and we plow through the crowd toward the bar. I brace myself around her like a wall, trying to keep the press of partygoers from jostling her. Like they wouldn’t just bounce off her rock-hard glutes. God, something is wrong with me. I’m clearly dehydrated.

“Hey,” I say into her hair, hoping she can hear me. “I’m actually hitting a wall. I really want to get out of here.”

She turns toward me, looking relieved. “Yes, please.” Briar takes my hand back in hers, her strong, rough palm gripping mine firmly. She beelines us for a side door, and we burst into the night, cold air biting my skin. Briar is out here in a freaking tank top, and I don’t have my suit jacket with me to drape around her.

But she presses her back against the building wall and groans in relief. “Whew, it was a lot in there.” When she turns toward me, smiling, I forget why I was tired or sore or anything like that. All that exists is her shoulder muscles and her shining brown eyes. “Want to share a cab?”

We hop into a car that’s dropping people off at the door to the club and I sit beside her in the back seat, realizing I am not very good at fake dating Briar Beckett.

Chapter 8

Briar

Cameron takes up most of the back seat of this cab, but I don’t mind squishing next to him. He notices when I stiffen, though, as I check my phone and see a text from the staff at Deen’s house.