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They’re too worn out to really voice their outrage, so I send them to the lockers, hollering after them to be ready for worse tomorrow. One of them flips me off; surprisingly, it’s not Maya, who instead stays behind.
I ignore her and start packing up practice equipment, inwardly grumbling that I don’t have assistant coaches. Walton College isn’t some huge university, but it’s still a prestigious private school that should absolutely be putting more funding into its women’s teams.
“Uh, Coach Browers?” she finally asks.
Her voice is soft, less confident than it was when she was sassing me in front of all her teammates. I’d love to hear her say my first name, preferably while she’s underneath me, all that red hair fanned out on a pillow. The thought makes my abdomen tighten. When I turn and see that her sweat-soaked jersey has plastered itself to her small, pert tits, my cock stirs in my pants.
“What?” I snarl, hoping she’ll turn and run.
A delicately arched eyebrow raises. She’s not even a little bit afraid of me. She’s pale like most gingers are, but her cheeks are still rosy from the workout I put her through. She’s beautiful enough to make my breath catch. I glare at her. She rolls her eyes.
“I was wondering about this play I made in our last game. We were close to getting a final goal, but when Laura volleyed, the ball went wide. I’ve been practicing with her, and we both can’t seem to direct the ball properly. Do you have any pointers for that?”
Her sincerity and the way she earnestly twists her hands together makes my icy heart melt a little. Damn it, I can’tlikethis girl in addition to wanting to press her up against the goalpost. That would be a disaster. She’s crossing the boundary from slightly annoying to downright dangerous.
“Well, Adams, it sounds like you just need to get better.”
Grabbing the equipment bag, I storm off the field, but not before I see the flash of hurt in her eyes. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to keep myself from turning back to apologize, to make it up to her. I could easily show her what she’s doing wrong, put my hands on her and guide her, maybe kick the ball around with her for a little bit …
Of course, I can’t actually do that. I’m way too attracted to her, and she’s off-limits. Completely out of bounds. It’s better if she hates me.
“I can see why they kicked you out of England,” she yells.
Bloody hell, they didn’t kick me out of the entire country. I whip around to see her flouncing off toward the locker room. Mission accomplished, I guess, because it seems she well and truly despises me now, which means she won’t come close enough again to be a temptation.
Chapter 2
Maya
Oh my God, I can’t believe how excited I was to have such a big-time player become our coach. Now I’m completely disillusioned because Nathan Browers is rude and useless. He ran us ragged, but he didn’t actually coach us at all. He couldn’t even show me what I’ve been doing wrong on my volleys. Or, rather, hewouldn’t. Because he’s rude and useless.
I slam my way into the locker room to change. Laura and Desi are excitedly prattling on about Coach Browers’s amazing former soccer prowess, citing all his famous goals and how he was on the fast track to becoming one of England’s greatest players.
“Why’s he even slumming it with us, anyway?” I ask.
Desi’s eyes light up, eager to share the story. “I thought you followed European football?”
“I follow the games, not the players,” I say. “I couldn’t care less what they do off the field.”
She rolls her eyes at my haughty tone. “Orwhothey do,” she says.
Laura cackles and scrolls through her phone. “Drunk and disorderly, breaking a paparazzo’s camera after a game, breaking someone’s nose in a bar fight. That’s just the legal stuff. Then there’s the scandal with an Instagram model who cheated on her low-level royal fiancé with him.”
“Gross,” I say.
“As if you wouldn’t.” Sherry Lynn walks past and plops down on the bench next to me, taking Laura’s phone and sighing at a picture of our new coach.
I look over her shoulder to see that it’s some kind of cologne ad. He’s shirtless. “Well, maybe I would,” I admit, just to make them laugh. And it’s not a total lie! He’s blazing hot. Sure, I’d noticed it right away, same as the rest of the team. He’s the prototype for tall, dark, and handsome, with a bit of added swagger and talent to really get a girl’s panties wet. He just had to open his mouth and wreck it. “He called us sea cows and losers, though.”
“We’ll just have to show him we’re not,” Desi says with a shrug, then she grimaces. “Ugh, I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”
I tune them out and head for the shower. I’ve been playing soccer since first grade and I’m good, one of the best on the team. Maybe my pride is hurt a little that our bigshot coach didn’t notice, or maybe I’m pissed that we got stuck with someone who’d clearly rather be somewhere else. Our last coach had phoned it in during her last year before retirement. When I heard we were getting Nathan Browers as our replacement, I was stoked, thinking we were about to really rise in the ranks.
It’s a blow to find out that he’s only here because he got kicked off his team and has nowhere else to go. I put my head down and let the stinging hot shower rain down on me, trying not to think about the intense look in his chocolate-brown eyes or how I’d dropped my gaze to his chest to keep from getting flustered by how pretty his lashes were. But his chest had been just as distracting. That stupid sexy accent of his didn’t help matters either.
Except when he bluntly told me to get better; that wasn’t sexy. And it wasn’t coaching! It was rude and arrogant. Nothing sexy about that at all. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself to help blot out the shirtless image of him stuck in my head.
Chapter 3
