Play Maker(24)

I put my face in my hands, feeling very boring all of a sudden.

And even though I loathed to admit it, my ego was feeling pretty bruised. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Nicole and our hot night together. The slide of her lips against my cock, the way her legs had wrapped around my waist, pulling me deeply into her. The way her entire body had shuddered when she came. And f*ck, had she come. Over and over again. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been with a woman who threw herself into sex so completely. And of course, as soon as I thought about her, I was reminded that she had turned me down afterwards. Twice! I didn’t understand why she was so resistant to a repeat performance. More importantly, though, I didn’t understand why it bothered me so much. Was my ego really that fragile?

“We’ll widen the search,” Ethan said and when I looked up, he was already on his phone, no doubt finding charities right at that moment.

I was pretty bloody lucky to have a manager like him. To have a friend like him. I probably wouldn’t have survived my first year as a pro footballer without my best mate keeping my ego in check. Hell, I might not have survived primary school without him. I was the one who jumped first, asking questions later. He was the one who asked questions before deciding if he wanted to jump in the first place.

It had been the two of us, taking on the world together, for as long as I could remember. Both of us were only kids, which meant we were like brothers. Had always been. We needed each other. It was amazing we became friends in the first place, since we were so different, but we seemed to balance each other out. Me with my problems at school, with focusing and paying attention and Ethan with his tendency to withdraw from everyone and everything completely. He gave me direction and I forced him out of his shell. Which wasn’t always easy.

It made sense, though, his tendency to withdraw. After all, Ethan had had a pretty rough time before he came to the U.K. He had been in the foster care system in the U.S. for the first five years of his life. Things changed a lot when he was adopted by his folks, but some things stuck around for a long time afterwards. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about, but I knew he wished things had been better during those early years.

Suddenly something clicked. I knew what I wanted to do. What I could do.

“Hey, mate,” I crossed my arms. “What if we didn’t widen the search?”

Ethan glanced over at me with his patented “what the f*ck are you talking about” look and waited for me to continue.

I shrugged. “You’re always the one who says I need to focus,” I reminded him.

“Sure, I just never thought you were actually listening,” he put down his phone and regarded me seriously. “So you don’t want to widen the search. What the new plan, then?”

“Focus the search,” I told him, my excitement building. “I want to look at charities and programs that help foster kids. Here, in the U.S.” That last part came out before I even thought about it. Of course I wanted to help kids like Ethan, but I hadn’t really thought much about staying in the states. But now that I’d said it out loud, I liked the way it sounded.

Nicole’s smile flashed in front of me. As well as her other appealing bits. I tried to push that tempting thought away. My impulse to stay here had nothing to do with her. I just had grown fond of Los Angeles. I liked their tacos and, well, I’m sure there were other things I’d like about it once I had more time to explore. And it was time for a change, wasn’t it? Go big, or go home, as Rick always liked to say. It was the first time in a while that I had found his kind of advice worth taking. Nothing was less like cold, wet London than sunny, bright SoCal. Maybe I’d take up surfing. No, I quickly retracted that. That was going too far.

Ethan’s eyebrows had gone all the way up.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his hand hovering over his phone. I could tell he was itching to start researching charities with my new parameters. My best friend could be such a nerd sometimes. I needed to get him laid. Hadn’t there been another woman at the bar where Nicole worked? Maybe she would be interested in a bloke with a lousy British accent and an obsession with numbers and planning. I tried to remember what she looked like, but my mind kept returning to Nicole and her sexy, tight vest.

Now I couldn’t get her out of my head. Not like she had ever been that far from it. A woman like that wasn’t someone you forgot easily. Especially since she had turned me down. A jolt of confidence flooded through me and I felt my familiar stubbornness return. I hadn’t let a disappointing set of meetings stop me from figuring out my future, had I? Why should I give up on something – or someone – that I wanted? I wanted Nicole bad. And she wanted me. That much was obvious. I just had to remind her how good we had been together and I had a pretty good idea of how I could do that. I could be pretty damn irresistible if given the chance. And this was a chance I was more than eager to take.

“Hey.” I glanced up at Ethan, whose attention was still focused on his phone. “Where’s the closest liquor store?”





14





Nicole





The last person I expected to see at the bar tonight was the very person I was most hoping to see. After Maya’s slut-positive pep talk, I was seriously regretting turning James down and by the time I got to work, I was wondering if it was too late to go up to his room after my shift and see if he’d give me a second chance. Even though breaking my self-appointed rules still scared the crap out of me, I kept reminding myself what Maya had said. That this could be whatever I wanted it to be. It could be a one night stand. Or two night stand. Or every single night until he left night stand. Because he was going to leave. But why not have fun while he was here? As long as we kept it fun. No sleepovers, no snuggling, no pillow talk. Just sex. Lots and lots of sex. Just thinking about what we could do to each other got me all hot and bothered. I felt like I was crawling out of my skin I was so horny.