The Baller: A Down and Dirty Football Novel(45)

Even though this morning he had cooked me breakfast naked after delivering a delicious orgasm up against the bedroom wall, that last statement made me fall a little harder for the man. My pig.

Arriving at the gym, he opened the door for me to enter first. Before passing through, I stopped, stretched up on my toes and kissed him on the cheek.

“What was that for?”

“For being you.”

He walked in behind me and swatted my ass as he whispered in my ear. “My girl likes dirty pigs.”

The woman at the reception desk was on her cell phone as I signed in. When she hung up, I asked her about a guest pass. She didn’t bother to look up from her phone.

“My membership has a few guest passes. I don’t have one with me today. I was hoping it would be okay, and you could just look up that I haven’t used any yet.”

She huffed in annoyance, her attention having to be refocused from her cell to the computer that was actually part of her job. “Name?”

“Delilah Maddox.”

Her nails clicked away. “Guest name?”

“Um. Brody.”

She halted her clacking. “Last name?”

“Easton.”

Well, that got her attention. Her head whipped up. “You’re . . . ”

“Delilah’s guest.” Brody filled in the blank when she trailed off.

“Oh my God. You’re really Brody Easton. I love you! I’m a huge Steel fan.”

“Thank you.”

She propped both elbows on the counter, cupping her smiling face in her hands. Forget whiplash, this woman had bitchlash; she’d gone from bitch to entranced so fast.

“So what brings you here to our little gym?”

“Exercise,” Brody responded flatly.

She giggled like he’d just said the funniest thing. “This class won’t be exercise to someone like you.”

My response was snippy because . . . well . . . because she was a bitch who had just insulted my exercise, the place she worked and . . . she was busy ogling my boyfriend. “That’s okay. He exercised at home this morning. Wall lunges.”

She nodded. “Interesting. Never tried those. Maybe you can show me how later?”

I plastered on a fake smile. “I don’t think so. But could we get that guest pass?”

“Oh. Okay. Sure. No problem.” She motioned to the entrance behind the desk. “Go right ahead. This one’s on me. He doesn’t need a pass.”

The class was nearly full when we got there, so we took a spot in the back, dropping our gym bags next to us to claim real estate.

“You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

“I wasn’t jealous.”

He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Were too.”

“I’m not the jealous type.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“I am not.”

“Care to put your money where your mouth is?”

“You want to bet that you can make me jealous?”

“Yep.”

I extended my hand. “You’re on. Loser gives the other a massage.”

Brody shook my hand and winked. “Okay. But you won’t be massaging my back.”

“Whatever. But this contest goes both ways.”

Brody looked around the room. It was almost entirely filled with women. “You’re going to flirt with some of the women in here? I’m pretty sure this is the best contest I will ever win, and we haven’t even started to play yet.”

The bitchy woman from the front desk came in. “Alex is running five minutes late. So why don’t we get you warmed up? Anyone want to volunteer to help me stretch out the class up front?”

Brody’s hand shot up faster than a geek’s in science class. Bitch looked pleased.

“Mr. Easton. What a treat. Ladies, we have none other than Super Bowl MVP Brody Easton in the class today! And he’s going to come up here and show us how it’s done.” No one had really noticed us in the back of the room, but that changed instantly. Women turned around and gawked. Brody gloated and headed to the front of the class.

I had completely forgotten what an arrogant showman he could be. Shades of the first time I met him in the locker room were back as he stood next to the instructor, working his stretches. At one point, he smiled at me, then tugged his T-shirt over his head. His gym shorts were hanging low on his narrow waist, and every ripped muscle was on full display. Especially that V. The same one I’d recently discovered we both liked when I traced its path with my tongue.

I looked around the room. I definitely wasn’t the only one drooling. I swear I smelled the pheromone soup wafting through the air. I would never admit it, but I didn’t love the way these women were looking at Brody. Yet . . . it wasn’t an immature jealousy. There was a comforting feeling to realize that I knew he wasn’t really interested in them. The entire class might have been transfixed, but the man at the head of the class was only doing it to try to get a rise out of me.

After a few minutes of the Brody show, Alex walked in. He taught classes in the location I usually went to, so we were friendly. Perhaps even friendlier than my confident-to-win-the-bet boyfriend might like. I inwardly smirked, knowing it would only take a sentence or two after class to win our bet. I could practically feel my muscles relaxing under Brody’s massaging rub already.