Jesus, she’s got me so hot, I can’t think straight.
Beating myself off holds no appeal whatsoever. I’m rock hard, distended in my briefs, but I refuse to touch it. Next and last person to lay a finger on that cock is going to be Greta Welding, end of story.
She’s going to be mine.
But I’ve made a living out of reading my opponents and one thing is clear.
If I want her, I’ll have to play dirty.
I’m up against a brick wall when it comes to her past, whatever she’s witnessed as the daughter of a coach of a professional basketball team. Having been around a lot of drama, infidelity and lying myself over the last decade, I have an idea of what’s turned her off regarding athletes. Hell, it’s hard to blame her. But I’m not waiting around for my future wife to meet and marry a doctor or a fucking accountant. It’s going to be me. I’m going to give her everything she’s ever dreamed of. Now. Today. If I have to spend another night without her thighs wrapped around my hips, I’m going to buck my level-headed reputation and go ballistic.
Growing up poor in a backwater Louisiana town, I learned a lot about persistence. No one was going to hand me a career in sports. I had to get up earlier than everyone and practice twice as hard. When it came time for college, I had to send my highlight reel to scouts to bring them down south to recruit me. No one helped me and no one gave a crap. Everything I’ve ever gotten has been a battle. A fight. Maybe that’s why I don’t squander my wealth like my teammates. It’s too easy to blow through money. There’s no challenge in it.
I’m up to the challenge of winning Greta.
Without a doubt, it’s the worthiest one I’ve faced.
That’s why at this very moment, sitting across from her father in the conference room, I know what I have to do in order to make her mine. In order to maintain my sanity. I’ve never been pushed to do something so corrupt or unethical. Never in my life. Honesty and hard work are my modus operandi. But it’s been mere hours since I tasted her and I’m already steadily losing my mind. I haven’t shaved. Haven’t eaten. I’m looking a man in the eye while my cock is hard for his daughter and I don’t give a good goddamn. I need her. Now.
“Well, now, Eric. I don’t mind admitting I’ve been trying to get you in purple and gold since your rookie year.” Rick Welding turns the contract to face me, nodding at me, my agent. Also sitting in the room is the general manager of the team and several executives. “I’m thrilled we’ve finally done it with this Denver trade.”
“Me too. I’m going to do big things in LA.” I turn to look out through the glass wall that overlooks to arena, but I’m really only seeing Greta’s beautiful face. “This time next year, there will be a new banner to hang.”
Rick booms a laugh, slaps a hand down on the table. “There’s that casual confidence that makes you so unique.” He passes me a pen and reaches over to slap the shoulder of his general manager. “We’re pleased as hell to welcome the Silent Assassin into the fold, let me tell you. We—”
“Can we have a minute alone?” I say to the room in general, without taking my attention off Rick. I’m usually a good judge of character and I’ve always liked him well enough, based on our brief meetings. But if he’s the reason Greta is so jaded when it comes to athletes, he might be my new least favorite person. Unless he says yes to what I’m about to propose. “Just something between player and coach.”
Everyone looks thrown off by the request, but the executives, GM and my agent all comply, getting to their feet and leaving the room, closing the door behind them. Coach Rick stares across the table at my curiously, smile intact.
“I know what this is about,” Rick says, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “You’re worried about clashing with some of the bigger personalities on the team—”
“It’s about your daughter.”
The older man does a double take. “My daughter? Greta?”
I nod slowly. This should feel a lot more wrong than it does. But I had her in my arms last night and my heart, my gut, my soul knows she’s supposed to be mine. I knew it before I even touched her. There isn’t a law or code between men that I wouldn’t break to make her mine in every sense of the word. “She’s now a condition of the contract.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
Gone is the jovial middle-aged man. Sitting in front of me now is an old, battle-worn bastard who knows how to cut through bullshit and get down to brass tacks. “It means, if you want me to play for LA, she’s part of the deal. She wears my ring.” My cock pulses, the weight of my balls brutal. There’s a buzzing in my skull, too, a tick behind my eye. Am I getting physically sick without her? “And I get everything that comes with her being my wife,” I finish thickly.
He sputters. “I can’t just give you my daughter.”
“You will if you want the banner.”
Rick leans back in his chair, folding his fingers together on his broad stomach, considering me closely. “If you want Greta to be your wife, you must have met her. And if you’ve met her, you know she ain’t easy to convince of anything.”
I say nothing. I just wait.
This man has been hounding me for years to consider a trade. I could ask him for real estate on the moon and he’d make it happen. I’m beginning to feel guilty for cornering Greta like this, but I shove it into a box and slap a lid on top. Like I said, I learned from age one that the only way to win is to fight. To find the means of making something happen and commit.
Tongue tucked into his cheek, Rick picks up his phone where it’s resting on the table. He taps the screen a few times and holds the device to his ear. “Greta.” Even the tinny, muffled version of her voice through the speaker turns my blood into a river of fire. “Would you mind coming in to the main conference room?”
He listens a moment and hangs up.
“She’s here,” I say, my attention already on the door, fists balling up in my pockets. “Where?”
“Greta uses the training facilities to work out in the off season,” he explains quietly. We face off across the table until a few minutes later when the handle turns on the door and Greta appears in the entrance, dressed in a white sports bra and red yoga pants, hair in a sweaty bun on top of her head. She looks so wide-eyed and innocent, her gaze bouncing between me and her father that I encounter another hostile flash of guilt, but I banish it quickly. I let the lust win. Let the hunger and need and infatuation with her win.
“What is this about?” she asks, taking a hesitant step into the room.
Rick, looking a little seasick, pushes out a chair. “Have a seat, please.”
Greta sinks into a chair at the far end of the conference table, only a second passing before she peeks up at me through her thick eyelashes, her nipples pebbling inside her sports bra. And this, this is why I shouldn’t feel guilty. When I kissed her last night, it was obvious she felt this electricity between us. This…intensity. This rightness. I’m not letting some rule she made before we met get in the way.
“Mr. Bentley has a condition for signing the contract,” Rick says, staring down hard at the paperwork. “You, Greta. He wants you for his wife.”