Chapter One
Eloise
My favorite things in the entire world were football and cats.
Hard-driving balls and soft, purring kitties.
And one sexy, star quarterback named Dak.
Which made me a nerd-girl oxymoron. Crazy cat lady was expected. Sports fanatic? Nope. Not supposed to happen.
But sports, football in particular, was the one connection I still had to my father, who died when I was nine. So, I wasn’t the tailgating, game-day-gear, fist-pumping fan. I was the watching-in-my-apartment-solo kind of fan. With my two cats. I was an intellectual sports fanatic. Into analysis and commentary out loud with Peyton and Eli, my feline besties.
Plus, have you seen most of those players? Swoon. Big, hulking men with firm thighs and tight ends… it got a nerd girl’s blood pumping every Sunday just to watch all that masculinity on the field.
While I may not have been the sexy female sports fan, who managed to make tailgating look like an interview for a reality TV show or for a nightclub VIP “hostess” position, all my life I wanted nothing more than to work somehow, some way, in the world of professional sports.
Mission accomplished when after grad school I secured a position in the marketing department of my dream team. We created and curated social media messages for the team, and engaged with fans. My department directed a vision for the overall tone of the franchise for the season and spent Sundays together in the office, live tweeting throughout the games.
Sundays were easy. It was the other six days that were more challenging, because it felt like instead of pumping up loyal fans, half the time we were running damage control for the star quarterback, Dakota North.
Yep. Dakota. North.
His mother had once said in an interview she’d named him for greatness, because no one with that name could be anything less than a leader. Go figure. She’d been right.
Dak. Party boy. Sexy as sin. Charming with a grin that could and did, coax women out of their panties on a very regular basis. He gambled, he drank, he spouted off stupid things on Twitter without pausing to consider the consequences. He had sex with preachers’ daughters, wealthy cougars, random women at nightclubs, and strippers, depending on the night. Or day. Or morning.
He was an equal opportunity manwhore.
His fingers were always in the cookie jar.
You would have thought he would be universally despised, but he had two things that worked in his favor—a golden arm and big balls. He didn’t care what anyone thought and he smiled his way through every debacle and tossed money out generously in all directions.
He was a social media nightmare.
And the man in my virgin, nerd-girl dreams every night.
Sweaty, dirty, sexy dreams where I was the center, gripping the ball for the snap and his hands were under my ass, among other things.
“I need more coffee,” my co-worker, Will, said, startling me out of my thoughts, as he stood up from his desk across from mine. “Eloise, do you want me to grab you some more too? We’ve got a shitstorm this morning.”
I checked my mug. Still three-quarters full. “I’m okay, thanks.”
There were five of us on the team and our desks were arranged in a rectangle facing each other, much like second grade. But it was necessary given the majority of the time we were in a dialogue over wording, timing, etc. The office was light and airy, with a view on one side of a manmade pond, fountain burbling away in it, the other row of windows showing off the indoor practice field.
That Monday we were debating how to respond to Dak’s statement to a reporter after stomping the Ravens. When asked how he intended to celebrate an unexpected victory, Dak had said, “I have a hot date with your wife.” When the reporter had said, “Excuse me?” Dak had followed up with, “Just kidding. Your daughter is more my type.”
Then he had clapped the reporter on the shoulder, gave him a charming grin, and jogged off.
He had been called into the office. I knew he was in the building already. Getting reprimanded and cautioned were the same things the powers that be did every week and Dak would nod and smile and do it all over again. Whenever he was in the building the estrogen levels increased, I swear. Actual hormone levels were being raised by his masculine presence. Brushes and lipsticks and hairspray all came out as the female staff prepped, practiced their pouts, and perfected their Instagram eyebrows.
As he sauntered through, big and cocky, it was like watching the viral video of fainting goats. First all the women sat up straight, tits out, eyelashes fluttering madly, then as soon as he passed them, they collapsed back, drained and dreamy.
Even though I knew for a fact that he’d had sex with at least two of the women at headquarters, he never spoke to anyone in particular.
Except me.
In the cruelest of all damn ironies, he spoke to me on a regular basis.
So when Will was at the coffeemaker and I saw Dak getting off the elevator at the end of the hall, I braced myself. There was no reason whatsoever he needed to enter the marketing pool, the big room that contained forty employees, but he always did. Sometimes he would announce he wanted to look down on the practice fields. Sometimes he claimed to want coffee.
Mostly I thought he enjoyed the adoration of all the women and the dude-crushes of all the guys in the office.
Wearing track pants that did nothing to hide a huge cock moving freely beneath the cotton, Dak came toward me. And yes, even as a virgin, I had enough experience with penises in general to know that his was nothing short of impressive. He had on a team logo sweatshirt, which also didn’t disguise his broad shoulders and ripped arms. His hands were huge, and I imagined if he spread one across my face, it would block out the sun entirely. Recently he’d seemed to have forgotten to see a barber, his sandy hair veering into Jason Momoa territory. Football warrior. Maybe that was the look he was going for. It was working and then some.
Studying my laptop screen studiously, I pushed up my cherry red glasses and ignored him.
“Hey, Kitty.”
Dak didn’t know my name. He’d never asked. Even if he had, I doubt he would have remembered it.
I turned and gave him a weak smile, my heart rate kicking into overtime. The highlight of my day was when he acknowledged me, but it also threatened to send me into shock every time. Or spontaneous orgasm. My nipples hardened beneath my sweater and I shifted a little on my seat.
“Hi, Dak, how are you today?”
“Living the dream, Kitty.”
In his case, that was hugely accurate.
He gestured to me. “Turn around and let me see you.”
Obediently, I swiveled my chair so I was facing him. This was our routine. I’d say I didn’t know how to break it, but the truth was I didn’t want to.
His eyes raked over me slowly, amusement and mischief in them. “Now that. That right there is the sweetest pussy you’ve given me yet.”
“It’s Siamese,” I told him.
“Kinky.”
I glanced down at my breasts and the cat on my sweater. “I don’t think so. Cute more so than kinky.”
Dak shook his head slowly. “Then clearly our thoughts aren’t running in the same direction.”
I pushed my glasses up on my nose. “Apparently not.” I didn’t take anything he said seriously because Dak was a wicked flirt. He flirted on social media with random women who commented on his posts. He flirted with the team cheerleaders. He flirted with female sports reporters. But he had a type when it came to women he actually had sex with or dated.