Most Valuable Playboy

“Standard war wound.”

She gives me a look. “Seriously. Are you injured? Are you being the big tough guy who doesn’t let on that he’s hurt then plays through the pain?”

I scoff. “No. I’m not injured. This is just normal soreness. This is how I usually feel after a game.”

“Gee, I wonder why. Could it be throwing thirty-yard passes with regularity while linemen try to mow you down wears on the body?”

I smile. “But it’s nothing a beer and an ice pack won’t cure. Do you want a white wine?”

She says yes, so I grab a bottle I think she’ll like, then a glass. As I unscrew the cork our eyes meet. Hers glitter with something—anticipation, maybe? I don’t know what’s happening, but I also know exactly what’s happening.

Something.

That’s what my gut tells me. That’s what my instincts say. And those are the tools I rely on when I’m in the zone. I let them guide me now.

Something’s been crackling between us for the last week, ever since she won me. Since I visited her salon, invited her to the game, and texted. Since she sent that photo.

As she leans her hip against my island kitchen counter, looking like she belongs here, wearing her number sixteen jersey with a smudge of dirt streaked across it from when I hugged her after the game, my mind narrows in on one thing—her body.

How she reacts to the way I stare at her. How her lips part. How her cheeks grow pinker.

“You’re almost in the playoffs,” she says, her voice wobbling more than usual, as if she’s a bit nervous.

“Almost being the operative word.” I crack open a beer, hand her the wine, and toast. “To almosts,” I say, my voice echoing in my quiet home.

“To almosts,” she replies, and the air between us crackles and hums.

I turn on some music on my phone, and even though I’m tempted to crank up my favorite rock anthems, I find something that better sets the tone. Then I want to smack myself for going for mood music.

“Are you trying to put me to sleep?” she asks, laughing.

I wink. “Just making sure you’re paying attention.”

“Put on the good stuff,” she says, and I switch to a playlist that starts with “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele.

“I love this song,” she says, her face animated as she taps her foot against the floor.

“I know. That’s why I picked it.”

I adjust the ice pack as she sings the first few lines, then I join in for the chorus, using the beer bottle to sing into, while she cranks up the volume courtesy of her wineglass turned microphone.

“We would kill it in a karaoke duet.”

“But I insist we sing ‘Islands in the Stream.’”

“I accept your insistence,” I say, as I refill her wine and grab a second beer.

We make our way to the living room. Violet tips her chin at the Christmas tree in the bay window. Red ribbons and silver ornaments hang from the plastic branches, along with ceramic candy canes and green felt mini-stockings. Blue and white lights flicker on and off, set on a timer for the evenings. “You set up your tree. It’s adorable.”

I give her a look. “Violet, how long have you known me?”

“Twenty years. Why?”

I gesture to the perfectly appointed tree. “Do you really think I pulled that off? Lined up ornaments with that kind of pinpoint precision?”

“Let me guess. Mama Armstrong did it?”

I laugh. “You guessed correctly. The whole nine yards.”

“Tell Mama Armstrong she’s a masterful decorator. Oh wait, I’ll tell her myself when she comes by for her color.”

“Speaking of, did Maxine schedule a hair appointment?”

“She did. For next week. But if I could handle the players’ wives, I can handle Maxine.”

“Damn, you’re tough,” I say, then eye my shoulder. “Unlike me. I can barely handle three-hundred-pound linemen slamming into me.”

“Ha. Yeah, you’re the very definition of tough.”

I flop on the couch, adjusting the ice pack.

Violet kicks off her shoes and joins me, tucking her feet under her. “Does it hurt still?”

“Not really.”

She arches a brow as she takes another drink of her wine. “Not even a little?”

I hold up my finger and thumb as the music shifts to “Wonderwall.” “Okay. A smidge.”

She puts her wineglass on the coffee table and waggles her fingers. “Let me help.”

I put my beer on the table, too. “Ooh, is this where we play quarterback and physical therapist?”

She rolls her eyes. “Is the team’s PT your fake girlfriend?”

I shudder, thinking of the lean and lanky physical therapist the club hired—the very male PT.

Violet cracks her knuckles, sets a hand on my shoulder, and tells me to face the other way. I turn so I’m looking at the stark white wall and the framed prints of Italy and Spain, New Zealand, and Australia, all the places I want to go someday. I release the ice pack, letting it fall to the floor. Her hands curl over my shoulders, and my reaction to her touch is instant.

I groan because it’s so goddamn good as she digs her fingers into my flesh. “Tell me about meeting the players’ wives.”

“They were fantastic,” she says, and as she recounts her time in the suite, I sink into the magnificent sensation of her hands on me, her thumbs driving into my muscles, her fingers kneading my flesh. The way she touches me sends sparks through my body as if an electric current sizzles under my skin, spreading into my every molecule.

While I’m on edge like this, everything in me buzzing toward her, I close my eyes and images flash. All the ways I want this night to go. How good it feels to have her hands on me. How dangerous it could be to get closer. Her brother. Our friendship. Whether she feels the same way. My contract. The pact. My focus.

But then I think about how I feel with her. How my heart bounced around in my chest when she watched me today. How warmth radiates through me when I see her texts. How her lips feel sliding across mine.

I remind myself that I take chances all day long. I play a risky, violent sport for a living. I can either stay safely in the moment of this impromptu massage, or I can run into the fray.

I choose risk and all the possibilities of reward.

I lift my hand to take hers, running my thumb along her wrist. Her breath hitches. Her hands still. She stops moving as I glide farther up, brushing my fingers from her wrist to her forearm. She trembles.

I don’t rush it. There’s no one stopping us. No line coming after me, trying to take me down. It’s only us, here in my home. No agents, no photographers, no Maxine. No one else.

I run my thumb back down over her palm to her fingers. I thread mine through hers and clasp. She squeezes back, her breath rushing against my neck. And it’s then that the moment unfurls into something else entirely.

To something unquestionable.

I cover her hand with mine, and in one strong move, I pull her around me and onto my lap.

Her eyes widen, shining with longing. They lock with mine.