Bad Boy's Bridesmaid (32 page)

Perfect.

I forced myself
to remember that the striking body I admired belonged to the arrogant and
infuriating man who dared to tangle with me.

He was lucky he
was so damn big—one of the largest quarterbacks in the league. If he were just
one foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter…I might have taken the chance to
stomp really hard on his toes.

The rookies
collapsed against the turf. An offensive lineman fell too. Jack counted off
another five one-armed pushups before letting his men groan against the field.
Now was my chance.

“Jack.”

The bastard
grinned like he won the lottery while getting blown by a porn star. He waved.

He made no
attempt to move. The entire offense stared at me like I was a piece of meat
Jack was about to drag back to his cave. I was so glad my skirt was knee-length
and respectable.

“Jack? I need to
talk to you.” I smiled at the quarterback coach consulting with his other
specialized personnel. He shrugged—that same hopeless resignation the coaches
shared when Jack Carson was causing a scene. “Please?”

He leaned to the
player next to him, the team’s real criminal and the absolute worst influence
on Jack. Bryon Washington was a gifted running back, but if he wasn’t careful,
he’d spend the best years of his career behind bars—where he belonged. He and
Jack laughed like I was the punchline to their own secret joke. Bryon whistled
and outlined my figure with a wave of his hand.

Enough of this.

“Jack
-ass
!
Come here!”

The team hooted.
Jack rose to his feet. “The little woman calls. See the shit I put up with?”

“
Now
.”

“I
pay
her to abuse me like this.”

“Not nearly
enough.”

Jack took long
strides to reach me, his signature swagger. He wasn’t flirting. He was baiting
me, like he always did. Waiting for the moment I’d snap and he’d have his fun.

It ended now.

“Hey, Kiss.”

Jack sauntered
before me. He rubbed the sweat from his face with a towel, but he didn’t bother
to cover his chest. I wasn’t used to seeing him without a shirt, and I tried my
hardest to
not
admire the dozens of tattoos and colorful ink cradling
his muscles. It was just another reminder of his misbehavior and arrogance and
how unbelievably built he was…

His voice
rumbled deep inside me. “Couldn’t stand to be away from me?”

My eyes snapped
up to his. I cleared my throat. “We need to talk.”

“Uh-oh.” He got
off on teasing me, but at least he wasted billable time. “Trouble at home, Mrs.
Carson?”

He laughed, that
cocky baritone always at my expense. I forced him away from the field. He
followed me to the tunnels leading from the grass to the locker room. The
practice facility was too busy for this kind of talk—coaches and staff and
players beginning their workouts. Half the team funneled between the field and
the recently renovated, two-story weight room. I had to keep my voice down.
That only encouraged Jack to tease my temper.

He stretched his
arms, every motion bulging muscle on top of muscle. “Think we could talk
inside? I’m kinda bruised from the accident. We could sit in the spa tub
together.”

“You’re
unbelievable.”

“Would you
prefer the hot tub in our honeymoon suite?”

I poked a finger
into his chest, instantly regretting touching his heated, fiercely defined
body. A shiver trembled from the tip of my finger all the way through me,
centering in a very wrong place.

“You have no
idea what you’ve done,” I said.

Jack glanced me
over, amused. “I got us out of trouble.”

“No. You got
you
out of trouble. You put me in the middle of all of this!”

He provoked me
with an impish arch of his eyebrows. “You’re not breaking up with me, are you?
Come on, Kiss. I’m a great catch.”

“I don’t want to
be your fake girlfriend.”

“So…you wanna be
my real girlfriend?”

“Screw you,
Jack. Can you be serious for ten seconds?”

“Who says I
wasn’t serious, Kiss?”

Enough of this.
“For like, one minute, can you possibly think about anyone other than yourself
or your little play-maker?”

He took offense
when I pointed at his mesh shorts. “Hey. Don’t call him little!”

“You could have
gotten me
fired
today!”

I held his
stare. His blue eyes practically crackled, bright and full of energy. It might
as well have been plutonium. He was too dangerous to let near.

“You told a lie
that might have cost me my job,” I said.

“Did Jolene fire
you?”

“No.”

Jack groaned and
headed to the locker room. “Then what’s the problem? Just
relax
, Kiss.”

I was
not
letting him get away. The last time I challenged him at the practice facility,
I’d chased him through the halls and into the steam room. He’d dropped his
towel and exposed not only himself, but the entirety of his offensive line. I
still couldn’t look those men in the eye.

I grabbed his
arm and forced him to pay attention to me. “The problem is you
lied
to
the league president. He wants you out of the game, and he’ll do anything to
get his way.” 

Jack’s glance
cut through my indignation. Hell, his stare penetrated me completely, like he
tore through my clothes and surveyed everything mouth-watering beneath. But his
appraisal wasn’t another way to flirt.

He looked at me
like he planned to strip me down.

Like he wanted
me.        

A couple more
seconds under his dominating stare, and I might’ve let him.

Why the hell did
I face him instead of yelling at him over the phone? I wasn’t prepared to
confront a man as handsome or frustrating as this trouble-maker with his
wandering, mischievous eyes.

“So…you came
here…” His voice lazily murmured, as though he knew the shivers it’d cause.
“Because you’re concerned? You think I’m going to get tossed out of the
league?”

“Yes.”

“And here I
thought you were
paid
to worry about me.”

Bastard. “
My
career depends on
your
career, Jack. On your behavior.”

“Why?”

“Because if you
get thrown out of the league, I’ll lose my chance to be fast-tracked to a
partner in Jolene’s firm.”

“Well, sorry I
nearly killed myself in a car accident last night, Kiss.”

He made me sound
heartless. I took a breath. “Look, Jack. I know you like to play these games,
but that’s over now. You told the president you were a changed man because of
me. If you get expelled from the league for doing something stupid or immoral
now, I’ll lose more than my job. You’ll ruin my reputation too.”

Jack didn’t
understand, didn’t even try. “Why do you care what people think of you?”

“It’s my job?”

“No. You’re
supposed to care what people think of
me
. So what if people call me a
jerk? So what if I go out to a party?”

“It matters
because it’s going to reflect on
me
as a person. I’m supposed to be your
long-term, committed girlfriend.”

“Then break it
off.”

He tried to
leave again. I followed, taking two steps to his every stride.

“Then Frank
Bennett has every reason to force the Rivets to cut you. This
relationship
is the only way you stay in the league.”

“That so?”

“Yes. And that
means you have to calm down and lie low for the duration of…whatever this is.
Do you understand? This is your last chance.”

He stopped, deep
in the tunnel separating us from the action of the field. His arms crossed.
Every tattoo practically pulsed with the heat coursing under his skin. It
radiated from him, pressing into me, stealing my breath. I looked up to meet
his gaze as he stepped closer.

His voice
lowered, a deep, grumbling promise of suppressed wildness. “Don’t worry about
me.”

“I’m not. I’m
protecting myself.”

“This is a
dangerous game, Kiss.”

“But it can
work.” Was I really trying to convince him of his own stupid idea? “People will
believe we’re a couple if you behave yourself. I mean…we have a close,
professional relationship already.”

Jack laughed.
“This isn’t my definition of
close
.”

“Because we work
together while fully clothed?”

“Takes the fun
out of the meetings.”

“Well, there’s our
story. It’ll make sense that, over time, our relationship developed into
something…more.”

“Like booty
calls?”

“Like
love
,
you freak.”

He grinned.
“Right. Love. I can buy it.”

I rolled my
eyes. “Have you ever even told a girl
I love you
before?”

“Have you ever
fucked a stranger without exchanging names?”

“No!”

He shrugged.
“Guess opposites attract.”

I’d grind my
teeth into dust before the day was out. “I’m setting ground rules.”

“Kiss—”

“First, you
don’t call me
Kiss
.”

He shook his
head. “Nope. Pet name. I like it better than
Darling
.”

I was losing the
big picture. I exhaled. “Fine. Call me whatever you want. But you will follow
these
rules.” I pointed at him. “You are going to behave at all times. You will not
embarrass me. No acting out, no late night parties, no womanizing, no doing
anything
that would constitute cheating.”

“
What
?”
His eyes widened. “So I can’t go out with my friends. I can’t meet women. I
can’t have
sex
with anyone…” A sly smile encouraged every thought I
didn’t want him to have. “Unless you plan on fulfilling those needs?”

I ignored the
implication. “That was my next rule. No screwing with me—literally or
figuratively.”

“Why the hell
would I agree to this?”

Did he have any
blood left in his head? “Because you want to keep your
job
. You want to
win a championship and make that hundred million dollar contract. This is the
only way. Get through this season without incident, and we’ll see what
happens.”

He set his jaw,
the hard angles clenching as tightly as the muscles in his chest. “Fine.”

“It’s for your
own good. I’m keeping you on a leash.”

“Only if you
promise to toss a collar on me too.”

I didn’t trust
Jack’s tone, as if the arrogant trouble-maker already lured me to his bed and
had his way with me.

Wasn’t going to
happen. No way, no how.

And I hated
myself for even imagining the briefest of fantasies.

“Will you
promise to behave?” I asked.

He stepped
closer, his voice low, tightening everything deep inside me. “You promise to
punish me if I don’t?”

“Be serious…”
This was never going to work if he got me so flustered.

Jack edged me
close to the wall, his gaze hot and entirely too familiar. “I’ll agree…with one
condition.”

“And what’s
that?”

“I want to see
if we have chemistry together.”

“I…” My hands pressed
against the cool cement, the only relief I had from the heat suffocating me in
Jack’s oppressive shadow. “We can pretend.”

“You can’t
pretend
a connection. It’s gotta be real. We gotta feel it.”

His body moved
close. Too close. I might have reached out, touched the sweat-dazzled muscles
that he’d worked and pumped and strained in practice to build a body of utter
perfection. I wished he had a shirt on. It was too difficult to focus on him
while his feral form raged inches from my own.

I took a harsh
breath, sinking deeper against the wall. It didn’t protect me from him. It
didn’t stop the twisting heat in my belly. Low. Raw.

God, why did he
have to be an attractive jerk?

Jack’s voice
heated like caramel and burned just as hot. “If my job rides on this, and your
reputation is at stake…we gotta make sure it’ll work, right?”

I accidentally
licked my lips. “How do we do that?”

“Kiss me.”

Panic.

I couldn’t kiss
this man. I couldn’t even
breathe.
He was an arrogant, cocky bastard
with the most beautiful body I ever saw and eyes that seared through my common
sense.

I parted my
lips.

Made a joke
instead.

“I…I can’t bill
you for that time.”