RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) (9 page)

And then the moment is so far past us there’s nothing else for it but to move on and wait for it to eventually come back around again.

Lucy

If that jerk thinks he can play me like that, he’s got another thing coming. He’s so transparent I can see the sun shining through him, and it’s not going to work.

If Alex Vann Haden is serious, which I’m almost a hundred percent certain he’s not, he’s going to have to work a lot harder than that to prove it.

I’m not going to let him win this little bet unless I know it doesn’t bother him if he loses it, and I’m not going to give it up just like that. I might have done at college, if this happened way back then, but I’m definitely not going to do it now. He can pour me as much champagne as he likes, take me to as many private islands in the middle of nowhere, but until he proves to me he’s not just another alpha male looking to get laid, he and I are going nowhere.

The water has made his board shorts see-through enough I can see the outline of his cock, and as much as I try not to look at it, I can’t help my eyes wandering back there every so often.

Nowhere
, I repeat back to myself. I’m better than that. I’m strong enough to resist him and have a large enough sense of self-worth not to bring myself down to his level. No matter how easy it would be. Not matter how much I have always kicked myself for being the shy girl who was always out of his league.

That’s why none of this makes sense. That’s why I’m still convinced he’s trying to trick me, or punk me, or whatever, everything but being sincere about what he actually wants. And I don’t buy that bullshit for one minute. Maybe now he’s seen me he wants to fuck me but back then, at college, when he had every opportunity to tell me the same? It’s a little difficult to swallow.

I look from Alex’s crotch, across the perfectly tight muscles of his abdomen and then up to his beautiful blue eyes. They are narrowed against the sun and it gives his face a quizzical, slightly surprised look.

I suppose he expected me to throw myself at him then, and now that his plans have changed he’s been thrown off course. Invite a girl here, take her out on the boat, ply her with champagne and watch her lift her legs onto his shoulders I’m sure is his normal modus operandi.

Well, this girl is a little different. Number one, I’m here for work and I have a job to do. Number two, I don’t just sleep with any super hot football player, and number three, even if I am going to sleep with him, even if I want to so much I feel like my ovaries are going to explode every time he looks at me, I’m not going to it just for a bit of fun.

I might if this wasn’t Alex Vann Haden, but because it is, and because he’s so arrogant with it, I really don’t want to give him the satisfaction of feeling like he’s conquered me and I’ve had to give in to his charms.

Even if it were true, that would be enough to swell his head so much the island might sink. No. Even if resisting is torture. Even if he proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he actually seriously likes me, that he’s not just dicking around and wants to pleasure me and make me feel good, he’s going to have to grovel to make it happen.

He’s going to have to prove that it’s not just for his benefit, but for mine too, and before all of that, he’s going to have to open up and prove he’s not just one dimensional.

All I’m getting at the moment is
one track mind
and very little else. Alright, there isn’t much time I don’t think about what I’d like to be doing to him, or have him do to me, but that’s different. At least my desire is genuine.

“
You’re going to be hard work.”

“
It was an accident.”

The look he gives me suggests he doesn’t believe me for a minute.

“
Is there more ice?”

“
Don’t worry about it. Maybe we should take a swim instead.”

“
Or ask some questions.”

“
I thought we already were.”

“
I’m still a little fuzzy on the answers.”

I sip my champagne and hold his gaze. Even with the late summer sun, those board shorts don’t stay wet for long.

“
Alright, let’s go over it again.”

I watch him pace from one side of the boat to the other, his steps measured, the action hypnotic.

“
Name?”

“
Alex Vann Haden.”

“
Parents?”

“
Divorced.”

“
Relationship with your father?”

He stops to look at me. “Is this necessary?”

I shrug and rifle through the strawberries looking for a big juicy one to place between my lips. An act of theatrical indifference, a flirtation tool. Alex carries on pacing.

“
Normal. Ups and downs.”

“
Mother?”

“
Better. I don’t see her a lot now.”

“
Brothers and sisters?”

“
Promise me that after this, we go for a swim.”

“
I haven’t brought my bathing costume.”

“
Then I promise I won’t look.”

“
You can’t make a promise that your eyes can’t keep.”

“
Then you’ll just have to get your own back.”

“
Brothers and sisters?”

“
You already know this.”

“
Then tell me something I don’t know.”

“
Have you ever considered a career in psychology?”

“
I have to ask questions if I’m going to know what to write, and you have to tell me the truth if you want me to do what you’ve asked.”

Alex pauses to wet his lips with champagne, takes the strawberry I have in my hand and places it mischievously between his teeth. An act of indifference, a flirtation tool. Eyes like gemstones shimmering in the sizzling sun.

“
One brother, a twin, died in a car crash aged ten.”

It bolts me upright. I didn’t know.

“
I didn’t know.”

“
Nobody knows.”

“
A car crash?”

“
Cars crash every day.”

“
Do you miss him?”

“
He was my twin brother, Lucy. You would have liked him, he was less of an asshole than I am. A better baller too. Luke had a forearm like a ship’s cannon.”

“
They say admitting it is the first part of solving the problem.”

“
Then I’m well on my way.”

“
You talk to anyone about it?”

“
No.”

“
That why your parents divorced?”

“
Bingo.”

“
That why you’re such a jerk?”

Again Alex pauses. He gives me a look of mock appall, pours himself some more champagne and then sits on the opposite side of the boat, arms crossed, closed in.

“
I told you I get misunderstood and misrepresented.”

“
Why did you tell me about your brother?”

“
Why did you ask?”

It’s a fair point.

“
Ok. What else?”

“
What else do you need?”

“
Everything.”

“
I don’t think you’ve got enough time.”

“
Then give me the TL;DR.”

“
Why don’t you tell me what you know and I’ll fill in the gaps.”

“
You realize that if this an ongoing story, we’re going to need an angle.”

“
I guess that depends on who wins the bet.”

“
Ok, so we have our angle. Alex Vann Haden retires because a girl refuses to sleep with him.”

“
You’re confident in your ability to resist me.”

“
And right now I’ve run out of ice.”

Alex shifts a little, his head tilted to the side, questioningly. “What are you scared of?”

“
That’s a reporter’s question.”

“
No, seriously, tell me. If I’m being honest, you need to be too.”

“
What am I scared of?”

“
Yeah. You’re scared now, I can see it. You were clearly scared at college too, of what, I don’t know. Is it rejection, or just not liking it. Are you scared of me?”

“
Don’t flatter yourself.”

“
Then tell me.”

Now I tilt my head at him. The two of us floating on a boat in the middle of nowhere. I never thought this would happen when I was at college.

“
You really want to know?”

Alex shrugs. “Sure.”

“
I’ve been in shitty relationships with shitty men and I don’t want that to happen again.”

“
You’ve had your heart broken.”

“
Million pieces.”

“
Not all men are the same.”

“
Says the guy who has slept with more people than I have listed as friends on facebook.”

“
I’ve seen your list of friends on facebook, Kyle Orton has slept with more people than that.”

“
You’re stalking me now?”

“
I had to do my research.”

“
You know, this is beginning to sound a bit like an obsession.”

“
Don’t flatter yourself.”

“
Five years is a long time to hold a torch.”

“
I’m not the only one.”

“
I told you already, I haven’t decided whether I like you yet.”

“
No, that’s not it at all.”

“
Oh?”

“
You like me, you just haven’t decided whether to admit it yet.”

I have to smile at that.

“
What do you want?”

“
I want to get to know you.”

“
Have you run out of other options already?”

“
I was curious.”

“
You mean, you wanted to set the record straight.”

“
What does that mean?”

“
It means you failed first time around.”

“
I didn’t try first time around.”

“
And what are you looking to achieve right now?”

“
I don’t know, I hadn’t planned that far ahead.”

“
How far ahead had you planned?”

“
One, invite you here, two, get to know you-.”

I cut in. “Three, get me in bed, four, move onto the next.”

“
Your words, not mine, and definitely not quotable.”

I put my hands up. “Sorry.”

“
Three always depended on whether we liked each other.”

“
And four?”

“
Those days are behind me.”

“
You’re a one woman man now?”

“
I always have been, I’ve just never found the right woman.”

“
That clearly wasn’t for the lack of trying.”

“
You’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs-.”

“
Or fuck a lot of cheerleaders.”

Alex gives a controlled laugh that I think is a suggestion he treats the comment as I intend it to be received.

“
You never thought about trying out?”

“
I never had the flexibility.”

“
There’s always time to practice.”

“
I can’t risk breaking my body as well as my heart.”

“
Then we’ll just have to go slowly.”

“
Are you capable of that? Alex Vann Haden doesn’t strike me as a man that has that kind of gear change in his locker.”

“
There’s probably a lot about me that will surprise you.”

“
Go on.”

“
I’ve never been in love.”

“
Don’t tell me that relationship with Christina Litven wasn’t as profound as I was led to believe.”

“
You know she cheated on me?”

“
Welcome to the real world.”

“
I’ve never cheated on anyone in my life.”