As he carries me to the bathrooms I am fighting him. Finally he sets me down as I pant, “Your friend has the brain of a turd!”
Eric chuckles, hair dripping as much as mine is. He tells the curious line, “Ladies, she’s on the clock and needs to get cleaned up. Unisex stalls right?”
Ready to give him anything he ever asked for, they wave us to the front. “Sure, Eric.” “Oh, gosh, you guys are all wet!” “I saw what Mott did…where are you guys going after?”
He ignores their questions and drags a hand through his soaked hair.
Tapping my feet, sticky all over, I demand, “What are you doing here still?”
He points at the white t-shirt plastered to his torso that is completely transparent now, nipples in tight, dark little points. “Does this look normal to you?”
Blinking at it I mutter, “Nope.”
I’m not referring to how drenched the man is.
His body is what’s not normal.
Mmm.
Mmm.
MMM.
CHAPTER 5
WREN
T he door opens and its female occupant walks out and spots him, blue eyes flitting up and down with aroused interest. Then she sees me, just as wet as he is. She wants to know how this happened. And how she can take my place.
But Eric doesn’t notice her, he’s too busy grabbing the door and holding it open for me. “Here ya go.”
“Thank you.”
I head inside and turn to close it, but have to step back as he walks in after me. “Okay if I clean up, too?”
I stutter, “Sure, yeah, come on in,” before I have a chance to think. “Wait, no! You can’t be in here with me! They’re going to think we’re doing something that we aren’t!”
His eyebrows fly up and he lands his palm on the wall, leaning on it, wet white cotton clenched against his disciplined muscles. “You think so?”
“Of course!”
“You sure?”
“I’m very sure. Now get out of here.”
Thoughtfully he nods, pushes off the wall and pokes his head outside. “We aren’t making out! Instead we are merely cleansing the stickiness off our hot, tortured bodies, okay?”
The girls laugh and he shuts the door, locking the door and jerking his chin toward the waiting basin. “Sink’s right there, Sweets.”
I grumble, “At least you dropped the…well, you know.”
“The tits part? I wanted to keep it, because they deserve the title, but my sister would clock me if she ever found out I’d said something like that.”
“But she wouldn’t mind you suggesting in front of an audience that I want to pull your head between my legs?”
“I said yank, not pull.”
“You said tuck.”
“Did I?” he smiles, leaning against the wall by the sink while I splash my face a few times, then wring out my hair. “Emma would think that was pretty funny. You don’t wear much makeup, huh?”
“Extremely self-conscious now, thank you. And I bit off my lipstick, which is usually all I wear. Not that it’s any of your business. Do you have to watch me do this?”
“What’s your name?”
Peeling my shirt away from my bra and stomach, I step around him to the intensely powerful Xcelerator hand-dryer, holding the fabric under its cacophonous blast. “In case you think you’re being sly, I know what you’re doing.”
He pushes off the wall to rinse off his face next. “Oh yeah? Clue me in.”
“You’re in here so that you can tell your teammates you and I had sex and I’ll never be able to deny it because nobody will believe me.”
He laughs and dips down to rinse liquor from his hair. Flinging back his head he shakes the thick, chocolate locks out, looking absolutely breathtaking with water dripping off his long eyelashes as he grins at me.
What’s crazy is he looks this good all the time. When the camera cuts to him after a bad play and he’s pissed…gorgeous. Coach talking strategy with him on the sidelines when Defense is on the field…stunning. Throwing a ball, flying in the air like his guardian angels are holding him up there…mind-boggling. Especially then. It’s always beautiful to watch someone do what they’re meant to.
They did a study last season and found out that the number of females watching football since he went pro, doubled in Georgia. And I bet a bunch of those fans don’t know rule one about how the game is played. They’re just staring at him, bodies silently humming, I want him. Give me just one night. Then I’ll be happy.
“You must think I’m a real dick, huh?”
Trying to angle my head under the dryer, looking awkward as hell, I lock eyes with him to frankly admit, “Yep. I do.”
“Why?”
“Because you know why.”
“My friends?”
“Your reputation. Don’t play dumb.”
“Don’t play dumb? So you think I’m smart.” And there’s that lopsided grin.
Steeling myself against his charm, I state with a business-like tone, “Truth? I suspect that despite those muscles you are extremely intelligent.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, to have done what you have, raised our team from the gutter, that takes strategy and smarts. And while I respect Coach, he was there before you so…it must be you.”
His eyebrows twitch, expression shifting as he rakes his hair back with both hands, biceps enormous. “You’re a fan.”
“Of the team not of you. I have a boyfriend.”
Oh God. The loud dryer went silent just as I made that lame announcement, and now it’s echoing off the walls, so unnecessary to have been said. So I hit the button again, blasting white-noise and hot air into the room, none of it coming from me this time.
Eric reaches back and tugs his wet t-shirt off from his stunning torso, a sexy groan of relief rumbling from his chest. “Oh yeah, so much better,” he mumbles to himself, seemingly without ulterior motives.
I blink away thinking, Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me. What am I doing here alone with this guy?
Eric casually announces, “If you’re a fan of the team then you’re a fan of me. We are one atom,
