Player: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (44 page)

O
h fuck me fucking sideways
.
 

You know that dream you have where you go to school with no pants on or some shit? Yeah, well that's what this feels like. Except this isn't a dream and the reality is staring me in the face with wide, accusatory bright blue eyes. The girl from that night barely a week ago; the girl who patched me up and probably saved my ass. 

The girl who stayed in my bed afterwords and fell asleep on my chest. 

Oh, and the girl who later slid down my cock and rode me like a woman possessed until we were both screaming for air. Fuck, she looked strangely familiar before, but she looks like original sin staring me in the face now. 

Quinn Archer; William Archer's daughter. I
slept with
 the daughter of the man who brought me up in the world from nothing, gave me the gilded life out a fucking book, and taught me to be a man. 

And I fucked his daughter. Oh, and her sister is basically my future sister-in-law; future as in thirty minutes from now. I'm suddenly horrified at the shit I gave Hudson when I first heard about him and Reagan, William's second daughter.
I mean what are the fucking odds?!
They're actually too much to even comprehend, and I
know
odds. I mean of
all the girls
in
all the world
, THIS has to be the random chick who found me that night? I can still remember her hands - so firm and so unflinching as she sewed and patched me up. And then her lips; yeah, I can definitely remember those lips. They're the same pouty lips parted in shock and probably the same jolt of fear I'm feeling right now as she stares at me, but damn do I remember how they felt crushed against my own as she moaned into my mouth. 

Fuck. This is literally the last girl on the whole fucking planet I should have anything to do with besides a friendly nod or a boring conversation about work at the odd Christmas party. 

Protect them
. William's words reverberate through my head, filling the deafening silence between my ears. The Old Man's dying words were to make sure his daughters were safe and protected. I'm fairly confident that grabbing Quinn's hips and pulling her back against me as I bury my cock inside of her doesn't count much in that department. 

“Wow how longs it been since you guys have seen each other?” Hudson's words cut through the hanging silence, and the cheer in his voice is so amazingly out of place given the situation, even if he doesn't realize it that I cringe; “Probably not since the wake or-” 

“Yeah it's been a
very
long time.” Quinn's words are sharp and quick, and her eyes darken as she stares daggers at me. 

Yeah, she's pissed. I suddenly realize I'm still staring at her like a complete asshole with my mouth hanging open, and so I force myself to smile. Great, now I'm grinning like a douchebag at a girl who very clearly wants to either drop through a hole in the ground or push me into one; possibly both, and I can't say I really blame her. 

“Uh, hey, Quinn.” I cough uncomfortably. She's wearing this incredible navy blue bridesmaids dress that brings out the storm in her eyes and shows every single one of her curves and-

- And wow, I'm having thoughts about her wardrobe bringing out the 'storm in her eyes'; what the fuck is wrong with me? 

“Hey
Logan
.” She spits out my name like it’s a bad taste in her mouth before she turns to Hudson and plasters a smile on her face; “Well, I need to go make sure we're all set up with the caterers. You ready for this, big guy?” Hudson grins and all I can think is how envious I am of how cool and collected he is right now. As opposed to, you know, me, who's tongue-tied and sweating bullets. Fuck, isn't that
his
job today? 

Quinn turns back and gives me one last quick and withering glance before she turns on her heeled foot and storms out of the greenhouse.

Well, that went well. 

* * *

“
Q
uinn
, hang on!” The sprawling rose bush and hedge gardens of the Archer estate are a great place to have a wedding, but they're also a great place to lose this girl if she won't slow the fuck down for one Goddamn second.  

My mind spins as I stalk after her. OK, so we're two people who slept together, who definitely shouldn't have ever slept together;
definitely
. But shit, like that's the first time something like that has ever happened between two consenting adults? We're both grown ups here, and so we saw each other naked; big deal, right? I mean, it's funny, right? We're going to just laugh about this, right? 

I finally catch up with her and grab her by the arm, but she whirls and shakes loose of my touch. There's a fury on her face as she looks at me with this wild mix of hurt and fierceness, only made more-so by the auburn hair framing her face and the ice-blue of her eyes as she glares at me; “Did you
know?!
”  

Yeah, no, we're definitely not going to be laughing about this.

I've cornered her behind one of the hedge-rows in the back gardens, but the way she whirls towards me has me suddenly feeling like the cornered one. I clear my throat; “What?” 

She huffs and crosses her arms across her chest and stares at me with fire in her eyes, and she'd almost look adorable if I wasn't at least half sure she was maybe about to stab me; “Did you
know
who I was that-” She closes her mouth quickly and looks around before she glares at me again; “
that night?
” She hisses out. 

There's something about her tone that digs under my skin, as if she's accusing me of
wronging
her honor or some bullshit; as if she wasn't a completely willing participant in everything that happened that night a week before. 

...A
very
willing participant, I might add. 

“You mean when we fucked?” I'm crass on purpose, trying to dig into her right back, and I grin when I see that it works as she blushes bright scarlet and rolls her eyes as groans loudly in disgust. 

“
Yes
, Logan, when we-” She shakes her head and looks away again. 

“No, Quinn, I didn't.” 

“No?” She's got that fucking accusatory tone in her voice that's getting under my skin like a splinter. 

“No, Jesus, of course not.” I say it
way
too fast and with
way
too much force.

Her eyes narrow at me; “Well what the fuck is
that
supposed to mean?” 

“I mean I'd never have done that if I knew it was
you
.”  

Oh, yeah, much smoother; asshole.

Quinn clearly has the same opinion of my answer as she snarls at me; “You lost the beard.”  

“Yeah, I-” She's still frowning at me, but hey, it sounds like at least a
half
concession towards mutual fault here. I mean shit, it's not like I
purposefully 
showed up beaten to fucking pulp at
her
apartment that night. 

I clear my throat, trying to salvage this in some impossible way; “Your hair looks, uh, different than than before.” She looks like she's almost about to concede -
almost
- but then I of course open my mouth again; “And I mean, you look a lot older now than back at your Dad's wake- “
Fuck
. I wince as she shakes her head at me and I bring my hand up to push it though my hair; “I'm fucking this up pretty badly aren't I.” 

“With flying fucking colors, yeah.” 

I mean it's true; I hadn't seen her since her father's funeral like five fucking years ago. But shit, looking at her now, would I have even said no to a girl like this even if I knew? I mean she's a knockout to begin with, but it doesn't help that while that bridesmaids dress
teases
at what's beneath, I actually
know
what she looks like naked. And the thought of her naked is making me harder than it should right now, given the situation.  She brings a hand up and pinches the bridge of her nose as she takes a deep breath; like this whole thing is some sort of
headache
she just has to deal with; “Look, let’s just get through this thing.” 

“And a cheers to the happy couple!” I grin, trying to lighten the mood. She smirks, but then that flush comes back into her cheeks and she shakes her head again. 

“Look-” She stabs a finger towards me, still keeping her distance with her back up against the hedge behind her; “Not a word, to
anyone
about-” 

“Quinn, I'm not going to-” 

“To
anyone
, Logan.” She almost looks scared, like I'm some dirty little secret that might come tumbling out, and I can't tell if that amuses or pissed me off more. 

“Look I fucking get it, ok?” 

“Good.” 

“
Fine.
”

Ah yes, this is progressing just like an adult conversation should. 

“Look, I have too much going on up here in my head to even
think
about this right now, OK?” She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head; “I'm about to stand up with my sister while she gets married and I have an insanely busy first day at a new position tomorrow.” Her arms are still crossed over her perfect chest, and she's still glaring at me like I'm some sort of bad guy; “At my Dad's-” She stops and frowns; “At
your
fucking company, actually.” 

I'm about to open my mouth when she shakes her head, cutting me off; “You know what, it's like you said; let's just get through this, ok? Cause after this,
I
don't have to see
you
, and
you
don't have to see
me
until at least Thanksgiving or some other family gathering.” 

Ah, fuck; she doesn't know.

I almost want to laugh, except I think I might be too surprised to.

Quinn shakes her head; “And until then, we can drift back off to being strangers, OK?” 

Well, this is about to get even better.
 

She
knows
that her new job is with Archer Holdings in the company's new humanitarian healthcare outreach program. What she
doesn't
know is that it's
my
program, and what's quickly dawning on me is that as of tomorrow, I'll be working side-by-side with this girl for the next three months. 

She stops as she notices my silence and narrows her eyes at me; “Oh,
what
is it, Logan?” 

Oh yeah, this little meltdown is about to go fucking nuclear.

I
t’s almost
3 a.m. by the time I get home from what will be my last team meeting at the hospital for the next few months while I work on the outreach program at my Father’s company. I’m grinding my teeth and muttering under my breath as I stand in the lobby of my loft building, hammering the elevator button, and it’s not even the fact that it’s late and the birthday bash I was invited to is long over that’s got me pissed off either. It’s that leaving my team after
that
whole thing
feels like giving up, and admitting defeat.

It also seems
totally fucking unfair.

‘It’s just not appropriate, Quinn. I can’t be seen dating one of my staff. Especially one that’s a shoe-in for team leader.”

In theory, Andy has a fair point, except it loses just a
little bit
of credibility when I walked into his office a week ago to see one of the other young Doctors on the team blowing him.

And honestly,
that’s
not what has me so furious. I mean it’s not like I ever thought Andy was “the one” or anything, and it was hardly a passionate affair, unless you count hidden dates and maybe four fairly unsatisfying intimate encounters over as many months as
passionate
.

And I don’t.

What I’m
pissed
about though is just the hypocrisy of it, and I
hate
hypocrisy. It’s telling me “being professional” is the reason things have to end when you’ve got Vicky
fucking
Spears’s lips wrapped around your cock
in your office
.

But again,
that’s
not even what has me so angry tonight. No, I’m practically steaming at the ears because Andy decided to announce at the end of our last team meeting - almost as an afterthought - that we were going to have a new team leader.

‘Mad’
is your boyfriend ditching and probably cheating on you. ‘
Fury’
is having every head in the room turn expectantly towards you just as Andy announces that skanky, cock-sucking, slut-bag Vicky Spears will be stepping into the role of technically being your
boss
after you get back from working at Archer Holdings.

Perfect.

So, I’m already thinking about which Netflix series I’m going to binge with a bottle of red wine upstairs as the elevator doors ding open, and it’s right then that the scream freezes in my throat.

The man is slumped against the wall of the elevator, bloodied and out cold. He’s shirtless, his muscled, tattooed body covered in bruises and cuts and blood, and for a horrified minute, I wonder if I’m looking at a corpse. But then the doctor in me kicks into gear instantly, and I’m dropping down next to him to feel for a pulse.

My heart jumps into my throat as he suddenly gasps awake, his hand jerking to grab my wrist and his eyes wide and wild as he stares into mine. I stutter out a gasp as I find myself staring into the most piercing brown-green eyes I've ever seen; eyes the color of the forest, flecked with gold.

His eyes dart around the elevator in wild, jerking movements, and I can see the veins in his neck pulsing as he jerks forward.

“Hey,
hey
!” I say, putting my hands on his bare chest and gently pushing him back against the wall. The muscles beneath his skin feel like rippling iron under my hands, and I feel myself blushing at how absurdly unprofessional it is to think of this
bleeding
stranger with those kind of descriptors.

Especially bleeding strangers as staggeringly good looking as this one.

His dark hair is buzzed short, and even with a thick beard covering his chin, I can see how handsome he is from the prominent cut of his cheekbones and the dark, smokey look in his eyes.

“I need you to relax, OK?” I’m pressing him back down as gently as I can; “You've been in some kind of accident, and I'm going to help you.”

He lunges forward again, a crazy look in those handsome eyes; “You-”

“I'm a
doctor
, OK?”

Ok, clinical virologist, but close enough,
I mutter to myself. I didn’t sit through four semesters of triage and two years of late-shift E.R. work
not
to be able to do something in a situation like this.

“Listen, I’m going to
help
you while we wait for the ambulance-”

“
No.
” His voice is like sandpaper on wood; rich and rough, with a touch of something warm there. He momentarily looks much more awake and alert as his face darkens; “No ambulance; no hospitals.”

I'm suddenly
very
afraid of what that implies, as well as suddenly
very
aware that I'm alone with a beaten and bloodied stranger who for all I know could have just come from murdering his whole family or something.

He must see the fear shoot through my face, because his look softens for a moment; “Look, just- no ambulance. Please.”

I bite my lip, my hand still hovering near my purse and my cellphone, but there’s something utterly bewildering and unexplainable about the sincerity in his eyes that has me wanting to trust him. He winces, his hand pressing against his ribs, and it's then that I realize how much he's bleeding from some wound there.

“Oh my
God
, you
need
to let me call an-”

“You're a doctor you said?” He coughs violently, tilting his head back against the wall and gritting his teeth for a second.

“Yes?”

“Good, you're hired.”

I frown; “Wha-”

“Reach in my left pants pocket.”

“Um, excuse me?”

“Just do it.” He coughs, wincing.

Warily, I lean closer to him, wondering when he's going to tie me up, or ax me to death, and reach into his pocket.

I blink at the fat wad of $100 dollar bills I pull out; dyed rust colored around the edges from his blood.

“Ok, what's-”

“That's your fee,” He whispers out with a grimace; “For patching me up.” He's looking paler and paler by the second as he leans his head back against the wall, and I notice his breathing is coming slower and slower by the rising and falling of his muscled, tattooed chest.

“I'm not taking this money.”

Oh HELL no am I taking a bloody wad of hundred dollar bills from a complete stranger. I want no part of that, actually.

His brow furrows, and I can see him trying to open his lips, but I'm already whirling around and hitting the button in the elevator, the doors closing behind us.

“I'm not taking this money,” I say again, this time yanking my t-shirt off over my head and pushing his hand away as I press the cotton to his open wound; “But I
am
going to help you. Just don't
die
on me, OK?”

He momentarily opens his eyes once more, and when he grins, I can't tell if it’s because he’s glad I’m going to help him, or the fact that I've taken my shirt off. Maybe both.

“Top floor,” he whispers hoarsely.

“Wait, what?” As dumb of an idea I know it was, I was just going to drag him into my own apartment on the second to top floor. As far as I knew, the apartment above me was empty.

“I live-” he coughs blood and then he's going slack in my arms; “I just moved-”

Oh, wonderful; the hot, muscled bleeding guy dying in my arms is my new upstairs neighbor.

* * *

“
T
hank you
, really.” He says with that deep, baritone of a voice. He's sitting up now in his bed, which is weirdly the only piece of furniture in the whole apartment. His color is coming back, and there's a clean bandaged wrapped around the stitches I've just put on the wound on his ribcage and another bandage taping down the other heavy cut on his brow.

I nod at him quietly, as I start to pack away the medical supplies I grabbed from my own apartment.

“Look, take the money; seriously.” He says, nodding at the bloody stack of bills sitting on his empty kitchen counter.

I choke out a small laugh; “Yeah, uh, no; thanks though.”

“Why not?”

I look up at him, and he's got this cocky, devilish smirk on his face, his teeth shining white through the dark beard covering his chin. And for maybe the fifth time since finding him, there’s something so familiar about him that strikes me in a funny way but that I just can't place.

“Because I don't want to know what happened to you tonight, but I also know a stab wound when I see one.”

The grin fades from his lips, and he nods at me; “Fair enough.” He clears his throat; “It was a fight; a boxing match.”

“I said I didn't want to know.”

He laughs; “Yeah but you seem like the curious type.”

“Oh, and you figured that out from the full two hours you've known me, half of which you were passed out?”

“I'm good at reading people.”

I cross my arms over my chest, over the fresh tank-top I've changed into;  ”A boxing match doesn't usually involve knives.”

He grins and shrugs; “Some people are bad at losing.”

“So you won?”

He nods at the kitchen counter; “That wad of cash I keep trying to get you to take is twenty five thousand dollars.”

Holy shit.

I shake my head; “You know you could have
died
tonight if I hadn't found you, right? I mean why do this?”

“Eh, it’s just what I do I guess.” He says, leaning back against his headboard. He winces for a second and I can see a red bloom at the bandage on his side.

“Shit, you're bleeding. Hang on, let me change that bandage again.” I move towards the bed and sit on the edge as I bend down to examine him.

“So is that why you fight then? That money?” I nod my head at the kitchen counter.

He laughs dryly; “Not at all, actually.”

“So why then?”

“Let me ask you this, Doc; why did you fix me up tonight?”

I give him a look; “Because it’s what I
do
, I'm a doct-”

“See?” He grins at me.

“Cute,” I say dryly, a grin teasing the corners of my lips.

I look around the empty loft; “Look do you have  anything to eat here? You lost a lot of blood tonight, you should eat something.”

“I have no idea.” He says with a nonchalant shrug.

I raise an eyebrow at him; “You don't
know
if you've got any food here?”

“I dunno, I might?”

“You do
live here
, right?”

“Uh, sort of.” He says awkwardly.

“What's that mean?”

“I mean, yeah, I
sort of
live here. It’s sort of like my hideaway from life.”

I frown at him; “What are you, married or something?”

He barks out a laugh; “Uh, no, darlin; I'm not.”

I find myself smiling at his drawled “darlin’ as I look away, and then I’m wondering why I feel such an immediate spark of excitement hearing that he isn’t married.

I turn back, and he’s slowly closing his eyes; “Hey,
hey!
” I snap in his face and pat his bristled cheek as he opens his eyes and grins at me; “You can’t fall asleep like this.”

“Aww, what’s the matter, Doc, enjoying the conversation too much?” His grin is
just
charming enough to let the cockiness of the comment that would usually dig right under my skin just sort of roll off of me instead.

“No, I mean you probably have a concussion and I really
can’t
let you sleep.”

He nods, and his eyebrow arches suggestively; “Guess we should find a way to keep me up then.”

I’m still sitting right on the edge of his bed, right next to him, and I swallow heavily, my pulse hammering in my chest as I find myself biting my lip and locking eyes with him. There’s a spark there, something familiar, and yet something
wildly
strange, and for whatever reason, it’s drawing me in like a moth to flame.

There’s a final moment, right before my lips touch his - right before I let myself go and right before we both crash together - where I suddenly realize I don’t even know his name.

But of course by then, it’s almost better
not
knowing.