Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance) (6 page)

I wonder if Dee is right about him. He's different from everyone else. Many boys on campus look at my chest or my backside or my legs. Many of the professors too. He looks at my eyes.

Right into my eyes.

Anastasia, you fool, it can never happen. He will bring you only pain.

My only husband is duty. I grasp
The Great Gatsby
. At least, I grasp my copy. I feel like I will never grasp the story.

I roll on my back and crack it open to the page where I left off, flick back to where I actually started, and begin to read.

This is hopeless. I'll never grasp this. My eyes burn, then the world begins to blur. I feel something warm on my cheek. It's a tear, I realize.

I grapple with the damned book all night. I read a page, then read it again, aloud, stopping to repeat the meaning of each paragraph to myself before I move on. It takes hours, and it's well past midnight before I give up without reaching the full length of the assigned pages. I stick dog-ear the page where I left off and rest the book on my nightstand.

I turn off the lights and I close my eyes, but it would be a gross exaggeration to call what happens next sleeping. Hours and hours I lie there in the dark, eyes pressed tightly shut, willing sleep to come. My head feels more and more like wet sand with every passing tick of the clock.

Finally at some point I manage to drift off into a light, restless sleep only to jerk awake when my alarm clock goes off. I resist my desire to open the window and toss it out onto the back porch, and get up.

My morning routine begins with a run. I dress in leggings and a sweatshirt—not Jason's, one that fits me. I lace up my running shoes, grab a squeeze bottle of water from the refrigerator, and start out the door.

My two bodyguards, Thorlief and Bjorn, are right on me, scowling. They dare not reproach my royal self, but I can tell they received a tongue lashing from Mother over my latest escape. I feel a pang of guilt thinking about that, and what she'll do if she learns of Saturday night's outing.

I put that out of my head, and I run.

Since I was a little girl, running has been my relief. The exertion squeezes every other thought out of my head, every stride pushing me deeper into a moving meditation, my focus narrowing to my form and speed.

"On your left," a voice yells.

I swing to the right of the sidewalk, expecting a cyclist to pass me. Instead, Jason Powell lopes around Thorlief and holds pace with me.

"Morning, gorgeous," he says and blows me a kiss.

"You," Thorlief bellows, "keep your distance from the princess!"

"What if I don't?"

"Don't test us," Bjorn growls.

"You'll have to catch me first," he yells before he leans into a sprint and bolts away from me so fast I'd have to struggle to keep up.

I normally pace myself for the benefit of my guards, who must run in dress trousers and button-down shirts. They would be in full suits if I did not insist they dress down to follow me on my exercise.

Gritting my teeth, I cant forward and run full tilt, my entire existence focused on passing Jason Powell. I stare at his back as if I could sink anchors into his bones and drag him behind me. I go all out, whipping my arms forward and back, my teeth bared, a mask of concentration.

He wasn't challenging the guards, he was challenging me. He won't win.

He holds his pace, and I slowly begin to overtake him, my thighs burning from running so hard. Faster, faster, faster.

Just as I finally begin to catch up to him, something hooks my right foot and I go flying. I see the ground rushing up to meet me and know this is going to be bad.

It was going to be bad. Jason grabs me around the waist and tumbles into the grass along the sidewalk. He slides a good six feet with me on top of him. I sit up, astonished, and two things spring to mind.

One, I'm straddling him.

Two, his hands are on my breasts.

He jerks them away as though from a hot iron, not that it matters. He got a good feel. I slap him, hard, across the face.

"Ow! Is that any way to thank me?"

"I wouldn't have fallen if not for you."

"You fell because you weren't looking where you were going."

"I fell because you distracted me."

"Because you can't keep your eyes off me. Make love to me."

"You," Thorlief bellows, "unhand the princess!"

Jason puts his hands up—or rather down, resting the backs of his palms on the grass as he lies spread-eagled under me.

"Don't tase me!"

"Leave him alone," I snap at Thorlief. Bjorn strides up a moment later, panting.

I realize I'm still sitting on Jason. Straddling him, rather.

Also, his cock is as hard as a rock, and if it weren't for my tights getting in the way, we would be much more intimately acquainted.

"Sorry, baby. It's natural."

I push hard on his chest to steady myself as I stand up. I mean to hurt him, but all it does is make him laugh. It also grinds his cock against my body and sends a shiver of arousal up my spine.

When I'm on my feet, still standing over him, he looks up.

"You can just stand there all day, I'm fine with it."

"I told you to forget about me."

The guards exchange puzzled looks.

"Can a starving man forget the sweet succor of sustenance? Could he ever let go of the cool touch of a strawberry on his lips, the taste of cream in his mouth?" He sits up. "How could I forget you?"

I dart back, away from him, and give him a hard look.

Jason springs to his feet.

"Damn, now I'm hungry. So, how about breakfast?"

Thorlief steps between us and gives Jason a sharp shove to the chest, one handed. This one does move him. He glares at my bodyguard.

"Enough," I say, warning in my voice. "He meant no harm. This is the end of it."

"No it isn't," Jason insists.

"Yes it is," I say and start to turn away.

"I know a place that serves Spam!" he calls after me.

I ignore him.

"You're beautiful!"

I ignore him.

"I'm not going to forget about you, Princess."

"You should," I say, bitterly and too softly for him to hear me.

J
ason

W
atching Anastasia walk away
in those tights doesn't do anything to quell the raging erection I'm now sporting. Sweatpants were a good idea today. If I was wearing jeans I'd probably pass out from the loss of circulation in my head.

For a second there I experienced pure bliss. She had her arms and legs wrapped tightly around me, her perfect, soft breasts resting on my chest, those big eyes of hers wide with shock, and then with something more. She gave me a little grind on my dick there before she got up, I could feel it.

God, she's beautiful. No, ethereal. She's a walking storm cloud, a vision, a living mirage. I grin stupidly as I strut down the sidewalk until she's out of sight, and my shoulders slump.

Damn it, Jason.

I need to get my head in the proverbial game. Also, the actual game. There will be another game next Saturday, and I don't have time to think about princesses while I'm studying and training.

I still think about the princess for the rest of my trip up to the fourth floor of the building on the old campus that houses the history department. My academic advisor sent me an email last night, asking me to meet with her this morning on my way to class. I'm pretty sure I know what this is about.

Her office is on the very top floor. It smells like ammonia and cigarettes, though no one has smoked up here for about thirty-five years. Dr. Grandolf's office is at the far end of the hall, tucked in the corner.

When you picture Dr. Grandolf, professor of history and instructor of American Studies, you probably won't envisage the person I'm about to meet. That name conjures up a gray-bearded man with small glasses and a big pipe and tweed jacket, probably sitting in an overstuffed chair with volume seven of
The Annals of America
resting on his lap.

Dr. Grandolf is thirty-seven years old, though she looks like she's in her midtwenties from her exhausting workout regimen and vegan diet. She favors black blazers, and skirts and blouses that are either tight enough or open enough to show off what God gave her, which is a lot.

When I knock on her open door and step inside, she's sitting on the corner of her expansive desk, legs crossed, tight pencil skirt hiked up high over her knees. With her glossy, raven hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and horn-rimmed glasses, she looks like the runner-up in the Most Fuckable Librarian Pageant.

She smiles warmly at me and gestures for me to sit down in one of the guest chairs as she takes a seat behind her desk and hikes herself up to her computer.

Her coquettish desk-sitting and booby-bouncy computer-using get as much rise out of me as they would out of a block of wood. It's like I see right through her.

"Good morning, Jace. How are you?"

"Bruised," I sigh.

"Your ego, or your body?"

"Both."

"Oh, you poor boy. You should get a rubdown. I'm sure all the girls are lining up around the block to get their hands on you."

I sigh again. I got tired of this game in my first year. I never told her I wasn't interested, mostly because all my other options for an advisor are worse. She at least listens to me. I couldn't get anyone else to sign off on my changing my major from education to history and literature—a double course load that will keep me in college for an extra year.

"So what's up?"

"I've been looking over your grades." She makes a little tsk-tsk sound. "You're pulling a seventy-four average for your math course for this semester. Geometry."

"I'll pull it up."

"I talked to your coach," she says, a little purr in her voice. "This is a big deal, Jason. You can't just blow it off and say you'll bring your grade up. You also flunked your first media aesthetics exam. I went over the syllabus with the instructor, and it's pretty clear you need to pull at least a B+ on the rest of the tests or you're not going to pass that class either. Those two could drag your average down enough to get your football scholarship pulled."

I grunt. "I said I'll bring them up."

"I believe you'll try, but I want to be sure. We both know how important that scholarship is, Jason. I'd hate to lose you. You've been one of my best students. I feel like we have a connection."

Actually, I try to avoid her classes lately, but I'm not telling her that.

"What if I got a tutor? Would that help?"

She smiles a wolfish smile, toying with a pencil in her hands. Stroking it a little with her thumb and forefinger.

"I could help you. Just an informal study session. I have a gift for math, you know. Geometry is my jam."

I almost feel sorry for her. Her wedding band reminds me that I feel a little sorrier for her husband, especially since I hear rumors that she doesn't discriminate in choosing students to flatter with her feminine charms, and more than one has taken her up on it.

"I know it's very hard," she says, "but we can handle it together. I'm a tough tutor. I'll ride you hard, and when you're finished you'll be drained, but trust me, you'll be satisfied. I'll help you with cylinders and you'll be able to grasp spheres, and then you can calculate the hypotenuse of a triangle all over my face."

"What?"

She blinks. "What did I say?"

"A triangle on your face?"

"No I didn't. I think this Thursday would work. We can make it a regular thing. We'll meet up at a restaurant, chat, study, I'll buy you dinner, then maybe we can swing by my place for dessert. My husband works Thursday nights, so he won't get in the way."

"Uh, thanks, but I have practice on Thursdays. Listen, I'll find a tutor. If I can't grab somebody from class, the Academic Assistance Office can set me up with somebody."

"Oh pishposh. They'll drop some sophomore tart in your lap that will spend your whole study session staring at your crotch. I'm a woman; I know how to handle a guy like you."

"Um," I say.

"I mean tutor a guy like you. In math."

"Right, I'll be going now."

I stand, give her a nod, and shoulder my bag. I stride confidently out of her office and avoid breaking into a run until I'm well of sight and earshot.

My first class is, unfortunately, with her, so I don't have much of a reprieve. I hurry down to the lecture hall anyway, hoping I can avoid her, and see Ana.

She's in the same class. Because I took my first two semesters as an education major, I have to take a bunch of freshman classes sprinkled throughout my remaining years of study. This is one of those, a two hundred level course in American history.

Anastasia is already seated in the front row.

The little half desk on her seat is unfolded, and she has her laptop on it and open, the cursor blinking on an empty page. I crane forward to look at her.

Then I look back and see her two-man goon squad staring me down. I give the big one a wave. Each is big enough to play a heavy defense position. The bigger of the two has a bit of a belly and has gray peppered through his blond hair and beard, and generally looks like he eats rocks and shits diamonds. The other one is pretty much the same except younger and clean-shaven.

They could probably fold me up and stuff me in a suitcase if they felt like it.

Not that it keeps me from looking longingly at Ana. I rip a piece of paper from my notebook, peel off the little hangly things along the torn edge, and scrawl a note on it.

T
o
: The most beautiful princess on campus

F
rom
: The biggest dick on campus

T
ext me
. Here’s my number.

N
eatly and carefully
, I fold it into a paper airplane, then knock my arm back and throw it down at Ana before her goons can jump me.

The paper airplane sails down the stadium rows, lofting in a graceful arc.

Then the point sticks in her hair. Anastasia sputters and snatches it, almost ripping it as she spreads it open.

Her guards are already stomping toward me.

"Leave him alone," she says, her sweet voice ringing crystal clear across the lecture hall.

They look at each other and step back.

Anastasia reads the note, looks at me, and then crumples it in both hands, mashing it into a tiny ball so tight I swear if she choked it any harder, it would turn into a rock. Then she casually tosses it into the wastebasket next to the lectern.

"Three points," I yell.

"Leave me alone," she shouts back.

"You're too beautiful to be alone. Marry me."

Ana scowls and turns around, pointedly ignoring me.

"Boy," Giganto Guard Number One warns.

"I'm not your boy, Ragnar," I tell him, then sit back in my seat.

More students file in, filling the hall. Grandolf arrives two minutes after the official start of class, and half the male students watch her prodigious endowments bounce as she walks down the steps on ridiculous spike pumps. The other half crane their heads to watch her hips sway from side to side.

She drops her briefcase on the table and looks around with a grin, but it flickers a bit when her gaze passes over Princess Anastasia.

Did I imagine that?

Her TAs, who are coincidentally all male and fit, run up and down the lecture hall distributing papers. I'm one of the history majors, so they know me by sight. I look over my assignment, see the A+, and I am completely unsurprised. It's junior varsity crap, review questions from the textbook so all the non-majors taking the class as a requirement can pass. I've already studied this in more depth in more advanced courses.

Anastasia happens to catch my eye.

Okay, I'm staring at her.

She holds her paper in trembling hands. The same assignment I did. No plus, no minus. An F is just an F. There is no qualifier.

It's hard to see from four rows up, but a little wet spot appears on her paper, then another. Then it's sealed when she balls up her sleeve in her hand and dabs at her eyes.

She's crying. She's fucking
crying
.

Oh no, that will not do. That will not do at all.

Grandolf turns to address the class. Or rather, face the class. She's watching Ana, and I see that faint hint of a wolf grin on her lips. Not the "I want Jason's cock" wolf grin, the other one. The mean, nasty one she gets because she enjoys humiliating students.

That's kind of her thing. Guy? Potential moustache ride. Girl? Especially a young, pretty one? Grandolf probably fingers herself when she flunks them. Ana would be a prime target.

I grit my teeth and clench my fists.

While Grandolf grumbles to herself about the overhead projector, I bag up my shit and walk down to the front row, then down to where Ana sits.

"Hey," I say in a soft voice. "There's a couple empty seats in the sixth row. Come sit with me."

She looks up with red eyes, her face an icy mask. "I'm fine where I am."

"Come on. Please?"

She seems a little shocked to hear me use the magic word. She blinks, and makes a half turn, without actually looking at the Viking Twins.

"Look, I didn't ask you to go to a hotel room with me. It's over there." I point at the empty seats. "Follow me if you want."

I turn, and, like Orpheus leading Eurydice out of hell, I dare not look back. I don't have to. I smell a cool, wintery berry scent and know Ana is following me to sit beside me, joining me as I sit. She takes a moment to arrange her stuff in silence.

"If we're done playing musical chairs"—Grandolf scowls—"might I begin my lecture? We have a lot to cover today. We'll be looking at the roots of the Spanish-American War."

Ana starts to type.

I assume it's notes, but then notice she’s typing in caps.

W
HAT DO
YOU WANT

I
slink
down in the seat. I murmur, "I can help you. Let me ask you something. Are you any good at math?"

"Yes," she murmurs.

"Like, geometry?"

"Perfect score."

I slip out my last assignment and hold up the grade so she can see it. Her eyes widen a little.

"I'm a history major," I whisper, barely mouthing the words. "What do you major in, anyway?"

Her voice is very small and soft. "Business."

"Excuse me," Grandolf cuts in from fifty feet away. "Miss DeVries."

Ana bristles as Grandolf addresses her without her royal style. She swallows, hard. Her throat bobs. She glances at me as if begging for help.

Oh that is it. That is just it. I'm starting to get mad.

Calm down, Jason. Don't tilt at this windmill.

I take a deep breath.

Grandolf hides neither her contempt nor her malice with her expression. She stands, one foot out, like a conquering general, hands on her hips, chest out, chin tipped back.

"Tell us, what role did William Randolph Hearst play in the buildup to the war?"

Ana clears her throat, and I brace myself.

Her voice is clear and high. "Hearst used his newspaper network to spread propaganda that the sinking of the
USS Maine
in Havana Harbor was Spanish sabotage. Most historians today agree it was an accident and the Spanish were blameless. Hearst instigated the war to benefit his partnerships with—"

"Yes indeed," Grandolf snaps, annoyed. "If only you were so eloquent in your assignments. As I was saying, Hearst's business connections allowed him to profit from his manipulations of public opinion through leading and biased news stories, which today we refer to as 'yellow journalism'…."

Ana fumes in her seat, bending the top of her textbook in tight fingers. I touch her arm, just above her wrist. The skinny muscles under my fingers are as tight as steel cables.

"Hey," I murmur. "Hey, calm down."

Ana's fury melts into something else, and he lip trembles. She scrubs at her wet eyes.

"I want to leave," she says softly.

"No, that's letting her win. Stay right where you are."

I squeeze her hand, then quickly let go. Her fingers touch my palm for a moment.