RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) (48 page)

I can’t help but laugh. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“
I’ll be sure to write a full report.”

“
Will you give me another go?”

“
That is something I’ll have to think very carefully about.”

“
Your dad might have something to say.”

Penny’s eyes drop for a moment. “That was a bit irresponsible.”

“
He doesn’t trust me.”

“
I don’t blame him.”

“
Hey, you were the one who invited me here.”

“
Like you didn’t want to come.”

“
Is that the way you’re going to reward me after every match?”

“
I’ll have to think about that too.”

“
How hard did you think about it this time?”

“
Don’t flatter yourself. I was only going to give you a lift home.”

“
Couldn’t resist, huh?”

“
What can I say, I like a big dick.”

“
And here I was thinking you wanted me for my personality.”

“
Come on Jasper, let’s be honest. That’s not exactly your best quality. I’ve heard your jokes.”

“
Then I guess we better fuck more and speak less.”

“
I wouldn’t want to spoil you.”

“
No, of course, save that for when I really deserve it.”

Penny twists to the side and I snuggle my way into her.

“
Five minutes.”

“
Until what?”

“
Until you have to leave.”

“
Why?”

“
Because you shouldn’t even be here.”

“
Shouldn’t is what makes this fun.”

“
No, shouldn’t is what makes this dangerous and I don’t know if i want to go down that route.”

“
Maybe it’s already too late for that.”

“
That’s not how this is going to work.”

“
How is this going to work?”

“
I don’t know, but dangerously is not one of them.”

“
Alright, five minutes.”

“
Five minutes.”

I pull her into me.

“
Even if you change your mind and want it again, in five minutes I’m leaving.”

“
If I change my mind and want it again, you won’t be able to resist me.”

“
We’ll see.”

“
Four minutes and thirty seconds. I hope you know how you’re getting home.”

“
I’ll work something out.”

“
Impulsive.”

“
Spontaneous.”

“
Hard.”

“
Always.”

“
This could get complicated.”

“
Then let’s not let it.”

“
We might have already missed our chance.”

“
We’ll see.”

“
Adaptable as well.”

“
I’m a man of many talents.”

“
Not just a big dick.”

“
Hey, I’m a football player now too.”

Penny laughs. “Come on, let’s make the most of these four minutes while they last. You might regret it when they’re gone.”

They are the same seconds, the same minutes, the same hours every day that passes. How is it then, that some minutes seem like a lifetime while others pass by in the blink of an eye? These ones I want to last forever, but they’re gone way before I’m even halfway ready to go.

Nine.

Penny

I’m still dazed. I’m mad at myself for not having been about to resist him, for shouting my intention across the Moxlin Tigers parking lot in earshot of my dad, for letting myself get involved with another man, another player, another alpha male, bad boy when the last one is still so evident all over this apartment. I was going to marry Topher, now I’ve fucked the guy he throws the ball to. I shouldn’t feel bad about it, Topher lied to me, he cheated on me repeatedly, he broke my trust and he fucked me over, but I didn’t want complicated, and complicated is what this is going to be.

Especially because he was such a good fuck. I haven’t come like that in years. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever come like that. Sex wasn’t Topher’s best subject, and having someone who knows what they are doing, like the kind of things Jasper did to me, you kind of notice the difference.

My pussy’s still aching. It’s aching because he fucked me so hard and deep and it’s aching because it wants more. I guess I kind of asked for that. Hard and deep was kind of on the cards from the moment I walked up to him in the parking lot, or the airport, or when the first idea of bringing him over here actually came to me.

The trick now is to handle it. Handle the desire, handle him if I can’t. Handle the fallout from my father, from Topher when he inevitably finds out. Handle working with him, watching him train, him watching me watching, and both of us wanting what we know we probably shouldn’t allow ourselves.

One week. It was one week after I kicked Topher out. Three games into the season and I’m fucking the bad boy brit here on a one year contract. I must be out of my mind. This is the man that doesn’t stay with a girl for more than a couple of nights. This is the guy that woke up in someone else’s house two weeks ago, he can’t even remember the name of. Is he going to do that if I deny him what he wants from me? Am I going to be able to protect myself if he does? Those kind of stories spread like wildfire if you don’t need to keep them quiet, and Jasper isn’t exactly the modest type. If I give in to him again, that means we just get closer, the relationship gets deeper, and I risk getting hurt all over again.

One boyfriend and the fucker cheats on me. If that happens again with Jasper, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to put myself back together again. When Topher cheated on me the first time, and he’d given me his stupid fucking excuses for doing so, I forgave him, and then I went to see a therapist. Less than six months later he did the same, this time with a prostitute after a game in Kansas. That one was all over the papers and I became the laughing stock of a team that couldn’t keep the headlines away. I don’t know how many others there were in between, but that initial run of six weeks of therapy turned into a whole year of trying to make this right. I thought he’d changed, but then again, I thought I was in love. It’s incredible how different things are in real life to the perspective you think you have on them. I’m an idealistic, romantic kind of girl. I’m independent, but I’m sensitive too. I know I’m pretty inexperienced when it comes to men, but that doesn’t mean that being cheated on doesn’t hurt. Love shouldn’t hurt, but with Topher it did. He showed me just what he thought of me every time he stepped out with another girl and I’m the idiot for sticking around for so long to let him. That’s why I have no interest at all in letting it happen again. That’s why fucking Jasper is such a bad idea. Why fucking him in the first place is the second most stupid thing I’ve done.

I’m angry with myself, but there’s nothing that can be done now. I just need to do what I’m doing at the moment. Avoid him at all costs. Actually, I’m avoiding Moxlin Tigers at all costs. I’m officially sick and unofficially in hiding until this whole thing settles down, blows over or blows up again in my face because I let it beat me. And believe me, I don’t let things beat me often.

I know feelings for a person don’t go away quickly, I mean, it’s taken a year or more with Topher and it’s still going to take a while longer to detach myself completely from him, so I don’t expect this is going to be easy, especially because I can’t stay hidden for all that long, but I’m going to try as hard as I can to do two things. I know I don’t love Topher anymore. I knew that before Jasper and I even fucked. If I’m honest with myself, truly one hundred percent honest, I knew that after the first time it happened, it’s just taken until the third, fourth or hundredth time for me to really accept it, so the first thing I’m going to do is make sure he knows there is no way we are getting back together. The second thing I’m going to do is work on myself for a while. With Topher and the Tigers, and all the shit with Dad and getting the team winning again, I’ve lost the sense of my own identity. I need to begin to put myself first and think about everything else afterwards. And I don’t mean that in a selfish way, I mean it and a way that everyone else does. There are happy, stable, well balanced people all over this world that treat themselves as though others should treat them and that’s what I need to do for myself. When I’ve got that, and I’m thinking more clearly, and I’ve given myself space and I know I can enjoy what there is to offer without losing myself again, maybe things will begin to work themselves out into the way they should without me getting hurt.

If that includes Jasper, so be it. If it doesn’t, for whatever reason, then I’m going to be in a better place to accept it. Our friendship, relationship, whatever you want to call it is a month old. I’ve got food in my fridge I’ve had for longer than that so as much as being around him excites me, drives me wild, pushes me to do things I’ve never done before in my life - hello freedom! - I need to be aware of that. I don’t really know him that well, alright, I didn’t know Topher that well either after a three year working and personal relationship, but at least I knew he was planning to stick around. Jasper is English. He loves his country, his culture, his sport. He’s only here because he has to be, and there is no way if he wants to ever return to the life he left behind he’ll allow himself to get too involved. Jasper doesn’t get involved. I know that about him too. He does this. He does what I’ve let him do. He finds girls that he likes, pretty ones usually, gives them the night of their lives and then ducks out when things start getting too emotional. He was all over me as soon as he arrived, about as clear with his intentions from the get go as chalk filtered water from a mountain spring, and I expect I wasn’t the only one to receive his attention.

I expect he usually gets the message too, even if he isn’t the first to drive it home, which is why it’s weird he’s been trying to call me. The Jasper of the English newspapers and VT clips would not be seen to chase up a girl after that very first fuck. That would be embarrassing. That would show weakness, or interest, or lack of emotional control. That’s the job for the girl, to which Jasper might or might not return, depending on whether he’s moved on to the next one already or not, yet twice this week Jasper has been on the phone to see if I’m alright, and once he’s come over to the house, dropped down on to his knees and called at me through the cat flap.

Maybe it’s just because he’s genuinely concerned, maybe he feels like he has unfinished business with me, maybe Topher or my dad have sent him here and maybe, just maybe, he hasn’t moved on to the next just yet.

I’m going to have to face him at some point. It’s not that I don’t want to, I just need to make sure I’m ready. The man makes me weak at the knees. Just looking at his bulging biceps makes my stomach flutter and knowing what he’s packing down there, the form of which is impossible to hide even in the baggiest of jeans, makes my pussy physically throb.

Maybe I’m just lying to myself and trying to avoid the inevitable. Maybe I just know that when I see him again, everything will fall into place, and I’ll be unable to resist him. I always wanted to fuck Topher in the locker room but he wouldn’t allow it. Something about mixing sport and sex wasn’t something he felt like he could get along with. I know for a fact that Jasper would not have the same problem. He was caught once, literally with his pants down, fucking the cleaner across his manager’s table, an incident that resulted in a two month salary fine and a three week ban. The story was all over the paper, one of which ran a mock up with someone else’s ass and Jasper’s smiling face crudely photoshopped over the top. We could fuck in the locker room, my father’s office, late night in the middle of the field, against the goal posts, on the ten yard line, chalk dusting up his ass.

But I know I shouldn’t. Shouldn’t is dangerous. Shouldn’t gets everyone into trouble. Jasper hasn’t been the only one phoning either. Topher’s been calling even though I haven’t picked up, sending message after message of apology, even sending flowers, hundreds of them, all of which I’ve gratefully accepted but won’t let sway me.

He can send as many presents as he wants, there is no way in the world I’m going back to him. Hell will freeze over before that happens. I’d say Tigers would win the superbowl, but I don’t want to jinx them not doing it. Every day that passes without him I feel happier and stronger. I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted off my shoulders, a weight that I’ve been carrying around for far too long.

His things are still here, and when the right moment arises, I’ll tell him to come along and pick them up, but until then, I’m happy just to keep him begging. I have to see him at some point, like I have to see Jasper, but at least with Topher, I know exactly where our relationship will go from here. With Jasper, I’m just not as sure how I’ll react when our paths cross.