Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Greta

Lord, he’s even more attractive in person.

Deep brown hair, finger brushed. Tan, muscled skin. Stubborn jawline.

Too bad I’ll never get closer than this. Fine, I let him get away with squeezing my hips a few minutes ago. Fine, I loved the hard contours of his chest against my back, how effortlessly he scooped me up off the ground. How he came to my assistance and didn’t ask for proof of my claim. He just stepped in, no questions asked, and joined my side of the battle. I already like way too many things about him and I wish I didn’t. If he was a jerk, that would make blowing him off a lot easier.

I don’t date basketball players. It’s a personal rule and I never, ever break it.

My statement lingers in the air between us, his eyebrows drawing together over shrewd baby blues. Do I know who he is? A pretty funny question, since my father has been dying to sign the Silent Assassin since he entered the league ten years ago. The point guard standing in front of me is already a legend at age twenty-nine, his court awareness unparalleled, his passing precision celebrated by sports journalists and commentators non-stop on ESPN. He’s the universal dude crush of every man in this club—and he doesn’t even seem to realize it. Or even be aware of the people snapping his image on their phones. He’s only looking at me.

“Are you here alone?”

Briefly, I glance past him, watching my friends find glory on the dance floor. “I’m here with some of my classmates. This is more their scene than mine.”

“I can relate. You’re a college student?”

I hum an affirmative response. “Too young for you?”

“I don’t have an age range for women I date, because I don’t. Date. Whatever age you are is the right one.” A muscle ticks in his cheek, his hand gripping the edge of the bar beside me, and shoot, I liked that response way too much. “What is your reason for not dating basketball players?” He leans in to ask the question, his breath stirring the hair resting on my neck. “Maybe it doesn’t apply to me.”

“It applies to all of you, I’m afraid,” I say, accepting my water from the bartender. “Professional athletes are given every little thing they want. Money, cars, women, influence. They get bored with a toy, they buy a new one. I’m not a toy and I never will be.”

Dang it, he’s actually listening to me. Patiently, quietly, like his nickname suggests he would. He’s not just waiting for his turn to speak, he’s taking what I say and processing it, that line of concentration deepening between his brows. “I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying, but—”

“But you’re not like that?” I take a long sip of the icy cold water, set it down. “A lot of women who’ve dated basketball players have heard that line before. I’m going to be smart and learn from them. I’m not going to make the same mistakes.”

For several seconds, he remains silent. Then, “What is your name?”

I hold my hand out for a shake. “Greta Welding. Nice to meet you.”

He slides our palms together, satisfaction making his eyes bluer when I gasp over the jolt of electricity. “Welding. You’re not related to…”

“Your new coach.” We’re still holding hands. I can’t seem to let go. “That’s right. I’m his daughter.”

“Unfortunately for me, huh?” he murmurs, running his thumb in a circle around the inside of my palm, his attention on me rapt. “You might be young, but you’ve been in this environment long enough to see some bad behavior from the players, is that right? Now you’ve lumped me in with everyone who came before.”

“That’s right,” I manage, with far less confidence than before.

Because he’s closer now and he smells like a fistful of mint sprigs, his eyes tracing down the neckline of my tank top with such ownership, my nipples stiffen and a wave of heat travels up the back of my neck.

“It’s not your f-fault, per-se…” Oh lord, I detect a ramble starting. “You’ve been handed everything a man could ever want. Why work for a woman when there are hundreds waiting in the wings?”

“They wouldn’t be you. And I work for everything, no matter how much I’m given.” He drops his mouth to my ear, brushing the sensitive shell with a hint of his lips. “I’d work my ass off for you. Because I’m not stupid enough to think a hundred men aren’t dying to take my place. In fact, it’s more like thousands.”

Despite the water I’m drinking, my mouth is suddenly dry. “I, um…I mean, that’s a really good answer.”

He looks me in the eye. “Not just an answer, Greta. The truth.”

“Just because I haven’t heard…anything, really. About your extracurricular activities off the court…doesn’t mean anything.”

“I ball and I go home.” Before I’m aware of his intentions, Eric wraps an arm around the small of my back, lifts me and settles me onto one of the plush, white leather chairs in front of the bar. “I want you to be there next time,” he rasps, stepping into the V of my legs, letting me feel his thickness against the inside of my thigh, his jaw flexing at the contact.

It’s a struggle to replenish my lungs. “You want me waiting at home like a dutiful toy?”

“No, angel. Waiting at home to get pleasured by your man.”

“Calling yourself my man is seriously jumping the gun.”

He gives me a slow devastating smile, a dimple popping up in his cheek and clenching everything south of my belly button. “By telling me I’m jumping the gun, you’re admitting there’s a chance.”

“No, I’m not,” I protest, breathlessly.

And I’m not.

Eric was right. I’ve been raised in this world. I’ve been allowed way too close to the drama that often surrounds players and their significant others. Way too close. Close enough to be traumatized—and determined to never let that kind of pain and betrayal happen to me. Messy, public divorces. Scandals. Bitter fights. “I don’t date basketball players, Bentley. Deal with it. And by the way, I doubt my father would appreciate your hand on my thigh like that, let alone us…going out.”

He looks down sharply, as if only realizing now that his big hand is sliding into the leg of my shorts, his thumb brushing up and back on the inside, sensitizing me head to toe. Despite being called out on it, though, he continues to touch me, petting the skin high up inside my shorts. Why am I not pushing him away? He’s taking serious liberties and yet, the worshipful way he’s stroking me feels so good. Feels like a promise. The flesh between my thighs is responding with slow, hot clenches that make me ache to cross my legs and squeeze.

“No matter what your last name turned out to be, I’d still be starving for you.”

“S-starving,” I stutter, watching his mouth come closer, hypnotized by the slicking of his tongue across his full lower lip. “That sounds serious.”

“It is serious, angel.” He feathers his mouth over mine. “You don’t date basketball players. Okay. How about kissing? Isn’t that safe enough?”

“Normally I would say yes.”

He chuckles, sending happy little bubbles blowing through my bloodstream. “One kiss, Greta. Then I’m going to ask you out again.” He searches my eyes in that serious, thoughtful way of his. “We’ll see if your mind has changed.”

“It won’t,” I whisper, sounding worried.

Worried for good reason, it turns out.

He launches a sensual attack against me, dragging me by the sides of my shorts to the edge of the seat and licking into my mouth. It’s so swift and blatant, I gasp, allowing him to sink deeper. To plant his sex directly on top of mine and lean, lean hard, creating plumes of light behind my eyes, eliciting the desire for more.

For friction.

But all he does is press and press that big shaft—right there—sliding his hands under my backside to knead, keep me steady, his chiseled mouth punishing mine like a wayward child, giving me strokes of his tongue, smooth nudges of his lips, our heads angling right, then left. Until I’m off the stool and being carried somewhere. Backwards several steps before my back hits a wall.

I make an impatient, strangled sound and wrap my legs around his hips, demanding more without words. With a groan, he obliges, crashing his mouth down over mine, our tongues winding together, his hips beginning to hump me against the wall. That first thrust sets off a warning flare in my mind and I break away, sucking oxygen into my lungs, frantically taking stock of my surroundings. We’re in a deserted back room, reserved for parties, maybe? How did he do this? How did he cause me to completely forget my rules?

To forget that I’ve never even been with a man before?

Because the way things are going, he’s about to have me—all of me—in this club. And if I don’t find a way to break the spell, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. “Stop,” I say huskily. “S-stop. I…”

“Angel.” His hips pump twice. Hard. Pinning me roughly to the wall and grinding, turning my legs to jelly. “Let me. Let me.”

“I can’t.” It comes back to me, the reason I let him kiss me in the first place and the memory gives me the impetus to disengage from him, though he doesn’t like letting me go, not at all, his nostrils flaring ominously. I slide out from between Eric and the wall, righting my clothing with shaky hands. “I haven’t changed my mind.” Even as I say those words, my body is like, are you sure? Minds change! We like him down here! “Look…look at you, trying to sleep with me in a nightclub, ten minutes after we met. If that doesn’t prove you’re just another athlete used to getting anything he wants, nothing will.”

“I got carried away,” he pants, plowing all ten fingers through his hair, coming toward me. “Fuck, the way you taste, Greta. I need more of it. Please.”

“No.” Doesn’t matter that I want to. Doesn’t matter than I ache everywhere. Or that I’m rocked by the gritty sincerity in his tone. I’ve made myself a promise and I’m not going to break it, especially so quickly. There are good reasons that at twenty-one, I’ve trusted not a single man with my heart or body. I’m definitely not taking a chance on this basketball god who can have the world at his feet with a snap of his fingers. “It’s been nice knowing you.”

His fingers flex at his sides. “I lost my head. That…that never happens and I apologize. Come home with me. Give me the chance to do this right.”

I really come close to caving—and that scares me. After everything I’ve witnessed, after what I’ve been subjected to at the hands of my father, I should not be giving this man the time of day, yet I have to force out the words, “I’m not interested, Eric.”

He rakes his eyes over me. “Those stiff little nipples make you a liar.”

Flames steal up my cheeks. “I’m leaving. Good night.”

I turn on the toe of my sneaker and power walk toward the main club floor, but Eric—once again living up to his nickname as the Silent Assassin, blocks my exit before I even hear him move, his mouth moving in my hair. “You really think this is the last time we’ll meet, angel?”

It’s clear he believes the opposite.

“I don’t know,” I whisper, honestly, forcing myself not to lean into him.

“I’ll be seeing you real soon, Greta.”

I escape by the skin of my teeth, his promise ringing in my head all night.