Page 70 of Wicked Player

We’d talked about her brothers. Sports. What she did outside high school or after work for fun. Bowling hadn’t been brought up.

She slid her feet to the floor and put her hands on her hips. With a jaunty wink and zero embarrassment as she stood naked and exposed in front of me, she said, “I can’t have you learning all my secrets quite yet. Where’s the fun in that?”

Little did she know, I was looking forward to the journey of delving into all of them.

* * *

She wasn’t fucking kiddingabout the bowling ball. Or the shoes.

I was throwing a fifteen-pound bowling ball down the wood lane for the hundredth time of the night barely managing to conceal my hard dick and swollen balls.

Good God. This woman knew exactly what she was doing when she showed up at the bowling alley earlier. Her shoes, black and bright pink, striped with white were the most ridiculous shoes I’d ever seen. But she had her own bowling shoes.

Her shirt was a classic bowling shirt with a black collar and hot pink fitted tight to her body. I swore the thing was two sizes too small for her. It made her look tinier than she already was but at the same time, somehow did amazing things to her breasts.

Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail that swished and swayed to the rhythm of her hips.

When she entered the alley, she’d flashed me a wink and a low wave, immediately moving over to the other reporters.

We hadn’t talked about Connor last night. Hell, I hadn’t even brought up what she’d been doing at Velvet. Why he approached her there. His motivation was obvious. I’d heard enough at the gala, but it went against my instinct to keep my eyes off her too long. Especially when it became obvious every time Connor moved closer, she moved away.

She did it smoothly and impressively. She’d catch him in her peripheral vision, say something with a laugh to whoever she was talking to, and then she’d skirt right on to the next person. And most of those people she spoke to were parents.

Cameramen were there, following the actions on the sidelines along with photographers for all the local stations. It wasn’t the time to cause a scene even though every time she caught my eyes on her and her head dipped, acknowledging me, the urge to say fuck it and cause a scene screamed at me.

More than once she offered a comforting squeeze to a parent’s arm. A light and quick hug to a mom on the verge of tears. There were well over a hundred people there tonight. Fans, parents, and players.

We’d been put on teams, intermixed with all and while we did this event every year, this year was my favorite one yet.

Not only because it was packed, but finally, I had a woman with me who I’d be fucking honored to have on my arm in public. She was younger than me, so young I hadn’t even bothered to ask her age but I knew she’d only been working at KSTP (station name?) for five years. If she started working there right out of college that was at max twenty-six.

At thirty-two, we weren’t so far apart our ages would raise eyebrows, but she was still young enough where her grace impressed me.

A slap on the back jolted me. Oliver’s grin told me he’d totally caught me checking her out.

“Shannon likes her,” he said.

“What?” She hadn’t mentioned meeting Shannon at all. And it was just like Powell to not even mention her name. Clearly, I wasn’t hiding my fascination. “What are you talking about?”

“The reporter you’re looking at like you want to throw her into the storage closet and stay there for hours.”

Whatever. Powell was a cocky prick. He was still one of the best tight ends in the league, but we all knew he’d be retiring soon. I wasn’t that many years behind him either which meant the rush and love of the game would soon be in our rearview.

And I hated thinking about the fact there were rumblings this year of it being Powell’s last season.

I grabbed my bottled water from the table and took a hefty gulp. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Powell.”

“Play it that way, but I’m just sayin’ Shannon likes her. Thinks she’s good people and even when you were talking about Miss Hayes the other day something clicked I thought you should know.”

I was still stuck on the fact his wife had met Elizabeth enough times to know anything about her, but the depth of his tone made me pay attention. “What is it?”

“You know her brother. And I’m saying, tread carefully with her. You fuck with her, screw her over in any way and he can ruin you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I caught Elizabeth’s gaze and her eyes widened. Damn. I scrubbed my hand down my face. I was strung tight and glaring at her. I shook my head once and dragged it back to Powell.

“Jaxon Hayes?” Powell’s brows rose. “He’s the dude who helped out Beaux and Paige when he had that stalker fan. Guy’s dark as shit. Runs his own security firm. Any of that ring a bell?”

Last night she spent most of the night talking about Blake and Tanner. She’d mentioned Jaxon in passing, said he worked a lot but the conversation had turned to her sister-in-law’s and it hadn’t registered.