Page 93 of Cocky Player

My gaze in the mirror’s reflection slid to him in my doorway.My jaw dropped and my hand shook, making it difficult to put the back of the earring on.“You are…wow…”

I saw him in suits every weekend he left for the stadium or for the airport to catch his plane for an away game.His beauty hadn’t diminished at all and over the months he only grew more attractive, not only his body.But the more I spent time with him, the further in love I fell.

Connor might have been bossy and cocky and arrogant when we first met but I now knew that was only a skin-deep facade he portrayed to keep people out of his personal business.But once he let me in, all the walls crumbled and I came to know and love the core of him.His protectiveness, his strength in body, mind and spirit.His love for me knew no bounds.He’d become my greatest encourager.My fiercest protector.

Connor was the love of my life, and one I would kill to keep in my life forever.

Turned out, trusting him to be the man I needed was as easy as breathing.Loving him was the most natural thing in the world.He felt the same way about me because he told me daily, through his words and his actions.

Months ago, I’d walked in fear, and Connor spent every day, every moment together, showing me how absolutely unnecessary my fear had been.

At first, we took several steps back.We spent time with my family.Dinners with friends.Slowly, we went out in groups.Quiet parks and movies and all the places people who dated hung out and then we spent time alone.Some days I felt ridiculous at how slow we moved.It was weeks after our reconciliation, after I returned the words he wanted to hear so badly we were intimate again.

And even then, we moved slower.I hadn’t been certain the physical had rushed me forward into a spot where my last blackout was the reason, but Connor wasn’t going to risk it.

It had worried me at first and when I told him, he laughed in my face, kissed me harshly and wrapped me in a hug.“I want you every damn moment of the day, but we’re doing this my way.Slowly.Safely.I want to earn your trust before we go there, prove to you I love you as much as my words say.We’ll have the rest of forever to be wrapped in each other physically, so stop worrying.”

And that was that.We took everything step by step and I think his crazy schedule with the season starting and the team playingincrediblehelped.

We were both busy.I worked on carving out a social life and group for myself.I took him to a therapy appointment he insisted on attending.

He came to family dinners when he could which were changed to Monday nights on home game weekends only during the season.

We spent Thanksgiving in a cozy cabin in the mountains, the two of us secluded and made love until he had to get home to prepare for Sunday’s game.We shared Christmas morning together and then the afternoon with my family.The night screaming at the television watching college football bowl games.

We rang in the New Year privately, turning in early for an away game to Kansas City he had to fly out to the next day.

And then I celebrated with him on the field of the Miami Gardens Stadium the night they won the Super Bowl again.Confetti falling, screams making the field vibrate from the noise level.My mom and family around me.Connor never out of touch.The experiences we shared together, the situations we found ourselves in, I’d only had one episode during some random fireworks over St.Patrick’s Day.But even that wasn’t bad.Lasted minutes and when I came to, it was Connor I curled into and embraced.

Somewhere along the way, he’d become myhome.

And I was happy.So damn stinking happy that as the memories flooded me, I turned to Connor and winked.“Do we have to go out for dinner?”

I trailed a finger down the buttons of his dress shirt and tugged on his tie.

“Yeah.”His hand wrapped around mine and he kissed my fingertip.“We have reservations and I have a surprise for you.”

“More surprises?”

He surprised me so often with gifts and a trip right after the season to Jamaica that my life with Connor was really one large surprise and yet stable and safe at the same time.I was far past questioning how that worked, it did, and that was the only important thing.

“All right then,” I pouted and picked up my blue clutch from my bed.“I’m ready.”

Gina and Brandon were curled on the couch as we left.“See you later,” she called out and it was hard to see her around all the packed boxes.I was moving out next week and I was slowly packing all of my things.

It was the end of an era of Gina and me together, but it was time to move on and grow.Brandon was moving in, although his clothes and he himself were already there.They were just waiting for me to finish packing so my room could become their office for Gina’s studying and Brandon’s tattoo artwork.

They were as different as Connor and me.I supposed opposites definitely did attract.

We walked into the high-end steakhouse and wine bar in downtown Raleigh hand in hand and were immediately sat at a table near a wood-burning fireplace.I grew up in a family with money, so exorbitance and decadence wasn’t anything new in my life, but it still surprised me the way Connor threw around his money when we went out.The best restaurants.The quietest tables.

Sometimes he rented out entire restaurants for us alone.

We sat down and our waiter was at our table almost immediately.He was close to our age, tall and lean with perfect done and gelled blonde hair but it wasn’t his face or his body that grabbed my attention, it was the bucket of ice and champagne he held in his hands.

“Good evening, Mr.Quinten,” he greeted us and turned to me.“Miss.We hope you enjoy your evening with us tonight.”

Connor wasn’t nearly as surprised as I was when the waiter popped the cork of the Dom Perignon.I realized.He was full of surprises but this was over the top even for him.

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