Page 43 of Broken Play
Oh, sweet mother of God.
Panic launches me straight out of bed. "Get up. Get up!" I hiss, shaking his bare, muscular shoulder as his eyes open in confusion.
"You want round two standing up? Give me a minute." He blinks at me, groggy, smug, and gorgeous all at the same time. All I can think about is bolting, but to where?
"Your brother is on his way here," I whisper-shout, frantically searching the room for my clothes. All I see is my whiteunderwear and my pants. I quickly put them on, and the urgency of the situation finally registers with Greyson. He jumps out of bed and throws me a T-shirt from his dresser drawer.
He yanks on gym shorts and a tee so fast it's a blur—he's dressed in under twenty seconds, sliding his feet into sandals on the fly. Grabbing my hand, he hustles me down the stairs, then dives for my bra, snatching it up and holding it triumphantly like a prize.
"Seriously, get me out of here. Unless you want your brother to deliver us a game-day speech with my bra in your hands." I glare for half a second and yank it from him.
We glance around the rumpled room looking for discarded clothing, and only Greyson's pants and shirt are visible. He leaves them, grabs his keys from the kitchen counter, and we jump into his truck.
Now it's his phone that buzzes.
J.D.: Hey, I'm bringing breakfast. Five minutes away.
"Shit."
"We're so busted."
"I'll drive out the back way. He doesn't know about it yet."
It's a race against time as Greyson peels out, drives around the back of the house, and cuts through a large pasture until we turn onto a gravel road lined with trees.
"You can breathe now. We won't pass him," he says, flashing me a devil-may-care grin that's both adorable and infuriating.
"Do you think this is funny?"
He shrugs. "It's notnotfunny. I mean, we're adults, butwe're scrambling around like a couple of teenagers afraid their parents are about to catch them." He pauses, that maddening smirk still on his face.
"Have you forgotten that you're a player on my dad's team and that I'm your boss? It's against the rules." I glare at Greyson, wishing he would take this seriously.
"Rules are made to be broken."
"Oh, really?" I'm not sure if I'm asking anything or just making a statement. It's hard to argue with his bedhead and his scruffy face.
"Listen, I get it. You don't want anyone to know you slept with the QB, but it's more than that for me. If it's more than that for you, let's just tell J.D. and your dad, then we'll tell Human Resources, and I won't sue you for sexual harassment." Greyson winks, giving me a look that shows he's enjoying this way too much.
His phone buzzes again.
J.D.: Where are you?
Greyson turns his phone over, ignoring it.
"Aren't you going to make up something?"
"No, he's been my best friend my whole life. He may know me better than I do. It'll take him longer to figure it out if I don't give him any clues. He'll go into the house and see I've been home. He'll check with Dad, Noelle, and maybe Witt first. It'll buy me some time." He makes a sharp turn, and I have no idea where we are, but he pulls over under a canopy of trees. "Did J.D. say what he wanted? You didn't say why he was coming over so early."
I close my eyes, thinking about how my reputation is probably already making the gossip shows. "He wants to talkabout what happened at the game." Then I realize I put my phone down when I got dressed. "Crap, I left my phone at your house."
He rubs his large hand over my leg, soothing my anxiety. "I'll get it and bring it by."
"J.D. is the coach. I can't have him thinking I'm ignoring him."
"Sutton, you're his boss, not the other way around." He pushes the truck into park and angles himself toward me. "Do you want to see where this goes?"
"I do, but our careers and reputations are on the line, not to mention your brother's. This is his second year as head coach, and the fans expect a big turnaround. And it's all resting on your arm."
