Page 4 of Most Likely to Score
I shrug a shoulder a little coquettishly. I can’t help it. I pulled it off. “Maybe,” I say, too damn pleased for my own good. “I sent it to the magazine as part of my pitch. Just a shot of you running across the bridge.Body in MotionI titled it. A player working hard.”
He opens his arms, wraps them around me, and hauls me in for a warm hug. “You’re a rock star.”
Oh. My. Stars.
His arms.
My heart.
All the flutters.
When he breaks the embrace, he steps back. He looks so damn stoked. “This is awesome. I so appreciate it.”
Shaking off the remnants of lust, I grin. “So you’re in?”
“All the way,” he says. And the innuendo sends the heat soaring in me once again. “On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You come to the photo shoot with me.”
That’s when the full weight of this pitch hits me. The body issue. He’ll be naked. I’ll be at the photo shoot.
What have I gotten myself into?
4
JONES
I’m buck naked.
I often am.
I’m not an exhibitionist. I simply find I don’t have a need for clothes most of the time, unless I’m on the field or at a public appearance.Obviously.
Pretty sure I was one of those naked kids. You know the type. Runs around in the sprinkler in his backyard in the buff. Streaks down the hallway with nothing on. Oh wait, that was me in college, too, and I did that stunt on multiple occasions. So often in fact, I was nicknamed Flash. I was fast. Still am. Like a motherfucking silver bullet.
Right now, I’m all in with the birthday suit attire, the costume for the annualSporting Worldbody issue.
Okay, perhaps I’m exaggerating. I do have one thing on—my Adam’s fig leaf comes in the form of my hands holding a strategically-placed football to cover the goods.
The pigskin is doing its part to make this photo printable in the magazine, though all the shots of star athletes in this issue are in the nude. A tennis player will lob a ball, the racket covering her breasts and her lunge obscuring other not-safe-for-work parts. A swimmer will glide through crystal waters, the angle ensuring it’s not a triple-X centerfold shot.
The photographer with the ponytail and lip piercing snaps pictures of me and asks for a smile.
I oblige.
“Love it,” Christine says emphatically, her lips and that metal hoop in the bottom one the only parts of her face visible since the lens covers the rest. “How about a little tough-guy look now?”
Because tough guys hold footballs in front of their junk.
“This is my best badass pose,” I say, narrowing my eyes and staring at the camera like I’d stare at the secondary of the Miami Mavericks.
“Oh yes, more of that, right, Jillian?” Christine shouts to the other person here in the studio with us.
That person is Jillian, and she hasn’t looked my way since I strolled in here and dropped my drawers. Damn shame.
From her spot leaning against the far wall, the team publicist answers in a crisp, professional tone I know well. “Exactly. We love his tough-guy face.”
