Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
For a brief moment, we said nothing. Just looked ridiculous with him bare chested and me fully dressed and wearing ruined sneakers while he breathed in my ear. Then he sighed.
“We’re failing at boundaries.”
“I know,” I said miserably. “I can’t help it.”
His hands tightened on me. “Why?”
“Because I fucking like you too.”
Gavin exhaled against me. He sounded so relieved that I wanted to turn and hug him, but I was trapped in the iron grip of his arms. “Tell me what to do,” he said. “And be sure. Because I don’t want to screw this up. I don’t want to make you regret any of this. And I don’t want you to think your job is contingent on—”
I pulled out of his grasp and turned in the water. “I don’t think that. You’re a good person. And I trust you.”
He searched my face, brows knit and so visibly confused that I felt just awful.
“I have feelings for you, Gavin. And I don’t want to ignore them even though I know you probably think I’m some freak who goes around fucking all his bosse—”
This time, Gavin shut me up with a kiss. And when he tangled his fingers in my hair and pinned me against the side of the pool, I didn’t stop him.
I wanted this. I wanted him. And it was becoming clear that no matter how much I tried to fight it, the need to be close to him wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter Fifteen
Gavin
At first we had an unspoken rule to only fuck like crazy after business hours.
It didn’t last.
I had my fingers, tongue, or dick in him twice a day before dinner by the time Halloween came. We played it off like it was just us getting nasty together. Him showing what a freak he was underneath his Oxford shirts, the kind of boy who liked his hair pulled and my come all over him, and me showing him the reason I spent so much time in the gym.
But he was sleeping in my bed by the holidays.
We were on a one-way trip to the danger zone, and there seemed to be no way to stop it. And no reason for me to want to.
“I have good news times two.”
I waited, from my station on the floor by my bucket of fan mail, but Noah didn’t elaborate. He didn’t even look up. He was sitting cross-legged in the office chair, wearing torn-up jeans and one of my long-sleeved Barons T-shirts, with his attention rapt on the computer screen. He was fucking adorable. Messy hair all in the way of his glasses and lower lip caught between his teeth.
“What’s the good news?” I prompted. “You have on no underwear and decided to stop cutting me off during the day again?”
There was no response so I did the only rational thing I could think of—crawled across the floor until I was under the desk. A nip at his ankle sent him flinging himself backwards with so much force the chair nearly flipped over.
I guffawed as he glared.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying to get your attention.” I pulled myself up, getting all up in his space in the process, and sat on the edge of the desk so I was blocking the screen. “What’s the good news?”
Noah’s gaze skewed down my bare chest to my low-hanging cotton pants, not even pretending not to check out my dick. I smirked. He rolled his eyes.
“Sorry. The Vice article just came out, and it distracted me.”
“Oh.” Unease crept over me like a million spiders. “Is it bad?”
“I don’t know. Someone didn’t let me finish reading before he tried to scare the shit out of me.”
“I’ll read it myself.”
Noah didn’t protest as I unplugged the laptop and balanced it on my hand, squinting at the tiny text so I could read out loud.
“‘I guess you could call it a wake-up call to realize a total stranger was wary of being around me due to my reputation and shitty attitude. I had to start thinking about my actions and what came out of my mouth. I don’t want to be a monster,’ says one of the most well-known tight ends in the NFL.”
“Oh no,” Noah groaned, sinking lower in the chair. “Why did he have to start with a quote about me?”
“Gavin Brawley began his football career thirteen years ago in an abandoned lot where he and other kids in one of the most rough-and-tumble—hey, look at that, he didn’t fucking say ‘hardscrabble,’” I drawled.
“Shut up and keep reading.”
“How can I keep reading if I shut up?”
Noah kicked me in the kneecap, and I nearly dropped the laptop.
“. . . rough-and-tumble neighborhoods of Newark, NJ, started throwing the ball around. He was always the biggest and, due to a self-admitted shitty attitude and boulder-sized chip on his shoulder, he always played the meanest. The fact that Gavin is completely aware of the flaws fans and journalists alike spend so much time focusing on, and doesn’t deny their existence, makes him stand out from the many professional athletes who only apologize for their behavior when forced to do so by PR or a lawyer. You can tell they’re insincere and that they don’t really understand what they’ve done wrong. But not Gavin. He knows he’s an asshole, and, until recently, he seemed completely unapologetic about it.”