Page 6 of Stalked By the Recruiter

Now I was stuck going on a blind date with the son of my mom’s friend.

Yippee me.

CHAPTER 2

ANDRES

“So, what do you think?”I said as quietly as I could, looking around, but no one even looked up from their books. Especially not the woman who had been driving me crazy. Maybe that’s why I’d asked Crank Dominguez to meet me in the library? “LA would keep you close and?—"

“Mr. Montoya?—"

“Andres,” I corrected as gently as I could and winced.

Mr. Montoya?Jesus Christ! Who the hell did this guy think I was? Some old motherfucker?You are an old motherfucker, dumbass,a voice in my head reminded me. The kid sitting across from me definitely thought my middle-aged ass was old.Ancient probably.

“Andres,” he repeated. “Like I told you before, I’ve changed my major, and I’m not interested in tossing my hat into the draft. I’m going to play here another year.”

The confidence in the kid’s voice would have been admirable had it not been for the fact his answer made him a serious pain in my ass. The organization still needed a linebacker. Or at least a really fucking good one they could trade mid-season with a couple of other players to acquire a bigger fish. And I still neededto deliver one more player before the fall and my contract officially ended.

“I get it.” I sighed and nodded. I’d asked for another meeting with the kid not because I’d thought I could actually talk him into it, but because I was grasping at straws, trying to find ways to see my sexy little librarian without freaking her out again. I shook my head and cleared my throat.

“Thanks for your time.”

“Of course.” He nodded and stood up. I watched the kid leave then I sat there for a moment. I tried to avoid looking at her, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

The library was quiet. Peaceful. I’d even enjoyed spending time there when I’d attended to school here. But it was incredibly serene knowingshewas right there. Right within reach.

So close yet so far.The thought made my hands clench into tight fists at my sides.

For some reason, I couldn’t get myself to approach her. Instead, I’d cyber-stalked her without a fucking regret. I had no idea why she, out of countless women I had met, drew me in that way. I was doing things, crazy things, for her, for us, yet I couldn’t get myself to talk to her.

I still couldn’t believe it had been a month since I’d first seen her. Since I’d followed her around and discovered who she was. That night, I’d logged onto my computer the moment I returned to my hotel. I was stupid to think that one quick Google search would have helped lose interest in her.

It hadn’t.

It had done the opposite. It fed the thing inside of me that had been dormant for the past forty years. One quick search turned into an all-nighter, leaving me bleary eyed the next morning from the slippery slope of the cyber rabbit hole I’d willingly gone down. Logging into different social media outlets,even making a profile for myself on the ones I didn’t have yet, just to see her. To find out more. It was scary how easy you found people online nowadays. Everything was a simple click away.

Carmen Villalobos was beautiful.

Complicated.

And so damn addicting.

I knew this without having said a word to her.

There wasn’t a night this last month when I hadn’t looked her up. When I hadn’t jerked off to her pictures or the sound of her voice from the videos she had uploaded. Night and day and sometimes more than that. I knew all sorts of shit about her. Shit that if I weren’t so fucking unhinged, I would have found out from her. Information she would have shared with me.Shouldhave.

But I hadn’t.

I’d crossed lines and made changes to my life that left me feeling almost unrecognizable. Falling in love did that to you. No matter what I dug up in an effort to find some kind of fault, I not only came up short, but each and every time, I found myself hungrier for more.

Her posts made me laugh and smile. I’d read every word about her, too. And that included every scrap I could find about her divorce. Just the thought of that prick, who had treated her like shit, made me start to see red.

After I first saw her, I’d kept doing what was on my schedule for three days, Carmen never far from my thoughts. But when I’d arrived back home and sat around my apartment, I knew shit had to change. Every single molecule in my body protested about being there, yet I’d forced myself to sit down on a couch that had been hardly used because of how much I traveled for work. I’d looked around. The place was great. Luxury amplified and everything I had once thought I wanted. Things I’d dreamt about while I raised Betty after our parents’ death.

But I was done.

I’d known it before I’d seen Carmen, but there was something about my little bookworm that made it more than crystal clear that my time with the NFL team was coming to an end.

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