Page 71 of Out of the Shadows
Nico’s shoulder rammed into mine, even though it obviously jolted him more than me, and he hissed, “Good sack! I guess all that extra weight helped you push through this time!”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my helmet off and glared down at him. “Jesus, if you put half as much energy into the game, the score on the board might be different.”
He scoffed and finally took the field.Fucking dickhead.
***
I’ve never been this eager to get off the bus and get the postgame recovery out of the way. It felt like I was about to play another game, that’s how wound up I was.
The moment we made it back to our campus and poured out of the bus, my head whipped around, searching for her shiny black hair. The drive home after the game had felt like an eternity.Holy shit, why did she have to be so short?Normally,I loved the height difference between us, but it was hard to pick out someone who was barely five feet tall in a crowd of people, let alone one half made up of football players.
I was aware I had to get to the locker room for recovery before I could play with her, but I was craving a shot of my addiction. When I finally spotted her, she was engrossed in a conversation with a slightly taller dark-skinned girl … Kyla, or something like that? I wasn’t very good with names.
Stalking up behind her, I picked up bits of their conversation.
“No, seriously, youhaveto watch it! The casting is so incredibly good, she even sounds like her. It’s absolutely insane.” Ah, I had a pretty good idea of what she was talking about. Hailey was obsessed with Princess Diana — which only made my nickname for her even more fitting — and accordingly,The Crown.
“Isn’t it kind of … boring?” The other girl cocked an eyebrow skeptically. Hailey’s hand flew to her chest as if clutching her imaginary pearls, and she gasped in horror.
“Boring?! Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales boring? Girl, she was one of the coolest women to ever walk the earth. Trust me, it’s worth watching the show just because of her.”
My arms wrapped around her middle as I pressed my front against the curve of her peachy ass and lowered my chin so it rested on top of her head. She stiffened until she realized it was me, then she melted into me.
My cock perked up, but I ignored it as best I could. “Elizabeth Debicki?” I asked, eliciting a chuckle from Hailey.
“Looks like you know me too well. Yeah, I was trying to convince Kyra that she alone makes watchingThe Crownworth it.”
My mouth pulled down in a can’t-argue-with-that kind of way, and I nodded. “Yeah, she’s right. Flawless casting and incredibly good acting.”
Kyra — I had been almost right — stared at me in disbelief. “YouwatchedThe Crown?”
“Um, yeah?” Confused, I looked from left to right, not quite sure what she found so strange about it. “Hailey loves that show, of course I watch it with her,” I pointed out.
Kyra’s dark eyebrows shot up to her hairline, then she smirked, shaking her head. “You better keep that one, Hailey.”
Hailey’s giggle was as clear as a bell and sent a tingling sensation all the way down my spine to my groin.Christ, was there anything this girl did that wouldn’t turn me on?
“Oh, don’t worry. I fully intend to.”
Kyra walked away, and Hailey turned in my arms so her front was pressed against me, with her head tilted back to peer up at me.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in the ice bath or something?” Her brows lifted, but she smiled.
“Yeah, or something. Wanted to get my reward kiss first.” My hand slid up to her neck, and I stroked her throat, feeling the heavy swallow and her pulse racing under my fingers.
“Well, in that case.” She stood on her tiptoes, but I still had to lean down a little, as always, for our lips to meet. Our tongues toyed with each other, and I broke the kiss sooner than I normally would, too eager to be done with all my postgame shit.
“How about something even better than a kiss?” she whispered, a wicked smile playing around the corners of her mouth.
I quickly glanced over my shoulder, most of the team wasstill unloading or leisurely making their way inside.
“That depends … How long will it take?” Inside, I was fired up for whatever she was up to, but I couldn’t turn up much later than the others.
“Five minutes, tops!”
My curiosity piqued, I motioned for her to proceed, but she grabbed my hand and started pulling me away from the bus toward the parking lot. On the way, she bent down and snatched her bag from the ground. We didn’t go far, everyone else was still clearly visible and within earshot, as it turned out, when Jax yelled, “Yo, Colt. What you doing?”
“Just grabbing something from the car, I’ll be right there,” I called back. My truck was parked in the third row, and she pulled us behind it so it served as a partial barrier.
