Page 2 of Hate the Game
Jax stepped closer to me, his voice lowered. “S. Lane was supposed to be a guy. We wouldn’t have tried to initiate you if we’d known you were a woman. This was a misunderstanding.”
I reached up to tap him on the nose and then slowly dragged my fingertip down his mouth and throat before slowing it down to move over his chest and abs. “I assure you, baby, I’mallwoman. I’d offer to show you but my momma always said a lady doesn’t show her whole hand until at least the second date. Or after diamonds are exchanged, depending on just how sexy the man is. I don’t see you needing diamonds.”
I saw the moment he wrote me off as a ditzy girl with too many notches on her bedpost. His eyes went cold and he stepped back, hands up, keeping distance between us. I wanted to rub my hands together like a movie villain and cackle. He was going to play right into my hand.
“I don’t have time for this.” He turned and walked away, leaving me in the middle of the locker room with the rest of the team. I watched as Cole and Ryder Stone followed him out.
I clucked my tongue at their retreating backs and looked at the rest of the guys around me. I suddenly didn’t feel as confident in my ability to handle them all. Keeping my face flirty, I turned and swayed my full ass right to the door to leave. Looking over my shoulder at them, I winked. “Later, boys. I’ve got plans for now but my dance card is empty and waiting for a few new suitors, if you know what I mean.”
I kept up that confident strut all the way back to my room. I only let myself collapse into a bundle of nerves once I was behind my locked door with a towel shoved against the slight gap at the bottom of it. My USC liaison, Barbie Tulley, had thought it was a wonderful idea to give me the room directly across the hallway from The Apex Three but I needed my privacy to scream, hence the towel against the door.
I stretched out on my floor, not one bit concerned about the industrial carpet that had probably seen things most porn shoots hadn’t. Actually… I put down a towel and laid on it instead. Then, staring at the ceiling with the sprinkler system that blinked red all night long, I let out the longest groan possible. I wasn’t cut out to stand in a room full of naked men with a smile on my face.
Playing S. Lane was going to be harder than I imagined. I’d been on campus for three days and somehow hadn’t seen any of the football team until that locker room encounter. I’d gotten comfortable, enjoying the sun and the campus before I needed to get serious and start taking people down. Seeing The Apex Three in person made it all real. Almost too real. I suddenly wasn’t all that sure about my ability to manipulate them.
What if they weren’t even attracted to me? I was curvy and I’d had plenty of experience with athletic men finding my curves too much.
Too late to chicken out. I was already in too deep. And if The Apex Three didn’t notice me yet, I’d just have to turn up the heat until they burned.
***Jax***
“How the fuck did no one mention that S. Lane is a woman?” I paced back and forth in front of Ryder and Cole in the player’s lounge. “Jesus. If Dad finds out we fucking sexually harassed the woman writing the biggest article of the year on us he’d murder us.”
“Sexually harassed? Really? She didn’t seem harassed.” Cole smirked. “Matter of fact, she seemed downright thrilled to have found us the way she did.”
I ignored that comment because the last thing I needed was to think about the way her eyes had traveled down my bare chest, right along with her fucking finger. “Is she really going to write an article about us? She seems kind of…”
“Dumb?” Ryder, pretty much known as a mute around campus, grunted and rolled his eyes.
“Yeah.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried not to panic about what would happen if she told anyone we greeted her with our bare asses. “Dumb. That’s it.”
“Honestly, I’m not going to worry about her. I don’t know how she was chosen to do anything more than fluff her hair orsome shit but she’s not a threat. I could practically see a hamster trying to get his wheel going in her head.” Cole scoffed. “Should we be offended that they sent usherfor the article?”
“Feels like it, huh? It’s the Varsity Ledger. I thought they’d send someone solid who could write an impressive article. One that would get us on every pro coach’s radar. Instead we got journalist barbie with a plastic notepad and plastic for brains.” I sat between them on the deep leather couch. “Fine. We don’t worry about her. We just act like she isn’t there when she does show up.”
We were silent for a few seconds and then Cole ruined it by snorting. “I’m pretty sure the likelihood of us being able to act like she isn’t there is somewhere around not likely at all. I don’t know where she’s from but they don’t build ‘em like that here.”
“Texas.” Ryder shrugged when we both looked at him. “The accent.”
“They do say everything is bigger in Texas…” Cole laughed at the look I sent him. “What? She’s stacked. She seems like the type to be down for a good time.”
“Hands off the journalist, man.”
“And if she wants me to be hands on?” He stood up and stretched out his back. “You can’t tell me that you didn’t think she was fucking hot. I bet she’d be a wildcat in the sack. I’d suffer through her personality if it meant I got to see those tits bounce as she rides me.”
I opened my mouth to tell him to shut the fuck up but the image he’d painted went straight to my dick. “That little dress didn’t do much to hide her body.”
“I’d want her to keep the boots on.” Cole tilted his head back and groaned. “You think she has a cowboy hat?”
Ryder swore as he stood up. “Going to take a shower.”
I laughed with Cole. “You’ll grow hair on your palms if you keep playing with yourself, Ryder.”
“Didn’t you ever hear that god kills a kitten every time you slap the salami?” Cole barely dodged Ryder’s massive fist. “You know what? Kill that kitten, brother. You seem to need it.”
Our conversation pretty much disintegrated after that. Ryder disappeared and Cole and I stuck around to wait on him before going back to our room. We had a new neighbor that we hadn’t met yet but judging by the constantly shut door, it seemed they needed some help leaving their room.
“You really think I should keep my dick to myself? She’s so hot, Jax. Just one little dip?” Cole put his hands together and pretended to beg.
