Page 3 of Tempting the Player
We go upstairs to my bedroom and lie on the bed. He turns onto his side, facing me, and props himself on his elbow. “That was well worth the wait.”
“Wait?” I ask him
“Yeah, wait... I've seen you around... for a few weeks now. I've seen a lot of guys try to chat you up, hoping they stand a chance, and you shoot 'em down – I presumed I’d get shot down too. Guess I caught you on a good night, eh?”
He’s right, there haven’t beenthatmany guys who have chatted me up, but the ones that have, have been told nicely to get lost. I wasn’t interested in them because I was too busy crushing on him.
“Maybe you caught me on a good night, or maybe I've heard good things about you in the sack, lover boy.”
He snorts. “Have you?”
I shrug. “No, but I've got a good imagination. Maybe I’d already seen you before tonight, too.”
“I know, saw you lookin', that’s why I thought I was in with a chance. Did I live up to imaginary me?” he grins at me.
“Well... so far, but the night is still young. Imaginary Nathan’s stamina is quite something, you have big boots to fill.” I grin.
“Well... let’s see what we can do about that, shall we?” He tickles me - I yelp and laugh.
When I stop laughing, I ask him, “What’s with the nickname? I mean, I know why they call it you - I've seen you play, but how did it start?”
“You’ve seen me play, have you?” he raises his eyebrows.
“I go to most matches, so yeah, I've seen you play a lot. You’re good and the view doesn’t suck.” I shrug and smile.
He winks at me. “You know it, babe!”
I shake my head and make a ‘pfft’ sound. He's so big-headed it's untrue!
“One of the older rugby lads – Jensen - you heard of him?” I nod. Everyone’s heard of him. He carries on, “He was reading ‘The Gingerbread Man’ to his kid every night. It was her favourite book. He was sick of reading it, knew it word for word. It was when I’d got signed up and everyone saw how fast I was, so he said it once joking around, he was sick of reading that fucking book, it was in his head. It’s stuck. I hate it. I mean, no ginger-haired guy wants to be called Ging, and I'm not even ginger, and I get it.” He frowns and shakes his head as though he can’t believe his luck.
I nod. “Yeah, I've had the ginger thing all my life, it’s no fun!”
His eyes widen. “Jesus, I can’t imagine anyone slagging you off for anything. You’re stunning, bet it was only girls out of jealousy.” I feel a warm sensation inside because I can tell he means that.
It’s easy between the two of us. I haven’t had much sexual experience, this is only my second time. The less said about the first one, the better. Let’s say that it was a big mistake and one that made me believe sex wasn’t too much fun- not worth the hype.
With Nate, it’s not awkward at all; we have banter and seem to share a similar sense of humour. It’s easy, and I’m relaxed - I can be myself.
We kiss again, slowly and gently at first, but things get heated, and it ends with him fucking me exactly how I wanted him to - him on top - possessing me with his size. His 6'4 "is a big difference from my 5'5" - he makes me feel tiny. I like that. While he’s inside me, he whispers things like ‘you feel so good’, ‘you’re so beautiful’ - things that can get to a girl, things that can make a girl believe that this is more than a one-night stand. I like him. I understand that he’s made it clear that this is nothing but sex, but he’s so charming and funny, not to mention sexy, it’s hard not to want more.
We eventually fall into an exhausted sleep, but when I wake a couple of hours later, he’s gone. No goodbye, no swapping numbers, no note… nothing. Can’t say I wasn’t warned. I’m such an idiot. I thought we had chemistry or something and that he’d want to come back for more.
I thought it would make me feel better, having a night of hot sex with the object of my desires, can’t beat that, right? Wrong. It makes the crush one hundred times worse and hurts more because it’s one-sided. Kate, you are such an idiot.
Who am I kidding? If I could rewind to last night, I would totally do it again, the only difference being I’d have chucked him out straight afterwards so that he couldn’t sneak off while I was sleeping. What a sleazy thing to do – did he presumeI was going to want to marry him? Arsehole. That part does help me to get over my crush, seeing as he's obviously not a very nice person. What harm would it have done to stick around until morning, maybe have round two or three before going our separate ways? Does he think I’d turn into a stalker?
I'm angry at myself, too, because I thought we had something, that we clicked. He seems to ‘click’ with a lot of women. I hate that, and I especially hate that I got something wrong - my instincts obviously couldn’t be more off with him.
Prologue
Saturday again. Same old, same old. Same pubs, same club, same friends— it’s Groundhog Day. The same women throwing themselves at me. Well, except for last week — last week I did the chasing, something my pals haven’t let me live down since. Last week was different,shewas different. She was something else.
I’m pissed off with myself that I haven’t been able to get her out of my head all fucking week. I wonder if she’s out tonight.
Jesus, she was sweet. I can't forget creeping around her place quietly so that I didn’t disturb her - standing over her - watching her sleeping like a psycho lovesick lunatic.
She’s fucking beautiful, she puts the other girls I’ve ever been with to shame. Her gorgeous red hair was spread out on the pillow, long eyelashes resting on her cheeks. She looked like a bloody angel - an image that’s been burned into my brain all week. Her smokin' hot body… those curves… how it felt to be inside her. I shake my head to clear my thoughts. I can’t be tied down. I’m twenty-four for Christ’s sake, and my semi-pro rugby career is taking off. The last thing I need to be thinking about is a woman. If the lads on the team found out I was going soft over a girl, I’d never hear the last of it. We clicked, though – I'd never been so relaxed with someone I was going home with for a shag. We laughed, we talked; she was easy to get on with. Of course, it doesn’t help that the sex was fucking amazing. Our bodies seemed to instinctively know what the other one liked. Her smooth skin against mine, how she tasted… fuck, it gets me hard thinking about it.
