Page 66 of Game Misconduct
But then my body reminds me I’m not made of steel, no matter how hard I pretend.
I drop my bag and kick off my shoes. The relief is instant and dangerous. Home is the only place I let the Carrington armor fall like a house of cards.
The silence wraps around me, but it doesn’t soothe. My pulse is still too high, like my body hasn’t caught up to the fact the cameras are gone.
Like it hasn’t realized I’m alone.
What am I saying? It’s not the cameras keeping me wired.
I lean back against the wall, close my eyes, and see him.
Maddox.
Not scowling. Not stonewalling. Not the man I’ve been fighting since the second he stepped into my orbit.
Smiling.
God, that smile. Raw, unguarded, like the boy with the book had cracked something open in him no one else could touch.
It should’ve been gold for PR, and it was. The press will spin it into the perfect redemption clip.
Dean will finally shut his smug mouth when he sees the tape. The board will see strategy paying off.
But for me?
It wasn’t PR. It was something else entirely.
It was the way he crouched awkwardly in that black suit, knees bent like it cost him something to lower himself to their level, and still did it.
The way he let that boy touch his hand like it was something they did every single day.
The way his voice shifted—rough edges sanded just enough to coax laughter from a child who has every right not to remember what laughing feels like.
And when he smiled—really smiled—something hot and reckless twisted inside my chest.
And let’s not even talk about the near kiss in the elevator.
I haven’t been this fucking turned on in longer than I care to remember, and the man didn’t even lay a finger on me.
Pushing off the wall, I cross into the living room, shedding my jacket as I go.
My skin still buzzes like I’m standing too close to a live wire.
This is not how I should feel about one of my players.
This is not how I should feel about anyone. I have a team to run and a board to please just to prove I can handle something that’s already mine.
I sink onto the couch, hair tumbling loose when I tug out the pins. My reflection in the black screen of the TV catches me off guard—eyes wide, lips parted, chest still rising like I ran here instead of riding the elevator.
Then again, that elevator ride has my pulse dancing like it’s my job.
My body knows it, even if my head denies it.
And worst of all, I can still smell him. Soap and heat and something darker that stuck to me in the car, in the elevator, in every breath we shared today.
I can still smell the faint mint of his breath when we were so close, I could see that his eyes weren’t just one color of blue.
They’d gone from a crystal blue to navy in a heartbeat.
