Page 106 of Irresistibly Risky

Least of all Asher right now.

He’s changed a bit over the last few weeks. He smiles less, and his manner seems… harder. Less go-with-the-flow. Less himself. I’ve pushed a little bit, but he won’t talk about it. I know it’s related to everything that’s happening with his position on the team and its future.

Joe knows about me and Asher, and how Asher is Mason’s father. Asher told me he followed him to the drug store and confronted him there, but then Joe had the audacity to tell me I should end it with him because he’s not good enough for me.

I laughed in his face and walked away.

But I also know that Joe doesn’t like Asher and that his time on this team is borrowed. What that means for me and Mason, I don’t know. Only time will tell, and I force myself not to dwell on it. At least not until I have to.

“Remind me why we have to be on the field?”

Just as the words leave my mouth a defensive player comes barreling at Leo, who doesn’t run or shift to deflect the onslaught. The defensive player plows through one of our offensive guys and straight into Leo, knocking him to the ground with so much force that I immediately cover my mouth with my hands to stifle my shriek of horror.

“Fuck,” Dean hisses.

“Oh my God!” I grip his forearm. “Is he moving? Is he getting up? Is he okay?” I rise up on my toes to try and get a better look, but I’m shorter than all of these players by several inches.

A player waves over the training staff. “Doesn’t look that way. This is why we stay on the field.”

Dean grabs his medicine bag and runs out onto the field, and I find myself walking over to the sideline to where Asher is standing with his hands on his head, elbows butterflied out, and distress all over his face.

“He’s unconscious,” he tells me, and I feel my eyes prickling with tears. “I tried talking to him, and he hasn’t responded, and I heard Ryder call that out to the staff.”

“Dean is on it.”

He gives me an absent nod, but that’s it. Joe is on the field, standing over Leo and talking with the crew who are working on him. He wipes at his face, his expression grim, and then he points at Asher.

My heart gallops faster in my chest. “What does that mean?”

Asher blows out a breath. “It means I’m up.”

“No.”

The word is out of my mouth before I can stop it. Asher peers down at me, but after seeing that hit Leo just took and watching as they bring out the fucking cart and put him on a backboard with a neck collar, I can’t help it.

“Asher.” I follow him back to the bench where he grabs his helmet off a holder.

He turns back to me, stares around at everyone around us, and then back up at the crowd in the stands. And when he turns back to me, I see the grit and raw determination in his eyes and the locked set of his jaw.

“I’ll be fine.”

The crowd erupts in applause as Leo gives a small thumbs-up as they load him onto the cart and drive him out toward the tunnel. Thank God for that!

“I have to get warmed up.”

“Asher!”

His hand cups my jaw, and then his mouth slams down on mine. Rough and passionate, and taking no prisoners. Right here on the field. In front of the entire world, most likely because I’m positive there are cameras trained on the returning quarterback. But at this moment, I don’t care.

I’m scared.

I don’t want him to go out there, and I never thought about it in those terms before, but he could get hurt.

“You don’t have to watch,” he whispers against my mouth. “But this is what I do. And I’m damn fucking good at it.” He steps back and gives me an arrogant boy wink. “I love you.” And then he puts his helmet on as a kid comes racing over, holding a ball, and ready to take some passes with him.

“I love you too,” I murmur, but he’s already gone, and now I’m stuck here like this. With my face plastered across the massive screens that line the upper portion of each endzone. Awesome.

I head back over to the returning training staff, doing my best to pretend not to notice that my face is blown up to the size of a blue whale in high definition or the players who are all staring and talking about me and their quarterback.

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