Page 1 of Offside

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Ballas – late June

Ah, shit. There goes my contract extension.

All because my dick got in the way. I figured one day my dick would finally get me in trouble.

I stare at the beautiful woman across the table from me, flanked by the GM and the attorney for the Vikings, who are all here for the same reason. To renegotiate the terms of my contract.

What is it that they say about your past catching up to you? Or never mixing business with pleasure?

Well, unfortunately for me, my past just caught up with me and my pleasure may have just fucked up my future plans.

I guess it’s time to deal with the consequences of the actions of my dick.

“Thank you for meeting with us today, gentlemen,” Karis says in a quiet yet firm tone, nodding briskly at both me and my agent, Quincy Peck, who sits in the chair to my right. “I’m sure you both know Nate and our team attorney, Tarjinder Singh.”

Sitting to her left is Nate McGowan, the Vikings GM, an asshole of epic proportions who I can’t stand. On the other side is our team’s attorney, Tarjinder, a man in his late fifties whose hair is graying at the temples. His mustache and dark eyebrows are distracting from the seriousness of this meeting because they remind me almost too much of Groucho Marx. I have to stifle a chuckle.

I stare back at the gorgeous woman who I fucked into oblivion six months ago in a hotel room in Vegas. That was the night of my best friend Marek’s wedding and the night Karis Spurlock approached me in the hotel bar with a proposition I couldn’t pass up.

Back then, Karis wasn’t my boss’s boss or the franchise owner of the Vikings. She was simply another wedding guest and the niece of Marvin Spurlock, the Vikings’ team owner, and the owner of the Puget Sound Pilots’ basketball team.Marek’sboss.Notmine.

When Karis boldly asked for a hot, no-strings-attached hookup that night, I happily obliged. Who was I to turn down a beautiful woman?

Had I known then what I know now, would I have done it?

Fuck, that’s yet to be determined.

We may have screwed each other’s brains out in Vegas, but right now, Karis Spurlock could screw me in an entirely different way. She holds the key to my future on the team, or possibly the end of my NHL career.

Quincy interrupts my thoughts, dragging my attention off Karis and back to the seriousness of the situation. “Good afternoon, Ms. Spurlock, gentlemen. Ballas and I are eager to discuss the terms of the contract extension.”

Karis gives a tight smile, her hand landing on the paperwork that decides whether I stay with the Vikings, get traded, or—God forbid—end up on the affiliate. A small flicker of unease settles in my bones. That third one is always an option for a veteran player like me, and last year was especially tough. Considering my eighteen years in the league, the team may want to bring in younger, faster blood to add to their D-line, turning me into an obsolete dinosaur.

Karis cuts her gaze toward me. “We’ve had a chance to review Ballas’s contract and there are a few modifications we’d like to discuss regarding his position with the team…”

I bristle at the level of judgment I hear in her tone and the censorious glare in her green eyes. Maybe this is how she presents herself during every meeting but it’s definitely not the way she looked or sounded when she cried out in sheer pleasure while I was between her legs. But what would I expect?

Considering how I left things—and the way I left her—I suppose I deserve her unfiltered animosity.

Nobody ever said I was a good guy.

But I’m a damn good player. Sure, last year was full of a few ups and downs. Maybe a few more challenges than usual—which some people took to mean the beginning of the end—but I finished strong. Which is where I’m at right now. I don’t rest on my laurels and hopefully that will keep me in the game for the foreseeable future.

And if anyone in this room besides me knows I don’t rest on my laurels, it’s Karis. She should remember very well how much stamina I have, considering I went all night long with her. It’s that woman—the sexy vixen—I spent the night with.

But it’s not the woman here today.

Today’s Karis is the buttoned-up, poker-faced franchise owner in a modest gray pantsuit. The silken blonde hair I’d run my fingers through that night is pulled back into a sleek ponytail that accentuates her straight nose and high cheekbones. And that prim-as-fuck white blouse gives only the slight hint of those perky tits I’m intimately familiar with.

I remember just how plump they were when I cupped them in my hands. How sweet those pert nipples tasted when I sucked them between my teeth. And exactly how sexy her moans were when my cock slid inside her tight pussy.

That night, we both got a good fucking.

Today it might just be me who gets fucked.

As a pending free agent, I’m in a precarious situation. With my previous three-year contract expiring, we began negotiations late last season but since the Vikings currently hold the rights to my contract, they have the option to either match the offer I received from San Francisco Soaring Eagles or trade me in favor of a higher draft pick for next season.

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