21. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
Fouls, Floors + Defensive Plays
Aspen
My hair is pulled back into a high, tight ponytail.
But the rest of my look is purposefully…
devastating. I’ve traded my baggy hospital scrubs for a set that is dangerously form-fitting.
The fabric hugs every curve while the V-neck dips just low enough to be a deliberate provocation.
I look like a “naughty nurse” fantasy brought to life in functional polyester.
The twenty minute drive over is a frantic mix of anxious energy and butterflies.
Being alone with him doesn’t scare me, but I am not confident I can get through this without bursting into tears and demanding to know how he could just let us go.
I feel like he owes me that much. But since Our Lord the Pimp is a stubborn asshole, I know he won’t give me the satisfaction.
So, I guess I am heading straight for the kill. After a little torture, that is.
As the future team captain, Luca was moved into the Fury building to be closer to the stadium.
The move gave him immediate access to the top doctors in the league, elite gyms, and all the high-end nutrition spots within the complex.
One thing is certain about the Atlanta Strikers: they know how to take care of their own.
Even the lobby takes my breath away. It is no wonder Tatum loves working for the team so much.
The security desk buzzes me through once I give them my name.
I take the elevator to his apartment on the fifteenth floor, my heart hammering against my ribs with every passing level.
I force myself to find my center before the doors slide open, channeling advice my mother hammered into me growing up.
She used to tell me, “People only know how much they affect you by how you react to them. Never let them see you sweat.”
That is exactly how I intend to handle Luca today. I won't let him see me sweat. And I certainly won't let him make me wet.
My mother never gave me that second piece of advice, but I have a feeling she would if she knew just how devastatingly fine this man actually is.
The elevator doors slide open, and in an instant, the pull of this place hits me.
I’ve only been here a handful of times, but my body seems to remember every inch of it.
Since Croix lived closer to my place, Luca and I used to meet here most nights to avoid seeing him and hurting his feelings.
For a few short, blurred weeks after his long practices or late-night returns from away matches, this was our hideout. Our home base.
I reach for the keypad and punch in the code I have memorized, but a red light flashes back at me.
He’s changed it.
The realization that I'm now a stranger to a door I used to walk through freely stings more than it should. Taking a steadying breath, I press the video intercom button, triggering the call that will flash my face onto his phone and wake him up to the reality that I’m back.
“Who the hell is at my door at four in the morning?” Luca’s voice crackles through the speaker.
“Your morning shift, Mr. Chidubem,” I say, my voice dripping with enough sweetness to cause a cavity. “I heard this place was a biohazard. Since I have actual clients today, I thought I’d get a head start on the deep clean.”
A long silence follows. On the tiny monitor, I can see him rubbing his face, squinting at the screen, and slowly processing the fact that I’m standing in his hallway dressed like a naughty nurse. He doesn’t react. At least, not with the jaw-drop I was hoping for. But it’s still early.
“Aspen, it’s the middle of the night. Go home.”
“I am home, Luca.”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
“‘It all belongs to me.’ Those were your exact words, if I recall.”
“Aspen! English,” he growls, his accent thick with sleep but still sexy. “What are you going on about?”
I lean in close to the camera, hovering just near the mic. I know he doesn't want his one neighbor hearing this, so I make sure my voice is loud enough to send his pompous heart into a full-blown cardiac event.
“Remember that one morning after brunch? You wanted me so bad you fucked me in the elevator. Then you carried me across the threshold of your humble abode and told me the whole place was mine. That I could have it all, so long as you could eat me and lick my—”
Clack.
The door lock disengages with the speed of a gunshot.
“Fucking hell! Just come in!”
“Thought so,” I chirp in the empty hallway. I hitch my bag higher, saunter inside, and use my hip to swing the door shut with a satisfying thud.
Judging by the long pause when Luca saw me on the monitor, I was certain he’d at least come out to greet me. Instead, the apartment is pitch-black and silent. It's a landmine of discarded clothes and stray shoes.
When I step into the kitchen, I nearly gag. It’s a cesspool of expensive takeout containers and neglected surfaces.
“Men,” I whisper, dropping my bag onto one of the barstools at the marble island. “I wouldn't have let things get this bad if I’d been around.”
The thought stings more than I want to admit.
Seeing the state of this place—the abandonment of it—reminds me that he made me feel just as discarded as the empty containers littering the counters.
But I refuse to give him the satisfaction of another tear.
Instead of allowing myself to cry again, I channel that raw ache into pure, spite-fueled productivity.
I go to work.
By 5:00 AM, the kitchen smells like lemon-scented Pine-Sol instead of old grease. By 6:00 AM, I’ve purged the living room of every trash-filled box and hauled it to the curb. I am a whirlwind of petty-fueled efficiency.
I click on the vacuum, the roar filling the open-concept space as I tackle the plush rug in the center of the room.
It feels like a physical barrier, a loud, vibrating wall I’m using to keep the silence—and the memory of us—at bay.
But then, I feel it. A sudden prickle of heat on my skin that has nothing to do with the morning humidity and everything to do with being watched.
I click the power off. There’s a sudden, deafening silence that follows that straightens my spine.
Luca is there.
He leans heavily against the doorframe at the edge of the room, his large frame nearly filling the entry.
He is shirtless, his skin a map of copper tones and shadows in the dim morning light.
He wears nothing but a pair of low slung grey sweatpants that hang precariously off his hips, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.
His hair is a chaotic nest of sleep mussed waves, but his eyes are what stop my breath.
They are heavy lidded and hazel, dark with desire as they track me with a lethal combination of rugged exhaustion and simmering heat.
He doesn’t spare a glance for the gleaming, lemon-scented kitchen.
He doesn’t look at the vacuum or the pristine floors.
His gaze is anchored to me. Specifically, the way these thin, form-fitting scrubs cling to my skin and the curve of my hips.
My damp skin, still flushed from two hours of scrubbing away the remnants of his grief.
Since I arrived, I’ve been trying to wash away the clutter and the confusion, reaching for the ghost of what we used to be and the memory of what this home once meant for us. I’ve been hoping, praying, that he’ll finally come back to it. Even if I am not sure I want him there permanently.
So much has happened. So many things I always promised myself I’d never let a man do or make me feel.
Yet here I am. Despite the betrayal and the rules I’ve set for my own survival, my body is still beckoning for him.
All the weight of the last few months—the hollow silence and the sharp sting of being discarded—warps under the heat of this electricity.
The nostalgia of the days we chose each other.
“Good morning,” is all he says.
“Morning,” I reply, turning away with a sudden, frantic interest in the space I have spent the last few hours scrubbing. “As you can see, I am nearly done cleaning.”
“You really did not have to do all this.”
“I know,” I say, the words tumbling out too fast. “I could tell you needed it.”
“Do you do this for all your patients?”
“Yes,” I lie. Because I can’t let him know he still gets the version of me no one else sees. I can’t let him know he’s still the exception to every one of my rules.
His eyes are still on me. “Everything looks great in here,” he says.
“You’ve barely looked around.”
“Like I said. Everything looks great.”
“Luca—”
“I know. I promised to behave. I—”
“It is fine,” I interrupt, noticing the way he hitches his weight. Then my gaze…travels.
“Uhh. Luca?”
“Yes?”
“Your penis is pointed at me and that was not in our contract. Please go and discard…” I pause, gesturing vaguely toward the insistent cylinder straining against the soft gray fabric of his sweatpants. “That. Somewhere else.”
He shrugs, a slow and lazy movement. “It’s the morning, Aspen. Nature happens.”
It looks delicious and I can’t stop staring at it. “It’s unprofessional, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn't—”
“Wouldn't what?” He challenges, taking a half-step forward that makes the air between us vanish.
My panties are not far behind.
Shit. The bet.
“Luca? If you don’t get a hold of yourself right now.”
The asshole grins. “Gladly.”
He reaches down and actually grabs it, his fingers curling around the thickness in a slow, aching squeeze.
“Tell me you don’t like it, Ms. Mysterious,” he murmurs. “Tell me your memory isn’t replaying filthy images of me...of us...all across your frontal lobe while you try to hide the goosebumps spreading across your beautiful breasts.”
This fucker loves taunting me. How dare he taunt me the exact way I am taunting him. I know it’s hypocritical, but I don’t really care. I’m supposed to be the one making him suffer for how he left me. But right now, the only one who seems to be suffering is me.