Chapter Fourteen - Scarlett
The stadium has mostly emptied staff clearing cups from under seats, the floodlights casting long shadows over the empty grandstand.
There’s a magic in the silence of a stadium this size after it has just been filled with cheers, screams and men running full pelt at each other, if you listen carefully, you can still hear the echo and the buzz from the die-hard fans that are long gone now.
Kind of like when you put a shell to your ear at the beach and it plays you the hush of the ocean.
Something tells me he’s still here and he didn’t sneak out the side door without me catching so much as a glimpse.
After that performance I know he’d be soaking it all in somewhere quietly by himself.
He always is the last to leave every training session, every event.
He lingers and stays behind, like he’s got nothing else to go back to—rugby league is his world.
He stays back hours after training ends, working on extra technique, going straight into the recovery spa, or soaking up whatever he has going through his head.
A managers dream, and my dream. I know I’ll find him here.
I start my Asher search in the most obvious place—the sheds.
I push open the dressing shed door, I’ve got an all access pass you know, coach’s daughter privilege and all. This feels like an agreeable time to use that advantage.
The lights are low—just the main overhead neon strips buzzing faintly.
The air smells like sweat, grass, and soap.
There’s always a weird breeze in here with high humid condensation, the concrete walls definitely do not help.
I walk around the edges where the player names are hung over their designated changing stations, I run my fingers along the names—imagine the feeling in your stomach down here warming up, getting strapped and mentally preparing to run through that tunnel out onto the field.
The rest of the team is gone. But he’s still here. Just like I knew he would be.
Asher sits on the bench in front of his spot, half-dressed, shoulders bare and gleaming with the last remnants of the game.
A towel hangs around his neck; his training shirt tossed onto the floor.
He’s staring into the crevice of his change station like it’s a window to something I can’t see.
I know his mind would be playing back every movement, every run and pass.
He’s a perfectionist. Another attribute that makes him manager catnip.
He doesn’t notice me right away. He’s really caught up in his thoughts.
“You played well,” I say softly.
His head turns. He has a sadness in his eyes. The blue in them is almost grey as the light bounces off the moist outer layer.
There’s something unreadable in his expression. Some mix of pride and frustration. Of almost being enough. He’s very hard on himself. I wish I could show him what I’ve just watched through my eyes. The beginning of a legacy.
“Didn’t win,” he says flatly.
There it is.
“You weren’t meant to win tonight,” I say.
“You were meant to remind them what you’re capable of.
” The manager in me is tempted to pull up his stats in the short time he was on compared to Caleb’s lengthy stint, but I know that will not mean anything to Ash.
If he doesn’t believe something himself then it is not worth believing.
His eyes meet mine. “Did I?”
I walk toward him, slowly, letting the silence stretch. I nod once. “Yeah. You did.”
“Is that Scarlett Walker the rugby league fan talking or Scarlett Walker manager?”
He stands as I approach, towering over me, chest rising and falling. For a second, we just stare at each other—like the space between us is sparking, fragile, about to catch on fire. Neither of us daring to make the first move, but someone must make the first play here.
“It’s Scarlett Walker, whatever you want me to be for you Ash” I whisper up to him, and God, I mean it.
I don’t know if it’s the energy of watching him in motion today, or the way he looks like testosterone personified in this dim lit and sweaty dressing shed, but I can’t take it. I reach up, threading my fingers through the towel around his neck using it as a vice, and pulling him down to kiss me.
He groans against my mouth, hands gripping my waist like he’s been holding back since the moment the whistle blew, and he locked eyes with me, watching from afar.
I kiss him deeper, dragging my fingers across his bare, moist skin, his muscles taut from the game, from everything he’s been carrying on his shoulders and no doubt in that head of his.
I can feel his thoughts rolling around in there as he toys with himself to softly pull back.
“This is a bad idea,” he mutters against my lips, but he doesn’t move away.
His mind is telling him one thing, but his body is saying something else.
His body is all I’m listening to right now because there is no rationale when it comes to the way I react to Asher Kingston, especially after I’ve just watched him move out on that field.
I push him back gently until he hits the changing station behind him, the cool timber squeaks faintly under his sweaty skin.
“We’ve had worse ones, and we will probably have worse yet,” I breathe.
He laughs, low and hungry. “You’re not wrong.”
“I can stop if you think it’s a bad idea” I’m giving him the opportunity to tell me if this isn’t what he wants.
He doesn’t answer me with words, instead his hands slip beneath my blazer, pushing it off my shoulders.
I shrug out of it, kissing him again, harder this time.
He slides his hands down to my thighs, lifting me as effortlessly as he scoops up the football, like I weigh nothing, and spinning to pin me against the timber backing now.
My legs wrap around him instinctively.
We’re both still half-dressed, breathless, aching.
He growls into my neck. “Tell me to stop.”
Now he’s giving me the opportunity to stop this, but I have no free will here. I’m running on instinct, and my instincts are telling me to run headfirst at this man. The man I met two years ago at that party, the one I bared my soul to because I thought I’d never see him again.
I press my forehead against his. “Don’t you dare.”
Then in a flurry of motions he’s pulling aside my lace g-string underwear, fingers sliding between my legs, testing, teasing.
There’s a low throbbing feeling meeting him where his finger delicately hovers over my wet centre.
A current of want and need that’s travelled from where our lips touched all the way down.
“You’re soaked,” he whispers. “Was that before or after you snuck your way in here to seduce me darling?”
“I’m always like this thinking of you Asher.”
He pushes his shorts down just enough to free himself and aligns us, sliding into me in one smooth, hot stroke that rips a gasping moan from my lungs.
It feels like the first time he’s touched me all over again.
The humid air in here is adding to the mayhem.
I know he’s trying to make quick work of what we are doing because anyone could walk in or worse—still be here.
The danger of it all adds to the excitement and our bodies become more frantic.
I clutch at his shoulders, my fingernails gripping into his skin as he thrusts into me, deep and steady, the cool of the timber behind me a sharp contrast to the heat blooming between us. Our movements are rough, desperate, bodies slamming together in time with the pounding of our hearts.
It’s messy. Urgent. Electric.
But it’s also real.
This is a post game ritual I want every single time. I’m putting this in his contract. Hell, I’ll even add it in there as a pregame ritual.
When I finally let go, it’s with my head against his shoulder and his name on my lips. Ash—sh,Ashhh—Asher.
He follows with a groan, burying his face in my neck as he loses himself completely inside me. The warmth and closeness send me over the edge again, clenching and rocking deep into him.
For the briefest moment, neither of us moves.
Just breath.
Just skin.
Just heartbeats.
Then he kisses me again soft this time. A thank-you. A promise.
“Scarlett Walker,” he says against my lips. “You ruin me.”
I smile. “You love it.”
He grins. “Damn right I do.”
“I’m heading home to have a shower, if you want to join?” He asks, trying to act casual as he gathers his stuff and we put missing clothes back in their places.
“Aren’t you scared someone will see us leaving together?” Dumb question I know, given our post game activity just now.
“Well, we just had sex in the dressing shed Scar, and I wasn’t worried about anyone walking in then—well maybe your dad.” he says coolly looking up at me now. Those blue eyes pleading for more time together.
“I’m not worried about what Ted thinks, I’ll deal with Ted when the time comes, let’s just keep this professional where we need to and anything but when we don’t. Like right now I’m going to get in my car and follow you to your house.” I help him pull down his spare shirt over his damp body.
His head pops through the gap in the shirt and the biggest grin falls over his face “That’s a plan I can live with, for now.”
We lace our fingers through each others and walk vigilantly hand in hand to the side parking lot—and of course that’s when we run straight into Collins.
I quickly pull my fingers out of Asher’s grasp, and I pray that Collins doesn’t notice my cheeks turning red as they heat.
I feel like a high schooler who’s just been busted skipping school with the older tradie boyfriend.