Chapter 17 Lucia
Chapter seventeen
Lucia
Lucia wrapped herself in the hotel robe, hair tied up in her microfiber towel. She lay on her bed, looking up at the ceiling and pondering the fire she knew she was playing with. After her call with Isa, she’d sat in the shower, hoping to find answers in its scalding embrace.
Isa’s words rang in her head. “I just don’t think you would’ve been intimate with him if you didn’t have feelings for him,” she’d said. “Just be careful, okay?”
Careful of what? She was happy with how things were. Teasing him at the picnic had been fun, and they’d set boundaries for the future. And honestly? If they slipped up again, she wasn’t going to complain. Her pussy throbbed just thinking of their night together.
She let her hand drift lower absentmindedly, noticing how slick she’d become at the thought of him.
Well, touching herself to thoughts of him wasn’t off the table, was it?
She parted herself, rubbing up and down slowly.
She swirled her middle finger around her clit, the thought of Colton’s body over hers encouraging her.
Her breaths became shaky and stilted. Just as she started to close in on her climax, her phone rang. She thought about letting it go to voicemail but decided against it. Her mood was further ruined when she saw who was calling.
“What do you want?” She sounded irate, but more than that, she knew she probably sounded seductive as hell.
“Been thinkin’ about me?” She could hear his dumb grin from over the phone.
“I’m busy, Colton. What do you want?”
“Can’t a guy check in on his girlfriend every once in a while?”
“Fake. Fake girlfriend.”
“Fine. Fake. So what’cha doing?
She sighed, seeing her moment slip away. “Nothing anymore.”
“Good, I love to hear it. Come hang out, I’m bored.”
“That’s anti-boundaries. We agreed not to hang out outside of work.”
“Team bonding?” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “Then bring your little tablet and tell me all the things I need to do better.”
“On the field? Or do you need bedroom pointers?”
“You tell me, Luc. Anything you want me to do better?” Husky. His voice was oh-so-husky and she swallowed over the desire that grew inside her at the sound of it.
“What do I care? Won’t benefit me.”
“Just come, please. I’m bored.” He didn’t know how badly she’d wanted to come until he’d ruined it.
“I hate you.”
“If you show up in a Vipers shirt, I’m ripping it off of you.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
He grunted. “Room 1524.”
Lucia skipped the snacks, throwing on the Sabers sweatsuit she’d gotten her hands on. When the doors to the elevator opened, Cooper stood in the corner.
“Going up?” His smile was wide like he knew her secret.
“Oh, hi, Coop.”
He tipped his cowboy hat in greeting.
She noticed that the button for the fifteenth floor was already lit up, so she cleared her throat and stared ahead. “How’d you get out of the door taping?”
He chuckled. “At this point, it’s a joke. Coach Turner doesn’t care, and he’s realized adding more sprints or reps to practice won’t stop us from doing what we like.”
“It’s so silly and outdated.”
“Eh, it’s tradition.”
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. They both stepped out, and she took in the tall, glass window overlooking Dallas.
“Thank you.” It was so quiet, she thought she’d imagined the words.
“Huh?” She stopped, scanning the hallway to figure out which of the many halls would take her to Colton’s room.
“It’s that way.” He pointed to their left, his eyes crinkling with a smile. “I’ve never seen Colton like this. Goofy. Happy. Actually having fun during the season.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s normally so serious, sometimes even in offseason. It’s different. So thank you.”
“Oh, I don’t think…” She didn’t even know how to finish that thought.
He shrugged again. “All I’m saying is something about this is different for him. And I’m glad. It’s about time.” He turned, walking down the hall opposite where he’d pointed her. “See you around, Lucia.”
Lucia tried not to read into his words. She knew Colton had only initially helped her out of a sense of obligation and pity.
He’d felt bad that he’d gotten her into another sticky situation with the media.
Still, Cooper’s words were the validation she needed to know that she’d been doing something right.
Maybe she’d been helping Colton in more ways than one.
His room wasn’t far, and she knocked on the door, a little dazed from her conversation with Cooper. When he opened the door, he looked her up and down hungrily before his eyes turned worried as they landed on her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Unsurprisingly, he was wearing what had quickly become her favorite outfit on him. The white shirt and dark sweats slung low on his hips reignited the feeling she’d had in her room less than a half hour before.
She walked past him, trying to squash the thought of him pressing her against the wall. Instead, she focused on Cooper’s words. “You didn’t tell Cooper about us?”
“Us?” He closed the door, his head cocked slightly to the side.
“You know, us.” She waved her hand between them. “The fact that this isn’t real.”
“Oh.” His expression soured, and he walked past her to the bed.
“I’m not much of a dater. I’ve had my share of”—he glanced at her before cutting his eyes away—“flings. But I haven’t been in a relationship since college.
I’ve been so focused on the game from the moment I turned pro.
So, yeah, my friends are really happy for me that I have someone, and I don’t want to take that away from them. ”
“Have you thought about a real girlfriend? I hear they’re really easy to find for professional quarterbacks. Especially championship-winning quarterbacks. They might even make you real happy. Make you more bearable.”
The thought wasn’t a pleasant one. She didn’t like thinking of him dating someone else one bit.
She wasn’t even sure where the words had come from, but she almost wished she could take them back.
Seeing Colton happy with someone else had the potential to hurt her feelings more than Max cheating on her, and that was an unsettling realization.
“‘Real happy?’ What does that mean?”
Lucia shrugged as she approached the desk, setting her tablet down.
“Do you think I’m faking happiness?” he probed.
“I don’t know. I’m just saying…you’re not horrible to look at. If you wanted a real girlfriend to, you know, fulfill your needs, make you happy, and be all the things you want, I’m sure you wouldn’t have to look far.” Now she was rambling and heading into territory she really didn’t want to be in.
“Was that your twisted way of giving me a compliment?” He lay down, his hands behind his head, biceps bulging as he watched her at the desk.
“Shut up.”
“For the record, I’m not really looking for a real girlfriend. I’ve got my hands full with you.”
Her pulse hammered at his words, but she covered it with a roll of her eyes. “I mean when we break up. After the season.”
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll see. I’m not sure it’s in the cards until I’m done with football. I can’t really afford to be in a serious relationship when I have to spend as much time as I do training.”
There was that nonsense again. He acted as if half of his friends weren’t married with children. “What’s your excuse for Rudy? And Sam? And all the others who are on your championship-winning team with wives and children. Plenty of players have partners.”
“Yeah? And what about you? What are you going to do after the season?”
If he was asking about her love life, that would be a bust. “I sign a contract somewhere that will let me work with them until they’re ready to promote me to head analyst.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. And stop fiddling with the tablet. Come sit, we both know you didn’t prep anything for us to work on.”
She hadn’t realized she was playing with the case of her tablet until he pointed it out. Just to spite him, she sat in the chair.
“Why aren’t you looking for a real boyfriend?”
She’d known the question was coming, but hated that she couldn’t sidestep this one. “After Max, they’re not for me. I was already pretty sure I wasn’t cut out for a relationship. He confirmed it.”
His eyes darkened, his jaw set. Dangerous. This man was dangerous, and god, did she like it.
“Do you still have feelings for him?”
She scoffed, “Colton, we’ve talked about this. You know I don’t. Love just hasn’t worked in my favor.”
He looked at her like he didn’t believe her, so she continued, “I’m serious. So serious that I can honestly tell you I’m glad Max cheated on me.”
She’d had inklings of that fact for a few months, maybe from the moment the news had come out, but it’d solidified when she’d realized that Colton cared more about her than Max ever had. It hurt, but she knew it was true. She just hadn’t known it was something she was going to voice.
“What?” he asked incredulously.
“I’m not glad that it was so public or that it forced me to leave a job and friends I love.
But I can’t even begin to tell you the relief I felt at finally having an out.
Our college years weren’t so bad, other than around rivalry week.
But once he got into the league, he changed.
He’s a good quarterback, and going in the first round proved it to him.
He wasn’t a very good boyfriend after that, but any time he thought I might be getting ready to leave him, he found a way to reel me back in.
I won’t bore you with specifics, but any time he did something wrong, he figured out how to fix it.
He’d treat me the way I should’ve always been treated for a few days, and I’d give up on the notion of leaving him.
He was all I knew, and to me, it just made sense to stay. ”
Whether good or bad, Max had been the constant that her father never had. In her mind, having him for as long as she had represented that she was doing everything right in her relationship.