Chapter 11
CLAY
“You gotta have a signature move,” Miles insists to Rookie. “The last three winners have a move. They get you votes.”
Rookie does a crossover, then flips the ball behind his back and up for a dunk.
“The fuck was that?!” Coach demands.
“I need a signature move. For Rookie of the Year.”
“Signature move is gonna be my foot in your ass.” Coach lowers his voice, but we can still hear him, and Jay buries his laugh in a cough. “You want gold statues, kid? Contribute on a team, you get paid. Then you buy all the gold you want.”
Coach blows his whistle, and a different group takes the floor, Jayden bringing the ball up from half court.
I’m distracted, but sue me.
Rookie rubs a towel over his head and comes over to me. “I can’t do this. Whenever I try to do something big, I get slapped down.”
“You gotta serve your time when you get drafted.”
“You didn’t. You were shot out of a cannon with a grudge.”
I shake my head because he’s not wrong. “This sport is a long game. Be smart about it.”
“Like last night with Nova?” he asks, and my head snaps around. “I went looking for y’all and heard you.”
Hooking up in the back room of the bar wasn’t planned, but fuck did I need it.
Watching her flirt with Miles broke my control, especially when Brooke informed me that Nova’s “I’m over you” act was exactly that.
When I dragged her back to the storeroom, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to curse her or take her over my knee.
What I needed most was to taste her. To make her moan my name. To prove to myself I still could.
She wants me. That much is clear.
The way she came on my face, the sounds she made, the way she tasted—it’s all gonna live rent free in my head a long damn time.
Jerking off to her, with her, was the only way I could keep from bending her over and fucking her right there while she was still trembling.
It was the hottest experience of my life.
Kicker is, it’s not enough.
Not nearly.
We run the next sequence, and I’m a step behind to defend, so I have to catch up.
I take Rookie out of the air, and he lands hard on his back.
“Fuck,” he grunts from the ground.
“My bad,” I murmur as I hold out a hand and help him up after.
I glance up to see Harlan waiting in the wings, watching silently, hands in the pockets of his suit pants.
“You ever ditch the suit?” I cross to him, tugging on my shorts. “These things might put a little swing back in your step.”
“You think you don’t have a stick up your ass? Anyone tried to get up in your routine, they’d face the same kind of resistance. We’re not as dissimilar as you like to think.”
I’m trying not to think too hard on that when he goes on.
“He’s good,” Harlan says, nodding to Rookie. “It’s one thing for you to demand a trade, but don’t burn the place down on your way out.”
I stiffen. “You don’t see me helping him out?”
“I see you taking him out at the knees, giving him the same injury as you.”
My hands ball into fists. I’ve been working with Rookie all the time, but Harlan takes one look and decides he knows what’s up.
“For a man who thinks he sees everything, you don’t see shit.” This is why we can’t work together. I grimace. “I want an update on our deal.”
“LA’s got some issues, and we’ve had complications on this end too.”
“My stock is up. I’m averaging twenty-eight a night. We have a winning record.”
He rocks back on his heels. “Wins and losses aren’t the only complication around here.
Tenth anniversary’s a big deal.” He shakes his head.
“James is richer than God, and he's decided this is his time to put his mark on the organization whether it needs it or not, which means we’re all tasked with making it happen. The regular operations of the team are second to the spectacle.” Harlan clears his throat.
“I know it’s not easy keeping up your end of the deal. ”
The digging in my stomach could be guilt.
I return to my seat, turning over the fact he thinks I’m still keeping my distance from Nova.
Pretty sure he would agree that making his sister-in-law scream in the back room of Mile High is not within the terms of our agreement.
If I got any closer to her than I was last night, we’d be made of the same damn atoms.
But what kind of fucked-up deal dictates relationships between people?
He shouldn’t have asked me to do it. I shouldn’t have said yes. It’s that simple.
“Hey, Rookie,” I mutter, and he glances over. “Don’t say anything about Nova.”
“To the guys?”
“To anyone.”
Rookie starts to open his mouth, then closes it again.
NOVA
I’m curled up in a chair at Brooke’s place working on a sketch of Clay using my last drawing as a reference. But every time I start, I’m distracted by what happened between us.
"Bet you’re aching for me to fill you up right now."
"I’ll always look better on you than he does."
My throat is drier than a desert.
I jump up to get a soda from the kitchen, setting my sketchpad and the original drawing on the coffee table and ignoring the tingling between my thighs. I’m trying to make progress on this new section of the mural. Touching myself in the shower and picturing Clayton Wade while I do it doesn’t help.
When the phone rings, I change direction, grateful for the interruption.
Mari.
“I’m sorry if the date thing the other night was weird,” my sister says when I answer the phone.
“It’s fine. I’m not really looking for any kind of relationship.”
“This still about Brad?”
“No. I’m trying to focus on my head right now and not my heart.” Or the desire flooding me since the other night. The feeling of Clay’s tongue inside me, the feel of him coating my skin, haunted me well after Brooke and I got home and I showered off the last evidence of our tryst.
If I’m honest, that grumpy basketball player has been occupying my brain since the moment he tried to evict me from my airplane seat.
“Anyway, what’s up?” I prompt.
“You sounded edgy when I texted. Very Un-Nova-like.”
I’m surprised she noticed.
“It’s work,” I admit as I retrieve an open bottle of wine from the fridge. “I want to do my best, and I can’t stand the thought of letting James down.”
I’ve never had such an important job.
Yes, what I did in the past mattered, but this is entirely on me.
“Anytime you have a new client, there’s a learning curve. Figuring out what matters to them can be hard and painful.”
I nod even though Mari can’t see me.
“Sometimes you need to fake it until you make it, you know? Pretend you have it all figured out until you really catch up.”
“Thank you,” I say and mean it.
After we click off, I pour myself a glass of wine and head back to the living room, taking in the drawing Clay sent me before I sink back into my chair.
“I can do this,” I say out loud.
It’s my first real art commission, but James hired me for a reason.
The irony is the man who gave me this drawing, the same one I’m trying to capture, would agree. He would let nothing stand between him and his goal. And he wouldn’t let anyone tell him he wasn’t enough.
Two hours and two glasses of wine later, I have a happy buzz in my head and the sketch looks great.
That was exactly what I needed, I decide.
I’m capable and confident, riding a high fueled by achievement and alcohol.
Since I’m finished with the original drawing, I should probably return it.
It’s only neighborly.
I grab the picture, put on shoes, and head out into the hall to the elevator.
Two minutes later, I’m staring at the closed door inches from my face, and damn if it doesn’t feel as if it’s staring back.
My grip tightens, the picture frame digging into my hand to remind me why I’m here.
Just do it.
I’m still deciding whether to lift my knuckles and rap on the wood when the door swings open.
“You gonna stand there all night?” Clay drawls from the other side.
He’s wearing a pair of grey sweats resting low on his hips and nothing else. Black ink curls around his muscled arms, over his pecs and abs. His feet are bare. His hair sticks up in every direction in a way that’s sexy and messy, and he looks as if he just rolled out of bed.
My throat dries.
How did he…?
There’s a lens in the peephole. A camera.
Of course Clay would have security.
Music drifting into the hall has me snapping to attention. It didn’t occur to me he was here with someone, but seeing his state of semi-clothedness, a ribbon that feels suspiciously like jealousy snakes up my spine and curls in my stomach.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Clay leans against the door frame, folding those bulging arms. “I’m alone.”
Satisfaction edges in around the sharp needles, but I play it cool. “I meant you jerking off.”
His eyes dance. “You offering to relieve me?”
Heat blooms between my thighs. My body responds whether I want it to or not. He has a direct line to my arousal, a silky rope he tugs on with every smirk, every tilt of his dark head, every rough word from his filthy mouth.
“I came to return this.” I hold up the picture.
“That all you came for?” His voice lowers with innuendo, and my attention drags down to the bulge in his pants without warning.
I force my eyes up to meet his.
Clay turns and heads inside, leaving me staring after him, my jaw on the floor, the picture still in my hands.
I follow him inside, the door clicking closed smoothly at my back.
He pads barefoot across the carpet to the living room, where he’s watching basketball. I lean the picture carefully against the wall opposite him.
“We need to talk,” he says solemnly.
I’m suddenly on guard. “About what happened between us?”
“No. About how much you’re getting paid by the Kodiaks.”
I frown. “It’s none of your business.”
“Show me your contract.”
He’s being bossy, but I'll get out of here faster if I do it. I pull out my phone and open the contract.
He takes my phone and crosses to the living room, sinking onto the huge couch. I follow him, perching on the edge just far enough away we’re not touching.
Watching him read all that fine print as if he’s ready to shred it is strangely sexy.