MADDY
Studying the diploma I just hung on my office wall, I tilt it a centimeter to the left and then step back with a grin, a little thrill zipping up my spine.
My office. The one with my name on the door. My name. Dr. Maddy Wright. Director of Sports Psychology. I’m so excited I need a pillow to scream into. In lieu of a pillow, I stomp my feet and spin in a circle until I’m dizzy, collapsing into my chair and kicking my feet up on the desk.
I fucking made it.
Nerves? Don’t know them.
“That’s a really happy face.”
My head shoots up at the familiar voice, and I find myself looking directly into the eyes of the man I haven’t stopped thinking about for approximately the last thirteen hours. The man suddenly standing casually just outside my office door, gripping the top of the door frame with one hand like he’s a freaking romance novel hero or something. He looks hot as fuck in athletic shorts and a white T-shirt that shows off forearms I may or may not have actually licked last night and stretches across aset of abs I could probably draw in my sleep. You know, if I wanted to do something like that.
“It’s the players’ day off. No one is supposed to be down here.” I try for accusatory, but my slightly breathy tone doesn’t quite get there. Dammit.
Cam just shrugs, leaning harder into the door frame, his shirt riding up enough that I get a flash of those abs, and my entire body practically lights itself on fire. “I was in the building, so I figured I would have one of the trainers work on my hip. You know, just to make absolutely sure it’s ready for the home opener.”
His hip is fine. I know his hip is fine because he used it to give me eight million orgasms last night. He’s down here to see me. I know it for sure, and I hate that it gives me a little thrill. But I can’t say any of that to him, so instead, I lift an eyebrow, very clearly calling bullshit. “Your stats in the preseason have been amazing. Your hip doesn’t seem to be giving you any trouble.”
A grin lights up his face. “You been checking up on me, Dr. Wright?”
“Maddy,” I croak. I clear my throat quickly and try again. “Call me Maddy.”
“Maddy,” he says slowly, and another bolt of heat shoots through me at the way my name sounds coming out of his mouth. I think maybe I should have told him to stick with Dr. Wright. Although that has a certain sexy ring to it I may or may not like a whole lot. Gah. Shit. “You been checking up on me, Maddy?”
Rolling my eyes, I drop my feet and stand, resting my hands on the desk. “I’ve been checking up on everyone. It’s literally my job.”
Dropping his hand from the doorframe, he saunters into my office and sets a bag I’m just noticing he was carrying onto the floor, flopping into the chair across from my desk. He stretches his long legs out in front of him and runs a casual hand throughhis tousled hair, and it’s all so painfully sexy I could die. “Yeah, but I’m not just anyone,Wildcat. Am I?”
The way he emphasizesWildcathas those images from last night pummeling my brain again and makes me feel like I need to check and make sure my underwear is still present and accounted for and hasn’t melted clean off my body because no, he’s definitely not just anyone, and that is a huge problem for me.
“Don’t call me that,” I hiss, overcompensating for the fact that I feel like I’m burning from the inside out. “Last night was wild. Nothing else about me is except for the hockey team I played on in college. And close the damn door.”
He twists his body and stretches out a long arm, swinging the door shut before turning back to me. “We’ll get back to the hockey team because that is straight sexy, Maddy. And that that thing you did with your tongue when your head was hanging off the bed? That felt wild to me.”
“No,” I say, pointing at him, sure my cheeks are bright red. The curses of being a freckled redhead. “Talking about what we may or may not have done last night is exactly what we’re not going to do right now.”
Cam smirks at me and crosses his arms over his chest. His muscles flex with the movement, and I have to force myself to keep my eyes on his face. “You and I both know there isn’t much we didn’t do last night, and I have the claw marks on my back to prove it. Those are some sharp nails you’ve got there, Wildcat.”
“Me?” I drop back into my chair with an indignant huff. “What about you? I’m wearing like ten pounds of concealer to cover up a hickey on my neck. You gave me a fucking hickey, Cameron, like we’re in high school.”
Something feral swims in his eyes as his gaze drops directly to my neck and then back up to meet mine, and when he speaks, his voice is low. Raspy. Sex voice. Good lord, this man is giving me his sex voice in my goddamn office. “So both of us are wearing the reminder of last night. I like the idea of you walkingaround with my mark on you.” Then, like he flips a switch, he grins, and his voice is back to normal, all deep rumble and good cheer. “You know, I think maybe it’s fate.”
I roll my eyes to combat the whiplash I feel at this man’s presence in my office and his abrupt switch from sex god to affable athlete. “What’s fate?”
His smile widens as he props one calf on the opposite knee. A dimple pops in his cheek and honestly, I think I might just expire right here. RIP me. It’s been a good life; glad I had amazing sex before it all ended. “You and me. I mean, what were the chances we both ended up in that bar last night? I never go to bars. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of you, and here you are, right where I work. That’s a whole lot of coincidence.”
Leaning forward, I cross my arms over my desk going for unaffected professional. “I go to that bar all the time. My best friend knows the owner. And everything about last night was wild. But like I said, I’m not wild. I’m just me. Last night was last night, and today is today. I’m here where you work because I work here too. I’m literally your doctor. The psychologist in charge of making sure all you overgrown children masquerading as professional football players have impeccable mental health.”
Cam uncrosses his legs, leaning forward so he mirrors my pose. “First of all, you’re notjustanything. I think you might be everything.” He runs a single finger over the back of my hand the way he did in the bar last night, his eyes lighting up as goosebumps break out over my skin. “And also, I already have impeccable mental health.”
“Do you really?” I ask skeptically, trying to avoid showing him how much hisYou might be everythingcomment affected me.
Spoiler alert, it affected me a lot. So much that I briefly consider hurling myself across the desk and straight into his lap. But cooler heads prevail.
He shrugs. “I mean, I’m a thirty-four-year-old single dad of two kids. My wife died ten years ago when my son was an infant, and every day of my life, I balance the demands of being aprofessional football player and parenting two kids who get simultaneously harder and easier to raise as they get older, which makes no sense at all, but there it is anyway. At any given moment, I’m juggling no fewer than eight different things, and without my mom living down the street from me and picking up the slack, my entire house of cards would come tumbling down.” He smiles again, and the warmth in it transfers to my chest, my heart beating a little faster. “But I love those kids with my whole heart, and I’m proud of all three of us every damn day. And I love playing football. So that house of cards? Totally worth it.”
I blow out a breath. “That’s some well-adjusted shit, Cameron.”
