All three of us turn in unison, and suddenly I’m not standing in the lobby of the Renegades practice facility anymore. My brain is once again a movie reel of images of the fancy suite on the top floor of the Fairmont hotel. The room is dim, lit only by the glow of a single bedside lamp. And the man with the bluest eyes hovers over me, looking at me like he sees straight to the core of me. He’s over me, under me, everywhere, mapping my body with lips and teeth and tongue and hands, over and over again until all I could see was him. He didn’t know me, but it was like heknewme. What I wanted. What I needed.
Oh my fucking god.
He was a stranger.
It was supposed to be just for one night.
He doesn’t live here.
Except I think maybe he does, because my one night justwalked through the door of my brand-new workplace, and it’s definitely not nighttime anymore.
“You must be Cameron,” Liv says, holding out a hand.
“Just Cam,” he says, sliding his hand into hers to shake. His deep, rumbly voice has the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up. “Everyone calls me C?—”
The rest of his name is cut off when his gaze lands squarely on me. His eyes widen slightly, and then they heat, his lips tipping up in a smile I feel everywhere.
Then in a flash, that feeling turns to dread when the implications of this moment sink in.
My one-night stand and the best sex of my life was Cameron Lowry.Just Cam. Football player. Renegades veteran. One of the fifty-three players whose mental health I am now solely responsible for.
Holy fucking fuck.
I am so screwed.
CHAPTER TWO
CAM
“Okay, so nothing that comes from the sea, and no peas. Anything else on your kids’ absolute no list?”
I snap back into the conversation, only hearing the tail end of Olivia’s question as I try to shake off the image of the beautiful redhead from the lobby. The redhead I haven’t been able to get out of my mind since I woke up to an empty bed at six this morning with nothing but memories and the smell of vanilla and lavender on my sheets.
The redhead I now know is Dr. Maddy Wright, niece to the woman sitting across from me and her husband, the general manager of the team that pays me to make sure the quarterback can throw the football and who can absolutely fuck up my career if he feels like it.
Participant in the hottest night I’ve had in years.
A night I would like to repeat as soon as humanly possible.
A memory of the way she moaned in my ear, clawed at my back, flickers through my brain, and suddenly things like my place on the team and a paycheck seem insignificant in comparison to the way it felt to have her wrapped around me.
And she’s in this building. Somewhere. I have to physically grip the arms of the chair I’m sitting in to restrain myself from running through the halls yelling her name until I find her.
Jesus motherfucking Christ, I need to get a grip.
“Sorry, can you say that again?”
Olivia gives me an amused smile, like she knows exactly where my brain went, and it’s entirely possible she does. When I saw Maddy in the lobby, I was stunned almost completely silent as Brian introduced us. He didn’t seem to notice anything, but I saw the way Olivia’s gaze bounced from Maddy to me. The way she saw how Maddy avoided eye contact with me so aggressively it almost made me laugh before she followed Brian down to her new office. I’m pretty sure Olivia could see straight into my head as my eyes followed Maddy until she disappeared from view.
It was like as long as she was close, I couldn’t look anywhere but at her. And that’s a feeling I haven’t had in years. Ten years, to be exact.
“No fish and no peas. Anything else?”
I huff out a laugh, shifting my whole focus back to Olivia. She’s doing me a huge favor. The very least I can do is keep my attention on her and not on thoughts of gorgeous redheads and unforgettable nights. “That’s it. Anytime fish is on the table, both kids look at it like they’re personally offended, and I may be a thirty-four year old man, but I hate peas like a toddler.”
Olivia laughs. “Honestly, same. So, are you sure I can’t do more than just dinners? I’m happy to toss in lunch stuff, too, or even breakfast.”
I lean back in my seat, feeling some of the weight I carry every day drain out at the competence in her tone. “Honestly, just dinners are so helpful. Between Ethan’s hockey practices and Riley’s upcoming high school schedule, we’re about to be in a million different directions in the evenings, so not having to worry about dinner is huge. I usually do lunch here, and my kids think bagged lunches are practically offensive, so they buy lunch at school. The three of us eat breakfast together every morningunless I’m traveling, and on those days my mom holds down the fort.”
