Page 112 of Hard to Hold

With one hand sliding over his length, I use my other to dip into the ice bucket and bring a cube of ice to my lips.

Rush’s eyes meet mine. A hiss fills the room when I slide him back into my mouth with the ice cube on my tongue.

Fire and ice.

Pleasure and pain.

He opens his mouth to say something, but loses his words to the onslaught of sensations. His head falls back and his hand tenses against my scalp.

He’s gorgeous from my position between his thighs. He’s sex and desire and temptation and . . . love.

And just when the realization hits me and the tears well—as I understand how devastated I’m going to be when he leaves—he urges me to move faster, to suck harder. Then his whole body tenses, and he empties himself in the back of my throat.

I watch his chest heave and his muscles ease one by one until he looks down at me, seeing his cock still in my hand and a smile on my somewhat swollen lips.

“What are your feelings about ice now?” I ask coyly.

His laugh rings out so that his dick bobs up and down before he helps me to my feet and kisses me soundly on the lips. “Why, Miss Kincade, I do believe I’ve had a change of heart on the subject.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

LENNOX

“SO THAT’S IT? YOU TAKE the contract, you take my money, and you don’t deliver on any promises?”

When I look up, I expect to find Cannon standing there with a smile on his lips, but he’s dead serious, and it startles me.

“Excuse me?” I partly laugh the words out. “I told you quite candidly that I understood your desire to get Rush, but I didn’t think it would work. You told me to try anyway. I tried, Cannon. I truly did, but his heart is elsewhere.” And I can’t blame him. “I’m sorry for that, but I do think we made some positive headway in player advocacy for the league. The plans we created will have some great benefits—”

“So you’re not as good as they said you were.” There’s anger to his voice I never would have expected.

“I’m sorry. I’m not following—”

“I hired you because of the rumors. Finn told me you slept with players and played bullshit games to steal them. What he hates you for, I was depending on. And I guess you weren’t that great, because even after Rush had you, he’s still not staying.”

I stand there, jaw lax, anger firing in every fiber of my body. “You hired me to what?” My voice is barely a whisper.

“Sleep with him. Use that magical whatever you have to keep him here. Make him fall hard enough that he’d take the bait. Hell, I couldn’t care less if you broke up with him the minute he signed . . . but isn’t that the least you could have done?”

Oh. My. God.

Use that magical whatever you have to keep him here. Make him fall hard enough that he’d take the bait.

What the actual fuck?

Are there any men in sports management that actually have souls that aren’t godawful or reprehensible? He was actually fucking banking on Finn’s words coming true. He was a tiger lying in wait. Despicable.

My dad was right. My sisters were right. Cannon is a contemptible bastard.

“You son of a bitch.”

He shrugs and smiles. “Don’t blame a man for playing the game.”

“And don’t blame a woman for knowing an asshole when she sees one.”

I grab my things as quickly but calmly as I can, because I don’t want him to think he’s gotten to me, and then I walk out of the office without looking back.

It’s only when I’m in my car in the parking lot with my windows rolled up that I yell at the top of my lungs to let my anger out. He fucking tried to use me. Does he have any respect for me, or was he always just spewing bullshit?