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Fourth quarter. Two minutes on the clock. We’re down 17–13. They’re in shotgun. Kingston crouches low, hands twitching like live wire. Malik motions right. Snap. The rush comes hard. Kingston spins, blocks—slams—but the pressure collapses the pocket too fast. Our quarterback scrambles, lobs a pass off his back foot.

For a half-second, everything stops.

The ball hangs in the air like fate itself.

And then—bam—it’s intercepted.

My stomach drops through the floor of the stadium. The crowd groans in collective heartbreak. It’s over.

The Panthers run down the clock with a few safe handoffs, draining every tick of hope. The scoreboard cements the sting: 20–17. Brutal.

The box falls into a heavy silence, broken only by the nervous rattle of nail polish caps and the rustle of jackets. I don’t know when I sat back down, but my legs are shaking, and my nails are marks on my palm. I can barely breathe past the sharp ache in my chest.

I don’t need to check the sideline to know Kingston’s hurting. Not physically—he played like a machine—but emotionally. I know him. I know the weight he carries, how he shoulders the blame like it’s stitched into his jersey. As captain, he’ll feel every mistake like a scar branded on his soul.

So I wait.

The wives and girlfriends gather their things, murmuring quietly, their high spirits dimmed to dull embers. But I stay frozen, staring through the thick glass until I spot him—dark curls damp, jersey streaked with sweat and grass stains, face tight with fury and fatigue.

Then he looks up.

And his gaze doesn’t search. Doesn’t drift. It zeroes in.

Like I’m the only one in the room.

He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t speak. Just walks straight to the door like the whole damn stadium’s crumbling around him and I’m the only thing keeping him upright.

My chest cracks open as he steps inside. His eyes flick past the other women. Past everything.

He’s coming for me.

Chapter Nine

MYA

He’s coming for me.

That’s the only thought I can manage when Kingston makes a beeline for me, looking like he walked off the cover of GQ with a vendetta. He’s not in his gear anymore—not the pads and jersey I watched him wear like armor on the field. No, he’s in a suit. A jet-black, soul-stealing suit that fits his body like sin. The kind of tailored precision that screams Savile Row and seduction. Sharp lapels. Open collar. No tie. Just a hint of the man beneath, dangerous and deliberate.

He’s not storming into the family box. He’s already inside. Already owned the room the second he walked in.

And now?

His eyes—those deep obsidian oceans laced with guilt, fury, and want—lock on mine.

My knees wobble. My lungs glitch. Because the thing is? Watching Kingston Reign play football is a turn-on. An ache-inducing, hormone-obliterating, soul-stirring turn-on. But this—watching him command a room in a post-game suit, cheeks rough with stubble, mouth tight with disappointment?

It’s lethal.

We haven’t had sex. Not yet. Not even after all those nights sharing the same bed, our limbs accidentally tangled, his breath warm against my neck. We’ve stayed on our respective sides, pretending the electricity doesn’t exist, like we’re not slowly unraveling in the same silence.

But God, it’s getting harder to pretend.

The final whistle blew fifteen minutes ago, the scoreboard reading a brutal 17–20 loss against the Panthers. Close, hard-fought, painful. The kind of loss that sinks deep into the bones of a team and festers. And Kingston—Captain of the Giants, king of the gridiron—will carry it like penance carved across his shoulders.

I watched the whole game with breathless focus. Traced his every move like a pulse—his throws, the ones that looked like poetry midair; the brutal hits that made me flinch even from the box; the way he shoved back his helmet and yelled at the defense after a botched play in the fourth quarter.

He was a storm out there.