Baller Made (Bad Boy Ballers Book 3) Page 4

  “But that’s when it started.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were pretty close?”

  “Best friends really.” I looked down at the pavement between my feet.

  “Reggie told me I better make sure you take care of yourself or she’d have my hide.” He chuckled. “Bit of a bulldog.”

  “Pit bull.” Lioness, more like.

  “She’s concerned, that’s all.”

  “She doesn’t need to be.”

  “Well, she seems like good people anyway. Can never have too many of those,” he said.

  “You’re not going all swami on me, are you?” I slanted a glance at him, straightening up.

  “Fuck that, no.” He started walking toward the bus out on the street waiting for us because he’d probably called Coach D to tell him I needed a moment to get my shit together.

  I just hoped I didn’t have another ass-kicking/ass-chewing from Coach to look forward to. It’d be hard enough to face the guys on the team after I’d done the whole running out of a room like a chick thing.

  I’d definitely be heading to an NA meeting in the morning, though I hadn’t touched a drink or thought about drugging-up long enough now to earn my fourteen-month chip. When I was on the road, I talked to my sponsor every day. This trip had been no different. Couldn’t imagine times testing me more—getting much tougher than this—than heading back to the place it all started.

  Brooks stepped up into the bus first. “Just looking out for a brother. I hope it’s okay to say that.”

  “Yeah. It’s okay.” I sat in the first empty seat, watched the bright lights of the Vegas strip fade in the distance.

  I drank the bottle of water. Battled the demons inside. Was thankful for Brooklyn and the Carolina Crush team at my back.

  ****

  Distance. That was what I needed. From Nevada. From my past.

  From Reggie.

  I hadn’t answered a single phone call, email, Skype session as promised.

  For all the years we’d been friends, I didn’t know what to say to her.

  How much I was sorry about Chris?

  How much I wanted her?

  Two worlds that could never collide.

  My earliest memories of Reggie included a long ponytail, braces, skinned knees, and shooting hoops with her. Even though we’d been teens, our friendship had been largely innocent. To begin with. Probably always with her. Then she’d met Chris, way more outgoing than me and not one bit shy about taking what he wanted.

  He put the moves on her immediately. Little fuck. But even though we competed over just about everything, there was no chance I’d compete with him over a girl.

  Reggie had been smitten.

  Instant high school sweethearts.

  All the while I sat on the sidelines, too confused by the feelings inside. Maybe I hadn’t noticed her like that until Chris made his interest more than clear. Don’t get me wrong, as captain of the football team, I had my fair share of girlfriends and, later as an NFL first-round draftee, plenty of pussy at my command.

  Chris had joined the Air Force, following in our dad’s footsteps, to provide a life for Reggie and to do his honorable best to keep people all over the world safe. And he asked Reggie to marry him. At least that way I knew she’d always be in my life, no matter what.

  I never expected no matter what to include her becoming a widow.

  Their wedding day—how it tore at my fucking heart. I stood up as best man beside Chris, watched Reggie in glossy, ivory satin, her rosebud mouth a tempting red, the flowers in her hands nowhere near as gorgeous as she was. I sucked in a breath the same time as Chris. And I listened to them exchange vows inside a bubble that tried to suffocate feeling. I had to plaster on an easy smile, welcome her into the Malone family, just not the way I really wanted.

  My sister-in-law.

  The barrier between us once and for all firmly in place.

  Yeah, the wedding almost broke me. Not as much as Chris’s funeral, when I couldn’t console Reggie the way I wanted to.

  ****

  One week after the Reno game, seven days until the Christmas holidays most folks looked forward to, I’d fully thrown my focus back into football.

  Too bad we’d bit it during the latest motherfucking game.

  We were still on the Super Bowl track, playoffs decided soon, if we kept on point. And I was pretty sure Brooks hadn’t breathed a word to the other players about my brother’s death, but somehow I knew everyone else knew. Hell, Google was just a finger-press away. In fact, I was surprised no one had figured it out before now.

  I prowled through the rooms of the house I’d bought hoping I had a long-lasting future here in South Carolina.

  The walls blank, white. Waiting. A huge couch, a king bed, a big table. No adornments. No colors. No decoration. My own blank coffin until I decided to let myself live again.

  And I had a bruised rib from that last losing game. Hurt like a bitch every time I stretched the padded wall of muscle. Weak.

  Bruised ego. Harsh laugh.

  Broken ego.

  So I was in a bastard of a mood when the doorbell rang after I’d dropped the two hundred-pound weight onto the rest. My chest burning, my ribs wracked with agony, I curled up to my feet. Thought about a shirt. Thought, fuck it. It was probably just Brooks.

  He’d become my watchdog, checking in regularly, inviting me to his place for dinner with him and Delaney, keeping the door open in case I needed to talk to someone other than my sponsor.

  Striding through the house, I absentmindedly swiped at the sweat on my chest with the towel I held.

  I opened the door.

  Wished I hadn’t.

  My cock went fully hard in an instant.

  I draped the towel in front of me, one hand notched on the doorframe, my chest bare, Reggie’s chin barely reaching my shoulders.

  Reggie. On my doorstep. Showing up out of the clear blue.

  My lips flattened as my heartbeat thudded in my chest.

  Everything that had broken open in that alley with Brooklyn I’d sealed back under. Until this precise moment when Reggie lifted a bag in her hand and a smile on her lips when I was pretty sure I’d never looked more threatening.

  “I’ve got some time off. Recuperation.” She angled a leg in tight faded jeans toward me. “Sore tendon. Figured you’d know how to put me back together right as rain with your PT background.”

  “Funny.” Hooking the end of the towel into the waistband of my shorts, I rasped my hands across the dark shade of stubble on my jaw, and she watched every goddamn stroke. “You don’t look injured.”

  “You do.” Her gaze—challenging—dropped to the bruise on my ribs.

  Motherfucker.

  “You came to check up on me.”

  “So what if I did?” She shrugged one shoulder.

  “You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

  “I can’t just turn it off, Calder.”

  “I don’t need or want your help.” I tried to maintain the barrier, nearly snarling at her.

  She merely cast her eyes beyond me. “Are you going to invite me inside like an old friend should?”

  Old friend. Old pain.

  I stepped back. Barely.

  She ducked under my arm. Smiling.

  Closing the door, I sealed my body against it. “What are you really doing here?”

  “Well, you said you’d accept my calls.” She dropped her bags. Stood with hands on hips. “You lied to me.”

  “It’s what I do, sweetheart.” Determined to piss her off so she’d leave because danger lurked in the dark spaces of my mind.

  I’d forgotten she reacted like a lioness when cornered.

  Rookie mistake.

  In two steps, Reggie was up against me, in my face.

  Protect and dominate. The two different impulses swarmed through me.

  I wanted to serve her up on a silver platter and plant my face between her thighs.

  Then
tuck her against me in my bed, blankets all around, my arms a cradle.

  Her eyes hooked mine with nothing but unwavering intensity. “You have driven everyone away, Calder.” Her stance blended her against me, and she had to feel the heat—the need and arousal—she spiked in my body.

  “I will not fucking let you go down one more time.” Bleak, no longer dreamy eyes, rose to mine. “I’m not losing you to self-pity or self-loathing or any other kind of hate you keep wrapping around yourself.”

  Looked like I’d met my match.

  I’d known it all along.

  Impossible.

  “One man is enough to lose.” Her voice dropped, but her finger pointed at my chest before she spread her fingers over my careening heart. “And you have a choice in the matter.”

  At her unerring words, I went stock-still.

  Chapter Six

  Flirting with Danger

  Reggie

  SOMETHING SO FERAL FLASHED across Calder’s gorgeous eyes, I almost caved and backed up a step. He looked seriously pissed. Every muscle flexed like a wild animal’s, caged by sheer force of will. And those muscles were pretty damn big on his broad, sweaty chest. The only thing that made me hold my ground was the flicker he quickly shielded—his eyes drawn to my breasts with apparent sudden lust I’d finally begun to realize was there.

  Then the haunted look was back, slamming a scowl onto his sculpted lips.

  He could fight me all he wanted, I didn’t give up easily. I was ready to put the past behind us, to pursue the possible juicy, tantalizing, sexual feelings that’d never seen the light of day.

  I came to Calder completely bare. No makeup on my face. No subterfuge in my soul. With a clear conscience, ready for a clean start.

  I swept farther inside—that overtaxed tendon in my thigh only slightly twinging—and held up my soft-sided duffle. “So, where should I put this?”

  Calder growled out a rough curse. He stalked toward me, released my fingers from the bag, and walked down the hallway. And, oh Lord, what a fine, fine sight he made. His ass flexed in the loose shorts, an amazing, drool-worthy array of muscles on his back shifting and bunching. Not a single tattoo marred his perfect golden flesh.

  My pulse sped.

  He stopped at a door, peered back at me and waited for me to join him. “Guestroom.” Entering, he set my bag on top of an unadorned dresser. “Bedding’s clean. I’ll get out some towels for you. Extra bathroom across the hall.”

  Brushing past me, he braced a palm on the doorframe. “I’ll get you the wifi password so you can keep up with your Disco Bees addiction.”

  My gaze flicked to his stormy one. “You remembered.”

  “’Course. Silly game helped take your mind off worrying about Chris all those months he was—” Calder slammed his mouth shut, then muttered, “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay to talk about him, you know?”

  A muscle twitched at the corner of his jaw. He wiped his hands on the towel slung at his waist. He looked everywhere but at me. I wondered how long he’d been attracted to me. He’d always been friendly, platonic, supportive . . . there when I needed him.

  I’d been shocked—just once—when I’d caught him staring at me at a family thing a couple years ago with such hungry intent it took my breath away. I’d convinced myself it was a fluke, that I’d been imagining things, and it didn’t matter anyway because he and I were buddies, and I was completely in love with his brother.

  I didn’t want whatever this was—what it could possibly be—to turn into a giant head fuck for either one of us, but we had to find out the truth one way or the other.

  I needed to know the truth.

  I was going after what I wanted for a damn change instead of hiding from my desires like they were something to be ashamed of.

  We were still alive, dammit, and love shouldn’t be squandered.

  “I should grab a shower.” Calder pushed away from the door.

  “Not going to give me a tour first?”

  “You don’t care if I stink?”

  “I like the way you smell.” I had to tread carefully, slowly shifting the gears with him.

  “Sweaty?”

  “Manly.”

  His silver blue eyes narrowed for a whisper of a moment, gaze spanning to my breasts before he turned away and beckoned me after him.

  Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a decent spread out back to a private, forested lot. The house was what I knew to be a Charleston Single, tall and narrow with huge windows and plenty of light in an older area of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, near the Cooper River.

  It had tons of potential, but what I noticed most tugged at my fool heart. The place was neat and tidy, so neat and tidy nothing was out of place because, beyond the bare basics, there was nothing extra to be out of place. The only room that showed any kind of regular use was where he’d set up his weights. There was an iPhone doc attached to speakers, a stack of towels, a humming mini fridge in the corner.

  At least the kitchen had a stack of newspapers, his iPad, and several coffee mugs set on the counter. One pair of sneakers shoved beneath a stool at the marble island.

  The place—Calder’s home—was empty. A void he hadn’t filled. Like his heart he hadn’t forgiven.

  “It’s really nice,” I said, accepting a bottle of water from him. “When are you planning on moving in?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t approve of my decorating skills?”

  “Come on. You’ve lived here what? Five or six months? It looks like you moved in last week.” Concern leaked into my voice.

  “So? Just need a place to sleep.”

  “Oh, Calder. A home is supposed to be so much more than that. It’s like you’re living in a bunker.”

  He cut a sharp cold look at me, and his tone was meant to drive a spike between us. “When’d you get your psychology degree?”

  “Don’t you dare act like I haven’t survived the same damn thing as you. I know you better than that.”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that, Reggie.” After a stiff moment, he braced his arms on the kitchen island. He dropped his head between thick bulging shoulders, but his eyes slowly scanned up to my face. “Fine. You know all about wounds. I’ll grant you that.”

  “The ones you inflict on yourself?”

  “I don’t need you taking care of me, Reggie.” His snarl was back, eyes blank and glassy.

  Too deep. Too sudden. And I knew when I needed to back off.

  Ranging slowly around him, I curled up against his back, just a light hug, and a kiss between those massive shoulder blades. I lay my cheek against him, hearing the hitch in his breath.

  That was it. All that was needed. His shoulders relaxed, he patted my hands. When he turned half around, he was nearly smiling in that beautifully boyish way he used to have.

  “Anyway. You’re right. You don’t need me to take care of you. That’s why I came to you, so you could help me.” I tapped my left thigh.

  “I missed you, Reggie,” he admitted then immediately frowned as if he’d said something too forward.

  I was only a year younger than his twenty-eight, but suddenly I felt like a wise old woman.

  I cupped his chin briefly. “I missed you too. Which is why I keep calling.”

  He rolled his eyes, put out in that typically male way. But the tension eased completely away.

  “Why don’t you go clean up now. You actually do stink. I’m going to forage in these cupboards and see if you have anything worthy of my culinary skills.”

  “You mean TV dinners?”

  “You are so going to pay for that, mister.”

  Every step he took up the stairs to the second floor was a loose primal prowl he wasn’t even conscious of. Talk about an ass for days. No wonder that woman footballer seemed to grope him every chance she got.

  I’d suffered from second thoughts my entire flight here. Third and fourth and oh fuck what am I doing thoughts as I stood outside, debating whether to hop in my rental and race rig
ht back to the airport.

  Not to mention—I checked my watch—the last twenty minutes since Calder had opened his door with that thunderous look in his eyes and bad attitude written all over him. Bracing my palms where his had been on the granite island, I shut my eyes. Good Lord, I almost felt like swooning. I blamed it on being in the southern surrounds, Scarlett O’Hara and all that.

  Not Calder Malone and his half-naked body.

  Mmmm.

  I was foraging through the fridge—milk, eggs, butter, bread—when his low voice rumbled from behind me.

  “Casing the joint, I see.”

  I whirled to find he’d silently padded into the kitchen. Bare feet, the long, stupidly attractive toes. Old jeans I’d seen him wear a million times before, although I’d never felt the clench of heat sizzle right down my body as it did now. I watched him casually buttoning a threadbare flannel shirt up his middle, eventually covering most of the shifting muscles and the golden skin and that teasing soft-looking triangle of black hair smoothing from his pecs down to a more precise, nature-made line below his belly button.

  When he looked up, caught me watching, a flush of heat made his cheeks even swarthier.

  Swoon.

  He cleared his throat, licked his lips then bit the bottom one for a moment so I wanted to do the same. “About earlier, sorry I was such a total bastard to you.”

  I cast my look aside, too dangerously aware of all of him—especially when he did the aw shucks sorry thing. “About casing this joint, I was searching for something to make for dinner.”

  I turned back, pretending to consider the refrigerator’s contents, my mind almost blank except for a sudden shuddering arousal.

  He roamed up behind me as I stood in the open fridge, his compelling heat at my back a highlight against the cool air hitting my chest as I leaned over.

  If he pressed into me I would seriously swoon.

  A long arm, forearm bared with a nice sprinkling of black hair, stretched around me—not making any contact with my skin.

  I still shivered.

  “Eggs. Bacon. Peppers. Milk. Butter.” He plucked each item out, teasing me with his closeness, his scent, fresh from the shower.