I stood in the tunnel that led out to the field. My team members were all there, standing with me. They weren’t as hostile as they’d been before. We weren’t exactly friends. Except for Brian, I didn’t feel like I was part of the team, but I was getting out onto the field and that was all that mattered.

God, I’d missed playing. Being suspended for six games had been pure torture. But it was over now.

We ran onto the field, and the roar of the crowd was deafening. The green grass was spongy beneath my feet, and the lights were blinding in a way they could only be on a football field. I was surrounded by four shadows that ran as I did.

And Lacey was watching. At the back of my mind, I knew she was watching. I shouldn’t care, but I did. She hadn’t seen me like this. I hadn’t been playing when we’d met. This was a different side of me. Sometimes, I thought it was the only side that was real.

“Are you good to go?” Brian asked, jogging next to me.

“You know it,” I said.

We split up and took our spots on the field. I was the Free Safety. My job was to tackle and to tackle hard. As the last line of defense, I had to make sure the ball didn’t get through. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had gotten past me.

The game started, and the rest of the world fell away. My focus was on the game. We didn’t play a strong game, and it was up to me to make sure the ball didn’t get through. The team didn’t work as a unit, not the way we used to when I was still playing. I doubted it was because of me, but we still had a lot of work to do.

The quarterback headed toward me. He was mine. As the free safety, he was my target and he wasn’t going to make it to his destination. I made eye contact with the guy through his visor. He snarled at me. I went for his hips and punched my shoulder into his groin. I felt the protection he wore in his pants, and he groaned despite the extra padding. He went down, and I went down with him.

A lineman broke through the defensive line and headed toward the end zone. I marked another player besides the quarterback. I headed for him and tackled him to the ground. The ball popped free from his grip and bounced to the sidelines.

The crowd erupted. The game carried on for a while longer, but in the end, we won. And not by the skin of our teeth, either. We’d beaten the other team by three touchdowns.

The team rallied around me.

“You’re a hell of a defense player,” Brian shouted over the noise of the crowd and the team all around us. “I’ve forgotten how good it is to have you on the field.”

I clapped him on the shoulder.

“We’re celebrating tonight,” I shouted before we were dragged along to the locker room.

We went to the White Room. I was comfortable there, and the VIP booths were exactly what we needed. Of course, we didn’t stick just to the booths. There were more than enough people on the main dance floor to ensure a great party, and the music was amazing.

I danced with a bunch of teammates between the other club goers, when I saw her coming down the steps that led down from the main entrance. Lacey wore a blue dress that was so tight it looked painted on and a lot shorter than anything I’d seen her in before.

The dress was the same color as her eyes, and the contrast with her black hair and the black shoes she wore was spectacular. Her eyes scanned the crowd.

Look at me, I willed, and just as I thought it, her eyes found mine. She didn’t smile the way I hoped she would, but it didn’t matter. She pushed her way through the crowd toward me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling her close to me to talk into her ear.

Her body and her dress were even more breathtaking up close. Her eyes were made up with smoky eyeshadow, the way women did it these days, and she pulled it off beautifully. Instead of red lips, she wore a nude lipstick. It made me want to kiss her.

“I’m here to keep you in check. Have you forgotten what happened the last time you were here?”

Right, the two women in the private room. What were their names?

It didn’t matter. I can’t believe that last time I was here, I was pursuing two women at once but more recently when the opportunity had presented itself, I hadn’t even wanted it. My, how things have changed. But I still got into trouble for it anyway. Some things never did change, I guessed.

I leaned into Lacey again. My arm brushed against her breasts, and my body responded. I wanted her. Everything about her screamed for me to take her.

“I’d rather be here with you, anyway,” I said.

She smiled at me and looked away, as if she hadn’t wanted me to see it. I did, though. I saw it, and I liked it.

I liked making her smile. Lacey was an ice queen, fantastic at her job and uninvolved with her clients. At least, that was how she’d been with me at first. It had taken a bit of time, but she’d thawed, and I liked the warm, expressive Lacey better than the one with the iron mask.

“I’m going to get a drink,” I said. “Do you want something?”

She shook her head. “I’m not here to drink. And you shouldn’t get wasted, either.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t need a babysitter. And you need to loosen up. I’m getting you something. What will it be?”

She shook her head again.

“Fine, I’ll decide,” I said and walked away from her, pushing my way to the bar.

I ordered a beer for myself, a nice change from all the whiskey I usually consumed, and I ordered her one of those girl drinks everyone was sipping around me. When I reached her again, I gave it to her. She looked at me with something like disappointment, but she didn’t put the drink down. Instead, she pressed it to her lips and took a sip.

“That’s my girl,” I said.

“I’m not your girl,” she said above the sound of the music.

I held up my hands, clutching the beer bottle in one. It was just an expression. But then again, I was on the edge of being drunk already, and all my manners slipped away when I got like this.

But fuck that, I had just played my first game again. We had won, and I was here to celebrate. There was nothing saying I wasn’t allowed to do that, even if I was working so damn hard on my image. Brian was the goody two shoes of the team, and maybe even he would get fucked tonight.

I was going to cry tomorrow when I needed to work out with a hangover. As pro players, alcohol should have been off the table completely. I had a theory: to get the alcohol off the table, you had to drink it. All of it.

“Dance with me,” I said to Lacey.

She looked around as if she was uncomfortable. I put my hands around her and pulled her against me.

She looked surprised for a moment, but when I started moving, so did she. Her body was taut and muscular. I knew she worked out. I’d felt her body when we’d fucked, but this was something else. Having her move against me, her dress as short as it was, and the music and alcohol pumping through my veins, it took us to a whole new level.

A level where I needed her.

“Come with me,” I said, when I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

I took her hand and led her through a crowd that parted for us like water. When we were away from the music and headed toward the room, she asked it again.

“Where are you taking me?”

“A room,” I said.

She shook her head, pulling back.

“We’re not doing this,” she said.

“Come on, Lace,” I said. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel it, too?”

She swallowed. “Fine, but I’m not going there to do the dirty. I want to talk to you.”

I shrugged and led her on again. I opened the door and closed it behind us. When I turned to her, she had her hands on her hips and her face was all business.

“You can’t keep doing this,” she said. “You’re all over me, and we’re in public. What do you think will happen when your bad image includes your PR Manager? I’m supposed to fix it for you.”

I shrugged. “Don’t be so uptight, baby,” I said. My head spun, and I couldn’t think much further than the erection in my pants.

“I’m not your baby,” she said to me. “And you’re not going to fuck this up for me.”

I grinned at her.

“You’re sexy when you swear,” I said. I lifted my hand and put it on her cheek. I pressed my body against hers so she could feel my lust.

“Hanson, don’t.”

She was protesting but her lips were parted, and her pupils dilated. She wanted this. She wanted me. I was a pro at reading women, and this woman was all about my body. I pressed my lips against hers.

She didn’t fight me. It was as if she’d wanted it all along. My tongue was in her mouth in no time at all, and I sparred with her for a short while. Her breathing was hard, erratic, mimicking my own. Her hands were in my hair. I fumbled for the zipper at the back of her dress and found it. I pulled it down, slowly.

She stopped kissing me, stepping back. Her fingers undid the buttons on my shirt one by one. She peeled the shirt from my shoulders and dropped it on the floor.

Her face was inches from mine when she undid my buckle and unzipped my pants, but she didn’t kiss me. Instead, when my pants were around my ankles, along with my boxers, she kneeled in front of me. She looked up at me with those piercing blue eyes before she opened her mouth and closed it around my cock.

Her mouth was hot and her tongue slippery as she slid it up and down my shaft. I nearly came right away. I groaned, closed my eyes, and tipped my head back. Not a lot of women liked giving a blow job. Lacey turned out to be very gifted.

She closed her lips around me and moved down as far as her throat would allow. With her hand wrapped around the base, she closed the gap. She started moving her head back and forth, sucking and pumping, copying what would happen during sex. She was going to make me lose my load if she kept going at it.

I stopped her, pulling back so I slipped out of her mouth with a pop. She glanced up at me.

“You’re going to drive me insane,” I said, taking her hand and pulling her up again.

I wanted to release in her mouth. It was every man’s fantasy, but I wanted to be inside her more.

The kissing became more urgent, and when she stepped out of the dress that had still been around her hips, I pulled her toward the bed. We fell onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs. She tugged at my shirt, trying to undo the buttons. I distracted her by pushing my hand into her panties and between her legs.

She was wet when I pushed my fingers into her, and she gasped. I pumped my fingers in and out of her a few times before finding her clitoris. She moaned when I did, her body curling against my hand.

The smell of our sex filled the room, and it riled me up. I wanted her. Her scent was designed to make men crazy, and it was working. I focused on her for a while longer. I wanted her to be slick and begging for me.

She was beautiful when she was lost in sexual bliss. She was exactly what I wanted. I pulled down her underwear and unclasped her bra. It was strapless and fell off without help. She rolled onto her back. Her eyes were on me. I moved to position myself between her legs when she sat up.

“God, what am I doing?” she asked, her face confused. It was like she’d suddenly realized where she was, and what we were about to do.

“With a little bit of patience, you’ll be doing me,” I said and grinned at my own joke.

Lacey pressed her hand against her forehead as if she was feeling for a fever. She shook her head, again and again. “I can’t do this. We shouldn’t be doing this.”

She moved toward the edge of the bed, away from me.

“Come on, babe. Don’t leave me hanging now.”

She shook her head again. “If they catch us together, the press is going to have a field day. We can’t leave the hotel room together.”

“Okay,” I said. “You can leave first, and I’ll wait. I’ll leave a bit later. But if we have sex first and then do that, it won’t be any different than doing it now. Come on, you know you want it. Look at me.” I put my throbbing erection on display. “This is what you do to me.”

She glanced down at me before she shook her head. “I can’t do this.”

She found her clothes on the floor and started putting them on, piece by piece. This was going in the wrong direction. The idea was to stay naked, not to put all the clothes back on.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “This can’t just be because of my reputation, can it?”

She sighed, zipping up her own dress in a way that suggested she didn’t need anyone’s help. The symbolism wasn’t lost on me. I had helped so many women get dressed after the fact. I had no idea how women got dressed without us. I envisioned girl on girl action where they fumbled with each other’s zippers.

“If you consider who I am and what my role is in your life, that’s exactly what it’s about.”

I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. She walked to the door.

“Stay out of trouble,” she said. “And for God’s sake, don’t bring another woman back here. I’m not going to be around to pick up the pieces forever. At some point, you’re going to have to learn how to do it yourself.”

She left, leaving me naked and aching in the room, alone, wondering what the hell had happened to my happy ending.