Forbidden

Calder

 

 

 

I’D BEEN TO ONE or two of Reggie’s shows before, with Chris, just another way to torment myself. So, security recognized me. Hell, they probably recognized the entire Crush team at my back, testosterone-laden energy filling the plush hallway.

One staffer in particular—Tom—big enough to rival Akoni’s linebacker standards, clapped me on the shoulder. “Good to see you again, man. I know Reggie worries about you.”

I forced a smile on my lips, grim though it was. “She been doing okay?”

“Good days and bad days. You know how it is. But we look out for her.”

I know. I had more bad than good days. And I wanted to be the one looking out for her, but I couldn’t fault Tom.

“She’ll be happy to see you. And the whole Carolina team, by the looks of it.” A wide grin spanned his mouth. Leaning against the wall, he motioned us forward. “G’on.”

I paused for just a second to shake his hand, man to man, firm grip, fully aware Brooklyn with his shrewd eyes took it all in, had heard every single word.

Reluctantly, I rapped my knuckles against the dressing room door shared by all the women.

Hoped to hell they hadn’t started stripping down yet, but my team knew what that was like. Caught in the camera lens, questioned by reporters in the locker room immediately after a game, stripping out of sweaty gear.

My girl opened the door, and a soft smile curved her soft lips.

“Reggie? Sorry. The guys asked if I could bring them back here.” I scanned quickly downward to make sure she was fully clothed—as fully clothed as the final costume left her—then swept back up.

A flush stained her cheeks, and the glittering gold flecks in her earthy eyes sparkled. “You may enter the women’s realm.”

Boisterous met bawdy the instant Reggie allowed us into their domain.

I remained removed, watching only, watching only Reggie.

She, as well as the other women, effortlessly made my team at home. The air could snap to sexual in a moment, but only light banter was traded. Delaney was there, too. The rest of the Cougars and Peyton Fox. Enough feminine energy to overwhelm a man, but I was only overwhelmed by Reggie.

She shook her hair back, her glance sliding to me as Jillian sauntered my way. I knew all about the tall blonde. The rivalry between her and Reggie was legendary because Reggie was top goddess. I felt Raquel’s eyes on me, too. Talk about being pinned in the crosshairs.

Jillian lifted her lips to my cheek—a touch I wanted to detach from—murmuring an invitation I didn’t register.

Beautiful as Jillian was, she was glaciers. Not the warmth of the sun that drew my gaze again and again—Reggie.

Jillian had no chance closing any deal with me.

I realized now why I’d kept Raquel at arm’s length all the time, too.

I was looking at the reason—Reggie—right in the face.

She blushed. But then again, Bunyan had dipped his head, lifted her hand to his lips.

I hated myself in that moment when she welcomed my teammates with open arms, a press of palms. Hated myself for all the selfish despicable thoughts I’d had since Chris had died. I’d been her friend first, before he’d seduced her into a life she didn’t fit, maybe hadn’t necessarily wanted.

Military wife.

She’d made a good one. But this right here was Reggie’s calling.

Every single part of me rolled with caged tension.

I’d always hungered for her. Never closed the deal. Chris had always been the go-getter. And he’d sure gotten her.

She had always been my anchor. My desire. She just never knew it.

Reggie approached, and I steeled myself. Steadied myself. That goddamn costume was just a tease to my heightened senses when every reaction and action centered on her. Up close. Goddamn. The sheen of fresh perspiration overlaying light body glitter. Scent of flowers and . . . sheer hunger. Maybe that was me. Probably me. I was so fucking hard from that feminine display of strength combined with total eroticism, her low silky voice when she’d been on stage.

Enthralled.

Her lashes drifted to her cheeks demurely, and her hands skimmed my forearms.

My thighs quaked, the hair on my arms possibly rose straight up as if I’d been electrocuted.

And she wore a blush. High on her cheeks.

Oh Christ. I almost rocked forward, grabbed her hair, grabbed her lips in mine.

Steady. Steel. Inhaling and exhaling slowly instead of blowing out breaths like a stallion ready to breed.

And Jesus Christ, now I was thinking like Brooklyn?

Reggie rose against me, and I had no choice but to do the brotherly thing. Fold my arms over her back to balance her.

“You haven’t told them?” she whispered against my ear.

Ahhh. So the secret was the only reason she slipped so close to me. Should’ve known.

Head shake.

“Told us what?” Brooks butted in, angled near my left shoulder with an arm hooked around Delaney.

Reggie withdrew, pulling my hands between hers. A frown I never wanted to see marred her forehead.

“Anyone?” She kept solemn eyes on mine, but I dipped my head, and saw she still wore the engagement ring and wedding band over a year later.

“Coaches know,” I spoke gruffly, ignoring Brooks. “Peyton knows.”

“Oh, Calder.” Lifting up to her tiptoes, she pulled me into a hug with her hands braced against my shoulders.

Not before I’d seen it. The reason I hadn’t told my teammates. There it was. The pity running across her expression—the sympathy she deserved a thousand times more than me.

I closed my eyes as her scent clung to me as much as her curves. Bursts of light exploded behind my eyelids. My chest heaved, reaching the breaking point of the amount of breaths I could take inside and out.

Fuck.

Not here. Not now. Not with her in my arms.

Something rolled in my gut. Knotted in my heart. Made me feel like throwing up.

The swamp of feeling made me sweaty and cold and hot and cramped all over.

I broke away from Reggie. I heard nothing but the echo of trumpets and drum beats and patriotic pledges and gun shots on the day of Chris’s burial, and . . . I ran from the room. I bolted past Tom. I’d gone a full motherfucking block before I figured out I was way off the rez.

Panicked breaths slowed.

In.

Out.

Fill lungs.

Release air.

Breathe.

“Shit,” I muttered to no one at all, or so I thought.

“Next time you put that kind of sprint on, how about you do it on the field?” Brooklyn Holt hunkered beside me as I dropped down in an alley with no escape.

Unbelievably the man passed me a water bottle he’d produced from nowhere.

“What the fuck? You bring a go-bag or something?” I asked.

“Or something. Panic attack, huh?”

I twisted the cap, took a deep glug. I swiped my arm against my mouth. “Okay, now you’re just emasculating me.”

“Didn’t think you knew the meaning of that word.”

“More than Luke Buckley does.”

“And Bunyan.”

“And Bunyan.” I met Brooks’ fist with a tap.

Wasn’t gonna look the big Texan in the eye, though.

“You didn’t tell us you had a brother.” Flat statement, compassionate voice.

My jaw hardened. “He died in the war, for our country.”

“Sorry, man. Can’t imagine what that must be like. Coping with it.” He sat beside me, knees cracking. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“If I said no, would that stop you?”

“P’rolly not.”

“Shoot.”

“So is his death the reason for the drugs and all that? Because you seem to be the type of dude on a pretty even keel.”

I drew my palms down the sides of my face, shaking my head. “Can’t blame Chris for my weakness, can I?”

“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.