CHAPTER ONE
SAM
“Got everything you need?”
Apart from a million dollars and a man who isn’t a complete asshole?
“Sure.” I smile back at the high-school football coach cliché that is Morgan Blake, owner and manager of the Wildcats NFL team.
Morgan nods, his weak chin at odds with his muscular frame. “I’ll send Chance Adams in first. Have you heard of him?”
Who hasn’t? My football knowledge may extend about as far as my quantum physics knowledge, but Chance Adams is a household name. The Wildcats quarterback did an eighteen-month tour of Afghanistan before finishing junior college and he was a rising star. One of the few walk-ons to make the team instead of being drafted from college. Chance was a real American hero… And perpetually DTF playboy, or so I’ve heard.
I don’t know much about football, sure, but you can bet your ass I researched the players on this team when I was handed the job—not that it’s required information for the team massage therapist.
Who cares, Sam? It’s going to be a hell of a lot better than your last gig. Hell, anything would be better than that.
“Yes, Mr. Blake,” I reply.
“Morgan, please,” he enthuses, smiling. For a team owner he’s far less intimidating than I expected. He leans out of the doorway connecting the massage room to the locker room and shouts. “Chance! Get your ass in here.”
There’s no reply. My breath hitches, but why? I shouldn’t be nervous. I’ve trained for this. I am a professional.
Yep. Keep telling yourself that, Sammy.
Morgan smiles again. “I’ll leave you to it. If you need anything—equipment, supplies, a giant mallet to fight these dickheads off—just holler.”
“I will.”
Morgan heads out. The door closes and I lean against the wall. The room’s little more than a box, nothing except a massage table, towels, and the grapeseed oil I brought along. I shiver at the thought of the last room I practiced in, with its silky curtains and velvet cushions, boxes of tissues and wet wipes.
The door opens and in steps Chance Adams, classically dark and handsome, six-two and built like a brick wall. His pale-green eyes sweep me from head to foot, an infectious grin widening his face. Clearly, clothes are optional given the seemingly tiny towel wrapped around his waist. I read somewhere that the tattoo of a roulette wheel on his left pectoral covers a shrapnel scar.
A spark of arousal causes my thighs to snap together momentarily, but I push it all aside. You’re a professional. You’re a professional…
I go to introduce myself, but Chance simply casts his towel off, his package swinging there like a sledgehammer, that grin only getting bigger.
I swallow, the words stuck in my throat. Oh-kay then…
He swings himself up onto the table and settles into position face down. “I hope you’ve got better hands than the last massage therapist we had. I like it rough, but Bertha was fucking brutal.”
I apply oil to my hands and roll my eyes. So this is how it’s going to be. “I’ll do my best.”
I look down at two pert buttocks. “Would you like a towel to cover your…” I cough. “Mr. Adams?”
He laughs, the sound of it muffled by the table. “Why, you don’t like the view? That would be a first.”
Jesus. It feels like I’m back in a seedy Vegas parlor all over again.
I hold my tongue and take another breath, starting with a light effleurage from his lower back up towards his shoulder blades. I’m surprised how warm his skin is.
“Oh yeah. That’s the shit,” he moans, settling himself deeper into the table, his buttocks twitching below my eyes.
I know I shouldn’t talk, but I need something, anything to break the tension. “You grew up in Reseda, Mr. Adams?”
“Call me Chance,” comes his singsong voice, “and yeah, I can’t recommend the place if you’re looking to buy. It was a shithole then and it’s a shithole now.”
“I wasn’t…”
“How about you? What brings you to this fair city apart from my sexy smile?”
I’m surprised this guy can even walk properly with a head this big.
Tentatively, I work his inner thigh, careful not to head too low and brush the offending appendage that’s hiding down in the shadows. “This job, actually.”
“Wow. Dedication. You a football fan?”
“No, sorry, though I understand you’re having an impressive season?”
Another flicker in my core as my hands glide down his legs. Control yourself, Sam. This guy is a grade-A asshole, a player whose purpose is to party, drink, and score.
“Impressive?” he scoffs. “I’m the fucking king of the field, baby.”
Every time he calls me ‘baby’ I’m transported right back to Vegas and my very first, and last, client, to that whole nightmare I’ve been trying to forget the last six months.
“Harder,” he commands.
No problem. I add more pressure, kneading his glutes a little more forcefully than I should.
He spreads his legs a little, balls and shaft compressed between them. I want to say something, but I hold my tongue. The last thing I need is to be booted from this job on my first day.
“I’m Samantha,” I splutter, throat dry. “Samantha Carter”.
I get a grunt in response.
“You can call me Sam if you like.”
He suddenly rolls over onto his back, hands behind his head. “How about a happy ending, Sam? I won’t tell if you don’t.”
For a second I’m completely frozen, my gaze ping-ponging between his package and his smiling face all smug and satisfied, like this is so easy, like I am this easy.
This is exactly how it went down that first day on the Strip, but that guy didn’t even have the courtesy to ask. ‘You going to stare at it all day, love, or you going to start sucking me off?’ he said, while I looked on astonished. I’d been led to believe it was a professional establishment, but it was nothing more than a front for erotic massage and prostitution owned by the Mob. I looked at that guy with his limp, lifeless dick, his potbelly and saggy skin and got the hell out of there, didn’t tell anyone. I just left. The place was raided the very next day.
I didn’t think much of it. I wanted to forget the experience as soon as possible and move on with my life, but it soon dawned on me how it must have looked—me leaving, the raid. Sure enough one of the other girls tipped me off. The goddamn Don of Las Vegas thought I’d ratted them out, so here I am, two-hundred-and-sixty-nine miles away doing my best to blend in.
I’m waiting for Chance to tell me he’s joking, but he nods down at his dick again.
He’s actually serious. This cannot be happening.
Be professional. Be professional, I chant to myself.
I swallow and focus on those emerald eyes no doubt as much a weapon as his right arm. “Chance,” I begin, “I’m going to need you to lie down, please.” I add a small smile, forcing it onto my face.
He shakes his head. “Your loss, baby,” rolling himself over again and exhaling.
Crisis averted.
Mercifully, he’s quiet as I continue to work into a firm petrissage, the odd grunt or moan to let me know I’m doing my job. But as I press and gather his flesh with my fingers, a feeling wells up inside me that’s become all too familiar over these past few months. It’s frustration—frustration that here I am trying to move on and yet copping the same misogynistic alpha crap I did back in Vegas. But I know it’s more than frustration alone. It takes me a second to work it out, but when I do it flashes in front of my eyes in big bold letters—anger.
“Easy, easy,” he says, squirming below me.
I ease up on the pressure. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be, but between you and me, those soft little hands of yours would be much better served wrapped around my cock.”
That’s it.
I take a step back, hands on my hips, a fiery tempest of dialogue building. Screw the job. If he thinks he can get away with that kind of thing with me, like I’m nothing more than a sex object, he’s got another thing coming and I’m sure as hell going to give it to him.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to go to the team owner if you don’t—”
“Don’t what?” comes his challenging tone.
I gulp, just about to keep at him when a loud knock on the door interrupts my speech.
“Enter,” calls Chance.
The door swings open, another team member looking in. The fact Chance is naked doesn’t seem to concern him in the slightest. He gives me a small nod before addressing Chance. “Going to need you out there, big boy. Coach’s orders.”
Chance lifts himself from the table. “Motherfucker, and just when things were getting interesting.” He grabs his towel on the way past me and throws it over his shoulder, not even bothering to cover himself up as he walks out.
He winks at me. “I’ll see you ’round, Sam.”
The words are lost. I can’t seem to make my lips form an appropriate quip as the door closes and I’m once more left with nothing but my thoughts and the lingering memory of Chance ‘I’m The King Of The Field, Baby’ Adams, public enemy of panties, and the most obnoxious, straight up entitled jerk I think I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.
*
There’s nothing sadder than an empty condo. There are four boxes stacked near the kitchen—all I could grab from my place back in Vegas in my haste to leave.
That’s the thing. I had friends there, a life, but the threat was real. You don’t mess with the Mob and expect to come out unscathed, no matter how innocent you may actually be. Was I naïve taking that job? Probably. I’d just received my certificate. I wanted to help people, truly. I wanted to make a difference. Not… that. The location of the place should have been the first giveaway. Reputable massage parlors don’t have a neon sign out front reading ‘Happy Relax Time, Pleasing You Pleases Us’.
You’re an idiot, Sam. Admit it.
But that’s the old Sam. The new Sam is getting on with her life and moving up in the world. If I have to endure the odd Chance Adams, so be it.
Chance Adams—as much of cardboard cut-out womanizer he is, I can’t help thinking about his body, the sheer marble perfection of it, the feel of his skin under my hands. It’s a body sculpted by hard work, by experience. What do I have to show? I’m twenty six, willowy, tall, and pale. Mom always commented on my bright blue eyes, but when I look into the mirror all I see is B for bland. Even my hair—dark auburn that falls to my waist when loose—is thick and unruly. It’s a bit like my brain, really.
“But you love me, don’t you, Chuckles?”
My tabby figure-of-eights between my legs as I sit on a milk crate I found in the alleyway behind the apartment building.
I don’t know why, but I take out my phone and pull up a picture of Chance in his on-field get-up, war paint on his cheeks, orange armor glowing bright. Is there more to you than meets the eye, Mr. Adams, or are you another walking penis like the rest of them?
I don’t know what I expect to happen, for Chance to magically leap from the screen and pull me into his arms, tell me I’m loved and safe, that I’m the only girl he has eyes for.
Yeah, right.
It’s been a long day. Thankfully, the rest of the team showed a little more composure in the massage room and certainly not the Chance Adams strip show I was privy to earlier. Clearly, Chance is the most confirmed bachelor of the bunch, but he’s going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than ‘How about a happy ending?’ if he wants within half a mile of my pants.
Chuckles purrs. I show her the screen. “What do you think, Chuckles? Hitter and quitter, or boyfriend material?”
She scrunches up her face.
I laugh. “Yeah, me too, my friend. Me too.”
“Not in a million years,” I tell Digital Chance, simultaneously ignoring the sudden flutter between my thighs.