Sidelined

I felt the high. The rush from scoring. The feeling that I was invincible. Nothing could stop me. Not the Warriors. And then I looked up and saw her marching in my direction toward the goal post. I swallowed hard. She was getting closer and I realized she spotted me too. I was on the edge of the bench closest to the goal line.

I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t see her. I couldn’t stop staring at her legs, or her breasts spilling out of that top.

I didn’t know how this would work, but I wasn’t leaving Warriors stadium without her number. She looked up at the crowd and ignored me, but I knew she felt it too. We had an unmistakable draw toward each other.

It was everything I didn’t want. Everything I said I had to stay away from. A distraction. The thing that could get in my head. The one thing that could bring me down. But she was twenty yards away, and she was the only thing here I wanted.

“Damn it,” I muttered.

“You need more water?” the attendant asked. I didn’t realize he was standing close to me.

I crumpled the cup in my fist. “Yeah. Colder next time.”

He ran toward the drink station. But I wasn’t paying attention to him, or the punt return. My eyes were on Natalia.

Twelve

Natalia

We were one side closer to the Wranglers’ bench and I was so nervous my knees were about to give way. Sam saw me as we walked toward the short end of the field. He didn’t just look at me. It was a full-body stare, raking over every inch of me. My spine tingled from it, remembering how he undressed me last night.

How he ran his tongue over my skin. How he kissed me. How he felt when he pushed into me, taking me somewhere I’d never been. I let him do things to my body I’d only heard about. It was incredible and magic and hot and all the things I needed to forget.

Presley tilted her head toward me. “Okay, something is up. You are totally off rhythm, Miss Ballerina.”

I glared at her. “Leave it alone.”

“Can’t. You’re making us all look bad.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I waved at the crowd. They wouldn’t know if I was off step. The men drooled at us and the women mainly ignored us.

We weren’t the attraction here. People only cared about what was going on behind us on the field. There were nine other girls in my line. I wasn’t the one they noticed more than the others.

“Are you still drunk from last night?” she asked.

“What?” I turned toward her. I wasn’t pretending to shake my hips this time.

“We know you left the bar with a Wrangler.”

“What are you talking about, Pres?” Was I the only one who didn’t know who Sam was?

“Keep dancing,” she instructed.

I threw a leg in the air and shook my hair in a long circle. “Keep talking,” I spit back.

“The entire Wrangler team was at the bar last night and you’re the only Goddess who went home with one.”

My mouth almost fell open, but I knew I had to keep moving or she’d stop talking. I grapevined to the right with her and then followed to the left.

“What do you know?”

She shimmied, showing off the tops of her breasts with a jiggle. I followed her move. Times like this, I hated myself.

“That you either hate being a Goddess or you’re a complete football novice.”

I wasn’t going to tell her it was both. “You know I’m still learning the game.”

“That might explain how you don’t know who Sam Hickson is. He was the highest-rated tight end in the league last year. But the Super Bowl team was in the bar with us. The entire team.” She eyed me. “Wes Blakefield, the quarterback?”