Prologue
Neil
Most people only got one chance at love.
Surprisingly, I was getting two.
But I couldn’t blow this one like I did the last one.
Ever since high school, I still thought of Becca and her gorgeous, curvy body. But I thought I had ruined my shot with her before we had ever been able to get anything started. It hadn’t developed into anything more than a crush, and I hadn’t even gotten to date her.
And yet I had never been able to forget her.
The last thing I expected was to see her at a Christmas event where I was dressed as Santa, thanks to a publicity stunt my coach made me do to redeem my image as a player off the field more so than on.
But now that I saw Becca, I had a feeling that she would do more to tame my inner bad boy than my coach and his crazy ideas ever could.
Sure, she had a kid in tow, but it turned out she wasn’t off the market. She’d had a rough life since high school, and I admired what a good mother she was. I wanted to give her—and her son—the best Christmas ever.
I was going to do whatever it took to make her mine all year long, and to have my way with her any time I wanted.
To kiss her.
Touch her.
Get inside her, finally.
I wanted to grab ahold of her plump ass cheeks while I was thrusting deep inside her. And to let her know how much I had always wanted to do that.
Sure, Coach Kramer had told me to clean up my act. But what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
And if he did find out, Becca and I would go to whatever lengths necessary to keep seeing each other.
We’d even say we were engaged.
And maybe I’d just have to make the story authentic by proposing for real.
Because Christmas magic had brought me the love of a lifetime and I never wanted to let this opportunity slip through my hands again.
The only problem was convincing her that I meant it.
She had her reasons for holding a grudge against me for all this time and we started back up again as something more like enemies than lovers.
She also had plenty of reasons to be afraid to trust.
I dealt with it at first as best as I could, but now I was determined to get her to see that things had to change. She had changed me and I wanted her to change and be able to learn to trust me.
Sure, this love/hate relationship we had going on was fun.
The back-and-forth banter was interesting.
And the sex was hotter than a yuletide fire raging at Christmastime.
But how could I get her to see that our pretend holiday engagement could turn into lasting love?
Chapter 1
Neil
I sauntered into the facilities, hungover, and already incredibly late. Coach Kramer was not going to be happy and I knew that. Luckily, we weren’t starting on the field this morning, so my absence wouldn’t impact my teammates as it would have if we were running drills.
Today, the other tight ends and I were meeting with our coach, to go over some plays in our books. Then to the field for a grueling day of practice. I wasn’t sure which would be worse with a hangover. Running plays and doing drills or sitting down like an overgrown student trying to stay awake and learn things. I was pretty sure this would be the more taxing part of my day today, given my pounding headache.
I didn’t mean to stay out as late as I did last night, but then I never do. After a few drinks, bad ideas seem downright necessary. I hadn’t gone home with a woman, even though someone had really wanted to. She was sweet and pretty, but she was also a fan who knew who I was, which was often the most dangerous type.
Even just leaving the bar on my own, I thought I saw a man with a camera lurking behind a tree and was really glad I hadn’t taken her home with me. I hoped I was just being paranoid, but it wouldn’t be the first time a woman tried to use me to make a name for herself, calling reporters with her story and hoping for some cash and to see her name in print.
Everyone wants their 15 minutes, I thought.
Even though I wasn’t the quarterback, the player the sportscasters had their eyes on the most, my social endeavors seemed to make it into the local New York and New Jersey papers weekly, and I had somehow become well known among housewives and the twenty-somethings entirely for my non-field activities. Still, Head Coach Kramer would kill me if another story hit the papers, so I was being extra careful to not take women home.