Coach's Daughter

With a sniffle, she pushes out of the equipment closet, coming face to face with her dad. He splits a look between us and hands me a pen. I could maneuver this to my advantage. My talent gives me leverage, but I won’t use it. I can’t coerce her again and leave another wound. When Greta crosses her arms and looks at me pointedly, I have no choice but to take the pen and sign my name—my real name—below the phony one. And when she walks away, she takes my hope, my heart, my world along with her.

But if she thinks I’m giving her up without a fight, she’s dead wrong.

Chapter Eight

Greta

It was naïve of me to think that morning in the arena would be the last time I saw Eric. At least until I ran into him at a team function or maybe saw him on television during the season. The look of utter determination on his handsome face should have clued me into the fact that he wouldn’t give me up so easily. When I went to bed that night, he was sitting outside my apartment building, leaning up against his SUV. Watching my bedroom window like a hawk.

Closing the curtains didn’t help matters.

Roses started showing up at my apartment the next morning.

Dozens upon dozens of long-stem roses in every color. Boxes and boxes of designer activewear, which was so rude, because looking cute while dressing comfortable is totally my weakness. He sent me his championship ring from Denver—and knowing how much something so symbolic means to an athlete, that almost made me answer one of his hundreds of calls.

They are placed once an hour, on the dot, though he only leaves voicemails late at night, his voice having the opposite effect of a lullaby on my body. The notes of hunger arouse me to such a degree that I toss and turn until the sun rises in the sky, my eyes gritty, chest aching. I’m unfulfilled, restless. I…miss him. How can that be? After what he did? Why am I having such a hard time holding on to my anger?

It’s one such night a week later when I’m sitting on the edge of my bed in a towel that I start to slip. Eric was outside of my classes again today, looking outrageously hot, arm resting on the bottom frame of the driver’s window, eyes hidden behind mirrored black sunglasses. I thought the guys in my class were going to have heart attacks, running over and asking for autographs. He didn’t take his eyes off me once while signing them, his jaw in a permanent flex. So serious, so intense that the muscles below my belly button twisted up in a knot—and they have been that way ever since.

A couple of days ago, I tried touching myself in the shower, hoping to ease the mounting tension inside of me, but there is nothing…consuming about the act. Nothing momentous or life-affirming. Without Eric’s strong body pressed to mine, without his mouth on my neck, hands roaming, voice stroking my senses, everything is lackluster. Less than. He’s ruined me.

Pushing to my feet, I cross to the curtains and peek out from my bedroom down to the curb. Of course he’s there, staring back at me. Probably trying to decide what to send me next. The only sign that he sees me in the window is a line moving in his cheek, the upward slide of his Adam’s apple. And before I can guess my own intention, I’m letting the towel slide down to the floor, letting him see my naked body. Drawing his eye downward as I trail a finger from neck to belly button.

He’s striding to the door of my building before I reach any lower, the buzzer going off loudly in my living room. Adrenaline and anticipation nearly blind me, turning my legs so useless, I almost trip in my haste to reach the buzzer where I quickly press the button and unlock my door. Backing away from it. Waiting. Telling myself how very foolish I’m being, but too worked up to care.

As soon as Eric charges through the door like a bull and kicks it shut behind him, I say, “This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”

There is a flash of pain, disappointment, in his blue eyes, but he recovers quickly, advancing on me. Crashing his mouth down onto mine and backing me through the apartment toward my bedroom, his hands everywhere at once. My bottom, my breasts, roaming over my hips. “What do you need?”

The moment I stop trying to keep the physical hunger at bay, it roars in and attacks me from all sides, making me moan, trying to get my legs up around his waist. I’m shameful, naked, climbing him, whining and pulling at his hair. “You. I need you inside of me.”