Playing With Attraction (Playing the Game Book 1), page 1
Playing With Attraction
by
MELANIE SHAWN
Melanie Shawn © 2019
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.
This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.
Cover Design by Wildcat Dezigns
Book Design by BB eBooks
Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing
Rev. 1.0
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Playing Dirty
A Note From Melanie and Shawna
Other Titles by Melanie Shawn
About the Author
CHAPTER 1
Cole
WEEK ONE
Are those toes?
I blinked several times and struggled to wake up. I had to force myself, and it was not an easy task. My head was pounding, and there was a distinct buzzing in my ears. My eyes were blurry, my lids felt like they’d been dipped in cement and my throat was as scratchy and dry as the Sahara.
Once my foggy-mirror-after-a-hot-shower vision started to clear, the great mystery was solved. Yes. Those were, in fact, toes not even an inch from my face, tipped by nails painted bright red.
Propping myself up on my elbows, I watched the foot—which had been resting on my chest—drop beside me. My gaze traveled down the toned leg the toes were attached to and found a gloriously naked woman draped over my left side. During my visual journey, flashes of the night before began playing in my mind.
I remembered meeting the blonde at Game Time, a bar that was right around the corner from my hookup apartment. She told me that she’d been a Cole Carson fan since I’d played in college. She asked me to put my John Hancock on her bare breast and, like the true gentleman I am, I obliged. After I’d penned my signature on her skin, she suggested that we, “get out of here.” I was more than happy to take her up on the offer.
If memory served, that was as far as the conversation went. We didn’t say more than ten words to each other before our clothes started coming off.
Honestly, I didn’t feel even a twinge of guilt for having no idea what her name was. We’d never made it to that portion of the meet and greet.
My morning wood twitched with awareness as my bed buddy rolled onto her back and stretched her slender arms over her head with catlike grace. Baby-blue eyes seductively locked with mine and I watched as she temptingly pulled her full bottom lip between her teeth.
The stretch caused her back to arch and caused her long, blonde hair to fall off smooth, tan shoulders like curtains opening to reveal two perfect breasts.
Damn. My mouth watered at the sight of those double Ds, a slim waist, and flared hips. Well, that took care of my bone-dry throat. Unfortunately, my head was still pounding, and the sporadic buzzing wasn’t going away, but I ignored them both for more pressing matters—specifically, the sex kitten who was purring and pressing her warm, soft body up against my side.
As I reached for her hips to pull her on top of me, she asked, “Are you going to get that? It just keeps going off.”
Her voice cut through the half-awake-half-asleep lust fog I’d been floating in. With new awareness, I sat up with a start. My phone. Everything clicked into place. That’s what the buzzing had been.
Looking over at the nightstand, I grabbed the device mid-buzz.
“What?” I answered before I even checked to see who was calling. Only close friends, family, and my agent had this number.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. How about you drag your sorry ass away from the blonde and get it down to the stadium?”
I immediately recognized the voice of Sam Maddox, head coach of the Los Angeles Legends and my best friend.
My eyes cut to the aforementioned blonde. “How did you know I was with—”
“Lucky guess, lover boy. Hurry up. There are kids waiting on you.”
Maddox disconnected the call and I found myself trying to process what he’d said. Inside my head, it still sounded like a small army was marching across my brain, which did not make dissecting Sam’s riddle any easier.
Kids waiting? Why would kids be…? Oh, shit!
An e-mail scrolled through my mind’s eye like the NYSE ticker tape. Damn. I’d agreed, under duress, to show up at the launch for Legend Youth, a football program for at-risk and low-income kids, even though it started at eight a.m. on a Saturday. It was the brainchild of the team’s new public relations liaison, Josephine Walsh.
When Josie had sent out the request for participants in the program, I’d initially ignored it.
But then Maddox had informed me that, as the starting quarterback, I would be attending the first practice. It was a good look for the organization. The Legends had had some players suspended for bad behavior. I myself was featured on TMZ for my extra-curricular activities on a regular basis.
I hadn’t been all that excited about the program, but since I didn’t have a choice, I figured I’d look at the bright side. Namely, that it would earn me points with Josie. She’d been hounding me about cleaning up my image. Plus, I’d get to spend the day with Maddox. He’d been a mentor to me since I was drafted six years ago. At the time, he was the offensive coordinator, but he’d played pro ball for five years.
After setting the phone back down on the nightstand, I scrubbed my hands over my face as I calculated how much coffee I was going to need to shake this hangover so that I could handle forty screaming kids. A groan escaped me, because deep down I knew there was not enough caffeine in the world to face that many amped up preteen boys.
Why had I gone out last night? I should’ve just kept my ass at home and familiarized myself with the profiles of the kids I’d be working with on the practice field today. I should’ve gotten a good night’s sleep. At my house. Alone.
But instead of doing what I should’ve done, I’d gone to Game Time, gotten more than a little wasted, picked up a groupie, gone back to my hookup apartment for some fun, and basically taken a two-hour nap instead of getting a solid eight.
Fuck.
I sat up, swinging my long sluggish legs over the side of the king-sized bed. My body was not happy with the new position.
I’m getting too old for this shit.
I looked around the bare apartment that I used for casual encounters. As a pro athlete who valued my privacy, I never brought women back to my home. To call this place a bachelor pad would be generous. The space contained only a bed and a couch. There was no paint on the walls, no pictures hung, no life in this place—just bleakness. It was sterile and cold.
Letting out a sigh, I had what I’d heard my mom describe as a “light bulb moment.” The playboy lifestyle I’d been engaging in since high school didn’t really hold the appeal it once had. Random women. Partying every night. No commitments. No connections. Nothing real.
I used to thrive off of those things. Now, I just felt…empty.
It was a sobering thought considering there were only two things that I’d ever excelled at in life: women and football. Women had always come easy to me, whereas football had taken sacrifice, hard work, and dedication.
This year, unlike the past six, I’d been feeling restless since the season had ended. I’d never suffered from what I’d witnessed other players go through, I didn’t get depressed when I wasn’t playing. Sure, I’d always been happy to get back on the field, play, and be around my teammates. But when I wasn’t, I just concentrated on having a good time. A lot of easy, no-strings, good times.
I was beginning to think that my lifestyle was catching up to me. Physically, I felt like shit. Mentally, I was frustrated. And emotionally, I felt empty.
Running my fingers through my hair, I made an executive life decision: I needed to star
Starting with getting my “sorry ass” down to the practice field and living up to my commitment. A new leaf—that’s what I was going to turn over. With a renewed sense of purpose, I pushed off the bed to stand up.
“Where you going?” Blondie asked as she slipped her hands around my torso and gripped my morning wood, stroking it with an impressive level of expertise.
I hissed through gritted teeth as I watched her slim fingers slide up and down my length, a whirlwind of arousal spinning through me from head to toe and obliterating my newfound sense of purpose.
I was already late. What would another hour hurt?
Tomorrow. My new leaf would be turned over tomorrow.
CHAPTER 2
Julianna
“How late are we going to be, Mom?” Anthony asked distractedly, never taking his eyes off the game he was playing on his phone.
I swallowed hard, pushing down the anxiety and frustration that was bubbling up inside me like water boiling in a pot. With one hand on the wheel and the other twisting my hair, I felt guilt wash over me as I glanced down at the clock on the dashboard and saw the time. We were almost two hours late. I’d called the contact number I had to let them know. The woman said that it was fine and not to worry, but I still felt bad.
“A little bit.” Normally, I didn’t make it a habit to lie to my son. But, since I’d just been through the morning from hell, I figured I’d give myself a break.
My Saturday had started with me oversleeping. My alarm had failed to go off, thanks to a rolling blackout that’d occurred sometime in the middle of the night. I’d woken on my own an hour after my alarm had been set, seen the time, got Anthony up, and we rushed around to get out the door.
Well, there had been a serious storm of curse words swarming around inside my head between all of that, but those were the main points.
We still would’ve made it on time but as we were leaving, the security company called me to come into the doctor’s office where I worked because the alarm had been tripped. Thankfully, it’d been a false alarm, but I still had to swing by and turn it off.
Then, after that’d been taken care of and we were headed to the stadium—I’d gotten a flat tire.
The good news was that I had a spare and was able to change it quickly. The bad news was that I noticed that my other three tires looked as bald as an eagle, so I would need to replace not just the flat tire, but the other three as well.
Which meant I had to figure out how to squeeze, oh, about seven hundred dollars out of my already overextended budget.
As we drove in bumper-to-bumper traffic—since this was Los Angeles and it didn’t matter that it was a weekend, there was always traffic—I’d been calculating how many catering jobs I’d have to take on to make the extra money.
Between my full-time job as a medical assistant and the part-time work I did from home as a medical transcriptionist, I barely had enough every month to cover my expenses. So, when anything like new tires came up, I took on catering gigs. Being a server had always been my go-to answer to making quick money while spending the least amount of time away from Anthony.
The condo we lived in was above my means, but it was worth the sacrifice and budgeting because it meant that Anthony was in a good school district and we were both in a safe neighborhood. The minimum payments I made every month on my student loans were not making much of a dent in my debt, but at least I was making them.
Still, most of the time, I felt like I was just treading water. I was constantly afraid that any change in the tide would drown me.
“Whoa!” Anthony’s eyes were huge, staring out the window as the enormous stadium came into view.
My heart smiled. I hadn’t seen my ten-year-old this excited…ever. Anthony loved football. He always had. I, on the other hand, had never seen the appeal and was less than thrilled about his affection for the sport.
Two weeks ago, I’d received a letter from Anthony’s fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Henson. It said that he’d been contacted by the Los Angeles Legends football organization, and they’d asked him to recommend kids he thought would be a good fit for the new program they were starting called, “Legend Youth.”
Not only had Mr. Henson submitted Anthony for the program, which would be running for six consecutive Saturdays, he’d also nominated him to receive a scholarship for the five-day camp that was happening in June, at the culmination of the six-week program.
Anthony had been accepted for both.
That news had been equal parts exciting and terrifying. Contact sports weren’t something I’d ever wanted for my son, but I knew I’d have to face it someday.
I’d just never thought that “someday” would be this soon.
Until two weeks ago, I’d been living under the illusion that I had a few more years before I’d have to see my baby boy get tackled. Sure, there were Pee Wee leagues that Anthony had wanted to join, but I’d always had to say no. They were just too expensive.
For this program, though, all I had been required to supply were cleats, which Anthony had found on clearance. Sometimes, I’ll be honest, it sucked that he was so smart. With the financial factor taken out of the equation, I knew that I had no choice about whether or not Anthony participated.
The only thing left to do was wrap my mind around the fact that Anthony was going to be hit, tackled, and possibly hurt—all in the name of a game he desperately wanted to play. Well, that and how to infuse a few hundred dollars into my budget this month for new tires.
I knew that, out of the two, figuring out how to buy the tires was going to be a lot easier than coming to terms with my baby playing tackle football.
Pulling up to the guard booth, I tried to put on a brave face and smile as I rolled down the window. “Hi. We’re here for Legend Youth. We’re a little late. Sorry.”
I knew that there was no reason to apologize to the guard, who I was pretty sure couldn’t care less about my scheduling difficulties. But my anxiety over Anthony playing was increasing by the second, and I tended to apologize when I got nervous. Apologize, twist my hair, bite my lip, and tap my foot. I had a plethora of tics to choose from.
The blond-haired, blue-eyed, surfer-looking guard leaned his muscular forearms on the door. Then his eyes shamelessly glanced down at my chest and then back up to my face. “And what’s your name?”
Seriously?!
I did not have time for this today.
“I’m Julianna Perez, and this is my son, Anthony.”
“Son?” The guard stood and lifted his brows.
“Yes. And we’re late, so if you could…” I motioned to the gate arm, which was blocking my car from entering the parking lot.
The guard stared at me for a few seconds and I was just about to tell him in no uncertain terms that I was not interested so if he could please just do his job, that would be great—when he said, “I need to see your ID.”
“Oh. Right.” I grinned to myself, feeling just a little embarrassed that I’d assumed he was still trying to hit on me. I grabbed my purse from the back seat and pulled my driver’s license out of my wallet.
When the guard took it from my hand, his fingers grazed mine unnecessarily and the embarrassment I’d felt an instant earlier evaporated. I tugged my arm back in the car. After checking the list he was holding, he held the card back out to me.
“Wow. I thought you were his sister or babysitter.”
I didn’t bother addressing the security guard’s not-so-keen observation—the same one I’d heard on a daily basis since Anthony was born. I was a young mom who looked even younger than my twenty-six years. People did not seem to be able to process that information, and they almost always felt the need to comment on it.
Placing both hands back on the steering wheel, I said a silent prayer that the arm would lift and I’d be able to drive through without any more small talk. Unfortunately, my prayer was not answered. It stayed in place.
Clearing his throat, the guard smiled. “Hey, I get off at four. Do you want to go grab a drink later?”
I had several pet peeves, but the peeviest of all the pets was when random guys hit on me in front of Anthony. It was such a low-life move.
