Blindsided (3 page)

Carson simply nodded and didn’t return the small talk. At that moment the door flew open and slammed against the wall.

Carson stood so Tanner followed the team president’s lead, as a whirlwind of a man literally ran into the room, buzzing with energy and enthusiasm.

“Tanner, I don’t believe you’ve met our new head coach, Brandon Miller.”

Carson knew Miller by reputation. Everyone did. He’d been the offensive coordinator for this year’s Super Bowl winner, his long season being the only reason another team hadn’t snapped him up for their head coach.

“Nice to meet you, Coach.” The two shook hands, and all three men sat down at the small conference table in Carson’s office. Miller was Carson’s opposite. His Steelheads polo had a coffee stain on it, his red hair stood on end on one side of his head, and he sported scruffy stubble.

“I’m sorry our new GM couldn’t be here today. He had a previous commitment,” Carson explained in that infuriatingly smooth and unruffled voice of his.

Before Tanner could respond, Miller jumped in. “I’ve been wanting to meet you. I watched you in college and the last two years with the Steelheads. I don’t believe the previous offensive scheme was a good match for your talents, but mine will be.”

“What about Hernandez?” Tanner asked, bringing up a sore subject regarding the first-round quarterback drafted by the Fish—as the Seattleites so fondly called their team.

Miller grinned and rubbed his stubble. “Yes, Hernandez. Well, they did draft him, but I believe in competition, and the best man at the position wins. You have great promise, Wolfe, but you haven’t lived up to it. I’m a firm believer in helping players reach their potential, and you, my boy, have great potential. Our new QB coach can’t wait to work with you.”

Tanner nodded, feeling as if he’d fallen down a rabbit hole and ended up in some make-believe world where everything was rosy and wonderful and the good guys always won. Except Tanner wasn’t sure he was a good guy.

“So, Tanner, we,” Carson included the coach in his look, “believe you’re this franchise’s quarterback of the future if you want to be.”

“Of course I want to be,” Tanner gushed, faking the same level of enthusiasm they displayed, only these two weren’t faking it.

“Good.” Carson smiled a stiff smile and leaned back in his chair. “As a competitor, I assume you’ll do anything needed to get to the next level. We can promise you’ll be rewarded handsomely before the end of your original contract
if
you fulfill our expectations.”

“Uh, yeah, anything.” Tanner could almost hear the trap snapping tight around his big foot.

“Good. I knew you’d say that.” Miller just kept grinning, while Carson didn’t grin at all.

Tanner blew out a breath. “Sure, fill me in on what you expect. I’m great at charity work. I visit the Children’s Hospital and the VA Hospital almost every week.”

Carson and Miller exchanged glances.

“Actually, it’s more complicated than that. All of our owners are Seattle natives. We’re family oriented, every one of us. We can’t have an X-rated face of the franchise.”

“Oh.” Tanner couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

“In addition to cleaning up your on-field performance, you need to turn around your off-field reputation. We want a good guy, a family man who goes home to the same woman every night, who isn’t seen at the hot spots with barely clad women on his arm.”

“Sure, I—I can do that. I can tone it down a bit. I just want to play football. That’s my priority.”

Both men stared at him as if he were full of shit.

“Seriously. It is. I’ve matured. I’m not that young party guy I was my rookie season.”

Carson cleared his throat, looked down at his iPad, swiped a couple times, and handed it to Tanner. Tanner blanched.

“When was this taken?” Carson asked, as if he didn’t know.

“Uh, uh, last weekend,” Tanner admitted, barely glancing at the picture taken in a back hallway of a Seattle nightclub. It was beyond compromising. He had an unknown woman backed against the wall. She had her legs wrapped around his waist. Her short skirt had ridden upward to expose her hips, thighs, and ass. Her breasts spilled out of her top. Tanner was fucking her for all he was worth with his head thrown back. The photographer had caught him in that moment before he came.

“Did you even know her name?” Carson asked with obvious judgment in his voice.

“No,” Tanner admitted.

Carson looked pissed and even Coach lost his Pollyanna smile. “Do you know what it cost the organization to keep these photos and the corresponding video from being plastered all over the Internet?”

“No, sir, I don’t, sir. It was poor judgment on my part.”

“Along with the tequila you consumed and the Jell-O shots you sucked out of another woman’s cleavage?”

“Yeah.” Tanner fidgeted and stared at his hands, feeling contrite and stupid.

“This will not happen again. If it does, we’ll cut you. No excuses. No second chance. Do I make myself clear?” Carson’s steely voice left zero doubt as to his intent.

“Yes.”

“Good.” Carson stood, effectively dismissing him. “I’ll be delivering our expectations in writing to your agent this afternoon.”

Tanner fled to the door, anxious to leave.

“And Tanner?”

Tanner froze with his hand on the doorknob. “Uh, yeah?”

“My advice to you is find a nice girl and become a homebody.”

Tanner didn’t respond because being a homebody with a nice girl was the last thing he wanted to do. He’d rather be celibate for the rest of his career than be saddled with one woman.

As he beat cleats out of there, Tanner cast one of his patented, panty-melting grins at Carson’s assistant. She glared at him, her panties fully intact and dry as a bone, no doubt.

Sketching a salute in her direction, Tanner strode to the elevator. As soon as the doors snapped shut, he ran his hands over his face and wondered how the hell he’d clean up his act. His football career depended on it, and without football, Tanner had nothing.

Tanner grinned at the hottie nuzzling his neck and tipped his head back to guzzle another beer. He ignored the worried frowns on his buddies’ faces, knowing exactly what they were thinking. Hey, he was playing it cool, trying to stay out of trouble.

Somewhat
.

Before Tanner could take their mutual attraction to the back seat of his car, the redhead’s senior-citizen boyfriend toddled into the bar to claim her. With a disappointed frown, the nameless woman stood to follow the older man to the blackjack tables. She tossed a wistful glance over her bare shoulder, and Tanner winked at her, unconcerned. There’d be another to take her place, so he shrugged it off, even though he was slightly irritated she’d neglected to mention she’d come with someone. Tanner didn’t have many scruples, but he did his best to avoid women with attachments, vindictive ex-boyfriends, and excessive drama, unless the female happened to be a celebrity.

Tanner couldn’t deny it. He was an attention slut. Living in Seattle lowered his visibility on the national scene. The rest of the country often forgot Seattle existed, and his team’s losing streak buried him even further into obscurity. The last thing Tanner wanted to be was obscure, forgotten, yesterday’s news. Dating a starlet or pop singer thrust him into the national spotlight, right where he craved being—and right where the team didn’t want him to be.

His last relationship with a reality star had netted him some good endorsement deals until it went south after the usual three months—his personal limit for how long he could hold it together before nosy females got too close, and he cut them off or behaved badly enough, they dumped him.

That had been his MO, and it suited him, or it had in the past. But the past was just that, past. This, unfortunately, was a whole new ballgame, and Carson Reynolds had put him on notice. For two weeks, Tanner had behaved, flying under the radar until he’d had all he could take of hanging out at home with the guys. Not to mention his healthy sex drive was driving him to find a willing body for the night.

Instead of going to his usual trendy, downtown Seattle nightclub, Tanner found himself sitting in a casino bar on karaoke night, not exactly his preferred bottle of booze, but it’d have to do until the Steelheads management backed off.

Tanner poured another beer from the pitcher on the table, wishing it were whiskey instead, one of the many concessions he’d made for the good of the team—and his career.

“Thank God,” Hunter said, as the current singer finished his song and left the stage to a smattering of applause from the singer’s drunken friends. Tanner could never be drunk enough to think that guy could carry a tune.

“Whose idiot idea was it for us to come to the casino on karaoke night?” Tanner groused. He’d already lost too much money playing a couple rounds of blackjack so gambling was out but so was calling it a night. Tanner didn’t want to go home either.

“Yours,” Hunter, Cam, and Grady answered at the same time.

“Oh,” Tanner sighed and studied the bar menu, suddenly hungry.

“Hey,” Grady tugged on his sleeve and pointed with his finger, “isn’t that your brother’s fiancée?”

Tanner snapped his head around so fast he almost got whiplash. The lady in question stood on a dark stage under a spotlight, a microphone grasped in her hand. Rubbing the back of his neck, Tanner squinted into the lights of the small stage.

“Holy fuck,” he said under his breath. His dick hardened in record time. The woman in question wore a tight pink top showing a liberal amount of tasty cleavage and a swishy, mid-thigh skirt. Her honey blond hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back. A very nice back and even nicer ass, he noted, as she bent down to pick up the mic. She wasn’t tall, but she was just his size with those long, long legs which stretched to heaven and back.

All kinds of wicked scenarios designed to piss off his brother played through his mind. He couldn’t imagine why Avery would be here dressed like that without his overbearing ass of a brother stuck to her side. They must have had a fight. Maybe they broke up, making her ripe for rebound sex. Or maybe—

Tanner frowned. Something wasn’t quite right.

“Shit,” he swore under his breath. Tanner noticed details, a talent which had made him an elite college quarterback able to read defenses with a glance. Sadly, that particular talent hadn’t helped him in the pros—yet.

No, that delectable vixen on stage wasn’t Avery, but Emma, the sweet twin sister. Tanner leaned forward and licked his lips. Emma? Dressed like that?

Damn, she was the hottest woman in here.

He shook his head, pretty sure the world might be coming to an end any minute. Considering Izzy was one of his closest friends, he knew the sisters pretty well and Bella really well; actually maybe too well because his brief involvement with Bella had created tension between Izzy and him. He hated that.

Tanner watched mesmerized as usually quiet, buttoned-up Emma morphed into a hot, sultry siren. She sang and danced on stage like a pro, reminding him she’d been raised with music in her life because of her parents’ status as two-hit wonders. Emma’s party-crashing side job most likely contributed to her stage presence. In their teens, the sisters had literally sung for their supper by crashing parties in order to get their next meal. They were so good at taking a dud party and turning it into a success, they started a party crashing business, which he understood was becoming quite lucrative.

Hell, he’d even paid them to crash one of his parties—yet he’d never noticed Emma in stage mode before, maybe because he’d been too busy screwing Bella in a closet.

He ran his hand through his hair and groaned. He noticed her now, and he was torn between covering her up with his jacket and taking off the clothes she had on.

Tanner ran his hands over his face and blew out a ragged breath, while Emma crooned some sexy love song. Damn, but the woman could sing, and the seductive way she moved her body to the music had every horny jerk in the bar salivating including him and—he glanced at his buddies. Glassy-eyed with tongues hanging out, they watched her every move. Tanner suppressed an urge to beat the crap out of all three of them, shocked he even gave a shit.

Then again, he should. She was Izzy’s sister, and so it made sense he’d be concerned for her welfare and somewhat protective of her. Izzy was the closest thing to a sister he had left. At the errant reminder of what he’d lost, Tanner swallowed hard. He buried the pain by refocusing on Emma.

No way did sweet Emma truly understand what her outfit did to every man in the room or what they were imagining doing to her as the night wore on. Bella must have dressed her tonight. He glanced around, but Bella wasn’t anywhere to be found, nor were any of her sisters.

His gaze swung back to the angel who’d been dressed by the devil. Emma’s bright red lips moved as she sang the words to the song, and all Tanner could picture in his gutter-filled mind were those very lips sucking his dick and taking him deep. Really, really deep. Over and over until—

Oh, hell. He let out a tortured groan and glanced guiltily at his buddies. They didn’t even notice, which pissed him off all the more, but not nearly as much as the strangers ogling her with undisguised lust in their gazes.

He was pretty certain Emma hadn’t a clue what she did to men and how dangerous her appearance could be to someone as naïve as her.

He hoped she was with friends who’d take care of her and wasn’t here alone.

She finished her song to wild applause and stumbled off the stage, alerting Tanner that she might be a little tipsy. She swayed past a table occupied by a middle-aged businessman and tossed the man a slightly unfocused, come-hither look. The guy took the bait and reached out, but she sidestepped past him and lurched forward toward a scruffy biker dude. Already off-balance on crazy high heels, she fell onto his lap with more than a little help from him. Instead of extricating herself from his grasp, Emma turned into him.

Tanner saw red, and leapt to his feet, but Hunter grabbed his arm.