Sugar Rush (Offensive Line #1) (26 page)

I wrap my arms gently around his head, the only part of him I can reach that’s not covered in pads, and I stroke his wet hair gently.

I lean my face down to the top of his head, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to. I understand how he feels, I know what it is to lose, and the only thing he wants from me is the one thing I can give him.

Me. My presence. My love.

My promise to always be there for him, win or lose.

COLT

February 15th

Enclave Estates

Pacific Palisades, CA

“Here we are again,” I mutter.

Lilly laughs, taking my hand as we walk toward the front of the house. She looks sexy in a yellow summer dress, her hair curled and swept to one side exposing her neck and the diamond earrings I gave her last night for Valentine’s Day. “At least you’re allowed to give them your present now. You’ve had a baby chair in your trunk for almost four months. My ovaries were starting to feel pressured.”

“I wish you would have told me. I would have tossed it out on the side of the road.”

“Not ready for kids, huh?” she chuckles.

I raise a dubious eyebrow at her. “Are you?”

“Not at all.”

“But you want them someday?”

“I want two,” she answers immediately. “How about you?”

I nod my head thoughtfully. “Two sounds good. Two sounds like we don’t have to buy a minivan.”

Her cheeks flush pink. They always do when I talk about our future together. “You say ‘we’ a lot,” she scolds me, sounding like an echo from last November.

From another blush and another day when I looked at her and thought that she felt like my forever.

“Hey, hold up!” Trey calls after us.

I turn to see him and Sloane climbing out of his red pickup. He looks like my twin in a pair of dark slacks and a white button up shirt. The only difference between us is the color of our ties; mine is green, his is orange. Sloane is in a long, pastel dress that skims the ground at her feet. Her hair is professionally done, her makeup on point as always, like she just stepped off the cover of a magazine. She’s beautiful but it makes me appreciate the easy way Lilly stepped out of the loft today. Ten minutes was all it took for her to look this good and I’d rather have her time than have her runway ready.

“Did you get my message about the film crew?” The Hotness asks seriously.

My brows tighten. “Yeah, I skimmed it real quick before we came. What was it about? Some kind of documentary?”

“For the NFL channel,” she confirms. “They’re looking at following two teams all next season. They’re calling it
The Road to the Ring
.”

“It sounds like we’re going to Mordor.”

“Nerd. Anyway, the channel has hired this award winning documentary crew and they’re going to follow the Kodiaks and an AFC team. I guess they’re still deciding which team that’s going to be. Someone that they think the Kodiaks will likely face off with in the Super Bowl next year.”

“They think we’re going?” I ask guardedly.

“Everyone does. Nobody thinks you guys should have lost that game to the Falcons.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Trey murmurs.

He’s still beating himself up about that last pass to Tyus that was intercepted. Him and Tyus both.

Sloane touches his arm gently, but she keeps filling me in. “They think the Kodiak offense is good enough to go all the way next year. That’s why they’re going to follow you.”

“Follow us how?”

“Filming practices, as much as the coaches will let them. Workouts. Team events. They’re going to highlight certain players too. Dig a little deeper into their day to day lives. Probably you because, well…”

“Because it’s me?”

“Because you’ve got a pretty face and a following. They want to talk to Tyus too. Probably Trey. Some guys from the defense. They’re also very interested in who you guys draft this year.”

“Tell them about Kurtis,” Trey reminds her.

The Hotness smiles happily. “Holy shit, I almost forgot. You’re not going to believe this.”

“Matthews has refused to be interviewed?” I guess.

She shakes her head. “Can’t. It’s in his contract to participate with any NFL promotional interviews or events, and this falls dead under that. But that’s not the big news. Hollis had him in the office yesterday. Kurtis Matthews has agreed to be a Calvin Klein underwear model.”

“Fuck you!” I shout in disbelief.

“I swear it’s true,” she laughs. “That’s why he came into the office. To sign the contracts.”

I look behind her to check the cars that are parked in front of the house. “He’s not here yet is he?”

“I doubt he’s coming.”

“He didn’t come to the gender reveal either,” Trey reminds me.

I look at The Hotness, shocked. “That was my campaign.”

She laughs at me. “You turned it down.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think they’d sign Kurtis-fucking-Matthews to do it.”

“Why not?” Lilly asks. “He’s hot.”

“Yeah, but he’s not as hot as me.”

“Eh,” Sloane groans, looking me over. “He might be, dude.”

“Fuck you,” I repeat.

“Oh my God, Rona is going to die,” Lilly mutters to herself. “She slept with a Calvin Klein model.”

“Are they still going at it?” Sloane asks in amazement.

“No! No, no, no. It ended before Christmas, but still. She should put that on her resume.”

“I would.”

“Right?”

I point at Trey. “I thought you were going to try to get him to do it.”

Trey laughs. “No thanks, man. I’ll stick with Subway. They don’t ask me to take my clothes off and sit around looking like a tired runaway.”

“You could have done it,” Lilly tells me halfheartedly. “I know it was going to pay a boatload.”

I shake my head, slinging my arm around her shoulders. “No way. You specifically said no billboards in my underwear and this ad is probably going up in Time’s Square.”

“Still, though, it’s—“

“It’s not worth it. Not anymore,” I tell her seriously.

She smiles before lifting up on her toes to kiss me sweetly. She tastes like cherry Chap Stick. It makes me hungry in a hundred different ways.

“You’re a good man, Colt Avery,” she whispers against my lips.

She hits me hard with that shit. I nearly blush myself.

“We should get inside, love birds,” The Hotness teases. “We wouldn’t want to be late, would we, Colt?”

“You guys go ahead. I need to show Lilly something.”

“This is a fancy party, dude,” Trey warns me. “Please don’t whip it out in front of the whole team again.”

“Again?” Lilly asks on a laugh.

“It was Halloween!” I cry defensively. “You’re lucky if you
don’t
see a dick on Halloween.”

“I think you’re celebrating Halloween wrong.”

“Whatever,” I mumble, pulling Lilly toward the side of the house. “We’ll meet you guys inside.”

“You know, I was kind of hoping that since I’m not working this party I could go in through the front door like a real person,” Lilly objects as I stride toward the kitchen entrance.

“This is going to be better. I promise.”

“I’m trusting you.”

“That’s all I ask.”

The wait staff is different than it was back in November. They look up at is in surprise when we come into the kitchen but no one questions us, although I can feel them watching us as I open the pantry door and push Lilly quickly inside. I lock it just as quickly behind us.

She stands in the corner by the bags of brown rice, her hands on her hips. “Colt, I didn’t have sex with you in here four months ago and I’m not going to do it now.”

I chuckle, shaking my head. “No. That’s not what we’re doing.”

“Then what are we doing in here?”

“We’re going back to the beginning.”

“What?”

I clear my throat, swallowing down the lump that’s rising inside it. “There are a thousand different ways I could have done this. I know because I looked them up online. Literally thousands. But I also know that most of them are nothing you would be comfortable with. I know that you need it to be small and private, just you and me, so that’s what I’m doing.” I drop down to one knee in front of her, taking her hands in mine. Her eyes are huge, glaciers pure and blue staring down at me in amazement.

“Oh my God,” she breathes.

“I know this is fast, even by my standards, but I love you. I knew there was something incredible about you the day I met you here in this room, and I find something new to love about you every single day. I find those things and I memorize them because I see you. Crystal clear. And no matter what your answer is to this question, I want you to know that I’ll never forget you, Lilly Hendricks. I will say your name every day for the rest of my life, and when I die it will be the last word to cross my lips. I promise you that.”

Tears fall from her eyes. They drip down her cheeks, off her chin, onto our hands clasped together. They fall like rain and when she smiles they burst from her eyes in a torrent that washes over my skin, cool and clean.

I reach into my pocket to pull out the box inside. Her breath hitches when she sees it. When it gets real.

I open it slowly, showing her the large emerald cut diamond inside.

“I know you probably wish it was smaller,” I joke with a crooked grin, the one I know she loves. “But you gotta let me do some things big.”

I’m relieved when she laughs roughly, wiping at her eyes to clear them. “This is big,” she agrees. “This is all really big.”

“But is it too much?”

She shakes her head, dropping to her knees in front of me, a smile on her face. “No. It’s perfect.” She bypasses the ring, reaching for my face and kissing me hard. “Everything you do is perfect.”

“Is that a yes?” I ask, my nerves fried. My skin prickling with adrenaline.

“What was the question?”

I chuckle, taking hold of her hips to pull her closer. “Will you marry me, Lilly?”

“Yes, Colt. I would be proud to marry you.”

She lets me put the ring on her finger. It looks even bigger on her small hand and I can tell it freaks her out a little bit, but she’ll get used to it. Same way she got used to me. The same way she fell in love with me; slow and sweet.

I jacked up my knee again this season. We lost our shot at the Super Bowl. Lilly’s dad is battling a bitch of a disease. And still when I hold her close, her body shaking against mine with laughter and tears as I ask her to promise again and again to be my wife, I can’t help but feel hopeful. I feel that high, that rush that loving her gives to me. I’m looking forward instead of back, toward a new day, a new life, a new season, and one thought is pushing hard at the forefront of my mind.

It’s going to be a fucking good year.

Thank you for reading SUGAR RUSH!

The third book in the series following Kurtis Matthews is coming late 2016.

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Keep reading for a preview of
THIS IS THE WONDER
.

I went to Europe to study. To party, to hide, to run away from the endless sea of choices that would mold and shape the rest of my life. I wasn't ready for any of that. Not yet. I wasn't ready to have all the answers.
And I definitely wasn't ready for Jax.
Handsome, sweet, and sporting the biggest blue eyes I'd ever seen, he swooped into my world and changed everything. Suddenly I wasn't scared of making choices. I wasn't afraid of voicing answers. It was easy because where Jax was concerned, my answer was always "Yes".
But loving a military man isn't easy, and while Jax seemed like the answer to everything, he has questions of his own.
Doubts about his future. Fears about his past.