Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“You are, aren’t you?”
“Get a grip, Tanny Boy,” I shot at him, lifting my chin and standing even higher on my heels. “You couldn’t make me jealous if you tried.”
“Is that right?”
“It is.”
“Huh,” he mused, and before I could decide what to do next, he grabbed me by the hips, backing me into the brick wall of the building I’d been storming past.
I hit it with enough force to make me gasp, and Vince smiled down at me, blocking me in, surrounding me like a predator about to devour his first meal in days.
“So you don’t want me to take you up to my condo right now?” he asked, his voice low and seductive in the space between us.
He pressed into me harder when I didn’t answer, eliciting another gasp I wished I could keep inside. His thick thigh slid between mine, spreading me for him so much my skirt raked up six inches.
“You don’t want me to touch you the way I was touching them?”
He didn’t have to clarify who them was as his hand wrapped around my throat, my pulse thumping against his palm. He lifted my chin even more, forcing me to look at him.
“You don’t want me to haul this sweet ass over my shoulder and carry you inside,” he asked, running the tip of his nose along the bridge of mine. I tasted his breath when he finished his question. “To pin you against my window, hike this skirt up over your hips, and fuck you for the whole city to watch?”
My chest heaved against his, and he drove that thigh a little higher, taking my skirt with it as my eyelids fluttered shut.
His grip on my hips tightened, just a fraction, just enough to break me.
And I kissed him.
All it took was me pressing up onto my toes a centimeter more to press my lips to his, and I sucked in a breath when he groaned at the contact, his hand moving from my throat to the back of my neck and holding me to him for a long, ravenous kiss. His lips were so big, so firm as they demanded mine. I opened for him, moaning and squeezing my legs together when he dipped his tongue inside to taste me.
But as quickly as the kiss had come, he pulled it away, along with the rest of him.
My body convulsed at the loss of heat, at how the humid air suddenly felt cool when it washed over my exposed thighs from where my skirt had ridden up.
And Vince Tanev, that cocky motherfucker, wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb while a wicked smile spread on his lips.
“Sorry, pet,” he said, tucking his hands in his pockets. “You’ll have to admit you want it before I give it to you.”
I gaped at him.
And then, I growled out a scream, righting my skirt and shoving him so hard in the chest that he stumbled backward.
“I am not your pet,” I seethed.
He barked out a laugh that made me shove him again.
“God, you are such a bastard. I hate you!”
“Sure you do.”
His hand shot up in the air, waving at a black car as it pulled up to the curb. It was the same one from the beginning of the night, and the driver dipped his head at Vince in acknowledgement as he put the car in park.
“What is this?”
“Your ride,” he said, pulling the back door open. He all but tossed me inside before shutting it again. The window was rolled down, and he braced his hands on the edge of it, leaning down so he could see me. “Goodnight, Maven. See you in the morning.”
Vince winked, standing and thumping on the roof of the car before he backed up a few steps. He wore a cocky smile like I’d just handed him the winning lottery numbers, and I’d never felt more betrayed by my body than I did in that moment — my chest heaving, head dizzy from our kiss, panties wet under my skirt.
The car sped off before I could tell him to go fuck himself.
Sexual Awakening
Vince
Two days after the win in Tampa, we flew to Pittsburgh for a Friday night game.
It was back-to-back away games — Pittsburgh on Friday and Baltimore on Saturday. We flew out Thursday evening to get settled, and with a home win under our belt and a three-game winning streak flying with us, we were confident.
I held onto that confidence, onto the fact that we knew what we were doing, and we had the chance to really have the league’s attention if we won these away games, too. That would be five games in a row.
Tampa hadn’t won five games in a row since 2015.
Nothing motivated me like the potential to make headlines, other than the chance to silence sports analysts and their assumptions about me and my team. I could do both with these wins, and I kept that in the forefront of my mind.