Offsides Read online

  She only knew sensation then—the sharp, mewing surprise of his hot, thick tongue as he slipped it inside her mouth and the scrape of his teeth against her bottom lip. Her insides ached for a different reason now, and Gia forgot where she was, who she was and pulled on the man’s collar, gripping him close, smiling against his mouth when her small aggression made him gasp and that quick release of breath turned into a low growl of approval as she rubbed against him, scratching his back, tugging his hair.

  “Shit,” he said, forehead against hers, breath fanning across her face. He tasted like whiskey and mint and Gia wanted to find out what else. “You are so damn beautiful.” He grabbed her leg, his grip lowering to cup her ass. “The most…beautiful woman I’ve seen in this city.” Then he lowered his mouth to her neck and Gia shuddered pushing her breast against him, rubbing her hardened nipples into his chest as he licked a hot, searing path from her collarbone to the shell of her ear. “I could take you right here, if I wasn’t a good man,” he said, lowering his hand to her rib, his thumb rubbing the underside of her breast. “God knows I want…” He groaned again, head shaking like it killed him to pull away from her. But he stopped kissing her neck, stopped teasing her breast, and held her cheek, seeming unable to keep from kissing her, sucking on her bottom lip one last time. “But I don’t take advantage of drunk women.”

  “I’m not…”

  He laughed, his mouth on hers again, leaning on one arm as he watched her. “I wish that weren’t true because I damn well know we’d be fucking combustible…”

  Gia smiled, her eyes half lidded, wishing she could see all of his face.

  “I…don’t mind, you know.” She ran a fingernail over his chest, grinning at the shiver that seemed to run through him when she tweaked his nipple. “We can pinky promise not to tell.”

  He laughed, the sound sweet, genuine but he shook his head before he kissed her one last time. “Hell, if I’d known you’d be this…compliant, I would have kissed you first then asked about my extended vacation time.”

  It took several minutes for his words to settle through the fog of drunkenness and dim realization. When they did, it seemed as though someone had doused Gia with freezing water. She tensed, the clarity sobering her, horrifying her, slamming her eyes shut long enough for his face to become abundantly clear.

  Kai Pukui.

  “Motherfucker,” she whispered, realizing too late he could hear her.

  “No,” he said. “At least I don’t think so.”

  Gia blinked up at him, trying to get a toe hold on the scatter of scenarios and thoughts that weaved in her head like a word cloud. This was bad. This was very, very bad.

  “Gia…” he tried, but went quiet when she shook her head and held up a finger, just one.

  “No.” She straightened, adjusting her skirt and wiping her mouth. She looked around the club, to the right of Kai, then the left, up top to the balcony, easing when she didn’t make out any cameras or fans with their phones out and pointed at the Steamers’ lineman. “No,” she said again, head shaking. “This absolutely, unequivocally did not happen.”

  “Um, my dick would argue that point.”

  Gia glared at him, killing the laughter that had begun to leave the man’s mouth. “This was stupid and irresponsible and…my fault.” She turned, arms curled, as she glared at him. “My God, what are you again? I forgot? Twenty-five?”

  “Twenty-eight.” He tilted his head. “You?”

  “Older.”

  “I like older women.”

  Gia flared her nostrils, not amused by him. “Not nine years older women,” she muttered to herself. She knew she wasn’t sober, but she’d learned to wear a game face and mask whatever she thought. Gia was sure she could manage playing at sobriety in front of what she assumed was the equally drunk man she’d just been making out with.

  “You will forget this happened.” Gia hardened her features, keeping her tone sharp and her expression hard. It was a tactic she’d perfected that had earned her the ball buster reputation she was proud of. No one messed with Gia Jilani and walked away easy. “You will go back to Hawaii, per your request, and come back to New Orleans in time for spring training.” Kai guarded his expressions, moving his gaze over her face, standing to his full height to look down at her, but the intimidation tactic didn’t faze her. What did almost make her flinch was when the big guy licked his lips, letting his thick tongue move slowly, barely peek out along his bottom teeth. She watched the progression, but didn’t let her gaze linger. “You will not tell anyone what happened here, and you will maintain a professional demeanor around me on the field and in any capacity that requires the same. Is that clear?”

  He was slow to nod. So slow, in fact, Gia thought he wouldn’t react at all, but eventually, Kai moved his head, still watching her, a barely shifting twitch on his mouth stretching his lips into a smile that irritated her.

  “What?” she said when he kept watching her but didn’t speak.

  “I’m just thinking about all the days I’ll be out there on the field, with those other assholes talking shit about you…because, you know they will.” His smile got bigger when he stepped closer and Gia moved back. “And they watch you walk around that field and see you handle your business and wonder…all kinds of shit about you…dirty damn shit, Gia…”

  “Miss Jilani…”

  “And,” he said, ignoring her correction, “I’ll be the only one with this secret.” He walked closer and she continued to retreat until Kai had her against the column again, his hand resting next to her head. “I’ll be the only asshole out there knowing how good you taste, how sweet your lips are, how you move when you’re turned on.” Kai shook his head, his eyes shutting for a second like he wanted to savor the memory. “That’s a fucking happy thought, Miss Jilani.”

  She pushed on his chest, poking him until he back away. “Forget tonight, Mr. Pukui. For your own good.”

  She took two steps away from him, ignoring the feeling of his stare on her body as she moved.

  “Is that a threat, Gia?”

  “It’s a fact,” she said, head shaking as she walked away. “I’m still your damn boss.”

  1

  GIA

  April, 2017

  “Prove those bastards wrong.”

  It was good advice, if Gia Jilani said so herself. She’d given it to Reese Noble as the woman sat across from her the night before, her nerves clear, her anxiety showing itself in the death grip she kept clamped against Gia’s office chair. Reese was talented. She was an athlete, one that Gia had watched with careful attention even before she’d taken the job as the Steamers’ general manager. She’d made signing the placekicker her first priority.

  Her second was informing the young woman what a pain in the ass everyone was going to be as she tried doing that job.

  “I’m serious. They want you to fail. They’re going to do everything in their power to make sure you run screaming from the field.”

  “I’m used to men challenging me,” she’d offered, not releasing any of the tension in her grip.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” Gia had left her desk, coming to sit next to Reese in the chair at her side. “But this isn’t Duke, and your daddy isn’t the coach. He trained you. He did a phenomenal job. Now you need to show the world that you’re the best.”

  “I thought I was here because I’m the best.”

  “You’re here because I wanted you here and you earned your spot. But you have to be better than even the best already in the league. They’ll expect you to be decent. You’ll have to be better than they expect.”

  She’d seemed to get it and by the time Gia had convinced her to relax enough to join Cat for a drink at Lucy’s, she thought Reese might actually believe her.

  But watching her move on the field now, seeing how the special teams coach, Buddy Mills treated her placekicker—badly—proved to Gia the hard truth: the bastards that would make shit hard for her were in her own house.

  The woman had leveled a twenty-five yard kick through the uprights with no trouble at all, getting no feedback from her coach, nothing at all but a nod and congratulatory smile from the punter, Michael Wilkens before Mills seemed to decide she warranted further attention.

  He scribbled something onto his clipboard, scratching his fat neck, his narrow eyes hidden behind the brim of his black Steamers visor, before he pointed to the punter.

  “Wilkens. Thirty-five. Let’s see if she…”

  He said the pronoun like it sullied his mouth, and Reese seemed to catch his attitude. Then, just like that, the spitfire woman Gia had followed for three years, the same woman who’d gone nose-to-nose with an Alabama defensive lineman when he tried swiping her leg as she attempted a kick, decided to show up and inform her new coach she most assured was not the one.

  “She,” Reese started, loud enough to pull the attention of the drilling players around her, and most of the squads breaking on the sidelines, “has a name and is on this team. Got a shiny new contract and everything.”

  Next to Gia, Cat nudged her elbow, but she didn’t respond. Like Gia, her assistant had championed the young placekicker, but they had to hide their biases. They had to remain professional. Gia didn’t look at Cat but caught her slow-working grin when Reese stepped in front of Mills, intercepting the ball he threw to Wilkens, her head tilted. It was the silent, whatcha got to say now? to the coach that Gia suspected would go unanswered. Mills was a bully and a chauvinist. He’d brought in a few players, some of them not even on his team, but on the whole, he barely managed to keep his job and he seemed to know it. It was likely the reason for his disgruntled attitude at having been left the task of working out the new placekicker. He seemed insulted to be left wit
h the girl.

  Reese shot Gia a look, one she returned with an approving smirk, before the woman glanced at the head coach. Then, she glared back up at Mills, tucking the ball under her elbow. Gia didn’t think she had any intention of handing it back to him.

  “Why do thirty-five? Why not forty? Goal is ten yards past the uprights, si? So, from the forty and that would be a fifty-yard kick.”

  Mills’ grin told Gia all she needed to know about what he thought of Noble. He doubted her. “Bastard,” she said, under her breath, wanting to charge onto the field and get in the man’s face. Next to her, Cat released a low laugh, and nodded, but neither woman made another sound. They both seemed too caught up, too rapt by what Reese would do next and who would stop to see it.

  “She’s got spunk,” Cat said when Reese didn’t back down from Mills’ threatening smile. When Mills rolled his eyes at the kick Reese made.

  “In abundance,” Gia said, crossing her arms, breath held as Reese spoke to Wilkens who held the ball for her at the forty-yard line. Around them on the field and next across the sidelines, the drills came to a pause, the conversations went quiet, except for the sporadic catcalls, even the fans and reporters who had heckled Reese when she first walked out of the stadium stayed silent as she focused on the ball.

  Noble inhaled, her back moving as she took in that breath, then she shifted back and to the left, lunging forward, her foot connecting with the ball and it went soaring, spinning like a bullet.

  It landed perfectly through the uprights.

  “Fuck me!” Wilkens cried, his shout heralding in the roars and shocked cheers from the teams and coaches, the cheers from the crowd and the loudest, sharpest congratulations from Reese’s father calling to her from the stands.

  Cat looked behind them, her smile wide, not holding back her laugh or the claps she made, joining in with the rest of the crowd around her.

  “Excellent,” Gia said, her smile only lowering when Mills approached, his face red.

  “Fifty!” he said, cutting the good mood of the moment with his temper, pointing his thumb at the goal for Wilkens to reset for another kick. “Dumb fucking luck, that –” he started, and Gia joined Ricks to intercede.

  “Dumb fucking talent,” the head coach said. Gia trailed behind him, trying to hold back the urge she felt to scream at that misogynistic asshole. But Ricks seemed capable enough at deflating Mills’ attitude. “We had this chat. When I signed her.” He nodded to Reese, his face hard, as though he was tired of repeating himself.

  “Coach, she’s–” There was a whine in Mills’ voice that seemed to get under Ricks’ skin enough that he cut the man off with a wave of his hand, silencing him immediately.

  “If you can’t condition my players, Mills—all my players—I’m sure we can find someone who can.” Ricks glanced at Reese, head shaking when he looked back at the man. “You know better than to overwork your kickers, Mills.”

  That hard-edge expression that always seemed to make his round face a bit older than his fifty-five years and somewhat more gaunt, smoothed out when he gave the placekicker an appraising glance, nodding before he spoke. “You’re gonna piss a lot of people off.”

  “Story of my life, Coach.” She released a breath, but shook her head, like she couldn’t help stating the truth.

  “Hell,” Ricks told her, “I don’t care if you do. It’ll get asses in the bleachers.”

  “More importantly,” Gia said, bringing their attention to her as she pulled off her shades and pointed at the coach. “We might stand a chance at the playoffs.” She glanced back toward the field, spotting the running back Kenya Wilson chatting with offensive lineman Miles Baker, both had outstanding stats the season before. She moved her gaze to Robert Hanson, the third-round draft pick who was still a little green and somewhat of an asshole, but who had landed Rookie of the Year and helped the Steamers make it to the NFC championship. Hanson stood next to the QB, Ryder Glenn, who, for some reason was the only veteran who’d fought hard against Reese’s tryout. He’d been coached by her father at Duke. Their families had history, but Gia didn’t know the details. She’d find that shit out when she had the time, but for now, Glenn looked healthy and he’d ended last year with over thirty-five hundred passing yards in the regular season. The only person missing was Pukui. She shook her head, pushing back the heated memory of that night at Summerland’s and the stupid mistake she’d made with him. He was one of the best linemen in the league. She scanned the field, squinting across the sidelines when she didn’t see him. That was a solid week now and the asshole still wasn’t back.

  She faced Ricks again, more confident now about their chances, despite Pukui being M.I.A. “You’ve got something special this season, Coach.”

  “Hope you’re right,” he told her, offering Reese a nod before he turned to Mills, slapping his back to usher him away from the players.

  Gia looked down at Reese, giving the woman nothing but her examining stare, holding her mouth in a line before a twitch in her bottom lip pulsed and she nodded, silently beckoning the kicker to walk with her.

  “That was ballsy,” she told her, pushing the shades back over her eyes. “And risky.”

  Gia stopped, staring at Reese, her gaze flicking to Cat as she typed out a text on her cell next to Kenya Wilson. The man looked at her, then did a double take, like he knew he recognized her but couldn’t quite place her.

  “I knew I could do it, si?” Reese said, nodding to Wilkens when he tapped her shoulder. “I’ve made that distance a thousand times.”

  “Not on this field,” Gia said, turned to stand in front of Reese. “Not in these conditions.” She could make out the concern bubbling behind Noble’s eyes. The way she pushed her eyebrows together, how she pulled her top lip under her teeth. Gia reminded herself to school the woman on controlling her expressions in order to maintain control. But really, it made her smile. She couldn’t help the laugh form leaving her mouth when it rose up in her and Reese’s reaction was instantaneous. Her lips twitched and she returned Gia’s smile, making the woman laugh even harder. “Ballsy. I like it. Keep that shit up.”

  Then she turned, the laughter warming her chest, keeping her expression open as she moved off of the field and came to a group of players, a couple she was sure she recalled seeing that night at Summerland’s. The recall of her stupid mistake dimmed some of her humor and she frowned, shooting a glance at Wilson, who nodded at her and Baker who jerked his attention forward. She felt them watching, but ignored them, moving to join Cat, taking her phone from her when she offered.

  “She’s amazing,” her assistant said.

  “Utterly.”

  She looked behind the players, head shaking before they both moved through the row of tables holding team towels, coolers, and bottles of water that sported the Steamers logo. The stadium was massive with rows and rows of seating that housed well over 70,000. Within each row were entry tunnels leading out of the stadium and into the building underneath. This was where Gia and Cat disappeared, moving through the corridors, past the concession crew and custodians as they pushed trays and buggies of equipment back into closets and storage areas. Then, as Gia thumbed through her email and Cat pulled up one of her scheduling apps, they came to a set of double doors.

  “You’ve got that two-thirty with McAddams.”

  “Downtown?” Gia asked, nodding to a security guard who held open one of the doors that led to a secured entry from the stadium to the business offices. Standing next to him was a group of three or four fans, all with make-shift Ryder Glenn and Kai Pukui T-shirts they’d bought and restructured—the collars had been cut and the seams frayed so that their cleavage was on display.

  “In your office.”

  “He wants to drink all my good whiskey, the cheap bastard.”

  They walked through another corridor, this one more lavish, lusher than the stadium and came to a row of glass doors with the Steamers logo—a cartoon locomotive, a menacing face snarling, wearing a conductor’s hat, as steam billowed from an over-large stack—etched onto the surface. Gia waved at the main reception secretaries, listening to Cat as she continued to run through her schedule and then pushed the button to call the elevator.