Saints and Sinners: The Complete Series Page 31

  “Gia?” she heard Cat say, spotting her across the dance floor, pushing away from Jimmy then pointing in Gia’s direction.

  “You know you wanna dance with me,” the kid continued, but the muddle of sensation and the confusion of where her friend was and what she was doing distracted Gia, had her giving him a half-hearted shove. She thought she made out a few of the players on the dancefloor talking to Cat, then standing between her and Jimmy. “Come on, babe, get over here.”

  “Will you leave me alone, asshole?”

  Gia gave up trying to catch Cat’s attention, pulling out of the kid’s touch and walked off, stopping short when she felt his biting grip on her arm. “Don’t fucking walk away… what the …”

  And then Gia stumbled back and landed against the solid, safe weight of a massive chest. “I got you,” the man said, holding her arms. “He ran off like a punk.”

  His voice sounded so familiar, warm but for the life of her, she couldn’t place it. The light was horrible in this section of the club, the mass of people and the shifting of colors made everyone look like shadows and then, another songs started, a song that made Gia’s inside hum with memory, with heat and she curled her arms around the form in front of her, whoever he was.

  “Dance with me…please,” she said, letting her nails tickle the back of his neck, slide into his hair.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  He was responsive, her big rescuer. She had no idea where he’d come from or who he belonged to. But for one song, Gia’s addled mind told her it didn’t matter. He felt so solid. So real. The man knew how to move. He held her against his body with one hand on her back and the other in her hair and the longer they danced, the closer together they moved, the tighter he held her. She could make out the wide contours of his shoulders and the thick, round strength in his thighs.

  A paradigm happy accident, she heard Luka say, and Gia grinned, drunk and a little lonely for a touch, for the recall of a body that would make her not feel so lost. She had one right here. He held her. He was solid. He was wide and thick, his hair was coarse; he seemed like the others, so similar, so responsive, just like she’d always liked, and it had been so long.

  It had been five damn months.

  She tested the waters, reminding herself that no one would know. Cat wouldn’t call her on any mistake she made. She had the woman’s solemn pinky vow. Gia turned her head, lowering it against this man’s neck, inhaling the sweet hint of cologne and sweat on his skin. Her body clenching, her nipples hardening, she brushed her lips over his neck, and he released a low, soft moan she felt vibrating against her mouth.

  The music continued, the rhythm increasing, but still they danced, and Gia found herself being turned, spinning until the music was lower, the lights even darker and the man that held her leaned her against a column draped in red velvet. She could only make out a few of his features—the high arches of his cheekbones, the broad slope of his nose and the spread of his full bottom lip, but she couldn’t see his eyes, not even when he licked his lips and moved her face up, angling her mouth to his, and kissed her.

  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 with 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 peop
le 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.”