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CHAPTER SEVEN

KIP

I was currently lying on my bed with Ashley panting on top of me, trying to catch my breath. I was still inside her and we were both sweaty with the amount of movement we’d just expended with each other.

Since we’d come back from the Aquarium two days ago, we’d spent time getting to know each other, having sex, and eating, and I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever be able to let her go.

Coach had called to say that the team had another week off while the players who’d caught the flu recovered, but according to Craig sex didn’t count as cardio, so I was going to have to meet the rest of the team at the gym at some point.

But I didn’t want to.

It wasn’t that I’d fallen out of love with playing, it’s just that I’d fallen in love with Ashley. I now had two priorities that I was going to have to learn to juggle together.

I just had to let go of her to be able to do it and function like a civilized human, and then plan for when football season started back up in September and I had to leave her for longer periods of time. I just didn’t want to right now.

She was getting her stitches out in two days and would be able to go back to work, so I was giving myself those two days to come to terms with the fact I wasn’t going to be able to stay like this with her.

Since our date, the only time apart we’d had was when she was making the bands for Liberty. So far, she’d made over a hundred of them, using elastic that had tiny beads in a rainbow already attached to them and adding a small orange ribbon charm that she’d found online. They were simple, but perfect.

Two days was enough time, right?

“What are you thinking about so hard?” she mumbled, rubbing her face sleepily on my chest.

Wrapping my arms tightly around her, I answered without thinking. “About letting you go.”

I didn’t realize what I’d said until I felt her tense up and she tried to move away from me.

“I see. Well, if you give me five minutes to get my stuff together, I’ll help you out.”

Refusing to loosen the grip I had on her, I held her in place. “What are you talking about? We have two days?”

The expression on her face turned from hurt to pissed.

“Excuse me? Two days ? So, I’m not good enough to keep, but I’m good enough to have for a period of time that suits you?” she asked, using her arms to push her body away from me. “You’re an asshole.”

Rolling us on the bed so that I was lying on top of her now, I gave her enough of my weight to hold her in place. “Will you settle down for a minute, that’s not what I meant.”

“How can what you said mean anything else? It’s pretty specific,” she argued, pushing against my chest now. “I’m so stupid. I knew I shouldn’t get involved with you, but did I listen to my brain? No, and now look.”

Placing my weight on my elbows, I caught her hands and pushed them so that they were either side of her head.

“Listen to me,” I clipped, moving my face as close to hers as I dared to. “I didn’t mean it like you’re making out. What I meant was that I was trying to get my head around not being able to spend all my time with you once you get your stitches out.”

Her struggling stopped and she stared at me in confusion. “What?”

“I like being with you. I like this,” I wiggled our joined hands. “Once your stitches are out, you’ll go back to work and I’ll have to meet the rest of the team at our gym and go back to normal life, and I’m not sure I can do it.”

“You’re not sure you can go to the gym?”

“No,” I replied slowly, “I’m not sure how to be away from you. Before, I only had to think about the gym and myself. Now I have you, and I want to include you in all of that. Right now you need me, but when you have the stitches out you won’t, and I don’t know how to go back to being just me without you.”

That probably didn’t make a lick of sense, but I didn’t care.

Her head tilted slightly as she watched me, thinking over what I’d said. “So, are you saying that you want there to be an us?”

Her question made me pause. I’d thought we were an us, but what if she didn’t?

“More than anything.” I told her honestly, and then asked, “Do you?”

The smile that lit up her face soothed the nerves that were firing after her previous question. “More than anything,” she repeated. “I really like you, Kip Sutherland.”

Dipping my head down to kiss her, I whispered, “I really like you, too, Ashley Wilkes. But if I see you in a Sounders top, I’m burning it.”

That was how our situation had started this time, after she’d come into my bedroom wearing one of Hayden’s team shirts. I’d lunged at her, pulled it over her head and then seen that she was naked underneath it. The shirt was now somewhere in my garden after being thrown out of the window while I was walking us to my bed, with Ashley over my shoulder laughing her head off.

Remembering the feel of her nipples rubbing against my arm as her bare pussy rubbed my chest, I slid back into her grinning widely. We’d dispensed with condoms this morning after having ‘the talk’, something I’d never gone without, and if I thought she felt good before, nothing could compare to how she felt without the barrier between us.

“Next time, we’ll put you in one of my shirts.”

“Want me to wear it to your next game?” she moaned, grinding up into me as I pushed slowly but firmly into her.

“That’s not until September.”

“Then I’ll do it in September,” she promised, wrapping her legs tightly around my hips and digging her heels into my ass. “Naked.”

Speeding up my thrusts, I moved my mouth down to catch one of her nipples. “The hell you will.”

The thought of her doing it excited me, but I’d never be able to focus if I knew she was naked under my jersey while I was playing. And what if she flashed someone? Hell no.

Never one to give in, she growled, “Watch me.”

Adding power into my thrusts, I distracted us both before we could get into an argument about it. With any luck, she’d forget about it completely.

I was an hour into my workout when Craig, Stan and Reece came to stand beside the bench I was lifting weights on.

It didn’t take a genius to see that I was in a shitty mood, but when Craig asked, “Have you spoken to a lawyer?” I almost dropped the weights onto my neck.

Fortunately, Stan caught them before any damage was done.

Sitting up, I grabbed my towel and wiped my face. “What are you talking about? What do I need a lawyer for?”

Moving so they were in front of me, Reece asked incredulously, “You’re not going to do anything about it?”

Racking my brains to figure out what they were talking about, I drew a blank.

“The article,” Craig explained slowly as he pulled his phone out of the pocket of his workout shorts and showed me the screen.

Taking it, I skimmed the article, my shitty mood getting even shittier as I read it.

Missy had apparently sold a story to a gossip magazine, a kiss and tell about our relationship together. Like that wasn’t bad enough, she’d then gotten Cam to do the same about Ashley. I didn’t care about the lies she told about me, they were easily proven wrong, but I fucking hated reading the intimate things Cam had to say about Ash.

Pulling my own phone out, I rang the team’s lawyer, Rajesh, and sent a text to our PR rep, Riley, while I waited to be put through to him. By the time I was done, the measly amount of money they’d gotten for this shit would taste as bitter as their lies.

I was only five minutes into my conversation with the lawyer when Ashley burst through the doors of the gym and ran across the room into my arms, crying her eyes out before she threw up in the trash can next to where we were standing.

That bitter taste just got worse for them. Before I was pissed, now I was a man protecting his woman—and no one made her cry until she was throwing up.

Meeting the rest of the team’s eyes, I let them see the anger I was feeling, something that shocked them given that I was the easy going one on the team. One by one, they all nodded, showing me their support.

Cam and Missy might have the attention of any gossip loving members of the public, but I had something more powerful—my brothers.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and when I looked at the screen a dirty grin grew on my face.

Apparently I also not only had her brother and his team, but I had her father’s, too.

Game. Fucking. On.