Page 25 of The Wrong Game

Her hand pressed into my chest, and she unhooked her ankles from where they were clasped behind my back, sliding down the front of me until her toes hit the ground again.

“Sorry,” she murmured, pulling her hair over one shoulder as she peered up at me with pink cheeks. “I just… I was so excited when we won.”

“Hey, it’s all good,” I said, tapping her nose. “Practice round, remember?”

She laughed nervously at that, eyes skirting down to her Keds before they climbed back up slowly to meet mine. And when they did, all that sass, that confidence, that fun? It was all gone.

Her eyes were wide, scared, fingers twirling in her hair as she chewed her bottom lip. I watched her swallow, the motion straining her delicate neck, and then she said something.

“What?” I asked, leaning down. The crowd was still loud and boisterous, an off-key chorus of the “Bear Down” fight song ringing out.

Gemma spoke again, but I still couldn’t hear her.

“What was that?” I asked again, putting my ear right by her lips.

And of course, as soon as there was a lull in the noise, she screamed what she’d been saying all along.

“You wanna come back to my place?!”

A few people snapped their heads in our direction, smirks and laughs greeting us from all sides as Gemma flushed a deep red and folded in on herself. I chuckled, shaking my head as I watched her retreat.

“It really should be illegal for one woman to be this cute.”

Her shoulders drooped, a smile breaking through as she shook her head, embarrassed.

“I agree,” Janet said from behind her, squeezing Gemma’s shoulder. “Alright, you two. Have fun tonight. The old folks are going to fight through this crowd and head home.”

“It was so nice meeting you,” Gemma said, wrapping Janet in a hug. “I can’t wait to cheer on our boys all season with you.”

“Just don’t start showing up in body paint,” Roy grumbled.

We all laughed at that.

Zach

My mind was reeling as we pushed through the crowd back out into the night, Gemma’s hands tucked into the back pockets of her shorts. I could still feel the adrenaline of the game rushing through me, and now, that blood was pumping straight to another region in anticipation of what was about to happen next.

It’d been a while since I’d taken a girl home, or gone back to her place. Somewhere around twenty-eight, I got tired of the one-night stands. It wasn’t that I hadn’t had any since then, just that they were fewer and more far between.

And the thought of breaking that dry spell with Gemma was more than enough to get me hard before we’d even left the field.

I adjusted myself in my shorts, walking behind Gemma to the cab line, but when we climbed inside the cab to head back to her place, Gemma fell completely silent, her wide eyes watching the cars pass out her window.

I watched her twist her hands together in her lap, ignoring every text that lit up her phone. I couldn’t help but notice most of them were from Belle.

And I also couldn’t help but notice that Gemma was nervous.

She wascan’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t look at menervous.

We pulled up to one of the sky-rise condominium buildings downtown less than half an hour after leaving our seats, even with the traffic, and Gemma hadn’t spoken a single word to me in that time. Silence enveloped us still us we rode in the elevator up to the twenty-second floor.

With my upbringing, all I wanted to do was get inside that head of hers. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking, what she was feeling, what was making her palms sweat right now. She mentioned it’d been a while forher, too, since she’d been with someone — but I didn’t knowwhy.

Still, I didn’t press her. From what she’d told me earlier in the night, she was a woman of control. So, I let her think, let her make her lists and her plans.

She didn’t have to know that all that would go out the window the second I had her naked.

“This is me,” she said finally, her voice a little raspy as she unlocked door 2206. She stepped inside, holding the door open for me, and once I stepped in after her, I let out a long whistle.