Dating the Defensive Back (The Nash Brothers Book 1)

A Recipe for Disaster

What the actual fuck was I thinking?

I’m not sure if I was dumber for leaving or dumber for kissing her.

Either way, seems like I’m dumb.

I was seconds from jamming my hand into her jeans so I could reach down and feel how hot and wet she is for me on the inside.

If she were anyone else, I would’ve.

But she’s not anyone else. She’s my best friend’s little sister, and I’m falling in love with her.

I’m angry with myself for letting this happen, for allowing my feelings to go there when it hasn’t even been a month since the night we spent together.

I knew she was different the very second she asked me for a date before we hooked up. My reputation precedes me, and typically the jersey chasers I hook up with just want to get to the main event.

She didn’t. She wanted to get to know me, and even though she kept some things from me in the process, she also wanted to share some of herself. I get why now since it was her first time. She put a whole hell of a lot of trust in me to hand that over to me.

She didn’t know me, exactly…but maybe she did.

Maybe Beckett shared stories with her about me so she felt like she did. She remembered the Tootsie Roll thing, and that left some sort of impression on her even though it was just an innocent sharing of candy for a kid who looked so damn sad all I wanted to do was make her feel some measure of happiness.

I was just a dumb teenager after one thing back then, and she was too young to fall into any sort of category that would allow me to remember anything else about our interactions together.

But she remembered.

And who knows what that means? Who knows what that moment did to shape who she is as a person today? Who knows what any singular moment might do to change who someone is at their very core?

All I know is that I’m changing. She got into my core in the short time we’ve shared, and that’s one hell of a heavy and terrifying admission to make—even if it’s just to myself. Even if I can’t share that with her, or my best friend, or my brothers, or anybody else in the world.

Because I can’t.

It doesn’t matter how I feel. I made a promise to the guy who has been my best friend for eighteen years, and I can’t go back on that now.

These feelings will pass, won’t they? It’s just the shiny newness of it. It’s just wanting what I can’t have.

And I’ll keep telling myself that until these feelings fade. Because if I don’t, it’s her heart on the line.

I’m not willing to risk that.

I pull into the valet lane and take the ticket from the attendant before I walk through the casino to head upstairs.

A woman’s voice stops me midway in my pursuit. “Grayson?”

I whip around and come face-to-face with Daphne…my situationship from Los Angeles.

My chest tightens as I suddenly feel a little lightheaded. What the fuck is she doing here?

“Daphne. What’re you doing here?” I can’t quite hide the surprise in my tone.

“I came to see you,” she says.

Why? It’s what I say in my head, but not what I say aloud. She has no clue that I just came from a house where I kissed a different woman and didn’t give Daphne a second thought. She has no clue I haven’t given her a second thought since I left LA…maybe even since I officially pulled the plug on our situationship.

A term she coined, by the way, not me.

I wouldn’t have called it anything more than friends with benefits, but she insisted we were in some sort of relationship.

I guess when you bang somebody more than a couple nights in a row, it comes with the territory.

“I…uh…” I’m not sure what to say. “It’s good to see you.” It’s not. I don’t know why I say it.

I lean in for a polite hug. She doesn’t take it that way. She clings on for a few extra beats.

It feels like she’s showing up out of the blue simply to throw a wrench into everything else.

“Can we go somewhere to talk?” she asks quietly in my ear.

It’s her way of inviting herself up to my suite, but I have no intention of taking her up there. I don’t really want to take her to the café where I had a date that meant something to me with another woman, either. So instead, I lead her over toward the casino bar.

It’s probably not the privacy she was hoping for, but I can’t give her that. That was always part of our problem. She wanted more of me than I was ever willing to give her.

That thought unlocks something new in my brain. I think I might be willing to give those things to Ava.

But I can’t.

It’s a lose-lose-lose situation. I have feelings for her, and if I acknowledge them or act on them, it could fuck up my friendship with Beckett. If it doesn’t do that, it’ll fuck me up. And because I fuck everything up, it’ll fuck her up too. We all lose, and why risk an eighteen-year-long friendship with somebody over something that I’ve already determined is doomed to fail?

What if it’s not?

It’s the first time that particular thought has snuck its way into my consciousness, and it takes me by surprise.

It’s as I’m staring at Daphne, a meaningless woman from my past, that I get the first inkling of what I want in my future.

And the woman sitting in front of me ain’t it. That’s when I realize I can use this whole fake relationship business to my advantage.

“I have to tell you something, Daph. I started seeing someone a couple weeks ago, and it’s actually already pretty serious.”

“You started seeing someone?” she repeats. It’s clear from her tone that she doesn’t believe me.

“It’s complicated, but I’ve known her since I was a teenager. We just found ourselves in the right place at the right time.” I try to keep my tone apologetic even if I don’t really feel that way about it.

Her face falls, as if the hope she carried in with her just slid right away. “I don’t even know what to say to that. You always told me you wanted nothing to do with relationships.”

“I know, and I didn’t. It wasn’t a lie, and it wasn’t just some line I used on you. But I guess things change when you find someone you can’t be without.”

She looks like I just issued a physical blow, and I feel a little sick to my stomach.

Not because of the look on her face.

It’s because I’m not sure whether what I just said is true or if it’s lip service to get the fuck out of this situation with Daphne. And if it’s true…then I’m fucked.

I sit with her until she finishes the drink I bought her.

“I have some things I need to take care of,” I say, trying to sound apologetic again as I push to a stand.

“I knew it was risky coming to town not knowing your schedule. I guess I was lucky I ran into you.”

I wonder for a beat how long she was waiting to run into me. I was gone all afternoon at the game.

I give her another hug—one that she doesn’t cling to as much as the first one—and bid her goodbye before I head upstairs. And I feel restless once I arrive back in my suite. I fill a glass with gin then take it over by the window. I stand there thinking about what just happened.

It affected me far more than it should have…and by it, I certainly don’t mean my run-in with Daphne. I mean my date with Ava, followed by that kiss.

That fucking kiss.

Dammit.

My cock aches as I think about her.

I chug down the gin in my glass and slam it on the counter, and then I sit on the couch we’ve shared more than one time, pull out the beast, and get to work.

I’m not slow and steady with myself. Instead, I yank like I need this release to survive, and I think I do.

Sweat beads on my forehead as I stroke up and down, back and forth, desperation running through me as I move steadily toward the finish line. The animalistic need to come pulses everywhere in me.

I think of her sweet, tight cunt as I slid into it, inch by hard inch, and she laid back and took it all. I think of her tits bouncing, of her mouth, and what I want to do to it.

But it’s when I think of her in her jeans and T-shirt at today’s game, the easy way her little hand fit in my big one as we played the part that’s becoming less and less of an act and more and more real, that my balls tighten up as fire tears through me.

I grunt out her name as I start to come, and it’s only after the release grabs hold of me and my throbbing cock pulses out jet after jet of hot come that I realize it wasn’t the sexual thoughts of her that pushed me into my release.

It was the relationship part. The hand holding. The little gazes across the room. The Tootsie Roll moment.

I slump back, relaxing on the couch cushions for a few beats as I let myself feel the warm afterglow of ejaculation. I draw in a few deep, calming breaths in those moments.

It doesn’t last long. I want to see her again. I want to kiss her again.

I want to fuck her again.

I finally tuck my cock back into my jeans then head over to the bathroom to wash all the come off my hands.

I grab more gin, bypassing the glass this time and going right for the bottle.

And then I find myself haphazardly throwing all my shit into my suitcase as I wonder what the fuck I’m doing.

I can’t go there tonight. Not like this. Not when I’m angry and confused and halfway to drunk.

Ellie said we should be living together.

It would only make sense for me to stay at her house until my house is ready.

Can I really do that, though? I already find myself falling for her. Spending more time with her, sleeping in the same bed as her…it’s a recipe for disaster.

And she’s the chef.