The Jock by J.L. Beck Page 0,25

across the parking lot and up to the hotel entrance. I can’t help but notice how withdrawn she seems with each step we take.

Not your problem. She is not your problem.

“Blair!” Blair looks up from the ground and straight ahead to a dark-haired, petite woman standing at the hotel’s entrance. There’s a huge muscled guy without a lick of emotion on his face standing beside her.

Honestly, the dude looks like he could be a hitman. I track the movement of his eyes and watch as he drags his gaze over Blair, again without a lick of emotion on his face.

I don’t like the idea of leaving her with them. Who is this fucker? Why is he standing so close to Blair’s friend?

Blair starts to walk a little faster, waving at her friend. I know she’s not my problem, that she shouldn’t mean anything to me, but I need her to help me get my grades up. That’s it. I need to make sure she’s okay so she can continue tutoring me.

“Hey, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call me,” I say before we are close enough that her friend could hear me.

“I’ll be fine, but thanks for your concern. Good luck with your game,” she calls, splitting away from me, her mousy brown hair blowing in the wind as she tosses it over her shoulder. Her hips sway with each step she takes, drawing my attention to her ass. It’s perfect, nice and round with a little bit of bounce.

I wonder what it would look like as she bounced up and down on my… Ah fuck, I have got to stop. She’s not going to let me fuck her yet, and thinking about it isn’t going to help the raging hard-on threatening to bust my zipper.

Blair rushes toward her friend and wraps her arms around her. They hug for a long moment, and the hitman looking guy narrows his gaze on me, watching every step I take like a tiger waiting to strike.

Try me, fucker.

Now would not be a good time to get into a fight, but I don’t really care. I’m in the mood to fuck up someone’s face, and though the guy is as big as me and most likely wielding a gun, I’m still tempted to start something. I curl my hands into tight fists, the blood in my veins heating and pulsing. The testosterone running through me is making it hard for me to think clearly.

Her presence is fucking with my head, her scent, the way her slim hips swing.

Walk away, idiot. Walk into the hotel. Go see Evan and Murphy. Focus on tomorrow’s game. Do anything and everything but think about her. I repeat the words over and over again until I’m in my hotel room, sinking down onto the edge of the mattress.

Two hours is all it took for her to get under my skin. Two fucking hours, a greasy burger, some fries and a shake, and that fucking smile of hers.

I have to remember the end game, that she was my tutor and that at the end of the day, I’m doing all of this to get between her legs. By the time I’m done with her, she’ll hate my guts.

It’s the only way things could be.

The only way this is going to end.

9

Blair

As soon as we’re in the back seat of her car, she starts to pepper me with questions. Zeke, her driver and bodyguard, slides into the front seat and starts the vehicle.

“Who was that guy? What’s his name? How do you know him? He’s hot in a brooding kind of way.” I roll my eyes, of course, Mia would fall into the Cage Wilder trap.

“His name is Cage. I tutor him, and that’s really all there is to know.” I try to play it off as nothing, but Mia knows me well enough to realize that’s a load of steaming dog shit.

We’ve been friends since kindergarten. Since before kids figured out who was cool and who was an antisocial bookworm like me. Mia never cared about that kind of stuff. We went to middle and high school together, and we stayed inseparable as we grew. It wasn’t until twelfth grade that she found out she had a super-rich father. He didn’t know about her either, and if it hadn’t been for Mia’s mom dying, no one would have ever found out.

Now she had enough money to buy a small island and has a brooding bodyguard in tow. She was