RISKY PLAY (RED CARD #1) BY RACHEL VAN DYKEN Page 0,10

looked away. “Long story, let’s just say I’m taking a much needed break from life. And you? What do you do?”

“Ah.” Her job explained her extravagant spending, tasters were paid well. I suddenly felt comfortable sharing more. “I’m an athlete.”

“No shock there.” She smiled sweetly. “What kind of athlete?”

“The kind that gets paid.” I shrugged the question off. “Nothing too exciting, trust me.”

Her voice lowered. “Would people here recognize you? Are you that kind of athlete?”

I grinned and whispered back, “Do you see people rushing our table?”

She scrunched up her nose. “I guess not. But still, professional, that’s huge. I bet your family’s proud.”

“Yeah.” I started to feel more guilty that I hadn’t yet called my father back. “They’re very supportive. Family is everything, you know?”

A shadow crossed her face.

I knew there was a story there.

But I didn’t push.

Because I still didn’t know how to define what was happening.

“Are you ready to order?” Our server arrived. And all thoughts of sharing our pasts vanished between bottles of wine and savory food, and when we made it back to her room four hours later, a bit drunk, and laughing, I swept in and kissed her again.

This time, she clung to my shirt with her hands like I was her lifeline. I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’d been truly wanted.

For me.

Not for what I did.

How much money I made.

Or how many Olympic medals I had.

Her tongue tasted like wine and the chocolate soufflé we’d shared for dessert. I slid her key card against her door and we stumbled through. I slammed it behind me as I pulled her into my arms and then slowly lowered her dress over her breasts, down her stomach, and off her curvy hips.

She was completely naked underneath.

“Fuck . . .” I captured her mouth again as she kicked off her heels and pulled the string to my linen pants. They fell to the carpet, exposing me completely. Apparently we’d both had sex on the mind, sex and the least amount of clothing possible between our sweltering bodies.

I leaned down and grabbed a condom from my pocket. I wasn’t wearing briefs but I’d at least come prepared.

“Presumptuous?” she said against my mouth.

“Absolutely,” I said honestly as she ground her hips eagerly against me. I groaned when she raked her hands down my chest, her fingernails leaving trails of red all the way to where our bodies were about to join. I hissed in pleasure and grabbed her hair, pulling her body closer to me with one hand, the other placed on her hip.

“This is crazy,” she whispered.

“I love crazy,” I said back.

And our eyes locked again with something I didn’t fully understand, something that told me the universe was giving us a chance, a moment in time, to come clean, to confess before it was too late.

And then the moment shifted.

And she was shifting beneath me.

And I was inside her.

Wondering where she’d been my entire life.

“Oh wow, okay . . .” She gripped my biceps like she was either in extreme pleasure or extreme pain. I stopped moving, letting her body adjust, letting mine slow the hell down.

I slowed my movements, I felt her everywhere, her body sang to me with each pump. I was drunk on her feel, the way she clenched onto me each time I tried to push or pull—she was everywhere and everything. “Hugo . . . faster . . .”

I hated Hugo.

Was gonna kill him off soon.

But not now.

Not when she was clenching tight around me.

Not when she was crying out with each thrust.

Not when my own control finally snapped as I sang praises to Ashley and her quirky mouth and her impulsive kiss.

The high that followed was unparalleled, I reached heaven in her arms, and I vowed to visit again and again and again.

Chapter Seven

MACKENZIE

“You should have told me,” Hugo said in that delicious accent as he stood from the bed and walked naked into the bathroom. I wasn’t a prude, but the fact that he was so free with his body shocked me a bit, even though I’d just touched every inch of it. Even though he’d literally been inside me seconds ago.

The bathroom light illuminated his path back to the bed as he grabbed a warm cloth and rubbed it down my legs. I clenched them together and squeezed my eyes shut only to be on the receiving end of another wonderful kiss that tasted like the Mexican heat with a heavy dose of wine. I