Savage: A Pro Football Romance Page 7

  And then, maybe I can get a repeat of what happened after, with her hoisting herself up onto my lap so she can feel what it’s like to straddle me, and maybe this time, I can pull those scrub pants down off her curvy ass and show her what it feels like to fucking ride me.

  Fuck. Focus, Brady. Thinking about shit like that during a football game is a pretty great way to have a touchdown sail through your hands. And I have to show these fucking Bulls defenders that no matter how much trash they talk, they’re never, ever going to stop me.

  “What’s the matter, pretty boy? Fuck too hard and pull a muscle?” The cornerback lined up across from me grins like a shark as he crouches into position. Shit, now he knows there’s something going on?

  Whatever. I just grin back at him, getting set into position and bringing the grill of my helmet inches away from his. Then, I put all my weight on my bad leg, gritting my teeth and showing him that I’m in pain. His grin grows even wider as he reads my face. And then, the ball gets snapped, and I explode past him, breaking into a full sprint and signaling to the quarterback to throw it as far down the field as he can in my direction.

  It’s going to take more than one stupid little sprained muscle to slow me down.

  I can see the rage in the cornerback’s eyes as he tries to catch me, but we both know it’s too late. He underestimated me, I beat him, and now there’s nothing ahead of me but the fucking end zone.

  And speaking of the end zone, when I whip my head around, that’s exactly where the ball’s heading. Shit, that’s a long pass. Throw that to anyone else, and it’s definitely not getting caught. Not me, though. I’m kicking it into high gear, catching that shit, and making it look easy.

  The crowd is already celebrating as I hit my second wind and start sprinting towards the end zone. I’m smoking the cornerback in a foot race, and everyone knows it. A fraction of a second later and I’ve crossed over the goal line, launching myself in the air and catching the ball right between my hands for a touchdown.

  Once I come down with the ball, I whip my helmet off and let the rain run down my face, roaring at the crowd as they get up out of their seats in a massive wave. I’ve been doing this long enough to know what a game-ending touchdown looks like, and so does the crowd. The Bulls may have kicked us out of the playoffs last year, but we’re not losing tonight.

  But less than a second later, I realize something’s wrong. That motherfucker I just embarrassed is still running at me. Full speed. And he’s about to fucking hit me.

  I turn to face him just in time to see him lower his helmet and pounce off his feet, barely able to brace for impact as he slams into my bad leg with the force of a fucking freight train.

  And then? It’s complete fucking chaos. My teammates are all over him, his teammates come out to protect him, and before the refs can stop it, a massive fight brakes out above me in the end zone. My leg is fucking screaming in pain, but I’m so fucking angry I get up anyway and charge into the center of the mob, throwing Bulls players off my guys with every chance I can get. Yellow penalty flags are flying around harder than the fucking rain, but that doesn’t stop me from getting every last Bull I can on the ground and away from my team.

  A fist connects with the side of my head, and I throw the guy who threw the punch to the ground with one hand. Instantly, the Bulls in the mob all push towards me, the only guy in the brawl not wearing a helmet. My teammates form a wall of bodies around me, but the Bulls are swinging past them at my exposed head, venting their frustration at every last time I’ve left them in the fucking dust. Eventually, the wall breaks down, and the entire end zone turns into a mass of swarming, punch-throwing bodies.

  It takes a minute and a half before the refs finally pull enough people off the edges to get in the middle and break up the fight, forcing everybody to go back to the sidelines.

  Grinning ear to ear from the adrenaline, I beat my chest and roar at the crowd again.

  But when I take a step towards the sidelines, it feels like a hot knife cuts through my upper thigh. Roaring in pain, I get down on one knee, my hands sinking into the mud of the end zone as the pain intensifies.

  The crowd is completely silent now, suddenly worried that that dirty fucking cheap shot might cost me weeks of missed games, maybe even the rest of the season. And shit, with this kind of pain? They might be right.

  My fingers dig into the earth in frustration as I try to get up, only to be gently helped back down by a group of team doctors. I can barely keep my eyes open as they push down on my upper thigh, trying to see if it’s safe for me to walk, but when I do manage to open them, the first thing I see is her. Standing over on the sidelines with a concerned look on her face. Unsure if she should help, until she finally decides to come over and hand one of the other doctors a shot of painkillers.

  And as the needle goes into my body, a massive lightning bolt flashes across the clouds above the stadium, drawing gasps from the crowd, and causing stadium security to start ushering everybody inside until the storm blows over. With everyone else distracted, Cassie leans over and whispers into my ear.

  “I won’t tell them about the sprain if you don’t want me to.”

  “Thanks…” I say, looking over at her and grinning through the pain, “Dr. Parker.”

  Chapter 9: Cassie

  I go back and forth between looking at Dr. Larson working on Brady's leg and trying to look as innocent as possible. Other than Brady, who just seems mildly annoyed, everyone in the exam room looks like they're at a funeral. The sounds of distant rumbling thunder coming from the field don't really help. Leaning up against the wall opposite the exam table, Coach Bradley's face is buried in spreadsheets, nervously flipping through them while Brady gets examined.

  “So, let's say we really play up the whole lightning thing and delay the game for an hour and a half. Do we think we can get him back then?”

  Dr. Larson shakes his head and sighs. “Coach, you saw him go down, right? He wouldn't be coming back even if nothing was wrong with him.”

  Brady scoffs. “What? Yeah I fucking would.”

  Dr. Larson presses his thumb against Brady’s thigh, and Brady winces. “This is actually a fairly unusual injury. Usually, when an athlete goes down after a hit like that, it's either the knee or the ankle...but it appears that Brady sustained a groin injury from the hit.”

  He tests Brady's knee and ankle, while I put on my best surprised face over in the corner. “Looking at the tape, the only way that makes sense, other than a complete freak accident, is if Brady was already playing hurt and the hit aggravated it.”

  Suddenly, Coach Bradley and Dr. Larson both turn to look at me.

  My eyes dart back and forth between them. “Uh...his groin seemed fine to me.”

  Over on the exam table, Brady raises his eyebrows suggestively, and I glare daggers at him.

  Dr. Larson is quiet for a couple seconds, then looks up at me with an annoyed expression on his face. “I'm sure he probably didn't tell you he felt anything wrong. Football players almost never do until it's too late, especially ones of Brady's caliber. That said, this is exactly why I told Coach Bradley that our least experienced doctor should stick to the limited job we hired her to do.”

  Coach Bradley shakes his head and waves his hand. “Forget about all that. It's in the past. Just tell me how long Brady's going to be out for.”

  Dr. Larson frowns. “It depends on Brady. Tears like this can heal in two weeks or they can linger for months. It all depends on the rehab process, and how disciplined Brady is about sticking to it. That's why I recommend we transfer him over to my rehab facility up in Oceanside full time and start him on a special recovery regimen.”

  There's something weird about the look on Coach Bradley's face. “Well, I appreciate the input...but I think we should handle this a little differently. I think Cassie should be in charge of Brady's rehab.”

  “What!?” Dr. Larson, Brady, and I all say simultaneously. I mean, technically, Brady says “What the fu
ck!?” because, you know, he's Brady, but we're all staring in shock at Coach Bradley.

  He just shrugs, like there's nothing weird at all about me being solely responsible for a star player's rehab. “You were just saying Cassie should do her job.”

  A vein twitches in Dr. Larson's forehead. “Yeah, her job as an emotional support nurse for the spoiled brat wide receiver. It was my understanding that that's what she was actually hired for.”

  I open my mouth to say something to Dr. Larson, but honestly, I kind of thought that's why I was hired, too. That said, for maybe the first time since I've seen him, Coach Bradley looks a little angry. “Then your understanding of why I hired her is wrong. We talked about this last year. You get to keep your job, and I get the final say on Brady's treatment.”

  Dr. Larson looks like he wants to say something else, but takes a deep breath and swallows it. “Alright. We'll do it your way. But three weeks from now, I want to examine Brady again, and if he's not ready to play, we transfer him to my facility.”

  “Let's do it,” Brady says, clapping Dr. Larson on the shoulder, “Because I can guaran-fucking-tee I'm going to be better in three weeks.”

  Dr. Larson just smirks. “And I can guarantee you won't. Not with her in charge. But hey, I'm not the one whose job is on the line if we mess this up,” he heads for the exam room door, turns the knob, and turns back to look at us, “That's all of you.”

  Then he walks through the door, shaking his head in disbelief. And honestly, even though he's a jerk, part of me doesn't blame him. “Um...Coach? Are you sure you want me in charge? I've never rehabbed anybody before. Don't you want, like, the whole medical staff working on this?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope. You should be fine. Now, we are going to need to shift you back onto full-time Brady duty.”

  What? No! Full-time Brady duty?

  Coach Bradley clearly notices the distressed expression on my face. “Oh, don't worry. This isn't like the first week where you sit around doing nothing all day. This is going to be very interesting for you as a learning doctor. You're going to get hands-on medical experience working on Brady, and you're going to be around him so much you might actually start to get sick of him.”

  Oh, you mean like I am right now, after catching him looking at my breasts for the third time since the exam started? I sigh, but after Dr. Larson just threw that fit, I guess it might actually be up to me to do this. “Sick? Of Brady? I can't even imagine,” I say in my most sarcastic voice, “When do I start?”

  An assistant coach peeks his head through the door. “Coach, the storm's gone, they’re about to restart the game.”

  Coach Bradley nods. “Great, we'll be out in a second.” Then, as the assistant coach leaves, he turns to me. “You start today, after the game. We've got a rehab facility across the street; I'll make sure it's available. I'll also get one of our physical therapists to email you with some exercises for Brady to start with. Now, I should probably get back out there and win this game, so if you don't mind...”

  Quickly, Coach Bradley walks out the door, breaking into a run once he's out in the hallway. Which means for the first time since our last exam...I'm in a room alone with Brady.

  He eyes me hungrily. “Three fucking weeks. Just the two of us. Completely alone. Do you know what I could do to those curves of yours in three fucking weeks?”

  I roll my eyes. “With a severe groin tear? Probably nothing at all.”

  Grinning at me, Brady thrusts his hips hard off the table, and I gasp, sprinting over to him and clamping my hands down on his massive, rock-hard thighs. “You can't do things like that!” I hiss, “If you hurt yourself even worse, we're going to be in so much trouble!”

  I look down at my hands, which are woefully unequipped to hold back a thigh like the one they're currently pressing down against. If he wants to thrust, there's probably nothing I can do to stop him.

  “Trust me,” Brady says, flexing his thigh against my palms, “If I wanted to fuck your brains out, some stupid little groin tear won't hold me back at all, not even right now.”

  And as crazy as it seems, the muscles in his leg feel so insanely strong that he might be right. My eyes dart down to my hands, which is a huge mistake, because as they do, they pass by the super-sized bulge in Brady’s compression shorts, causing my whole body to shudder, the friction starting a tiny little fire deep within my hips.

  Three weeks of this? It hasn’t even been three minutes, and I’m already fighting off thoughts of climbing right back up into Brady’s lap again. And the worst part is…he knows it.

  I shake my head and remove my hands from Brady’s thigh, my voice on the shaky, breathy side of professional. “I’m going to go find one of the personal trainers and ask them what we should be doing today. I’ll come back when the game’s over. Try not to hump anything while I’m gone.”

  He laughs. “Oh, don’t worry. You’re the only thing putting me in any danger of that.”

  I laugh nervously, try to figure out what the hell to say in response to something that brazen, then cut my losses and step out into the hallway, where it instantly feels ten degrees colder.

  Except for that little fire down below. That’s just getting hotter and hotter. And that’s a huge problem. Because if I keep getting those stupid dirty thoughts every time I examine Brady, there’s no way we’re going to make it three weeks before I give in and give him everything.

  And if I do that, we’re going to have much bigger problems than one torn muscle.

  Chapter 10: Brady

  Cassie frowns at the clipboard in her hands as I lie beneath her on a yoga mat, stretching out my leg. “Hmm...well, I guess after you finish stretching...we'll do 50 more baby lunges.”

  I shoot up into a sitting position. “50 more baby lunges? I could do those in my fucking sleep with a broken leg. Aren't there any other exercises on that clipboard?”

  Cassie shuffles through the pages. “Well, yeah...but we don't have the equipment to do most of the exercises marked 'Beginning Rehab,' and pretty much everything else is marked 'Intermediate' and 'Advanced.'

  With a laugh, I fall back onto the yoga mat and pull my knee slowly up to my chest, feeling the torn muscle protest at first before gently stretching out. “I'm the best football player in the fucking world, Ca—”

  “Dr. Parker!” Cassie whispers, nervously looking down at me like she's terrified of what will happen if I say her name.

  I grin up at her. “Okay, Dr. Parker, I'm the best football player in the world, which means I'm pretty fucking intermediate and advanced, so why don't we skip the baby lunges and start doing some shit that's actually designed for a body like mine?”

  Cassie shakes her head. “You already aggravated this injury once, so as your personal trainer, I think we have to start out slow until we know you're getting healthier.”

  I grab my toes and straighten my leg out in the air above me. “Sure, I get it. You want to spend an extra week or two watching me hump the air in my underwear. That can be arranged.”

  Instantly, Cassie turns pink and looks back down at her clipboard. “Unless you want to do 5 million more baby lunges before we move onto the next level, I'd suggest you refrain from comments like that.”

  Fuck, this is fun. No football player ever wants to hear the words “1-3 weeks of rehab,” but when your personal trainer is a sexy fucking med student who's getting hotter and hotter for you with every rep you do, it gets a lot easier to swallow.

  “Alright,” I say, getting up off the yoga mat and taking a step towards Cassie, “Well, can I at least do some regular fucking lunges?”

  Cassie bites her lip. “I'm sure you can, but I don't want your leg to give out on literally day one. It's listed as an intermediate exercise on the clipboard.”

  I let out a little laugh in disbelief. “Come on. A fucking lunge? Whoever made this list clearly wasn't working with me.”

  She thinks it over for a second, and then takes a step back and a deep breath. “Ok
ay, you can do some regular lunges, but I'm going to have to keep my hands on your leg to make sure you don't hurt yourself.”

  It takes pretty much everything I've got not to burst out laughing at the look on Cassie's face right now. Something about the combination of trying to look professional and trying not to show me how turned on she is by the thought of touching my body is both completely fucking hilarious and seriously making my cock hard. Which is something I'm sure Cassie is aware of, considering she's snuck at least one peek between my legs for every five baby lunges I've done since we walked into this shitty rehab facility.

  “Alright, sure” I say, with the straightest face I can possibly make, “We wouldn't want me to lose my balance, after all.”

  “Exactly,” Cassie says, stepping up and tucking her hands under my thigh as I get into position, her curvy hips pressing against my knee.

  “Ready?” I ask, looking over at Cassie, who looks like she's ready for a lot more.

  She looks down at my thigh. “Um, yeah. But not too many, okay?”

  “Alright,” I say, lowering my thigh slowly into the first lunge just to make sure I don't tear anything, “Hold on tight. One...”

  I lunge down, extending my knee and catching Cassie by surprise, causing her to bend over and hug my leg to stop herself from falling over.

  Then, when I lift my leg, Cassie acts like it's on fire, keeping as much distance between her body and mine as she possibly can. “Two, three, four...”

  It works for a couple more lunges, but every five or so after that, she stumbles a little and brings her body closer to mine, with her hands higher up my thigh. By the time I hit twenty-five, she's literally pressing her hips up against my leg, using her thighs against mine to keep her balance. And it's still not enough. On my twenty-sixth lunge, her hands slip again, and as she reaches out to grab my leg, she reaches a little bit too high, her knuckles just barely brushing against the base of my cock.