Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1) Read online

  I point at a white frame stamped with colorful dinosaurs surrounding a smiling little brown-haired boy. “Yours?”

  “My nephew, Jacoby. He loves his T-Rex.” His face softens, exchanging the broad, happy smile for one of thoughtful remembrance. “That’s my grandfather.” He points to a wooden frame inscribed with the quote, “Pitchers, like poets, are born, not made. – Cy Young” The picture is of an older man crouched and squatting in front of a young dark-haired boy, presumably Vance at maybe five or six. They’re exchanging a baseball from one slightly aged hand to a hand that hasn’t yet discovered its destiny. I smile, looking up at Vance who has a faraway look in his eyes.

  “Is he the reason you’re a pitcher?”

  He nods, lips tight, eyes linked to mine. “He knew. He got me.” I get the feeling there is more to that story than I’m going to get out of him on our first date. I return my eyes to the pictures of Vance’s life and career, finding them all very meaningful.

  “Who is that?” It’s a dark-haired guy in his early thirties with his arm around a teen-aged Vance.

  “My manager, Chip. That’s the day I signed with the Renegades.” Grabbing my hand, he doesn’t let me look long and drags me back through the foyer and into a much larger media room with all the comforts of home. The television is huge and hangs on a wall in front of a brown leather sofa and two recliners. Everything in here is rich tans and deep browns, neutral but masculine.

  “I wasn’t sure what you wanted to eat so I ordered sushi, and as a backup, I also have macaroni and cheese. Everyone likes macaroni and cheese, right?”

  I giggle. “Sushi is fine.”

  Before dinner arrives, Vance takes a call from his manager who, based upon Vance’s side of the conversation, isn’t happy with him. Vance, mid eye-roll, dismisses his concerns with a curt, “My life, Chip. Mine,” and hangs up, slightly more agitated than he was before.

  “Everything okay?” I ask, curious, because I feel like the chill factor just went up.

  He nods. “My manager, the one you saw in the picture, thinks he’s my guardian, and sometimes I have to put him in his place. I’m good. What about you?”

  I hesitate before parting with my honesty. “Are you sure you’re really okay with this?”

  “With what?”

  “This.” I gesture to the table, making a broad sweep over it with my hand. “Staying in and not having the advantage of a wait staff.”

  He sighs heavily, burdened by something I have a feeling he’s about ready to unload. “This, Brenna, is what I was afraid of.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t find anything wrong with watching a sunset or sitting on a barstool beside me saying nothing at all when I was just the guy beside you. Those things weren’t too simple for him, but they are for Van Hatfield.”

  Shit. He’s right. I swallow loud enough for it to be heard and sit forward. “I just don’t want—”

  “Stop.” Eyes intense, he leans forward and runs his index finger along my jawline. “This, right here, is what I want.”

  I didn’t know something so far removed from foreplay could be so seductive, but when he does it, it’s sexy as hell. I stare at his beautiful hands and marvel at their wicked accuracy when he throws a ball. They’ve probably pleasured as many women as they’ve hurt, and I’m still not sure I want to be part of the statistics.

  “What about me being interested in you bothers you so much?”

  “Really? You date strippers, models, sometimes two or three at a time. I’m nobody.”

  His eyes shut momentarily, and long black lashes tickle his cheeks. “You are somebody. And honestly, you’re somebody I like a lot. I’m actually a lot pickier than the tabloids make me out to be. I’m seen with a lot of women in Hollywood because it’s a mutual convenience. I don’t worry about them running their mouths to the tabloids, and they don’t worry about me exploiting them. Loyalty in this world is hard to come by. I value it, so I surround myself with like-minded people, if that makes sense.”

  I nod. “It does. I’ve been burned too. Maybe not on the same scale as you, but betrayal is still betrayal.”

  “Agreed. What else bothers you?”

  “We don’t have that kinda time.”

  His eyebrows climb, and he leans back. “There’s that much that bothers you?”

  “Enough to fill at least an hour. But you’re charming.”

  “And a gentleman. How’m I doing?”

  “Not bad. I’m impressed.”

  “It’s a fluke. I assure you.”

  “Oh, how so?”

  “I’m dying to kiss you. I’ve been in turmoil all day.”

  “Gentlemen kiss. Bad boys ravage.”

  Vance is up and out of his chair in half a second. His hands, with those long beautiful fingers, are tangled in my hair and tilting my head back to kiss me. I grasp his shoulders, feeling the flex of the taut muscles beneath his dress shirt.

  He pulls back, ending the kiss with slow cruelty. I open my eyes to find him still close and studying me. He pulls me up to my feet and wraps me in his arms, groaning softly into my hair. “Let’s go for a swim.”

  “What? Why?” I say into his solid chest.

  “If we keep doing this, Brenna, we’re gonna fuck.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Did I hear him right?

  I’m a fan of being forthright and have never been one to skirt the realities of life, but Vance takes being blunt to a whole other level. I stare stunned, my mouth a motionless oval, too paralyzed to utter a counteroffer or an agreement. And as astonishing as they are, his words are also a real panty-burner, and I suddenly don’t want to be all that respectable. I know I said numerous times I wasn’t going to sleep with him, but that was before, before . . . Jesus, before he said that.

  “I—”

  “You can wear my shirt or something, or we can sit by the pool if that’s more comfortable, but we gotta do something else. I’m not a saint.”

  “Do you want me to go?” I bite the inside of my bottom lip as my nerves threaten to blow my thin cover of confidence.

  “No!” he says grabbing hold of my shoulders. “I want you to make it hell on me.” He kisses me hard, his lips demanding, and the small nip on my bottom lip he leaves behind as he pulls away weakens my dwindling dedication. “Just show me a little mercy every now and then.”

  I nod and follow him, with the guidance of his hand and a pace that feels far too rushed to be retrieving only a T-shirt. We climb the stairs, and I’m pretty sure if he wasn’t having to drag me, he’d be taking them two at a time.

  Vance’s bedroom is a creamy ivory color with dark wood furniture and brushed bronze-colored accents. It’s not at all the pleasure palace I would’ve expected if I’d envisioned it beforehand, which, oddly enough, I hadn’t. Regardless, it’s lackluster for a man of his reputation. I expected love swings and handcuffs, but you’d have to split a person in half to handcuff them to the bed unless they had the wingspan of a pterodactyl.

  He lets go of my hand at the doorway and proceeds to his closet, where he grabs the first T-shirt he comes to, and without looking at it, he tosses it to me. “Here,” he says. “It’s going to dwarf you, but at least you won’t have to get your clothes wet. Naked tonight wouldn’t be good, so don’t go that route.”

  He’s awfully bossy. “Let’s swim so we don’t fuck.” “Wear this.” “Don’t be naked.” What if I want exactly the opposite of all that? He must sense my need for some discipline to offset my impulses. Maybe I’m mistaking his restraint for bossiness. After all, you don’t become one of the best in your business without some discipline.

  I wait poolside, looking stupid. The T-shirt he gave me hangs mid-thigh, and if I didn’t have an ass, I’d be the equivalent of a coat rack. Khalid plays through the sound system at a volume I don’t think he’s quite determined by the way it keeps adjusting. Waiting on him, I skim my foot over the top of the water as purple lights come on, illuminating the waterfall s
ituated on the far side where it slopes between the shallow and deep ends.

  Pulling my foot back, I turn, and Vance is standing in the doorway between house and patio looking every bit a sexy cover model of Jock magazine. He looks a lot like he did the day I met him—tattoos in full view, body a huge distraction, face contemplative. My eyes gravitate to his chest where a black and gray tattoo of two baseball bats crisscrossed over home plate sits square over his heart. The baseball, boasting the number twelve between the red seams, the only color in the tattoo, sits above the cross in the bats. The tattoos and the man are both magnificent.

  I clear my thoughts to try to act normal. “I don’t know if I can wear this.” I tug on the shirt. “Would it be weird if I went in my bra and underwear? I mean, you’ve seen my ass.” Between my dress being up around my neck and my camel toe, I really don’t think I’m in danger of him seeing something new.

  “I saw your ass when we weren’t . . .” he pauses, thinking twice about what he was going to say. “I’m good with whatever you’re comfortable with.” He drops a few towels onto a chair and dives into the deep end, surfacing by the waterfall that’s cascading from terraced rocks protruding from an upper-level pond.

  I strip the shirt off over my head, toss it onto the chair with the towels, and dive in, hoping I won’t have to see his critical gaze. My body isn’t perfect, but it’s far from frumpy. I shouldn’t care what he thinks since I’ve never cared before, but for some godforsaken reason, his opinion matters to me now.

  He swims past the waterfall to the deep end, avoiding me so entirely, the water he glides through doesn’t even ripple around me. I swish the water around me, using my arms like wings to skim the top of the water and then, seeing a small basketball tucked in a corner of the yard beside a utility closet, I perk up. “Do you want to play some ball?”

  Swiping his hands over his hair and blowing some water off his lips, he replies, “Sure.”

  I take the steps out of the pool slowly, feet uncertain beneath me, and retrieve the ball, hearing Vance’s not-so-subtle growl.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he growls out.

  The ball is small enough I can palm it, and squeezing it to test its deflation, I call him out, “Dude, you’ve gotta chill, you’re making me—”

  My words just stop as blue eyes run over my body, making no attempt to hide their destination or the track they travel. My first instinct is to cover myself with the towel hanging over a chair, but I’ve been so forward, it seems ludicrous to be shy now. “Brenna.” He points at me and then runs his finger up and down in the air. “That right there isn’t showing me mercy.”

  My makeshift bathing suit is a hodgepodge of Walmart black boy shorts and an off-brand emerald green bra. It doesn’t get more merciful than that without throwing in a pair of Spanx.

  I jump in aiming the ball at his head and see him bat it away before my head sinks beneath the water. He dunks me as I surface, and I laugh, taking in water as I submerge. I come up cough-laughing, and he pats my back, apologizing.

  “I’m good,” I laugh, clutching my chest. “You’re a bully.”

  “And you’re a brat.” He swims for the ball, which is being driven away by the bubbles of the waterfall, and when he gets to it, he tosses it to me. “The first one to ten, wins.”

  I toss and miss. I’m not too upset because the hoop in the center of a floating ring is a moving target. It’s hard. Apparently, only for me though. One-handed and over his head, he tosses the ball in effortlessly.

  I roll my eyes as he swims after it. “You got this,” he says tossing it to me, and I wait for him to move away from the basket before making another attempt.

  I yelp, celebrating a point it took me two turns to achieve. Back and forth we toss the ball, scooting back further each time and sometimes challenging ourselves with a left-handed toss, that in my case misses and lands on the surrounding concrete. “Shit!” I groan and swim to the edge.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Vance grabs my foot and pulls me backwards through the water until we’re almost side by side. “We’ve talked about this.”

  I laugh, shoving him in the arm as he starts to swim past me. “No, you’ve talked about this.”

  He turns, pinning me with a look that makes my heart race. I swallow as his hand comes up to move a strand of wet hair from my cheek. He leans down and kisses me, lips soft and cool against mine as he cups my face, tilting my head back. “I want you so fucking bad.” Confessions like that need warnings, maybe a huge neon billboard, so a girl, slow on the uptake, can prepare properly. “But not tonight.”

  He drops his hands and turns away, I assume to retrieve the ball, and I grab for his arm, reaching it before he gets too far. He looks at me over his shoulder, jaw clenched and ticking beside his ear, eyes intense and piercing. He looks me over, up and then down, stopping on my eyes before he grabs me, hands cupping my head, fingers buried in my wet hair, lips aiming for mine. They land and he kisses me hard, breaths rushed, hands moving restlessly down my shoulders to my hips and ass. He hefts me up, and I wrap my legs around him. “Is this what you want?” His voice is throaty, harsh.

  He stills for a second, looking me in the eyes so intently my stomach churns with anticipation and something far more visceral than I’ve ever felt before. Nodding, sheepishly, I grip the back of his neck, my fingers splayed, touching the tops of his shoulders, too.

  Carrying me with his lips on my jaw, then my neck and shoulder, he moves toward the waterfall and presses me up against the side out of the cascading water but still within its spray. It rumbles beside us, drowning out the music in the background. His lips never leave my skin but taste a different part of me each time they move.

  A hand that hasn’t touched anything more on me than my hair today cups my breast and kneads it over my bra. My barely contained composure splinters, and I moan into his mouth. His other hand, at the small of my back, presses me harder against him.

  My grip on his hair is so tight you’d think he’d complain, but if he minds, he’s not saying. I arch my back, needing that nagging pulse between my legs to be soothed. I have no conscious knowledge of him removing my bra until I see it floating in the water beside us.

  Vance pulls his head away, stares down at what he’s exposed, and pulls in a deep breath, holding it. “You are so beautiful,” he whispers more to himself than to me.

  I clasp my hands around the back of his neck, and he lifts his eyes and stares briefly into mine. He then lowers his head, and I arch deeper, head back, pelvis pressed against his abdomen. His warm breath fans out over my skin as he takes one of my nipples into his mouth. So much of me hums, it’s exquisitely overwhelming. Nick Stevenson had no idea what he was doing in the back seat of his Volvo if this is what it was supposed to be like.

  “Vance . . .” I hesitate. “Van . . .” I drop my head back, exhaling, not at all amused at my new train of thought. I was perfectly content with body parts competing for my focus, but this new path tamps down some of the heat.

  “I won’t go any further than this, I promise. I want to taste, but I won’t . . . I promise I won’t . . .”

  “No. It’s not that. I—I don’t know what to call you. Van? Or Vance?”

  His sigh is heavy, and he rests his forehead against mine. “I like Vance. Call me Vance.” He pulls his hips back from me and my legs unlock, dropping down his thighs until I stand on tiptoes.

  I kiss his chest, and he growls low and deep, which confuses me because I’ve only ever heard that from guys when I fell short of the rumors about me.

  He scoops up my bra, trapped beneath the waterfall, and fists it.

  “I wasn’t going to ask you to stop.”

  Vance’s devil grin emerges, giving me a bit of hope he’ll pick up where he left off. He runs the pad of his thumb over my nipple and watches as it springs back up. “I know.” He kisses the top of my shoulder. “But it’s not your call tonight.” His abs tense where I touch him, muddling my confusion
with everything else his restrained behavior has spawned. I shiver as his nose trails back up to my throat.

  With my bra still clasped in his fist, he lifts me up by the hips. “Put your legs around me.” I do as instructed, and he carries me out of the pool to the waiting towels. He sets me on my feet, and I cover my chest with a two-armed hug.

  His thumb brushes my cheek. “You shouldn’t hide.” His eyes roam over me again, and it feels like a gentle caress instead of a critical evaluation.

  Well, now I am just confused. “I thought you wanted me to.”

  Slipping the towel over my shoulders, he pinches it closed over my chest with his fingers and drops my bra on the chair. “Want is a strong word.”

  “So you’re just bossy.”

  He leaves me to hold my own towel and grabs one for himself and dries off. “Bossy? I thought I was being a gentleman.”

  “A bossy gentleman.”

  “How so?”

  “I can’t track what’s happening here. I don’t know if I’m supposed to want you or listen to you.”

  He dries his hair with one swipe of the towel. A slow, almost imperceptible grin spreads across his face as his amusement grows over my confusion. “You asked for a gentleman, Brenna.”

  “No. I said I wasn’t sleeping with you. You offered the gentleman.”

  “Anything else from me would negate the first. I can’t risk it. I promised.” He kisses my cheek and heads toward the door. “And if I wasn’t bossy, you’d cave the second I let you.” Gesturing to my bra dripping water onto the floor from the chair, he adds, “Put that on, and let’s go upstairs and take a shower.”

  Shower? Really? Is it a cold one? Because anything less than arctic probably isn’t going to put out the fire between my legs.

  Like everything else in his house, Vance’s master bath is spacious, but I don’t take time to memorize its opulence. Shivering, I step beneath the spray of one of four showerheads and wait for the heat to penetrate my skin before turning to face a doting Vance who’s holding a palmful of shampoo.