Dating the Defensive Back (The Nash Brothers Book 1)
Chapter 8

The Right Place at the Right Time

The longer I sit here with her, the less this feels like a hookup and the more it feels like someone I want to get to know more before I take her upstairs and fuck her until she can’t see straight.

I’m not sure when this turned into a date, but it did.

I’m sure I’ll get shit from the teammates I ditched to take her back to my hotel, but I’ll worry about that tomorrow.

Tonight, all I can focus on is her.

She talks to me like she already knows me, and she makes me feel comfortable in a way that women rarely do. She’s obviously more than just some jersey chaser, yet she came back here with me to my hotel.

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

And that’s why I let it slip that I want her to show me around town. It’s why I didn’t hesitate when she had me put her number in my phone, and why I immediately texted myself to make sure I had her number, too.

This isn’t just going to be some one-night hookup, though I can’t define what it will be until I’ve had the chance to get to know her a little better.

It’s all wrong. It’s stupid. I can’t get caught up in something five minutes after I arrive in town. I have a game to focus on with new teammates. I have to work to replace my place in Vegas as I fight against the accusations of nepotism that brought me here.

I have to hold my own against my coach, my troubled youngest brother, and my father…all family members I’ll be interacting with more than most grown adults tend to interact with their family members.

I have to move to a new town where I know very few people—including packing up the old place and leaving a life eight years in the making behind me.

And somehow, having this woman next to me as I face all these new challenges feels…

I don’t know.

It feels right.

I whisper the word in my own brain because it’s ridiculous. I can’t come to terms with something this big this soon, but I guess sometimes people have a way of knocking you off balance, and this woman has. Already. In the ninety minutes since I met her.

Is that all it’s been?

Because I’m sitting here talking to her as if I’ve known her my whole life, and that has never happened to me before. Fuck, a woman I’ve taken back to my hotel has never asked me for a dinner date first, either. I’ve never shared a soft pretzel and nachos with a hookup before sticking my dick in her.

I haven’t had that many hookups. Not as many as Asher, anyway, but for the last year, I spent less time hooking up and more time benefiting with my friend. But even Daphne was less of a girlfriend and more of a girl I occasionally screwed—even if she didn’t see it that way.

“What was it like growing up with three brothers who all played football?” she asks as we dig into the nachos. She goes for the chips with hardly any toppings while I dive in and get my hands dirty.

“Mostly fun. Linc and Ash are almost a decade apart, so we didn’t spend a ton of time playing together when we were kids. We do now when we get together as a family, but that’s rare, and we’re getting too old for the types of battles we had when we were younger.” I chuckle fondly as I think about my grandparents’ wedding anniversary almost a year ago. It’s always a party when all four of us are together, and we’ll be missing Spencer this season as three of the four of us are on the same team for the first time in history.

It is a historic moment. It’s exciting, and fans are watching us closely.

Which is even more reason why I need to keep my head down and focus on football. I can’t come into town hooking up with a different woman every night because eyes will be on me. I need to make a good impression here because every move I make will reflect on my brothers.

“What about you? Do you have any siblings?” I ask. I notice she keeps deflecting anything about herself and tossing questions back at me, and it’s just one more thing that’s intriguing about her. Most women I’ve been with love to talk about themselves.

“I’m the only girl among brothers. We all scattered once college hit, and we always get together at the holidays, but that’s getting harder to manage now that they’re having families of their own,” she says. “Which of your brothers are you closest to?”

There she goes again, tossing the conversation back to me. “Probably Lincoln, though we don’t talk as often as brothers probably should. I imagine that’ll change now that he’s my coach. I’m not sure if we can be close when he’s my coach, and Asher’s a teammate now, so I think that’ll draw us closer even though he’s five years younger than me.”

“What about your other brother?” she presses.

I shrug. “Spence just got engaged and he’s doing his own thing in Minnesota, so I doubt it. Things will likely change with Ash and Linc as I make the transition to the Aces, but I don’t see how it would bring me any closer to Spence. Besides, he’s the quietest of the four of us, so I don’t really see him reaching out.”

“Who’s the loudest?” she asks.

I raise my hand.

She giggles. “You? Never.”

I offer a wry smile. “I know. Hard to believe, right? I’m also the funniest and the best-looking.”

“I’ll agree there,” she murmurs, and it’s almost as if she doesn’t realize she said it aloud, but in any event, I like it. A lot. And so does my cock. She clears her throat and shakes her head. “What are some funny things you’ve done?”

“I don’t know. Pranks, jokes, one-liners. That type of thing.”

“What pranks have you pulled?” she asks.

“Dumb shit like parking too close to the driver’s side so they have to get out the passenger side, or putting googly eyes on all the jars in the fridge. Oh, signing Spence up for a subscription to a dirty magazine that came to the house in his name when we were teenagers. Things like that.”

She laughs, and for some reason, hearing her laugh at the expense of my own pranks on my brothers makes me want to pull more dumb shit just to hear her laugh again.

Oh, fuck.

I think that means I might be in a little deeper than I first thought.

We laugh some more, and we get serious, too. She tells me how stressed she is that she got scammed into buying a huge kit of skincare products that she doesn’t even use. She was supposed to sell the products, but instead they’re sitting in her closet, a total waste of money and space. I tell her how I really feel about getting approached in public like the woman at the bar—I hate it—and I admit to feeling like I need the focus to be on football this season rather than on what conquest the media will pair me with.

As much as I want to take her upstairs, I’m not sure I should.

She’s too sweet. Too kind. Too…amazing. And I want more.

If I screw her tonight in my hotel room, am I limiting what sort of future I might be able to have with her? Am I putting a stamp on this thing by telling her it’s just one night for me?

I said it from the beginning, but I also said I didn’t know. The more time I spend with her, the more I want to make the effort for something beyond one night.

And that isn’t the norm for me. That isn’t something I’ve ever experienced before, to be honest.

I feel like I don’t want to ruin tonight with sex.

Our drinks are empty, though, and our plates are cleared.

I order a refill for the road since this is Vegas, and our server delivers them with our check. We’re done drinking them by the time we finish paying the bill.

The dinner portion of the evening has come to a close, and now it’s time to take her upstairs.

Only…I feel like I want to give her an out. I want to give her the choice.

Of course I want to take her upstairs, haul her into my arms, and strip her naked.

There’s nothing I want more, in fact.

Instead, though, I grab her hand and we meander through the casino back toward the front doors. I pause when we get there, and she looks surprised that I’m stopping. I look out front at the line of people waiting for cars to pick them up.

“Well,” I begin awkwardly. “I’ve had a lot of fun with you tonight.”

Her brows pinch together as her eyes fly to mine. She looks…disappointed. “I thought we were…”

“Well, we were. But I want to see you again. I don’t want this to be—” I fumble for the right words, and I finally replace something awkward to finish that sentence. “A one and done.”

She stares at me for a few beats, and then she lifts to her tiptoes and reaches around my neck to pull me down toward her. She presses a gentle kiss to my lips, and she breaks the kiss but doesn’t let me go. “I’d love to go out with you again. But I also want you to take me up to your room.”

I pull back, and my eyes search hers. “Are you sure?”

She sinks back onto her heels, the height difference between us nearly a full foot. She snags her bottom lip demurely between her teeth as she nods. “I’m sure.”

I grunt out a soft sound, and then I grab her hand, surprised once more by this unexpected woman. “Then let’s go.”