Sugar Rush (Offensive Line #1) by Tracey Ward Read Free Book Online Page A

She whips her phone out of her back pocket, her short, black lacquered nails flying over its surface. She turns it to Rona. “ This Colt Avery, from the Los Angeles Kodiaks?”
    “That’s him. I mean, I think he was wearing a shirt when she met him, but—oh no hold on. Still looking,” she objects when the makeup girl goes to take her phone away. “Aaaaaaaand I’m good. Thanks. I get why you keep him as your screensaver.”
    “I’d have him as my breakfast if I could.” She stows her phone, giving me a wicked grin. “Did you sleep with him?”
    “Three times in thirty minutes,” I deadpan. “It was epic.”
    “Are you for real?”
    “Are you ? No, I didn’t sleep with him. I talked to him. That’s all.”
    “You’re crazy! You don’t talk to a guy like that. You hop on and go for the ride of your life.” She picks up a brush, giving me a cursory look. “You’re cute. I bet he would have banged you if you asked.”
    “Well, shit, if I’d known that I would have asked.”
    She nods her head solemnly as she turns back to her powders.
    “Anyway,” Rona continues slowly, “it’s the first time Lilly’s talked about a guy in months. She hasn’t had sex for almost a year.”
    “Ro!”
    “What?!”
    “Dude. Boundaries.”
    “I’m nervous!” she cries defensively. “You know I get chatty when I’m nervous.”
    “Chat about your own shit.”
    “You spent a half hour in a closed pantry with a guy off the cover of Playgirl. My last date was with a dentist from Bakersfield. Your shit is so much more interesting than mine.”
    “More interesting than the fact that you fart when you orgasm?”
    “Lilly!”
    I smile, leaning against the doorframe. “Yeah. Not so great on the receiving end, is it?”
    “Maybe we should all just shut up,” she grumbles.
    The door behind me bursts open, knocking me forward. A member of the camera crew, a young guy with an ironically skeevy mustache, reaches out to catch me as I stumble forward.
    “Oh, shit, I’m sorry!”
    I wave him away, catching my footing before I eat floor with my face. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
    “Are you Lilly?”
    “Yeah.”
    “The one who refuses to go on camera?”
    I shrug irreverently. “It’s what I’m famous for.”
    His eyes dart to the producer behind me. “Can you talk her into it?”
    “Don’t you think I tried?” she fires back, uninterested.
    “We all tried,” Rona tells him.
    He backs out of the doorway, looking to the right at someone out of view. “Nah, she’s not going to, but maybe you can convince her.”
    I hear a chuckle, low and vibrant. Unnervingly familiar.
    “I doubt that, man, but I’ll try.”
    My body goes cold. “No fucking way.”
    Rona stands in my peripheral, taking a step toward me. “Lilly, what’s – Oh, my God.”
    The doorframe fills with him. It’s nearly too small, everything in the world seemingly inadequate in his presence. Nothing is bright enough, large enough, fast enough to keep up with him.
    With the pulsing presence of Colt Avery.
    He smiles when he spots me. It’s crooked, one side of his mouth rising higher than the other. It makes me feel like I’m tilting. Falling.
    “What’s up, Hendricks?”
    “No.”
    His body jerks with a silent chuckle, his smile widening. “What?”
    I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I don’t know what I want to say, not exactly. I’m too stunned by the fact that he’s here, live and in the flesh. In my world. My normal, average, everyday world that looks Technicolor bright with him standing in it.
    I wasn’t supposed to see him again. What the hell is happening?
    A cameraman moves behind him. He’s filming this, and I’m in the shot.
    I shake my head at him. “You can’t use any of this. I haven’t signed the waiver.”
    Colt glances behind himself at the camera. “Yeah, they told me about that.” He turns back to me, his smile going smug. “What’s the matter? You don’t want to be famous?”
    “The store