Draw Play: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 4)
the guys—with boobs.” Bruiser looked her up and down. “Nice boobs, though, hon.” He waggled his eyebrows. “We’ll catch up later. Once you recover from the sight of my incredible body.”“Overconfident ass,” Mac shot back.
“Absolutely, sweetheart. You like me that way.” He winked at her, and she glared back. He was winning points today.
“I don’t like you any way but on the football field.”
Bruiser opened his mouth to fire off an answering round when Harold interrupted him. “Hey, Bruiser, let’s finish this.”
Still grinning, Bruiser turned away from Mac and struck a pose. He had a job to do, and giving her shit wouldn’t get it done.
But later, all bets were off.
* * * * *
Mac Hernandez stalked to the grain bins madder than a cat tossed in a swimming pool. Bruiser Mackey was a prick. A pretty-boy prick of the worst kind and as shallow as a dried-up mud puddle in the middle of a Seattle summer. And dammit, just thinking of the guy made her panties wet.
She should’ve flipped his shit right back in his pretty face instead of ogling his perfect abs, nice ass, and, well, his other assets.
Just one of the guys.
Usually, she didn’t give a shit about being one of the guys because it was the truth; today, it pissed her off. Maybe because he’d caught her gawking at his privates, something she never effing ever did. Heck, her maintenance and grounds position at the Steelheads practice facility put her in direct contact with several tons of muscular egos, many partially dressed or even naked. They never bothered to cover up around her, and she’d never cared because she was like one of the guys.
Until today.
Until the man she’d harbored a secret crush on for the past three years stated that fact out loud.
She shouldn’t have a crush on a superficial guy like Bruiser, but tell that to her heart. He was everything she disliked in a man, a preening peacock who exploited his looks for money. But he was a damn good football player in spite of his preoccupation with his appearance.
Even worse, he continually flirted with her, making every attempt to embarrass the hell out of her with his outrageous comments. And he did embarrass her, though she thought she hid it well—usually.
Mac hazarded a glance back at him, his fine ass once again clad in tight underwear. His perfect eight-pack abs glistened with whatever crap they’d rubbed on his tanned skin, while his arm muscles bulged and flexed as he assumed different poses.
He looked over his shoulder, caught her staring, and winked, setting her face on fire again. Mac never blushed. Absolutely fucking never. Except when Bruiser gave her shit or looked at her with those penetrating blue-gray eyes. Thank heavens the darkest corner of the barn concealed her face.
Damn, but the man had one fine body, and she’d witnessed some incredibly sculpted bodies in her time with the Steelheads, but Bruiser’s body was the finest of the finest.
Aunt Helen used to say never to date a man prettier than you. And Bruiser was way too pretty for a plain woman like her, with her dishwater-blonde hair, nondescript brown eyes, and so-so figure.
Not to mention his, uh, equipment might be more than she could handle. Despite what she said to the glamour boy, he was, ahem, well endowed. Way too well. With her relative inexperience with men, she’d best stay away from said equipment and said pretty boy.
The guys would be shocked that she was sexually inexperienced, but then, no one knew the real Mac. They only knew the tomboy Mac they saw every day mowing the practice field grass in perfect straight lines or pulling weeds in the flower beds or beating them at a game of pool at the sports bar near Steelheads HQ. They knew the Mac who didn’t have a life, and while Mac might not have a life, she had a mission—a mission to figure out what the hell had happened to her older brother, who’d gone missing three years ago. She spent all her off-hours investigating new leads and going over old ones with her father.
Which was why she fantasized about having a guy like Bruiser. Harmless fun and a distraction from how screwed up her life really was.
Mac turned back to her chore of feeding the horses and forced herself to ignore the photo session several feet away. In fact, she ignored it so well she didn’t even notice when they finished up for the day. Instead, she focused on the horses munching away at their grain and making the deep, guttural noises horses make in greeting. Someday, she’d have money and a stable full of horses and she’d get a life.
Yeah, that’d happen when hell froze over or Mac wore a dress.
“Hey, sweetheart, did you miss me?”
Mac jumped as Bruiser’s hot breath teased her ear. She whirled around and swatted at his chest, now clad in a Steelheads sweatshirt. “You scared the crap out of me, you asshole.”
He chuckled. “I’m not the asshole. That’s Harris’s role.” No one on the team could come close to dethroning Tyler Harris, the team’s quarterback, from his self-proclaimed position as the team’s resident asshole.
“You have a point there.” Mac strode away from Bruiser, head held high, throwing flakes of hay into the stalls. Bruiser followed her. Instead of his usual brash smile, he appeared…worried? Bruiser?
“So, do you really think I’m small?” He studied her with concern, as if her opinion regarding the length of his penis actually mattered. It wasn’t like overconfident Bruiser would ever be concerned about what she thought.
He stepped closer to her—too close. His scent surrounded her, engulfed her. Oh, God, please. Just one night. One night with the Steelheads pretty boy, and she’d never ask for another thing. Never.
His blue-gray eyes bored into her, and his brow furrowed. Well, damn, the pretty boy was actually concerned. Mac shook her head, eager to dispel his insecurities, even as she battled with the reason why. “Too bad