Free Pinned Down: A Triple Threat Sports Romance by Lexi Cross Page B

with the guy. He had me convinced he was going to propose to me and that he was going to marry me if I just went along with his plan. Instead, it turned out he was just passing through. I was just a stop along the way.
     
    “Lucky isn’t like that,” I told myself.
     
    But he was like that. He’d been forced to transfer schools in college because of some trouble he got into with one of the cheerleaders. He’d been kicked out of several schools before college because of his behavior. Then, after being the kicker for his last team for years, he was traded because of a girl.
     
    If I did give in and allow myself to get seriously involved with him, there would be no telling how long it would last, but there would be an end. He would end up finding another team, another town, and he’d bolt, just like he’d done before. He’d end up getting himself traded again.
     
    He already didn’t fit in with his current team. He was an outcast among them. They were all married, serious professionals who treated their sport like the fate of the world depended on their performance. Then, there was Cade “Lucky” Hendrix, playboy athlete extraordinaire. He was nothing like the other guys.
     
    I sat in front of my building forever, thinking to myself in silence, before going upstairs. Being in a new town wasn’t always as fun as it was cracked up to be. The only people I really knew were my team members from Older Brothers and Lucky. I didn’t know the people at Older Brothers well enough to call anyone and vent my frustrations, and they were about Lucky, so he was out of the question.
     
    Was his lifestyle really that much worse than mine?
     
    I got out of the car and walked into my building. I had moved five times in the last four years. If I had been honest with myself, I wouldn’t have been telling stories about how this or that organization went under, pushing me along to my next stop. Sure, a couple of them had shut down on me, leaving me nowhere to go except back on the road, but the fact of the matter was that I had been running.
     
    I ran every time I got close to someone. That was what made it so bad.
     
    I walked into my apartment and tossed my purse onto the couch where Lucky had sat when he came over that night. I could still smell his cologne, though there was no possible way in hell any trace of it still lingered in the air. It had been too long, and my candles, perfume, and incense had surely covered it up by now. Nonetheless, I could smell him all around me.
     
    “Dammit, Lucky,” I cursed him in my empty apartment. “I want you so much. I’d give myself to you in a heartbeat if I knew you weren’t just going to run out on me the next morning.”
     
    I grabbed a beer and plopped down on the couch. I had bought the beer for Lucky, and he’d only had two of them out of the six-pack. I had no problem drinking the rest of them. Not if it stopped me from thinking about him.
     
    I wasn’t sure the beer would, but it was worth a try.
     
    “I want a white picket fence,” I continued, still talking to the empty apartment. “I want the kid, the dog, the nice suburban house. I don’t want a damn playboy in a mansion. I don’t want to be some jock’s trophy wife.”
     
    I crushed the can, dropped it into the trash in the kitchen, and grabbed another. I went back to the couch and kicked off my heels. I shrugged off my coat and opened my blouse, revealing my cream colored bra underneath, covering my full breasts.
     
    It had been so long since anyone had touched me. That kiss the other night haunted me because it was so passionate, and it felt genuine. But Lucky wanted it to feel genuine. His type always did. He’d pursue me until he got me, and then he’d just toss me away like the last beer I finished.
     
    I cracked open my second one.
     
    “You know what? If he wants to fuck me, let him,” I told my empty apartment. “I won’t stop him. But I won’t let him run away either. I’m going to do