Hands
down, my favorite thing in the world is to score. Touchdowns.
Don't let the fact that I'm the leading pick in the Most Valuable Playboy
charity auction fool you. These days, I'm only a player on the field. I've kept
my pants zipped all season long -- and it has been long -- because nothing's
more important than leading my team to victory every week. Except maybe
escaping from the team owner's recently-widowed and handsy-as-hell sister who's
dead set on winning more than a date with me.
Enter Violet and a well-placed Hail Mary.
She's my best friend's sister with a smile as sweet as cherry pie and a mind that runs quicker than the 40-yard-dash. After Violet saves the day with the highest bid, I don't even give her a two-minute warning before I kiss her in front of the whole crowd and then announce that she's my girlfriend. Which would be fine except my agent tells me we have to keep up the act while he's negotiating my contract.
Violet takes one for the team and pretends to be mine, but our boyfriend-girlfriend scrimmage quickly turns into a full contact sport, and I want it to go into overtime. The problem is -- I've been riding the bench for years.
How can a guy like me, who finally has a chance to prove his worth on the field, convince the girl she’s most valuable to his heart?
MOST VALUABLE PLAYBOY is a brand new standalone sports romance written in the guy’s POV!
Enter Violet and a well-placed Hail Mary.
She's my best friend's sister with a smile as sweet as cherry pie and a mind that runs quicker than the 40-yard-dash. After Violet saves the day with the highest bid, I don't even give her a two-minute warning before I kiss her in front of the whole crowd and then announce that she's my girlfriend. Which would be fine except my agent tells me we have to keep up the act while he's negotiating my contract.
Violet takes one for the team and pretends to be mine, but our boyfriend-girlfriend scrimmage quickly turns into a full contact sport, and I want it to go into overtime. The problem is -- I've been riding the bench for years.
How can a guy like me, who finally has a chance to prove his worth on the field, convince the girl she’s most valuable to his heart?
MOST VALUABLE PLAYBOY is a brand new standalone sports romance written in the guy’s POV!
Always a bridesmaid.
No Action Armstrong.
Ball Cap Boy.
Mr. Clean.
The Unused Insurance
Plan.
Oh wait. Here’s one more, a personal fave.
Best Butt in the NFL.
Those are just some of the nicknames I’ve been given in the
last few years. They don’t bug me. Not one bit. They’ve all been true,
especially that last one. You should see my ass. You can bounce a quarter off
my cheeks.
Here’s the thing—when you spend the first three years of
your career warming the bench for the best player in the league, you can’t get
a chip on your shoulder. You have to stay sharp and be ready for that moment
when you swap out a ball cap for a helmet and get your pants dirty.
My time has finally come this season, and so far, we’re
winning.
But tonight isn’t about what happens between the opening
kickoff and the end of the fourth quarter.
Tonight is about the one game I’ve always dominated.
For the last few years, I’ve been the highest ticket item in
the players’ annual charity auction, and I can’t help enjoying that. Because
the guy I’ve backed up has been called a lot of things—a legend, the greatest
ever, a titan of the game—but the one I most enjoy is “second-best-looking quarterback
on the Renegades.”
Hey, I didn’t give him that name. The media did, deciding
the dude who play second-string—me—had a prettier face. Before this season, I’d
seen a grand total of 120 minutes of playing time in my first three years, but
I’ve taken home the top honors in the charity auction, where some of the
loveliest ladies come to bid on the players they want to take out for a night
on the town.
Ah, the memories of those dates have warmed my heart, and
other parts, on the sidelines when the games were dull. Evenings in limos,
testing the strength of the leather backseat, nights in hotels that lasted way
past dawn, mutually and blissfully ignoring the no physical contact between the winner and the player rule.
Yeah, I’ve enjoyed the fuck out of being paraded on stage in
front of hundreds of women, their slender arms lifted in the air, raising their
bids higher on me than all the other guys. It’s been my one chance to shine,
even to stand out.
Those days are behind me, though, now that I’m finally
leading the team down the field every single Sunday. I still expect to rake in
top dollar for the charity I gladly support, but this time, I won’t be living
it up and letting loose after hours. I have a reputation to protect, and a
season on the line.
The trouble is, the woman who has her eyes on me at the Most
Valuable Playboy charity auction wants my full enchilada, and it’s not on the
menu anymore.
Guess that means it’s time to call an audible on the line of
scrimmage.
A #1 New York Times Bestselling author, Lauren Blakely is
known for her contemporary romance style that's hot, sweet and sexy. She lives
in California with her family and has plotted entire novels while walking her
dogs. With fourteen New York Times bestsellers, her titles have appeared on the
New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal Bestseller Lists more than
eighty times, and she's sold more than 2 million books. In September she'll
release MOST VALUABLE PLAYBOY, a standalone sports romance. To receive an email
when Lauren releases a new book, sign up for her newsletter! laurenblakely.com/newsletter
No comments:
Post a Comment