The Wrong Play (The Wrong Player, #2)

by C.R. Jane

He’d figured it out before I did—that I was too much and not enough all at the same time. Too needy, too desperate, too pathetic. I clung too hard to things that didn’t belong to me, to people who were already halfway out the door.

There was the quiet, brutal way someone could make you feel like you were never enough.

What had I done? I could still hear him—his voice in my ear, his lips at my throat, the quiet certainty in the way he had touched me, like he had always known this was inevitable. Like I had always been his to take. And I had let him. I had gone upstairs with him. I had let him undress me. I had kissed him back. A man old enough to be my father.

I had wanted to feel something other than loneliness…then rejection. And now? Now, I felt ruined.

Callum turned his head just slightly, his eyes catching mine. And in them, I saw it. The warning. The power. The control.

I was born with something broken inside of me. That was the only explanation I had for what came after. All I knew was that I never said no.

“No man is going to put up with this, Riley,” he murmured one night, his fingers brushing over my wrist where the scar from my IV line still lingered. “No man is going to want a girl who spends half of her time sick in bed, too tired to function. That’s why you’re so lucky to have me. Because I can see past all of that.”

Because that was the moment I realized—no one was going to save me.

Well, probably not. I was pretty sure that Emma may have said, “Sometimes, I wonder what you’d look like if all the light went out of your eyes,” the other night…but she’d said it so softly…and so cheerfully, that I couldn’t be sure.

I blinked and found Parker Davis, our golden boy QB, and one of my bestilicious bros, smirking down at me.

Fucking hell, I loved football. And I loved winning.

“What do you call a masturbating cow?”

“It’s the joke. Beef stroking off,”

I glanced back at Parker, who was watching us, clearly amused. Probably because he was smug in his safeness thanks to the tracker I’d installed in that manly friendship bracelet he had around his wrist. Thanks to me always gently observing him, he was guaranteed to have a backup in case anything happened to him.

my gaze drifting to where Parker and Casey were tucked in a corner of the bar. She was laughing, pressed against his side, his arm curled around her waist like he’d rather die than let her go. It was disgusting. It was pathetic. It was everything I wanted.

“We just found out Grandpa is addicted to Viagra,”

It wasn’t my greatest pickup line, but it was all I had in me at the moment. I was surprised I’d been able to form words at all.

“Do you always walk up to random girls and say stuff like that?” she asked, eyeing me like she was trying to figure out my angle. “Only the one I plan on marrying,” I said, dead serious. She finally laughed. Like a full-body, tilt-her-head-back-and-giggle kind of laugh. I felt that shit. Like an electric shock straight to my bloodstream. “There it is,” I murmured, feeling strangely satisfied. “There what is?” she asked, still smiling. “The first laugh. The first step toward our inevitable love story.”

Whoops. Any more thoughts like that, and lil’ Jace was going to be making a major appearance at the party. And that could make her run. He tended to be a little…intimidating. Probably because of that extra inch.

“You think you look like Brad Pitt?” “I think Brad Pitt wishes he looked like me.”

There was no world where this girl wasn’t mine.

My breath hitched, but I couldn’t answer. I didn’t trust my voice, I didn’t trust the way my body was still shaking from him, from everything. I hated how much I wanted to believe him, how much I wanted to lose myself in the comfort of his words. And then…he ruined it. “Be a good girl for me, darlin’,” he murmured, his thumb brushing against my lower lip as he leaned down for a kiss.

Darla was our next door neighbor, and the kind of person you tried to avoid making direct eye contact with because you just knew she had a collection of teeth that didn’t belong to her.

“Why are you…” Matty continued, waving down at my…crotch? Ohhh…the Anaconda was currently at full mast. Apparently, seeing my number on my lady was cause for him to celebrate. Down boy…that would not be pleasant if I got hit in this condition. I turned toward my bestie, hoping changing my viewpoint would help me to settle. “It’s okay, Matty. That extra inch won’t bite,” I told him assuredly.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered in a thick voice as he leaned down to kiss my throat, slow and deliberate, sucking another mark over my pulse. I felt the strange urge to cry because not once had anyone ever said that to me before.

“Just know, Riley—you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” My heart lurched, my breath stalling in my chest. “And I would never lose my best thing.” His voice dropped lower, his forehead pressing to mine again, our noses brushing. “Not ever.”

Jace was good. Jace was right. He was every fantasy I’d never let myself have—one I should have been drowning in, losing myself in. But I couldn’t. Not when the past still had its fingers wrapped around my throat, squeezing every time I started to breathe.

“What can I help you with?” I said, trying to keep my tone brisk and business-like. He grinned as if he could see right through me. “Although I should be the one getting you coffee, I would absolutely love a caramel macchiato, extra vanilla cold foam, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and if you could draw that little leaf thing on the top—I’d love that too.”

“We’re both aware of the size of my cock, buttercup. It can take extra cold foam.”

you couldn’t risk your heart on a man who shone like the sun…when you were just ash.

It wasn’t grand gestures or flashy moments. It was this. The quiet, the certainty, the way someone could hold you like they’d never let you go. The thought that maybe…he’d be able to handle me…that he wouldn’t think I was a burden.

I felt strong, alive, every shudder of his body a testament to my choice, my power.

Sex with Callum had been a transaction.

And for the first time, I understood. It was never supposed to hurt. It was never supposed to feel like a cage. It was supposed to feel like…this.

I’d fallen asleep. Under her fucking bed. Like a fucking lunatic. My hand covered in dried cum. In my defense, it had been an incredible night—an orgasm straight from the gods, Riley’s body above mine, her quiet, sleepy breaths in my ear as she drifted off.

Casey slid her arm through mine suddenly. “You are in the group, Riley,” she said gently. “Welcome to the No Drama Llamas.”

Jace grabbed me by the back of my neck and kissed me senseless. The world shattered. My brain short-circuited.

“What has two butts and kills people?”

“Chill, Coach. I was just—” He jerked his head toward me. “Making the right play.” I groaned. I was so, so screwed.

“You don’t get to love me, Jace. You don’t understand. Love—real love—it doesn’t save you. It ruins you. It takes everything you have and leaves you bleeding. And I can’t—” My breath hitched, my fingers curling into the sheets. “I can’t watch you bleed for me.”

“Some day, I’m going to say it. And some day, you’re going to believe it.”

What was the point in fighting if the war had already been lost? The thought crept in slowly, insidiously. Maybe it would be easier if I just stopped. If I let it all go. If I let the darkness take me.

“Loving you isn’t some fucking chore. It’s not a weight around my neck, not something I have to suffer through. You think you’re hard to love, but you don’t get it. You don’t understand that loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You think taking care of you is some kind of sacrifice, but it’s a privilege, Riley. You hear me? A privilege. Every time you’re struggling, every time you think you have to fight alone, I want you to remember that. I want you to remember that there’s nothing in this world I’d rather do than stand beside you, carry you when you need it, and hold you up when you feel like you’re falling.”

“I love you, Riley. I love you when you’re strong…I love you when you’re barely holding on. I love you when you push me away, when you fight me, when you try to tell yourself you don’t need me. And I will love you through every single bad day you have…through every single moment where you think you’re too much.” He lifted my hand, pressing a kiss against my palm. “You’re never going to be too much for me, sweetheart. You are my fucking world. And I’ll spend every single day proving that to you if I have to.”

“Close your eyes, Riley. Just this once, let someone else fight for you.”

“I’ll ruin anyone who makes you feel like you’re too much. Even yourself.”

“Are you sure this isn’t the wrong play, Thatcher?” I asked, a smile spreading across my lips. He huffed. “Do I ever make the wrong play?”

“Every time you take a breath, you lift me up. So now, every time I breathe, I’ll lift you up, too.”

“Let’s breathe for each other, Jace Thatcher.”