Quarterback Sneak (Red Zone Rivals, #3)

by Kandi Steiner

It was her eyes. Warm, endlessly deep brown, framed by thick lashes that swept across her cheeks with every blink. And haunted. Just like mine.

Because all my life, football had been my one and only focus. It was all I cared about. It was my reason for waking up in the morning, and the only thought that consumed me when I laid my head down at night. It was my lifeline, my muse, the center of my attention. But in one fatal moment, that focus shifted. Julep Lee was the coach’s daughter. She was completely off limits. And yet, I knew right then and there that I had to have her.

I knew the dimples that framed his smile, the one that had popped on his left cheek the first time he laid eyes on me during spring training.

“Trust me — you and I are nothing alike.” “Oh, I have a feeling you might be wrong about that, Julep Lee.”

“I haven’t been able to take my eyes off you since the moment you walked through that door tonight.”

“Stop trying to laugh me off,” he said, voice reverberating through my ribcage. “And look at me when I tell you how enamorating you are.” “That’s not a word.” “It is now,” he argued. “And it was made for you.”

I ignored every distant warning sign blaring in the back of my mind, ignored every ounce of good sense I had that told me this couldn’t happen, that we couldn’t happen. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly I’d let him devour every bit of everything that I was. I’d let him banish me from existence, to wipe me off the face of the planet if it meant I got to succumb to this moment right now.

And yet, I couldn’t leave her alone. No matter the risk involved, no matter how I tried to pretend like she didn’t exist — I craved her. Not in the way you crave a cigarette or a beer, either, but in the way you crave a tall glass of ice water after a grueling workout. I didn’t just want to touch her. I needed to.

He didn’t kiss me with the passion to take my clothes off, he kissed me with the desperation to save me. And I was hanging on just enough to let him.

“That I love life. I love my life. I love my mom, even if she hurt me by leaving. And I love my dad and my sister. I loved having the family that I had, the life that I had — even if it was ripped from me too soon. I love my uncle. I love that despite everything he had going on in his own life, it wasn’t too much for him to sacrifice a little more and do everything he could to help me. And what really hit me in that moment was that I remembered I love football. I love football.

“I see you, everything that you are, and I’ve never needed anything more in my life. And don’t say we can’t,” I warned her when she opened her mouth. “I know the risk. I know. But… maybe, if we can show him how good we are together, your dad will understand.”

Kissing him felt natural, inevitable, like it was the one thing in this world I was always meant to do. And on a freezing cold day in early December, on a little bench in a garden his hands built, Holden Moore claimed me in every way there was to be claimed.

Good morning. I’m still here. I hope you breathe a little easier today. Don’t give up on us. You looked beautiful yesterday. It will all be okay, Julep. Trust me.

“Good morning. I’m still here, too. Every breath burns without you,” she said, her voice wavering a bit. My throat tightened with pain, even as relief washed over me. She was answering my texts. “I haven’t given up on us. You’re crazy if you think I’ve looked anything close to beautiful in this mess of a state I’ve been in. I do trust you.” She paused, smiling, and then whispered. “Merry Christmas.” A breath of a laugh left my nose. “This is your win,” she finished, letting those words hang heavy between us. “Go fucking get ’em, Cap.” And then she jogged through the tunnel with my heart in her hands.

“Sir, with all due respect,” I said, turning back to Coach. “Bench me.”

“You can hold true on all your threats,” I continued. “You can take everything else away from me. But you can’t take her.”

“I love your daughter, Coach Lee,” I said, though my eyes didn’t leave her. “I love her, and I don’t care what you or anyone else thinks about it. My heart used to belong to football, but now it belongs to her. And none of this,” I added, throwing my hands up. “None of it means a damn thing without her.”

“I will be here,” I said, tugging her hands to my chest again. “Every day. I’ll be right by your side reminding you that you matter, that you are needed, that there is a reason to have hope and a reason to live. I’ll be here reminding you that for me? You are that reason.”

“I have never seen more clearly than I do in this moment, Julep Lee. And I meant what I said. I am not walking away from you. I never could.”