Christmas Break Read online

  Chapter 9

  Magic

  Brax

  The morning after Christmas Day I woke up to Aubrey’s head on my shoulder, one of her legs wrapped around mine, and her nipples pressed against my bare chest. She raised her head and rubbed her eyes, looking adorably sleepy. There are moments in life I wish I could put in a time capsule and keep forever. This is one of them. Last night was another. Waking up with Aubrey for the second day in a row felt as natural to me as throwing a football, which was scary weird.

  We showered together, and I took her up against the shower wall with water streaming down our bodies. Afterward, we ate brunch.

  “I have to go to work,” she said as we finished. Sadness dimmed the light in her green eyes. The grizzly on her necklace nestled between her breasts, filling me with pride that she hadn’t taken it off. “I’m supposed to be there for the noon lunch crowd.”

  “I guess I’d better be going then.”

  I said it, only I didn’t want to go. In fact, walking out of her apartment would leave an empty hole in me that I wouldn’t know how to fill. As a goal-oriented athlete, I always went after what I wanted, and I wanted Aubrey. The realization hit me like blind-side tackle. Life without her would stretch into lonely infinity.

  “I enjoyed it.” She thought this was goodbye. I saw it her eyes.

  “I have practice this afternoon, but we should be done by seven or so.” I held my breath, fearing she might shut me down like an old cell phone, even though that made no sense whatsoever. Something just seemed…off, like she was donning armor and pulling away.

  Aubrey shook her head. Her ponytail bounced from one shoulder to the other. “Brax, really, you don’t have to do this. Let’s just say it was fun and go our separate ways.”

  Panic twisted my gut, so I battered it into submission. “Is that really what you want?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I held her waist with one hand and lifted her chin with the other. “Look me straight in the eyes and tell me you don’t want to see me again, because that’s sure as hell not how I feel.”

  “But I don’t see how—”

  I put a finger to her lips and shushed her. She was pulling away from me, wrapping herself in that protective armor she wore for the cruel, outside world. Only, I didn’t want to be on the outside, I wanted to be warm and cozy, cuddled up next to her.

  “I don’t see how we can not be together,” I said. “Didn’t the past few days mean anything to you?” I fingered my necklace that she wore.

  She nodded, and her emerald green eyes filled with tears.

  I didn’t want to be the guy that made her cry. I never wanted to be that guy. Ever. I tried to lighten the tone and reminded her, “We’re fucking awesome in bed.”

  “And you think sex fixes everything?”

  “Pretty much. Always works for me,” I quipped. When a lone tear ran down her face, my smile slipped and I replaced it with a seriousness I rarely show the world. “I want to be with you, Aubrey. You and no one else. I want to give this thing between us a shot. You’re a gutsy girl. Show some guts. Take a chance and make this work.”

  She chewed on her lower lip, her face a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions. “Brax, I don’t belong in your world.”

  “You do belong in my world, and any world you want to be in. Don’t sell yourself short like that. Don’t ever think you’re not good enough.”

  She nodded, but I could tell she was still not believing me, as if I were spouting bullshit. Well, I wasn’t, not one fucking bit.

  “You don’t know me—and trust me, I’m not good enough for you.”

  “Why would you say something like that?” I frowned and scratched my head, totally baffled.

  Aubrey chewed on her lower lip, as if waging a silent war with herself. “I have a past you don’t want to get mixed up in. Especially not if you’re going to try for the NFL.” She looked up, her green eyes full of sadness, clearly resigned to her fate.

  Well, to hell with that. This guy didn’t give up easily.

  “What kind of past?” Fearing she’d make a run for it, I looped my arms around her waist and waited. She wasn’t dumping this on me without an explanation.

  “I’m…tainted.”

  I almost laughed. Hell, as far as I could tell, everyone was tainted in some way, yet the seriousness of her expression sobered me. “Explain, sweetheart. You can tell me.” I planted a gentle kiss on her forehead.

  “I’m bad news for you, Brax.”

  “You are not. I never want to hear those words again.”

  “I am.” She absentmindedly rubbed her thumb across my chin stubble.

  “You’re going to have to give me more than that, Aubrey.”

  “Fine. You want it, you got it.” Her green eyes shone with defiance and a brave fear. “My mom died when I was sixteen. Up until then I lived a pretty sheltered life, going to church on Sundays, that type of thing. Then it was just my dad, who didn’t exactly give the right environment for a kid. He didn’t like girls much, and I knew he didn’t want me there. I did anything I could to get his attention, make him notice I existed. I was hurting and alone. I partied all night, did drugs, drank a lot, and rarely attended school. One night months later, I was pretty wasted as usual. I don’t remember much, but they made a video…so what I didn’t remember, I saw in living color.”

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  “The guys. The younger guys in my dad’s biker gang.”

  “Your dad has a biker gang?” I tried to wrap my head around that.

  “Not like a huge organized gang, but they had a loose structure, a logo, a regular meeting place…so, yeah, it’s a gang. Some of them belonged to real gangs at some time or another, too.”

  “Okay.” I kept my voice neutral, not wanting her to think I was passing judgment. When she didn’t continue, I prodded a little. “What happened?”

  “My twenty-two-year-old boyfriend got me drunk and sold me to his friends for beer. I didn’t protest because I was too wasted to give a shit. I had sex with them, and they caught it all on video.”

  She paused and looked at me. I didn’t quite know what to say as I processed her words, but I nodded and pulled her closer.

  Aubrey continued as if she couldn’t stop now that she’d started. “I just wanted to feel needed, and I thought sex would help. If they did whatever they wanted to me, I’d be part of their inner circle. I’d belong somewhere. I was an idiot. Within twenty-four hours, the video was all over school and the biker gang. And yeah, I got my dad’s attention. After he slapped me around, he rallied my brothers and uncles, and they beat the crap out of the guys while I watched. Dad said it was my payback for being a slut. It was brutal, and I never want to witness anything like that again. I left that night, dropped out of school, and worked as a waitress. Those guys blamed me for the beating and their being kicked out of the club. For a year afterwards, they harassed me constantly. Every time I’d get a decent job, the video would surface, and that’d be the end of the job. I needed to get out of Seattle, so I picked a college on the opposite side of the state. Once I moved, it stopped. Until a few days ago.”

  “What happened a few days ago?”

  “I got a text message with a picture taken from that video clip. When I was making your burger, actually. I don’t know who sent it, but now I know they haven’t forgotten.”

  I made ones of those split-second decisions that made me famous on the football field. I didn’t give a shit about her past. I wanted her, wanted to make her happy, wanted to protect her from these assholes. And more importantly: “None of this changes how I feel.”

  “Maybe you don’t think it does, but what about your family? What about your teammates? How would you handle it if they saw the video?”

  “They won’t see it, but if they did, we’d handle it together. They’re not going out with you. I am.” Sure, my family would be upset, but if they couldn’t see beyond the tattoos and some stupid video, that was their loss.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t been disappointing them all my life. It’d never stopped me from following my heart before, and it wouldn’t stop me now.

  “Brax, you don’t understand. Get mixed up with me, and you could be damaged in the fallout.” She put her hands on either side of my face, her eyes begging me to let her go even as I knew my heart would never allow it.

  I shook my head. “I’ll be damned if I’ll allow a bunch of assholes from your past to come between us. Or anyone. This just feels…right.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Brax, you know the NFL is leaving no stone unturned when vetting potential quarterbacks—especially after last year.”

  The top pick’s girlfriend had posted a sex tape of her and her boyfriend, and it went viral. I remembered it well.

  “I don’t want to hurt your chances in the draft,” she continued.

  “You won’t,” I growled. I’d won a lot of games from sheer force of will, and winning over Aubrey was one challenge I wasn’t going to lose.

  “Okay,” I said, “I’m laying myself on the line right here and now. These past few days have been epic. Awesome. Incredible. When I see something I want, I go for it. I see you. I want you. And I’m going for you. I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth, or at least to the city limits. I’ll take every class you’re in. I’ll stand outside your window in the pouring rain and sing love songs.”

  She almost smiled. “You sing?”

  “I’m trying to prove a point here. My ability to sing isn’t important.”

  “Maybe it is to me. Do you read poetry, too?”

  Her mouth twitched. She was toying with me, and it gave me hope. I said, “For you I’d do that. Give us a chance. Let’s see where this goes. Together we can make this work.”

  I nibbled on that sweet spot right behind her ear I’d found last night. She groaned, tilted her head to give me more access, then thought better of it and moved away.

  “I’m going to be late,” she said.

  I stepped in front of the bedroom door, blocking her escape route. “You’re not going anywhere until you agree to go out with me.”

  “That’s blackmail.”

  “I use any means at my disposal to get what I want. You and I, baby, have magic. You don’t turn your back on magic.”

  A slow smile spread across her beautiful face and lit up her green eyes. “We do have magic, don’t we?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I started grinning again, and so did she. Staying on campus for Christmas break had started out as a lonely proposition but led me to the best Christmas gift ever.

  She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me, a big wet, sloppy kiss on the lips. I had my answer. Aubrey was mine, and I kept what was mine close to my heart.

  Author’s Note

  In another life I taught high school and wrote young adult in my spare time. Those books never saw the light of day, but I always wanted to return to the genre.

  Lately I’ve been reading a lot of new-adult books written in first-person, and I’ve fallen in love with that genre. It only makes sense that I’d want to give it a shot myself, so I talked to my publisher about creating a new-adult subseries of my Seattle Lumberjacks football books featuring the rookie players on the team, starting with their draft day in college. Christmas Break is an introduction to that. The next book in The Rookies will be about Brax’s first year in the NFL and all the challenges of newly found fame and fortune. And about how he and Aubrey weather the storm of newfound celebrity.

  COMING IN 2014

  FROM BOROUGHS PUBLISHING

  Seattle Lumberjacks: The Rookies series #1

  Rookie Mistake

  About the Author

  An advocate of happy endings, Jami Davenport writes sexy romantic comedies, sports hero romances, and equestrian fiction. Jami lives on a small farm near Puget Sound with her Green Beret-turned-plumber husband, a Newfoundland cross with a tennis ball fetish, a prince disguised as an orange tabby cat, and an opinionated Hanoverian mare.

  Jami works in information technology for her day job and is a former high school business teacher and dressage rider. In her spare time, she maintains her small farm and socializes whenever the opportunity presents itself. An avid boater, Jami has spent countless hours in the San Juan Islands, a common setting in her books. In her opinion, it is the most beautiful place on earth.

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