Rules of the game:
1) Never underestimate your opponent
2) Avoid personal fouls
3) Score early and often
4) Play or get played
Coach Marcus Leon has always played by the rules…until he meets Addaline Grace, the seventeen-year-old senior transfer on his Oak Crest High water polo team. Addie changes all the rules, mostly because she doesn’t play any games. But as off limits as she is, the more Marcus discovers about Addie, the more he finds himself…and the more he questions whether Addie might just be worth risking everything for.
For Addie, water polo is anger management. She’s driven and focused because it keeps her mind off other things…like the fact she destroyed her family. Her game plan is to keep her head down and graduate so she can leave her father and the crappy town he dragged her to in her wake. But when what starts as friendly completion with Marcus turns into more than a game, Addie has to decide if she’s willing to face down her demons…and possibly ruin the man she may or may not be falling in love with in the process.
What happens when the only thing you need is the one thing you can’t have?
** This is a standalone
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EXCERPT
She glances down the hill in the direction
I came from. “So, what’s going on down there, anyway? Someone’s birthday?”
My gaze follows hers. “My sister’s wedding
reception.”
“In a public park?” she asks, her eyebrows
raising in surprise.
I nod. “Graffiti Park is special. We spent
a lot of time here as kids.”
“Graffiti Park? That’s really the name of
this place?” she asks, looking around.
“I have no clue what the real name is.
That’s just what we’ve always called it.” My thumb brushes over where Nate
carved my name into the back of bench we’re sitting on at least ten years ago.
She squints toward the shelter below and
shades her eyes from the last of the afternoon sun. “I don’t see a bride.”
I point to Blaire. “The one in the bright
blue dress.”
“That sort of flies in the face of
tradition, doesn’t it?” she asks, still watching.
“That’s my sister. She’s never cared much
about social conventions. If you search YouTube for her valedictory graduation
speech from Oak Crest High four years ago, you’ll see what I mean.”
Her eyes snap to mine, wide and curious,
and her gaze knocks the wind out of me. “What did she say?”
“She basically told the whole world off.
But that was because her now husband,” I say with a jut of my chin at the
gathering below, “had just been arrested for statutory rape.”
Her eyes widen even more. “Oh my God!”
“She’s always insisted they were in love, and
the age difference shouldn’t matter. It was her giant ‘fuck you’ to society.”
Her head cocks to the side as she watches
the party below. “I like her already.” She turns back to me. “Won’t they miss
you?”
I press myself against her shoulder. “I’m
disturbing you?”
A sardonic smile ghosts over her features
as she lifts the book. “I was in the middle of reading the thoughts of a dying
giant bug-person and not thinking that was at all weird, so I’m obviously
already very disturbed.”
I can’t stop staring, because she’s
suddenly stunningly beautiful. Her eyes flash, looking momentarily more black
then gray, and there’s a long, deep dimple in her right cheek, which is the
only one I can see because of the angle of her head. I’m dying to know if
there’s a matching one on the other side.
The smile fades under my scrutiny and when
she drops her gaze to the book between us, a cascade of strawberry corkscrews
hide her face. “Sorry. Stupid joke.”
“No!” Damn.
A little too eager there, tiger. I work to lower my voice. “I mean, it wasn’t
stupid. It was funny.”
I just forgot to laugh because your smile
knocked me senseless for a sec.
She lifts a knee to her chest, hooking the
heel of her sneaker on the edge of the bench. Her knee pokes through the long
crosswise tear in her jeans. “It’s okay, my sense of humor’s pretty dry. Not
too many people get me.”
“Your sense of humor is refreshing,” I say.
“And as for people getting you, most people don’t pay enough attention to
anyone but themselves to ‘get’ much of anything.”
“Marcus!”
I look down the hill at Deanna’s voice.
She’s at the shelter waving her hands over her head to get my attention.
There’s a sudden cramp in my stomach at the thought of her coming up here.
“Looks like you have to go.” I’d swear a
catch a hint of disappointment in her tone.
“Looks like.” I stand and shove my hands
into my pockets. “My name is Marcus, by the way.”
She smiles and something roguish flashes in
her eyes. “I know.”
Fuck. I do
know her. Everything felt so relaxed and comfortable between us. I hate that I
might have just fucked that up. Before it gets totally awkward, I blurt, “I’d
be up for maybe getting a burger at Sam Hill sometime, if you’re into that.”
She nods, but that wary glint is back in
her eyes. “Yeah…sure.”
I fish my phone from my pocket. “Can I get
your number?”
She reels it off and I type it in. “Girl
who stole my bench,” I say with a cocky grin as I type it into contacts. I turn
my amusement on her. “Or is there something else I should call you?”
He gives me a questioning tip of her head.
“Addie.”
I know that name. Someone I went to high
school with, maybe? My brain chugs harder trying to put the pieces together as
I type it in. “Got it,” I say, holding up my phone. “I’ll give you a call.”
She squints at me. “Okay.”
I start backing down the path. “Enjoy my
bench,” I say with a wink.
She lifts the book in a wave. “See you
Monday, Coach.”
Suddenly I see her face under a navy blue
swim cap with the Oak Crest Cougar on the side. The jolt of electric panic
almost knocks my legs out from under me and I stumble, just catching myself
before I go down.
Because she’s on my fucking team.
I ran tryouts Wednesday and Thursday.
Practices just started yesterday. I’m still trying to get the new girls’ names.
She said Addie, but my roster says Addaline, I think. All I can remember for
sure is she’s a senior transfer and mostly keeps to herself.
“Fuck me,” I mutter, then hear myself. I
hold up a hand. “I mean…” I trail off in a cringe. “Sorry for the language.”
Because I’m not supposed to swear in front of a fucking student.
But fuck.
My mind reels, replaying everything I said and did and trying to figure out how
to backpedal out of this. “So, we’ll talk about a…team dinner…for bonding and
whatever…at practice on Monday.”
Just shoot me now.
She tips her head and bites her lips,
fighting a smile. “Sounds good, Coach.”
After what feels like a small eternity, I
shake myself loose from her gaze and start down the hill without saying
anything else. I can only dig myself deeper at this point. But the whole way,
all I can think about is that, as shitty as my life is at the moment, it might
have just gotten shittier.
Other Books in the Series
Dirty
A poem by Blaire Leon
If sex is dirty, why would I do it with someone I love?
If sex is dirty, then didn’t we all come from the dirt?
What if I like the dirt?
What if I want to get dirty?
What if I want to roll in the mud until I’m so fucking filthy that I’ll never be clean again?
When twenty-five-year-old graduate assistant Caiden Brenner asked Blaire Leon how old she was, she said she was a senior. He chose to believe she meant in college. They connect over Lord Byron’s Don Juan and, as their conversations become increasingly thicker with sexual innuendo, Caiden finds himself obsessing over a totally off-limits undergrad who’s bold, beautiful, brilliant, and one of the most passionate poets he’s ever met.
But it turns out Blaire hasn't been totally honest. She's the seventeen-year-old valedictorian of her high school class, taking courses at Sierra State while awaiting her acceptance to Stanford.
Will Caiden get too deeply into Blaire to back away before he finds out the truth? Or will their connection be enough to seduce him into risking his entire future on Jail Bait?
About the Author
Mia Storm is a hopeless romantic who is always searching for her happy ending. Sometimes she’s forced to make one up. When that happens, she’s thrilled to be able to share those stories with her readers. She lives in California and spends much of her time in the sun with a book in one hand and a mug of black coffee in the other, or hiking the trails in Yosemite. Connect with her online at MiaStormAuthor.blogspot.com , on Twitter at @MiaStormAuthor, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MiaStormAuthor.
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