Once Upon A Half-Time: A Sports Romance (Touchdowns and Tiaras Book 3) Read online

  Once Upon A Half-Time

  A Secret Baby Romance

  Sosie Frost

  Contents

  Once Upon A Half-Time

  Also by Sosie Frost

  1. Elle

  2. Lachlan

  3. Elle

  4. Lachlan

  5. Elle

  6. Lachlan

  7. Elle

  8. Lachlan

  9. Elle

  10. Lachlan

  11. Elle

  12. Lachlan

  13. Elle

  14. Lachlan

  15. Elle

  16. Lachlan

  17. Elle

  18. Elle

  19. Lachlan

  20. Lachlan

  21. Elle

  22. Lachlan

  23. Lachlan

  24. Elle

  Lachlan’s Epilogue

  Elle’s Epilogue

  Touchdowns And Tiaras Series

  About the Author

  Also by Sosie Frost

  Acknowledgments

  Once Upon A Half-Time

  Once Upon A Half-Time

  Copyright © 2016 by Sosie Frost

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Cover Design: Mayhem Cover Creations

  http://mayhemcovercreations.com/

  Photography Provided By: Furious Fotag

  http://www.onefuriousfotog.com/

  Created with Vellum

  Also by Sosie Frost

  Payne Brothers Romance

  Babyjacked

  Boyfrenemy

  Wargasm

  Sixty-Nine

  Roughneck (Pre-Order Now!)

  Romeo (Coming Soon!)

  Free Romances!

  Fall in love with a new series today!

  Beauty And The Blitz

  (Book 1 of Touchdowns and Tiaras)

  Unforgettable

  (A Stand Alone Amnesia Romance)

  Babyjacked

  (Book 1 of The Payne Brothers Romances)

  Touchdowns and Tiaras Series

  Beauty And The Blitz

  Love At First Down

  Once Upon A Half-Time

  Happily Ever All-Star

  Standalone Romances

  Sweetest Sin - A Forbidden Priest Romance

  Hard - A Step-Brother Romance

  Unforgettable - An Amnesia Romance

  While They Watch - A Sexy BDSM Romance

  Bad Boy’s Redemption (Previously Bad Boy’s Revenge)

  Bad Boy’s Bridesmaid

  To L.G.

  You are a wealth of inspiration…

  1

  Elle

  The idiot was about to get hit by a car.

  I could see the headline now.

  Ironfield Rivets’ Tight-End Rear-Ended By Speeding Vehicle.

  And the quote from the scene: Who needs rims when you have a fine-looking hood ornament like Lachlan ‘Charming’ Reed?

  Sure. I’d concede the gorgeous football player might have made a one-of-a-kind decoration for any rusted out Hyundai that chose to drive on the sidewalk instead of the street. But it was equally likely that his hard head would have done more damage to the car and surrounding cement.

  Lachlan neither saw nor heard the car. Then again, he chose to dance through the crosswalk separating the Ironfield Rivet’s practice facility from the parking lot. He bobbed to the beat blaring through his headphones, shimmied across the parking lot, and stopped to moonwalk over the curb.

  Even at his most reckless, Lachlan was entertaining.

  At least he’d be the sexiest roadkill in all of Ironfield.

  He gyrated onto the road—one of the busier streets in the city, the party central strip of nightclubs, restaurants, and colleges. Just stepping foot into the street tempted fate in the form of a frazzled sorority girl blowing either her boyfriend or a red light on her way to class.

  Lachlan slowed his two-step to toss his Tinkerbell backpack over his shoulder. He then cha-cha slid directly in front of the car.

  He’d owe me for this…if he even survived.

  I dropped my camera bags and burst from my hiding spot in the bushes outside the practice facility. So much for escaping the first day of training camp without anyone seeing me.

  I slammed into Lachlan, throwing my weight against the six-foot-five behemoth of muscle.

  If he weren’t breaking into a whip and nae-nae in the middle of the street, I’d have bounced off the pack of muscles that was his chest and landed in the gutter. Fortunately, the big lug wasn’t expecting to get blindsided by his one-night stand.

  That made two of us.

  He grunted as he crashed into the sidewalk. The car veered just in time. The driver slowed to ensure she hadn’t pulverized the Rivets’ newest multi-millionaire. The first-round draft choice was merely scraped, not smooshed. Satisfied, she sped off into the city. Her illegal left turn was the least of her crimes today.

  Lachlan had smacked the sidewalk ass first, but he didn’t have much cushion to soften the blow.

  Snips, snails, puppy-dog-tails, and two-hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle—that’s what Lachlan Reed was made of.

  At least his head had bounced off the sidewalk without leaving a dent.

  I tumbled over him, scraping my hands and knees on pebbles and road debris. His elbow connected with my gut, and I coughed and sputtered as every bit of air fled from my lungs. We stumbled across the sidewalk and crashed hard between a puddle of something that wasn’t water and a glop of spitting tobacco.

  I’d have rolled around in the muck—twice—over what was going to come next.

  Three months.

  It had been three months since I last saw Lachlan—naked, sleeping, sprawled in a Vegas hotel bed that probably should have been burned after what we did that weekend.

  I never thought I’d see him again, let alone save his life or work for the same team that had drafted him. The humiliation was almost poetic. That weekend was the type of experience I promised I’d look back on as an experiment, something fun, something crazy, something I’d never regret months later in the shower as I revisited the memories with delighted shivers and absolute mortification at the things we said, did, touched, and…used.

  Maybe once, in a moment of utter weakness, I’d considered calling Lachlan again. Fortunately, I knew better than to proposition the prince of the rookies for a second read-through of the Kama Sutra.

  But I was strong. I hadn’t thought about him…outside of the bedroom. Hadn’t imagined him…without the detachable shower head in my hand.

  The only force in the world capable of propelling me back into his lap was an out-of-control Hyundai Elantra.

  God bless irresponsible college students.

  I hoisted myself to my elbows and prepared for the worst. I couldn’t hide from him forever.
He was officially a Rivet, and I’d probably have to take some pictures of him for the team. The assistant photographer job was great, but sometimes the best part of the gig turned into the worst—the players.

  I pinched my eyes shut and greeted him with as much confidence as I could fake. It was time to blurt out everything, right then and there. I’d admit my indecency during the one-night stand and, like a Band-Aid covering up every licentious moment of our weekend, I’d rip off the shame in one fluid motion.

  …Or fling it off like one of the many condoms we’d used.

  “Lachlan, before you say anything, I know I haven’t called you back.” I didn’t look at him or give him a chance to deter me from this apology. “And that was a horrible thing to do, but it was for the best. Now that you’re drafted and signed and training camp is starting, we should talk about what happened at the scouting combine, but we should never, ever do it again.”

  Lachlan didn’t say anything. Hell, he didn’t move.

  Well…that was a problem.

  What was worse? Our first-round draft choice getting hit by a car…or the Rivets’ soon to be offensive superstar knocked-out cold during the world’s worst rescue attempt?

  “Lachlan.” I poked his chest. “Are you okay?”

  Nothing.

  No blood had spilled. I took that as a good sign. Still, this man was about to spend his first full-day at training camp getting rolled by hulking monsters, intimidating coaches, and hundreds of pounds of free weights. Who’d have thought the street would be more dangerous than a football field?

  Now it was official. I really shouldn’t have been at the practice facility.

  But I couldn’t escape now, not with Lachlan potentially hurt. This was a disaster. I’d be caught.

  Peter, the head photographer, was the only other Rivets’ employee with a key to our office. He’d see that I’d tampered with the computer. He’d know the SD card was gone.

  He’d fire me.

  My career would be over, but God only knew what would happen to the Rivets’ reputation if the media ever found those pictures.

  First I’d taken every scrap of incriminating evidence I could find. Then I rendered unconscious the one player Jack Carson specifically petitioned the coaches to draft.

  Banner day for me.

  I patted Lachlan’s cheek. “Charming…can you hear me?”

  He grunted. Good sign. But his eyes stayed closed. Not great.

  The street had emptied of cars, and no players crossed the parking lot. At least I was still technically in hiding, but I couldn’t leave Lachlan, groggily fading in and out of consciousness.

  Hell, that was how I left him the last time we were together. At least then he was freshly-fucked and exhausted after our one-night stand.

  Though…it had been more than one night. I probably should have called it a one-weekend stand, though some head-stands were involved too. The alcohol stole most of my memories, but the remaining flashes were shamefully explicit and astoundingly lewd.

  Also good. Very, very good.

  But I was never doing anything like that again. Like a camel crossed with a puritan, I’d store up my sexual inhibitions in those couple humps we had.

  The day I’d returned, missing all of my panties as well as every photograph I’d taken of the rookie scouting combine, I’d vowed never to think of, speak of, or indulge Lachlan Reed ever again.

  Until the moment I’d knocked him out.

  “Come on, Charming.”

  I couldn’t easily move his bulk, so I straddled him in the middle of the sidewalk, my knees on either side of his hips.

  An all-too familiar position.

  “Let’s get you up.”

  An all-too familiar saying.

  “Don’t make me blow a whistle, pretty-boy.” I sharpened my voice. “Huddle up!”

  Lachlan’s eyes opened, and the sea-foam green intensity of his gaze crashed through me like white caps against a jetty.

  God, I’d almost forgotten how beautiful this man was.

  Almost.

  Every part of him angled hard—his cheekbones, his brow, the fierce strike of his nose, the solid authority of his jaw. But what might have seemed severe was warmed by the playful quirk of his lips. Lachlan always donned a panty-melting grin. The charming, wicked kind that lured girls like me a little too close.

  He packed a smirk for every party, a laugh for every fight, and a sleeve of condoms for luck.

  And he got lucky.

  A lot.

  Those green eyes blinked once, twice, and unfocused once more. I sat back, puffing the hair from my face. Maybe the new bump on his blonde head would blend in with the old lumps he suffered from practices and games?

  But he seemed to be coming around. A little. He licked his full, dangerous lips and hissed a word. I couldn’t make it out. I leaned close just as he sat up.

  Mistake.

  Lachlan seized me, tangling his fingers in my hair and pulling me close.

  I squealed. “What are you—”

  His kiss blindsided me.

  Soft.

  I’d forgotten how soft his kisses could be. Either he was tearing through my clothes with his teeth, or he kissed warm and sweet, little nibbles of dew-dropped gentleness that shivered me in all the right places.

  My heart lurched into my throat, skipping a couple of beats and deciding then and there to skip town, skedaddle back to Vegas, and lose myself with Lachlan in the best suite the Bellagio could offer.

  I almost parted my lips for him.

  Which one of us had the head injury?

  What in the world was I doing? What was he doing? Maybe this pig should have been roadkill!

  I pulled away, slapping his chest. Lachlan rested once more against the sidewalk.

  His satisfied sigh was thoroughly inappropriate.

  “Easy there, Sleeping Beauty.” I warned him.

  What good was scolding him? My lips still hummed with excitement.

  No man should have kissed that well, especially one potentially suffering from a multitude of internal injuries.

  I ignored the fluttering in my chest and resolved never to acknowledge the desperate tingle warming other parts of me.

  “A concussion doesn’t give you the right to kiss me,” I said.

  Lachlan laughed. His chuckle still good-natured, the kind of carefree nonchalance of a man who never sweated the little things—like being rendered unconscious.

  He squinted into the light, his eyes unfocused. “You tackled me. So…I kissed.”

  “A word of advice before you take to the field?” I shook my head. “Please don’t kiss everyone who tackles you.”

  Lachlan’s eyes fluttered closed. “Don’t often get tackled by a princess.”

  Fantastic. I broke the first-round draft choice. There went my raise.

  “I’m not a princess, Lachlan.”

  “Fucking A.” He grinned. “I’m glad. A princess would be too prissy to go bad.”

  “Bad?”

  “Fucking dirty. Need a bad girl. Someone naked. Writhing. What kind of girl are you?”

  I stopped him before he tried to get up…or demonstrated his preferences. “I’m the kind of girl who should probably get you medical attention.”

  “Oh. A naughty nurse. Like that too.” His words almost slurred. “Sponge baths. Physicals.”

  “MRIs. Neurological assessments.”

  “Yeah, talk sexy to me.”

  “Oh, good Lord. Just sit still.”

  I placed a hand on his chest. He immediately covered it with his—huge, hot, and five claws short of a paw. He enveloped my dark fingers with his far paler hand and grinned.

  “Do you taste like brown sugar?”

  Yes. We had determined that in Vegas. Multiple times.

  I ignored him. “How’s your head?”

  “I don’t give, I receive.”

  And we were getting nowhere. “I had no idea you could flirt even with moderate to severe head trauma.�
��

  “Second nature.”

  “Undoubtedly. Do you think you can sit up?”

  Lachlan narrowed his eyes, staring hard at me. He grinned. “Hey…I think I love you.”

  “Okay. Time to go to the hospital.”

  Lachlan shifted too quickly. That only made it worse. He swore and dropped to the concrete, smacking his head once more.

  Couple more of those and he wouldn’t remember me rescuing him.

  Which was good.

  If I had it my way, no one would know that I had been to the practice facility today.

  I patted my pocket. The SD card was securely tucked into my jeans. The photographs were safe, but the team wasn’t. The pictures might have destroyed every accomplishment, record, and win the Rivets’ organization had achieved in the past year. And if I didn’t get away from the practice facility quick, if anyone saw me, they’d know it was me who had taken it.

  And this was why I never came into work early. Lack of sleep, possible media firestorm, endangering my job. Just wasn’t worth it.

  “Okay, you have to listen to me, Lachlan,” I said.

  “Yeah, say my name.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Mr. Reed, are you hurt?”

  “Aching for you.”

  “Do you hit on everyone who saves you?”

  “Only if they’re as beautiful as you, Red.”

  He reached for a lock of my hair. The Rihanna red streaks worked well against the ebony locks. He twisted the hair between his fingers as dimples dotted his cheeks.

  Dangerous dimples that possessed a unique ability to pop the hooks on a bra from across a room.