Sunday, March 14, 2021
☘️Sunday's Sport Stats☘️: Break Me by Rebecca Norinne
All my life I looked and I wondered. Could I? Would I? And then one night, I did. But when I sampled a taste of that forbidden fruit, my whole world came crashing down—my contract with Dublin Rugby right along with it.
So when the chance to play in Edinburgh comes along, I know it’s my best shot at putting my life back together. To go back to pretending I don’t need something more.
But one look at Chef Lachlan MacLeod’s whiskey-colored eyes, the scruff dotting his jaw, and the colorful ink lining his forearms, and I want more than what’s on the menu at his famous restaurant.
I want him, but I don’t know if I’m brave enough to risk everything on something so uncertain. My head says no, but my body says yes.
But it’s my heart that’s telling me life will never feel as right as it does when I’m in Lachlan’s arms.
(Note: This book was previously titled BREAKDOWN.)
Chapter One
Liam
I looked down at the paper in my shaking hands. To say I was disappointed in my new contract would be an understatement.
Sure, I hadn’t had the best season—a rotator cuff tear that had me spending more time at the physio than on the pitch hadn’t helped—but you would think the nearly ten years I’d played for Dublin would have garnered some goodwill for my future. Apparently not.
“So that’s it then?” I raised my head and met my agent’s sharp eyes.
“Maybe not,” Sean answered, reaching into his desk and pulling out an unmarked folio. “I know you want to finish out your career in Dublin, but I put some feelers out to see if another team might be interested.”
“What?” I barked, furious he’d gone against my wishes.
“Calm down. You may not have anticipated this, but I did. Dublin is building a team of young academy players with an eye to the future, and Ireland wants to focus on guys who can play through 2023. You’re too old for that to be a legitimate prospect.”
I wanted to tell Sean that he was out of his fucking mind, but at thirty-two, it’d be a goddamn miracle if my body held out long enough for Japan. As it was, I’d spent almost a year sidelined with injury, and once that happened, getting back to peak physical condition was the exception, not the rule.
“You know I’m right. I can see it in your eyes. And you know as well as I do that McConnell kid is the future. He had some great games while you were out, which was all they needed to justify that.” He notched his head toward the contract I held clenched in my hands.
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his desk, his fingers forming a steeple against his lips. “Good money to be found in Edinburgh though.”
“I can’t go to Scotland, Sean.”
“I don’t want to be insensitive, but what’s keeping you here?”
What indeed?
“Fuck,” I muttered, dropping my head into my hands. “Can this year get any worse?”
“You really want me to answer that?”
“No,” I responded with a sigh. We both knew my year could have been much worse.
Sean was one of only a handful of people who knew about the crisis I’d barely avoided, and what the toll could have been—both on my personal and my professional life.
“Hey,” he said, his tone gentling. “Do you want to hear what I think?”
I did want his advice, even if I probably wasn’t going to like it. Sean wasn’t just my agent; he was also my sister’s husband, and one of my closest friends. He had my best interest at heart.
I blew out a thick breath and nodded.
“Edinburgh could be what you need. Ever since The Incident—” he used his fingers to make air quotes “—you’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. It might be good to go somewhere you don’t need to be constantly looking over your shoulder.”
“Of course I’ve been stressed.” I laughed cynically. “Blackmail will do that to a man.”
Sean leaned back, holding his hands up in a show of surrender. “Look, I’m not saying you don’t have every reason to be concerned. I don’t trust that asshole not to come back in a couple of years demanding more money. But maybe if you weren’t around to tempt him, we could buy you some more time between now and then.”
“He signed an NDA. Doesn’t that buy me some time?”
He shrugged. “It should. But here’s the thing: nothing actually happens to him if he breaks it. You can threaten to sue him, of course. But if you do, everyone finds out anyhow. He’s probably not smart enough to have figured that out yet, but when he does, it’s only a matter of time until he asks for more money or releases the pictures.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, having long ago run out of eloquent ways to express how I felt about what had happened with Conor Henry. Not for the first time, I wished I’d never met the asshole. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as my gran liked to say.
“Go to Edinburgh, Liam,” Sean urged. “You’ll make good money, and while you’re there, you can figure out the other thing.”
I raised my eyes to his. “There’s nothing to figure out. It was a one-time deal.”
He studied me intently for a few beats. “Okay,” he nodded eventually. “But even if it wasn’t, you know you always have our support.”
While technically what had happened with Conor was a one-time thing, I hated making a liar of myself. For years, I’d avoided my desires, but now that I’d acted on that curiosity, I didn’t know if I could deny that part of myself anymore.
The truth was that while I loved pussy, I also obviously liked cock.
Or rather, I liked another man sucking mine—not something accepted in my world. And with Conor’s threat hanging over my head, I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to keep my secret hidden.
Rugby was more inclusive than other sports, but there were zero openly gay players on any major team’s roster. Gareth Thomas had hung up his boots a long time ago, and Nigel Owens was a referee. The best in the world, as it happened, and even then you still heard slurs aimed at him.
Guys like Declan O’Shaughnessy and Aidan Quark wouldn’t give two shits where I liked to stick my dick, but the other lads? Sad to say, you still heard jokes in the locker room sometimes. Hell, I’d laughed at a few of them myself over the years.
But I’d changed.
I didn’t hate who I was, but I wasn’t looking forward to others hating me for it, either. I didn’t want to see disgust over my sexuality in the eyes of the lads I’d stood next to in the showers. Coming to terms personally with it had been hard enough; explaining it publicly wasn’t the sort of pressure I wanted to deal with.
Not at this point in my career, at any rate. Maybe if I was just starting out and looking to make a name for myself, I might feel differently. But I had a reputation and a legacy at stake.
I knew that made me a coward, but I had no interest in becoming the poster boy for professional gay athletes—especially since I wasn’t even sure how this would all play out.
Just because I’d loved shoving my cock down Conor’s throat didn’t mean I was about to go out and fuck some random guy—or get fucked by one either. Blow jobs were one thing, but that was a whole other can of worms. One I didn’t know if I was ready to open. One I didn’t know if I’d ever be prepared to explore.
You’re fooling yourself, my subconscious sneered. Now that you’ve had a taste of the forbidden, you want more.
Which meant I needed to get the fuck away from Conor Henry and the turmoil he could cause me. Because even though I wanted to murder him, I also really wanted to fuck him.
Properly.
And that meant I needed to leave.
I dropped my head back and stared at Sean’s ceiling for a few beats. With a weary sigh, I made my decision.
“Make the deal,” I said, my head falling forward.
Sean nodded once, his lips lifting with satisfaction.
“And wipe that shit-eating grin off your face,” I said, pushing up and out of my seat.
Back in my car, I took a few moments to recalibrate.
Life had been so much easier before The Night That Had Changed Everything, but Edinburgh could be my best opportunity for a fresh start. Now, I just had to decide what that fresh start would be.
Did I allow myself the pleasures I’d only recently discovered? Was I even ready for that? I’d waited almost twenty years to act on my attraction to men. Surely I could keep my dick in line for a few more—at least until I hung up my boots.
I was a player known for my instincts on the pitch. But off it? They’d led me to Conor’s apartment at three o’clock in the morning. Not that I necessarily regretted that experience; I only wished I’d chosen someone more trustworthy. Someone who wouldn’t choose to blackmail me for it afterward.
The saddest part was, even with that hanging over my head like a death shroud, I probably would have done it all over again.
I’d been drawn to him like a moth to a flame from the very first second. He was the physical embodiment of every dark fantasy I’d ever had—and he’d known it, too.
What a fucking cliche I’d turned out to be. I rolled my eyes as I recalled that night all over again.
When he’d cornered me in a dark hall leading to the VIP section of the club and whispered in my ear how badly he wanted to drop to his knees and taste me, I’d nearly come right then and there. But it was when he’d palmed my cock through my jeans and kissed me hungrily, licking his way inside my mouth and sucking on my tongue, that I gave in. With a groan, I’d fisted his hair in my hands and passed the point no return at warp speed.
Through hungry pants and whispered moans, I explained that I’d never been with another guy before. He’d laughed breezily, promising to be gentle. Then he’d grabbed my hand and led me out of the building through the back door. When we reached my car, he promised not to push me further than I was ready. He also promised that I’d never forget his mouth on my cock.
At least in that, he hadn’t been lying.
But when I’d told him I wouldn’t stay the night and that I couldn’t actually fuck him, he’d revealed his true colors.
Instead of looking back on that night as one of the most sublime of my life, I’d forever remember Conor Henry as the man who’d used my vulnerability against me. The one who’d abused the trust I’d placed in him.
He’d ruined something I’d been longing for my whole life, leaving me riddled with guilt and remorse.
Maybe, I thought, my instincts weren’t so sharp after all. Because if they were, I would never have kissed Conor while in the background Michael Jackson sang about the way someone made him feel, how they really turned him on. I would never have returned his hungry stares or encouraged his advances.
But I had, and that had led me here.
Now, I just needed to decide what I did next. Because right now the only thing I was sure of was that I wasn’t sure of anything.
USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Norinne writes sexy romance from the heart. When not banging away at the keyboard, she is watching rugby, playing board games, or drinking a pint of craft beer.
Originally from California, she now resides in New England with her husband and two cats where she is renovating a house built in the 1700s and trying valiantly not to be eaten alive by mosquitos.
Break Me #4
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