Risky Game Read online

  Praise for the Out of Bounds Novels

  GAME ON

  “A winning romantic thriller . . . Empathetic characters and heartbreakingly plausible scenarios that move at a fast clip, with a heart-pounding finale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Solid storytelling, sharp dialogue, and genuine, sympathetic characters . . . An . . . enjoyable and very entertaining read.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “A wonderful debut novel.”

  —Bookpushers Reviews

  “Purchase this book ASAP!”

  —Dark Faerie Tales

  “Tracy Solheim will have you laughing and cheering and crying as her football hero butts up against the one woman who doesn’t find the Devil of the NFL to be irresistible hot stuff. If you’re missing Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Chicago Stars, then it’s time to meet Shane Devlin.”

  —Rendezvous Books

  “Refreshing contemporary . . . A surprisingly deep romance.”

  —Bookaholics

  “Game On is a novel that has a lot going for it.”

  —Book Binge

  “Five stars for Foolish Games! A recommended read!”

  —Harlequin Junkies

  “Foolish Games is a very touching and beautiful story of forgiveness, trust, and love.”

  —HEAs Are Us

  “Betrayal, babies, and blazing hot passion—Foolish Games has it all! Tracy Solheim has delivered an engaging sports romance with her second Out of Bounds novel.”

  —Wit and Sin

  “Foolish Games delivers an engaging love story between two realistically flawed characters that are perfect for each other, tempered with the right amount of heat and sweetness.”

  —Ramblings From This Chick

  “When a story has the ability to grasp a reader’s time, energy, and good intention, then the author has written a stellar work. This book (Foolish Games) had all that and so much more.”

  —Dark Faerie Tales

  Berkley Sensation titles by Tracy Solheim

  GAME ON

  FOOLISH GAMES

  RISKY GAME

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  RISKY GAME

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with Sun Home Productions, LLC.

  Copyright © 2014 by Sun Home Productions, LLC.

  Excerpt by Tracy Solheim copyright © 2014 by Sun Home Productions, LLC.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group. BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-0-425-26665-6

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-61754-0

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / May 2014

  Cover art by Claudio Marinesco.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise for Tracy Solheim

  Titles by Tracy Solheim

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from the first book in the Second Chance series

  This one is dedicated to the next generation of girl power: Meredith, Kirsten, Jillian, Casey, and Catherine. Don’t just follow your dreams, OWN them.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks, as always, to Cindy Hwang and the wonderful staff at Berkley who guide me through the writing process.

  To my agent, Melissa Jeglinski, thanks for always having my back.

  Also, I couldn’t do this without a dedicated group of beta readers—Melanie, Chris, Mary, Allison, and Kathy. Thanks ladies.

  Thanks to my fellow authors at Women Unplugged, Romancing the Jock, and Georgia Romance Writers for always answering my pleas for help.

  To Kim and the staff at Read It Again, a huge thank you for your support.

  Thanks to the women of Talking Volumes Book Club, the gym rats, the barn moms, the band moms, and my Epiphany People, for understanding when I needed backup—and that was often this year!

  It goes without saying that I couldn’t do this without the love and support of my family, particularly my husband, Greg, and our two works-in-progress, Austin and Meredith. Love you guys.

  Finally, and most importantly, a heartfelt thank-you to all the readers. You are what this is all about and I am truly humbled by your enthusiastic support of my books. You rock!

  Prologue

  From the blog:

  THE GIRLFRIENDS’ GUIDE TO THE NFL

  It’s that time again, girlfriends! Kickoff weekend in the NFL. Men in tight pants fighting over a ball. Yum. And while those macho talking heads on cable are breaking down the plays, we’ll be giving you all the stats you really want to know: the inside scoop on your fantasy players. Ladies, forget about the games, because we all know the real scoring takes place off the field. So let’s get right to it.

  Rumor has it Miami running back Al Stephens and his estranged wife are reuniting—in court that is. According to sources, Stephens will spend his day off next Tuesday in a Dade County courtroom answering to his wife’s claims of infidelity. Prepare yourselves, ladies, because it’s about to get nastier than an episode of the Real Housewives. My spies tell me Step
hens’s wife, Jackie, will be naming the girlfriend of one of his Miami teammates as the other woman. Wouldn’t you just looove to be in that locker room next week?

  Speaking of other women, a little bear told me that Chicago head coach Ray Clooney has not one, but two new ladies in his life—besides his wife, of course. Clooney is apparently the secret father of a daughter with a certain Chicago-area restaurant hostess. No word on Clooney’s wife’s reaction, but I think it’s a safe bet he’ll be dining out for the foreseeable future.

  Finally, the return of the pigskin brings back the fine tight end of Baltimore’s Brody Janik, every girlfriend’s favorite fantasy player. Brody and his sexy baby blues have been lying low this off-season. Apparently, he’s lost interest in a certain flavor of Candi. One has to wonder how—and with whom—he’s been spending his free time.

  Got some football fantasies to share? Maybe a photo of our favorite guys of the gridiron doing something naughty? Send it to us at TGFGTNFL@twitter.

  One

  Shannon “Shay” Everett had been in some compromising positions in her life. Many of them even of her own doing. Growing up in a small town in Texas as the daughter of a down-and-out rodeo rider and a beauty salon owner, the rebellious tomboy had gotten into more embarrassing scrapes than she could reckon. That being said, she never envisioned herself stuffed into a cubby inside an NFL locker room late at night. A locker room that was supposed to be empty. Only it wasn’t.

  Hell’s bells.

  Shay would have kicked her own butt for this little escapade if it wouldn’t call attention to her presence. The guilt she felt over her task had already swayed her to abort the whole thing the minute she’d entered the players’ domain. Not to mention that she was risking her internship with the team and her scholarship along with it. She’d just have to keep riding her bike to work and the bus downtown to campus because the money to replace her car’s muffler wouldn’t be coming from some mystery Internet blogger who paid handsomely for personal information on professional football players. Shay was ashamed for even attempting it, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  Now she just needed to quickly extricate herself from her perch huddled in a dark corner of the Baltimore Blaze’s state-of-the-art locker room. Unfortunately, her punishment was to endure painful pins and needles in her legs and feet as she waited out the room’s other two occupants; both of whom seemingly had all the time in the world. Not that any woman would complain given the view. Standing twenty feet in front of Shay was Blaze tight end and all-American heartthrob Brody Janik.

  A deliciously naked Brody Janik.

  Shay willed her stomach not to growl at the sight before her, but Brody was a spectacular example of grade-A prime athlete in all his physical glory. Her mouth watered as she took in six feet three inches, two hundred ten pounds of perfectly sculpted muscle standing beneath a single shaft of light, the scene reminiscent of a statue of a Greek god on display in a museum somewhere. All that was missing was the pedestal for him to stand on.

  Not that she hadn’t seen nearly this much of his perfect body before. The whole world had. As the spokesman for an international designer’s line of men’s underwear, pictures of Brody wearing nothing but his sparkling blue eyes and his skivvies had been plastered all over billboards and buses for months now. Except tonight, his BVDs were noticeably absent.

  She licked her lips as he scrubbed his neatly trimmed brown hair with a towel, the muscles in his broad back rippling. Her eyes drifted lower to the two fine dimples on his backside—one that saw a lot of sun based on the lack of a discernible tan line. She slammed her eyelids shut as he turned to reach for something out of his locker. Surely this was an invasion of his privacy and she ought not to be looking. Except when would she get another chance like this one?

  She blinked one eye open. Dang! He’d already pulled on a pair of skintight gray boxers, a noticeably abundant bulge hidden beneath the Egyptian cotton.

  “It’s going to be hard to keep this under wraps,” a heavily accented male voice said from the shadows, a few lockers over.

  Ain’t that the truth, Shay thought. She mentally shook herself in an effort to refocus her attention from the sexy scene in front of her and tried to make sense of the conversation. The other voice in the room wasn’t hard to recognize; the distinct accent belonged to Mr. Pomegranate Smoothie with Extra Flaxseed, Brody’s personal trainer, whose last name was something Scandinavian and unpronounceable. Shay only knew him by what he ordered in the Blaze commissary each time he visited.

  “It won’t be that hard, Erik.” Brody tugged on a pair of jeans over his well-defined, long legs as Shay stifled a sigh. He sat down on the folding chair in front of his locker and pulled on his socks and sneakers. “The Piss Man only checks for banned substances. He’s not checking my blood sugar.”

  Pardon? She tore her eyes away from Brody’s still nude torso to concentrate on the words coming out of his wicked mouth. She’d heard the phrase Piss Man before; it was the players’ nickname for the league representative who tested their urine for illegal steroid use. It was the second part of Brody’s sentence that sent Shay’s brain scrambling. Was something up with his blood sugar?

  “That’s not the point.” The fair-haired Dane moved out from the shadows to stand beside Brody’s chair. “What if you get disoriented on the field again and miss a route or a pass? It was only practice today, but it could happen during a game if you can’t keep your sugar regulated.”

  Brody stood up from the chair, his chiseled body elegant and assured as he peered down at the stocky trainer. Good looks, superior athleticism, and an affluent upbringing gave him the confidence to believe he could beat anything. Even, apparently, a problem with his blood sugar.

  “Not gonna happen.” He pulled a black Lacoste polo over his head.

  “You can’t beat it by mainlining Pop-Tarts like you did before your training camp physical,” his trainer persisted. “That ended with you nearly comatose two hours later.”

  Shay worried her bottom lip as she considered the implications of Brody’s predicament. As a PhD candidate in nutrition, she knew full well how the tight end’s fluctuating blood sugar could spell doom for his career. She also didn’t want to contemplate the scenario of him trying to regulate it by himself.

  Brody shoved his sweaty clothes into his mesh bag. “You worry too much. I’ll take precautions before and during games. Whatever I need, I can have on the sidelines or in the locker room during halftime. My plan worked fine during the opening game last week.”

  His friend shook his head. “I’d feel better if you told the training staff. That way, someone could keep an eye on you during the game. You aren’t always aware that your sugar’s dropping until it’s too late.”

  “No. Nobody knows. Not even my family.” The vehemence in Brody’s voice echoed throughout the empty locker room. “I’m in the last year of my contract and my mom is a diabetic. If the team finds out my blood sugar is a little schizophrenic, the negotiations for a new deal will spin out of control. Besides, Nate the Narcissist is a pain in the ass. The guy’s got a real Napoleon complex. He’d lord it over me and take over my life. No thank you, dude.” Brody shuddered as he tossed the bag into the equipment manager’s cage.

  Shay sucked in a breath. Nate, the team’s head trainer, was her boss and she had to agree with Brody’s assessment of him. As her mama would say, Nate was “all hat and no cattle.” It was a relief to know she wasn’t the only one who suffered under the man’s delusions of grandeur.

  When she’d accepted the internship, Shay was told she’d be working with the training staff on the day-to-day nutritional coaching for the players. The information she obtained would be useful in the compilation of her dissertation, an examination of carbohydrates used during peak athletic performance. Instead, Nate had banished her to the team’s cafeteria, telling her the caterer needed extra hands during trainin
g camp. Now, the season was in its second week and he showed no intention of allowing her to move up from food service. By the time Shay realized she wouldn’t get the experience she wanted, all the other internships had been taken. She needed the credits to fulfill a requirement to receive her degree at the end of the semester. Worse still, she wasn’t even getting paid for the work she did.

  “I don’t like the risk you’re taking, Brody.”

  “It’s not a risk. I’ll be fine as long as I make sure to eat a balanced diet every day. I wasn’t diligent during the off-season and I’m paying for it now, that’s all.”

  His trainer let out a harrumph of displeasure.

  Brody’s whole body tensed, his cover-boy jaw firm as he spoke. “I assume this is something we can keep between us. Or do I have to specifically invoke client-trainer confidentiality?”

  The trainer bristled at Brody’s tone. Normally laid-back and carefree, Brody was all business now, forcing his trainer to take a step back.

  “Whoa.” He held his hands up. “I’m on your side, Brody. Of course this stays between us. But you pay me to train and advise you. I’m just giving you my opinion, that’s all.”

  Brody’s face was cool and calculated for a brief moment before relaxing into the boyish charm he was famous for. “Duly noted, Erik.” He slapped the trainer on the back, leading him toward the exit. “Tell you what. You can advise me on what to order for dinner tonight to keep my blood sugar from taking a nosedive.”

  “Are you buying?”

  Brody’s laugh was hollow, almost as if he was resigned to picking up the tab. “Aren’t I always?”

  The room went dark and Shay waited a few minutes before letting out a pained breath as she eased her numb legs out from under her. She sat still for another moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness and her mind to adjust to everything she’d heard. Her heart skipped a beat when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket, its noise loud in the now ghostly locker room.

  “Holy shitake!” she whispered, nearly jumping out of her skin. “Good thing that didn’t go off five minutes ago.” She hadn’t thought to silence her cell phone, innocently assuming the locker room would be empty. Her hand shook as she checked the bright screen to scan her text message. It was from Ken Daly, the manager of Celtic Charm, one of Baltimore’s newest nightclubs.