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  At fourteen, Taylor Ashby had a schoolgirl crush on Rhett. Who could ignore the hotter than hell senior quarterback of the football team? But he left for college before she had her chance and went on to be the hottest quarterback in the NFL, a world away from little Dixon, Texas.

  Ten years later, Rhett Banes comes home after a very public divorce that caused his world to come crashing down. Coming home, he hopes he can remember the man he was before all the glitz and the money screwed with his head.

  When Rhett comes across his best friend's little sister all grown up, he can barely keep his hands to himself. But Taylor isn't the same little girl who had an infatuation. She's all woman and might be too much for him to handle—especially when a woman is what got him into trouble in the first place.

  Sacking the Quarterback

  by

  Alexandra O’Hurley

  M/F, ORAL SEX, ANAL SEX, ANAL PLAY

  Twisted Erotica Publishing, Inc.

  www.twistederoticapublishing.com

  A TWISTED EROTICA PUBLISHING BOOK

  Sacking the Quarterback

  Copyright © 2014 by Alexandra O’Hurley

  Edited by Marie Medina

  First E-book Publication: January 2014, SMASHWORDS EDITION

  Cover design by K Designs

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2014, Twisted Erotica Publishing.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To the Ravens—I might have wept that our playoff shot was lost but at least it spurred on an idea.

  Sacking the Quarterback

  Prologue

  Ten years ago…

  Taylor Ashby spied Rhett Banes through the crowd of tipsy partygoers, her heart beating a staccato in her ears. In the relaxed setting, the moonlight hitting his tanned skin only made him all the dreamier. Waves crashed against the beach where a dozen or so cars had parked, the collective headlights and radios giving them all the light and music they needed. A chilly breeze blustered up from the water and cooled her heated skin as she thought of what she should say when she finally told him her secret. She’d had a crush on him for years, but he’d always seen her as Jennings’ little sister. She was almost fifteen and becoming a woman. Surely he could see that.

  Taylor had to make him see. If she could just muster her courage.

  It was the night before Rhett went away to college on a full ride football scholarship, and she knew tonight was her last chance to make an impression of some kind. After two years of an intense crush, her heart was breaking. Rhett was leaving, and her life would never be the same.

  She clasped the cup of warm beer in her hand. She’d only choked down about half of it, wishing she’d drunk faster when it had still been slightly cold. The taste was revolting, but there was no way she was going to look like a little girl with all the seniors surrounding her. It was amazing enough she’d been allowed into the party as a freshman. Or rather, rising sophomore, as she technically had passed the threshold. She wasn’t a little girl anymore.

  Tonight, she had to show Rhett what she was made of. His girlfriend, Maria, sat on his lap, laughing and babbling to her friends, acting as if she had not a care in the world. Did she not mourn the fact her boyfriend was leaving? Did she not see this was terrible? Of course she didn’t, because now she’d be free to fuck her way through the county.

  Taylor happened to know Maria had already screwed half the senior class, as she’d overheard Jennings telling another one of their friends what a whore she was and how bad he felt not sharing the info with Rhett. Her brother had been too scared to hurt his friend’s feelings, but Taylor didn’t share the same concern.

  Maria wasn’t good enough for Rhett.

  Taylor looked through lowered lashes, watching his every move. He was eighteen and perfect. His body was strong and lean, his long legs making him tower over everyone there. Rhett’s short dark locks were just long enough to push her fingers through, which she dreamed of doing as he kissed her passionately, a fitting farewell. His ready smile and laughter made goose bumps skitter across her arms.

  Tonight he’d finally see her and she’d have a college boyfriend. He could drive home on weekends and they could neck in his old pickup truck. She could head up on game weekends; she was sure she could get Jennings to take her.

  A siren sounded and everyone scurried around, jumping in cars. Panic struck Taylor. No! No! This couldn’t be happening. Tonight was her last chance to tell Rhett. As the police cars got closer Taylor looked for the boy she’d come with, but he was nowhere in sight. Of course, she’d ditched him almost as soon as she’d gotten there so she could check out Rhett, so it was her own damned fault.

  “Come on,” a deep voice said.

  Taylor looked up and saw Rhett holding a hand out to her. Her heart beat through her chest, amazed he’d come for her.

  “Come on! Jennings would have my ass if I let you get caught,” he cried. “I should’ve called him the minute I saw you.”

  Deflated by his comment, she took his hand anyway and let him lead her to the back of a pickup truck. She climbed in along with a half dozen other people and hunkered down. Near the tailgate, she pouted a little as she watched Rhett go toward the cab to sit beside Maria. He slapped his hand on the roof and the truck took off, bouncing over the sand dunes.

  Taylor held on for dear life, the speed the driver was going much too fast for the hilly sandbanks. Her stomach was instantly in her throat, the sensation of vomiting coming over her. Damned beer! She worked hard to hold down the need to throw up, but the more they bounced, the worse she felt. Finally she twisted to her knees and held her head over the back end of the truck. No way was she going to embarrass herself by upchucking all over everyone in the truck. She’d never live it down.

  The truck hit a monstrous dune, the tires coming off the ground before impact. The force of the resulting bump threw Taylor clear from the truck. She hit the sandy shore too fast, the shells and sand scraping and cutting her skin as she rolled and skidded across the surface. When she came to a stop, she laid there for a moment, not sure she should move at all.

  After her heart calmed a little and once the nausea settled, and she was absolutely sure nothing major was ruptured, she rose on her elbows to watch the truck’s lights dimming the farther they drove.

  They hadn’t even stopped.

  Had anyone noticed she’d fallen? Did they even care? The truck had been at the back of the pack of cars, so she was now lying stranded out in the middle of nowhere, with no help on the way, unless she headed toward the cops and admitted she was at an underaged kegger. Her parents would be so proud.

  Taylor slowly stood, fidgeting in her pocket for her cell phone—which didn’t seem to be there. She looked around her a little to see if she could find the damned thing, but in the moonlight, she couldn’t see much except shining, wet sand. It was at least five miles to the nearest pay phone and her body already ached from the fall. She’d only feel worse as the night wore on.

  Hot tears prickled the backs of her eyes. She let them fall as she started walking home. Not only had she missed her chance to have her moment with Rhett, she’d seen just how little he cared about her.

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  “The last time I saw Rhett Banes, it was from the back of a pickup truck as I fell out of the bed and onto the sand dunes. They didn’t even stop for me. They left me on the beach
, scraped and with my ego torn to shreds. I had to walk home. It took me four hours, and I ended up getting grounded for two months.”

  “Taylor, it was so late, you woulda been grounded even if they’d taken you right home, so you can’t blame Rhett for that,” Ava said before chuckling. “And he wasn’t even driving that night. Are you honestly going to tell me you’re still holding on to a ten year grudge?”

  Taylor crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “And if I am? He should’ve noticed I wasn’t there anymore. Not one of them called to see if I was okay. What if I’d been really hurt?” She knew it was silly and immature, but he’d left the next day for college and she’d not seen him since. Her puppy dog crush had broken her heart in that moment, and even if a decade had passed, it still stung.

  “I’m sorry that happened, but it wasn’t Rhett’s fault you fell. It wasn’t his fault you’d drunk too much that night, trying to get his attention, either. I mean, come on, he was the senior star quarterback and you were a nothing freshman. What did you expect? You were lucky to have even been invited into the back of the truck in the first place.”

  “I had half a beer. It was the wild ride in the dunes that made me feel like throwing up. And how do you call it lucky? I still have skid marks from falling out of that truck.”

  “Be thankful you fell on sand and not pavement, or you’d really have some scars. Get over it,” Ava snapped.

  “My one chance to make an impression on that man was ruined.” Taylor looked around the shabby bar. “And maybe if I hadn’t fallen, my life would’ve been different.”

  “Different how? You’re about to graduate and make something of yourself. What’s so wrong with that?”

  “I’m still stuck here.” Taylor went back to wiping down the bar.

  “There’s nothing wrong with here,” Ava hissed. Her father’s bar, The Sports Shack, was the local watering hole and had been for decades. The beer was cold, the ten flat screens always sports filled, and the waitresses scantily clad, like a bad knock-off of a Hooters her father had seen on one of his trips to Houston a couple of decades before. “What, did you expect him to notice you that night and whisk you away with him or something?”

  Bingo! Yes, it had been a silly teenaged fantasy, but she’d seen Rhett as her way out of Dixon. Then she’d grown up and realized no woman should rely on a man for that and she’d focused on her education. She’d watched plenty of her friends get pregnant, married, and rooted to the land they were born in.

  They’d probably die in Dixon, too.

  Not her. But then, it seemed she was near to invisible when it came to the opposite sex, so it’s not like she had worries. It wasn’t that she was unattractive, or she didn’t think so, at least. The problem was she was either their buddy or the guy was one of her brother’s friends, so she was forever in the friend’s zone. Luckily, that had helped her focus on school all the more.

  “I know I wasn’t leaving here with him.” Taylor pulled her short shorts down a bit, glad she wouldn’t have to wear them much longer. Hopefully. She graduated in the spring, and if she could land a job with that master’s degree, she’d be on her way. “Here hasn’t changed in twenty years, so hell yes, I want out.”

  Ava smiled as she went back to refilling the cutting lemons for the bar. “I tell you your high school crush is coming back to town, and this is the thanks I get? I don’t need a reminder of how backwards this place can be, but you know what? There are a lot of good things here, too. You need to focus on the positive. But no, now I’ll have to work the entire shift with your poutin’ ass. And here I thought you might see it as a second chance.”

  “A second chance? He just got a divorce and came crawlin’ back to mama to lick his wounds. The last thing he’ll be thinking about is me.”

  “He mighta come crawlin’ back to mama, but from what I hear, he’s thinking about setting down roots here in Dixon. Lula said he went out to the old Lutz farm out on one-eighty, checking the place out. Might buy it, from the sounds of it.”

  Taylor sucked in a breath. The Lutz farm had been abandoned four years before, and no one had had the money to buy all that acreage in the downturned economy. It was also right next door to Taylor’s parents’ place. She’d spent most of her childhood getting chased outta the pond by old Mr. Lutz, or kicked out of his orchard. Taylor had just liberated some apples that fall for her mama to bake some pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

  “That sure quieted you down,” Ava said, giggling. “If I had a tall, dark, and handsome man coming to live next door to me, I think it would get my mind whirling, too.”

  Taylor threw her bar towel at Ava. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t even make a blip on his radar then, and I doubt I will now. Plus, the years might not have been kind. He coulda let himself go for all I know.”

  Ava stopped what she was doing and turned to stare at Taylor open mouthed. “Don’t even pretend you don’t watch every game on Sunday and know exactly what that man looks like. There isn’t a hotter QB in the NFL. There isn’t a hotter man in all of East Texas.”

  Taylor mumbled under her breath, knowing she’d been caught red-handed. She did watch every single game. His hair was a little shorter than it had been in high school, the dark waves no longer curling at the ends. The locks still screamed for her to run her fingers through them. She wondered if they were as soft as they looked. She also wondered if the devilish look she’d once spied in his baby blues was still there.

  “That body just doesn’t stop. I mean, he was always hot in high school, but since college and the pros, he is a lean, mean, hunka man. He’s what, at least six-six, right?” Ava asked. “And those shoulders … and that chest. I could eat him up with a spoon.”

  “You’ve got a boyfriend,” Taylor snapped, aware she sounded totally ridiculous. How could she be jealous of Ava noticing Rhett was gorgeous? She didn’t own him.

  “A boyfriend? I’ve got a loser I can’t get rid of.” Ava laughed. “Admit it. You’ve still got the hots for the guy.”

  Taylor stopped wiping down the bar and looked up at Ava. “It was a silly crush when I was fourteen. He barely knew I existed. Then life moved on.” Yet the thought of him puts me right back there on that beach as I watched the truck pull away.

  “Good. I’m glad you see it that way. It won’t be so difficult when he shows up tonight.”

  Taylor stopped breathing for a moment. “What did you say?”

  “He’s meeting up with some of the old team members for a little reunion. Jennings called earlier and reserved a table for tonight,” Ava said, a smile spreading her face wide after the words spilled from her lips.

  Jennings was Taylor’s older brother and had played Center to Rhett’s QB. He hadn’t said a word about Rhett being back or meeting up with him, the bastard. She would deal with him later. Taylor took a deep breath. It was a decade old crush and she needed to get control of herself. She hadn’t even really known the guy and just because he was coming home didn’t mean she had another chance.

  She just wished the butterflies in her belly would listen to her logic.

  Taylor tugged at the edge of her short shorts again, humiliated he’d see her in her waitress gear. Her too-big boobs were on show in the tight tank top, and her ass was barely covered. She was much too curvy to run around like that, but Ava had talked her into helping them out for a while and she’d just never left. She’d stayed because the tips were high and her tuition was too. Thanks to Ava’s dad and that job, she’d walk away from college nearly debt free.

  “Well, they’ll all be here later tonight, about nine,” Ava said.

  Good. I get off at ten, so I’ll only have to put up with them for an hour or so. Taylor took a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face. She could handle an hour of humiliation.

  Chapter Two

  Everett “Rhett” Banes drove through the center of Dixon, the town the seat for Dixon County. He’d been born and raised there, and it was incredibly welcoming tha
t it hadn’t changed one bit in the decade he’d been gone. After the shit-storm he’d just handled over the last year, he was quite glad to be back. A much-publicized divorce had been bad enough, but he hadn’t realized the depth of gold digging his ex would show until he’d faced her across the table with his attorney by his side.

  Instead of fighting tooth and nail, he’d just given her almost everything she’d wanted just to be rid of her. He’d been naïve when he met her, new to the big city and the women who targeted pro players just to get a ring on their finger and access to the bank account.

  Bitter? Yeah, maybe just a little.

  Once the smoke had cleared, his mama had told him to come home and get his head on straight. As soon as his team had lost the Wild Card match they’d needed to get into the playoffs, he’d packed a bag and jumped on the first flight to Houston. That loss had everything to do with his mental state, and if wanted to keep playing in the NFL, he needed to do something drastic. Now he was home. Some home cooking, old friends, and some quiet reflection was exactly what he needed for the off-season. Next year, he needed to focus on winning, not bank accounts and divorce hearings.

  Tonight, his best friend from high school had planned a get together with his old team, just to sit around, shoot the shit, see what was going on, and reminisce a little.

  It sounded like heaven.

  He pulled into the Sport Shack’s lot, the stones crunching under his truck’s tires. Rhett turned off his truck and slid out, the early February night colder than usual. He brushed his arms up and down instead of grabbing a coat as he quickly walked to the door. As soon as he was inside, the warbling country on the jukebox and the rowdy yells and catcalls hit his ears. A smile crossed his face as he saw Jennings first thing. He walked over and gave his friend a big bear hug.