Roman: A Raleigh Raptor Novel Read online

  Roman

  A Raleigh Raptor Novel

  Samantha Whiskey

  Contents

  Also By Samantha Whiskey

  Now Available in Audio!

  1. Roman

  2. Teagan

  3. Roman

  4. Teagan

  5. Roman

  6. Teagan

  7. Roman

  8. Teagan

  9. Roman

  10. Teagan

  11. Roman

  12. Teagan

  13. Roman

  14. Teagan

  15. Roman

  16. Teagan

  17. Roman

  18. Teagan

  19. Roman

  20. Teagan

  21. Roman

  Epilogue

  Axel Sneak Peek!

  AXEL Chapter One

  Connect With Me!

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright © 2020 by Samantha Whiskey, LLC 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.

  Also By Samantha Whiskey

  The Seattle Sharks Series:

  Grinder

  Enforcer

  Winger

  Rookie

  Blocker

  Skater

  Bruiser

  Wheeler

  Defender

  The Carolina Reapers Series:

  Axel

  Sawyer

  Connell

  Logan

  Cannon

  The Raleigh Raptors Series:

  Nixon

  Roman

  A Modern-Day Fairytale Romance:

  The Crown

  The Throne

  Now Available in Audio!

  Grinder

  Enforcer

  Winger

  Rookie

  Let the Seattle Sharks spice up your morning commute!

  To those who fight with every inch of their soul

  1

  Roman

  “It’s only a twenty-minute drive!” Hendrix shouted through my cell phone over the heavy beat blaring from the club I’d left an hour ago.

  “Come on, Walt,” I said gently, ignoring Hendrix’s demand and ushering my German Shepherd back into the house. Not that I needed to be quiet for the neighbors or anything. My house was in the middle of ten acres, all of which I owned.

  “Only you would give that beast an old man’s name,” Hendrix laughed.

  “Walter Payton was arguably the best running back the game has ever seen,” I countered, shutting the sliding glass door behind me.

  “Right. And we can have that debate when you get your ass back down here. Come on. There are more women than I can handle alone,” he whined. Right, because I hadn’t seen him take three women back to his place before.

  “I highly doubt that.” I tapped the speakerphone button and set my phone on the kitchen counter. “And no. It’s already after midnight.” Besides, I wasn’t in the mood for anonymous sex tonight.

  “For fuck’s sake,” he grumbled. “You’re twenty-six, not sixty-seven. Drive your sober ass back here. Make a night of it. Start your workout two hours later tomorrow. Hell, I’ll even run with you. You haven’t seen these women.”

  “Let me guess. Nice legs. Great tits. Insert hair color here, and they’re huge Raptor fans?” I grabbed a Fiji water out of the fridge and twisted the top open.

  “Well…yeah.”

  “Then trust me, I have seen those women.” They were the same women who had been at my door since freshman year at UNC, the ones who started lingering at the hotel bar when I signed with the Raptors four years ago. They were more interested in the numbers in my bank account and on the back of my jersey than they were in the guy wearing it, and it was getting old.

  Brunettes and redheads—I’d taken them all to bed.

  All but the blondes.

  Never the blondes.

  “So…you’re coming back, right? Because I’m telling you there’s this set of twins who told me they were down for running a play with Roman Padilla, if you get my meaning.”

  “I get your meaning.” I chugged half the bottle and waited for him to get the point.

  The song changed in the background as Hendrix sighed. “You’re not coming, are you?”

  “Nope.” Walt set his head on the counter, and I rubbed behind his ears.

  “You suck.”

  I grinned. “No, but one of them might. You have a good time and remember to wrap it up. They’re not all Liberty’s out there.”

  Nixon—our team’s quarterback and one of my closest friends—and his wife, Liberty, may have had a surprise pregnancy from a one-night stand, but that was fate in action. She was a one-of-a-kind woman, and Nixon was lucky as hell to have her.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  I ended the call and made sure Walt had water before heading toward the living room.

  My realtor had gushed about my home’s modern farmhouse design, whatever the hell that meant. I wasn’t keeping cows out back or anything, but I liked that the ceilings were high, and the space was open.

  I glanced over at the giant, black-and-white canvas print Teagan had given me as a housewarming gift when I bought this house with my signing bonus. We were eleven in the picture, arms linked around each other’s shoulders, grinning like fools with hair soaked from the sprinkler our parents had set up on the lawn in front of our linked houses.

  She’d moved in next door when we were four years old, and we’d been best friends from that day on. For fourteen years, we were separated only by the wall between our bedrooms, always reaching out to the other with secret knocks that could carry through the flimsy construction. By high school, we’d moved on to the cell phones that kept us connected when we both got accepted to UNC.

  I loosed a sigh and ripped my hand over my hair, refusing to let my thoughts go down that path tonight. What if’s were endless when you watched everything you wanted slip right through your stupid, foolish, fingers.

  “You know what happens when you wait too long to tell your best friend that you’re in love with her, Walt?” I asked as I sank into the soft leather sofa. He climbed up next to me, sprawling his limbs over the remainder of the couch and settling his head in my lap. “You take her to your first official Raptor party, and she falls for your teammate.”

  Walt whined slightly, and I shifted my water to the other hand so I could get back to the business of petting, the big baby.

  “Exactly. It’s bullshit. And seriously, did it have to be Rick-the-dick-Baker? He’s nowhere near good enough for her.”

  Walt groaned.

  “I know I said we were done talking about it, and we are,” I assured him. “But it’s been three years, and one day that misogynistic asshole is going to pop the question and then we’re going to have to watch our girl—”

  Headlights flashed through the living room window as a car rounded the curve of my winding driveway.

  “What the fuck?” Both Walt and I got on our feet. There were only a handful of people who knew the code to the gate, and I sincerely
doubted Mom and Dad were popping by for a midnight snack.

  I had the front door open by the time the white Mercedes parked in the loop of my driveway. The humid southern night air and recognition hit me simultaneously. Teagan was here?

  My stomach tightened with a sense of foreboding as I headed down the sidewalk, Walt at attention by my side. The second Teagan stepped out of the car, he relaxed, thumping my thigh with his wagging tail. He caught on the same second I did, and the wagging stopped. She stumbled around the hood of the car, tears streaking down her heart-shaped face.

  Holy shit.

  “Teag—” I started. She was in my arms before I finished calling her name.

  “I’m sorry, Roman,” she blurted into my chest. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.” Her words came so quickly that I barely caught them, but her panic was palpable.

  “Jesus, Teagan, you’re shaking.” I held her tight. “What’s going on?”

  She shook her head, gripping my shirt in her fists like she needed an anchor. I needed answers before I lost my shit. I’d only seen her this upset once before, and I’d ended up in a fucking bar fight with her douchebag ex sophomore year.

  “Teagan. Honey,” I pulled back gently, bracing my hands on her upper arms so I could get a good look at her.

  She winced and scrambled backward, yanking down the short sleeves of her t-shirt to cover fresh, reddish-purple bruises in the shape of fingerprints…from a Rick-sized hand.

  “What the fuck happened?” My voice dropped low.

  “I didn’t know where to go.” She batted away a tear as she rushed an explanation, but only specific words cut through the haze of anger in my head. “…birth control…but he found the pills…he’s never been this bad before...”

  Every muscle in my body locked.

  “But then he put me into the wall—” she crumpled.

  “It’s okay.” I wrapped my arms around her partially to keep her from shaking, and partially to hide the rage I knew had to be apparent in my eyes. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” she cried.

  “Here. You come here. Always.” I tucked her underneath my chin as my thoughts swirled a mile a minute.

  First and foremost, I was going to fucking murder Rick Baker.

  Another set of headlights flashed around the curve, and I instinctively held Teagan tighter. That had to be Rick. Had to give it to the guy—he had the balls to drive himself to his own execution.

  Teagan gasped. “He must have followed me through the gate. Oh God, Roman…you have to get inside.” She untangled herself from my arms and tried to put herself to rights.

  “Me get inside?” I gawked at my best friend.

  “I can handle him,” she promised, swiping her cheeks dry.

  “Fuck that. You shouldn’t have to.” I swept her into my arms and strode to my front door.

  “Roman!”

  “I’m not arguing with you.” I set her on her feet inside my entry hall, then faced Walt. “Guard Teagan.”

  He immediately sat at her side, his ears perked. The thing about Walt? He was harmless…until he wasn’t.

  “Roman,” she whispered, fear lacing her tone.

  “I’ll be fine. He’s the one who should worry,” I promised her as I shut the door behind me. My arms swung loosely at my side as I made my way back to Teagan’s car, which she’d left running. Rick now sat behind the wheel, and he killed her engine.

  Control. You have to stay in complete control.

  My anger iced over, becoming something even more dangerous.

  He snarled and slammed her driver’s side door with enough force that my jaw locked, not in fear, but in disgust. Is this the face he used on Teagan when no one was looking?

  “Who the hell do you think—oh, hey, Padilla.” Rick’s features smoothed into a practiced smile I knew all too well. I saw it every day at practice, on the field, and in the post-game interviews.

  Fuck him. I didn’t slow my approach as he came toward me, hands up in supplication.

  “Look, I know she’s your friend, but Teagan is my woman, and we had a little spat tonight. Nothing to get your panties in a twist over, I promise. I just want to talk to her.” He flashed that smile again.

  I stepped into the stream of his headlights and punched him in the jaw with a satisfying crack, the force spinning him toward Teagan’s car.

  “What the hell?” He shouted, grabbing his jaw and rotating it.

  “I hope it’s fucking broken, you piece of shit,” I said slowly. Rick had an inch and fifteen pounds on my six-foot frame, but I had enough righteous anger to make up the difference and then some.

  “Look, I’m not sure what she told you, but we both know my Teagan can be a little dramatic.” He gave me the locker room look. The one that said, between us boys.

  “Teagan belongs to herself,” I snapped. “But if you ever lay a finger on her again, your balls will belong to me. Now get the fuck off my property before I let Walt take preemptive custody.”

  Walt barked as if in agreement, the sound clear…and close. I didn’t need to turn around to know that Teagan now stood on the front porch. It wasn’t in her nature to stay hidden while someone fought her battles for her.

  Hopefully she realized this was still her battle—I was simply her weapon.

  “You’re fucking mine, you understand?” he shouted toward her. “I own you. I own everything about you! This car? It’s in my name.” He flung his arms out and sneered. The trickle of blood from his split lip gave me a small spark of satisfaction, but it wasn’t enough to pay for what he’d done to her.

  “Three,” I said softly.

  Rick’s gaze flickered toward mine before nailing Teagan with another glare. “When you’re done hiding from what you’ve done, I’ll be at home. Where you belong. You’re the one who hurt me, Teag—”

  “Two.”

  Rick’s eyes widened slightly, and he put his hands up again. “Fucking fine. Stay here with your little friend. We both know you’ll be back. After all, I still have all your shit.” He chucked her car keys into the shrubs that lined my porch, then got into his car and drove away.

  I stood in the driveway with my cell phone out, watching the gate’s security camera though the app. I didn’t relax until Baker’s car was off my land, and the gate locked behind him.

  Then my hand started to throb like a bitch.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, shaking it out as I walked back up my sidewalk.

  Teagan waited on the porch, then followed me in with Walt. I used every deep breathing exercise in my arsenal to shed my anger and managed to be relatively cool when I faced her again.

  She had enough worries—I wasn’t going to be one of them.

  “He’s right,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her middle and looking up at me with the bluest eyes in the state of North Carolina. They’d always been her secret weapon—so secret she wasn’t even aware of the power they held over me. Damn, she was beautiful. “He has all my stuff. The bank account is in his name. My car. My phone. Everything is in his name. How could I have been so stupid?”

  I pulled her into my arms and held her close. “You’re not stupid.”

  “He said he was taking care of me. That he wanted me to focus on my art, and he’d take care of the rest.” She sucked in a stuttered breath. “What am I going to do?”

  I cupped her cheeks in my hands and tilted her face toward mine. “You’re going to stay here for as long as you want.”

  “So I can just mooch off of you?” Her brow furrowed.

  “We had a deal,” I reminded her with a quick smile, flashing the dimple I knew was my secret weapon when it came to women—not that Teagan had ever seen me as anything more than a friend. That had always been the difference between us. I’d wanted her since the day I’d realized why I liked those curves of hers so much—we’d been fifteen.

  She’d made it crystal clear that this was only friendship—that
she’d never be one of my women. I should have set her straight when we were teenagers. She wasn’t one of my women. She was the only woman that mattered. Period.

  “We had a deal?” Her eyes narrowed as she repeated my statement.

  “Remember? Whoever hit it big first had to let the other live with them.” I shrugged. “I just happened to hit it big first, so now I have to pay up.”

  “We were twelve.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Wait…so the promises we made back then don’t matter? Because if that’s the case, I no longer have to keep cookies ‘n cream ice cream stocked in my freezer at all times.” That promise had been made at eleven, during one of her mother’s let’s-obsess-over-Teagan’s-weight phases.

  The woman had never quite understood that Teagan was perfectly shaped to begin with, and as she’d grown into her figure, those lush curves weren’t just healthy—they were sexy as fuck.

  “Hey, no ditching the ice cream,” she protested, the corners of her pink, kissable lips ticking upward into something that almost resembled a smile.

  “Then accept the fact that you living here is simply fulfilling the terms of a verbal contract we made sixteen years ago.” I stroked my thumbs over her tear-streaked cheekbones and felt her melt slightly with surrender.

  “Fine. But only if you agree not to hammer me with questions tonight,” she finished quietly. The plea in her eyes was impossible to ignore.

  “You’re going to have to tell me eventually.” My stomach tensed and threatened to flip at the nauseating possibility that this wasn’t the first time he’d left a mark on her.