Misconduct Read online

  Misconduct is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2017 by Nancy Kattenfeld

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9780399593192

  Cover photograph: Masterfile

  randomhousebooks.com

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Samantha Kane

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Carmina sat on her bed and glared at the vibrator. It rested on the nightstand, taunting her. She took a deep breath and blew it out, cracking her neck as she did so, trying to relieve some of her tension. It didn’t help. She stood up and shook out her arms, then jogged in place for a few seconds. There. Better. Her therapy dog, a big mutt named Buster Keaton, raised his head and tilted it to the side as he watched her. She sat back down and drummed the fingers of both hands on her thighs and he put his head back down with a doggy sigh. A glance out of the corner of her eye showed the vibrator still sitting there, waiting. Carmina de la Cruz, you can do this, she told herself firmly. Hundreds, thousands, millions of women do it every day. No big, right? Looking around the room, she blew out another breath. Of course she couldn’t get off. This place looked like a military barracks. There was no atmosphere. Nothing about the beige walls and carpet and plain white sheets in her room said sexy. They screamed boring head case. Ugh.

  Determinedly, she popped up off the bed and turned off the overhead light. Too dark. She flipped it back on. Now it felt like the vibrator was going to interrogate her. Yeah, that sounded sexy for sure. She snorted. She stomped out to the living room and opened several cabinets before she found a candle. She’d bought it in case of a blackout. Masturbation atmosphere seemed like an equally important emergency situation.

  After five more minutes she gave up on finding something to light the damn thing with. Good thing it hadn’t been a real blackout emergency. Like most things in her life after Afghanistan, she’d only managed to accomplish half of the emergency plan. Candle? Check. Matches? I don’t need no stinkin’ matches. She snorted again. She could have tried rubbing two sticks together to light the damn candle. Then she could procrastinate longer. She felt like an idiot walking around her apartment buck naked and alone with her dog staring at her.

  Slowly, she headed back to the bedroom. Turning on the bathroom light and partially closing the door was the best she could do for lighting. At least she got rid of the glaring overhead light. With mixed feelings, she grabbed the vibrator off the nightstand and threw herself down on the bed. She adjusted the pillows behind her. She had a drawer full of vibrators, but this vibrator was new. Maybe this would be the magic wand. She grinned at the private joke. It was one of those rabbit-type ones, with a little ear for clitoral stimulation and a big plastic dick for other, obvious reasons.

  With another deep breath she closed her eyes. Time to try the imagination thing again. Who would it be today? She’d tried just about every guy she knew in the starring role in her fantasies. Except her best friend, Sam. That was just gross. His boyfriend, King, was out, too, because he was just an extension of Sam. That left about ten guys on the Birmingham Rebels NFL team. Because of Sam and King, who were both defensemen for the Rebels, those were the only men she really knew these days. She didn’t get out much except with Sam and King and their girlfriend, Jane.

  Carmina let out a wobbly sigh. She knew she should try harder to meet people. But since the IED in Afghanistan and the resulting traumatic brain injury that had impaired her speech, she preferred staying in to going out. No guy wanted a woman who couldn’t even manage a simple sentence without breaking out in a cold sweat from the effort. They either treated her like she was mentally impaired or like an invalid. She was neither. She was just a horny goddamned woman who hadn’t had an orgasm in three years, five months, sixteen days and—she glanced at the clock—six hours, give or take a half hour or so. Not that she was counting.

  Her last orgasm had been self-induced. In Afghanistan the guys always talked about jacking off to relieve the tension. She’d tried it and had gotten off. It hadn’t relieved the tension, but she got to come, so it was a trade-off. The point was, she’d come. She knew she could do it. Before that damn IED, she’d masturbated to completion probably a hundred times. So why hadn’t she been able to come for over three years? She thunked the side of her head with her fist. This was why. Her freaking messed-up brain.

  She shut down those thoughts. Instead she focused on Tom Kelly, the rookie running back with the Rebels. He was a couple of years younger than she was, true, but not so much that she felt pervy about it. He was big, a few inches over six feet, with the sort of wholesomeness that only comes from growing up in the heartland of the Midwest. There was something about boys that came from there. She’d known several in the Army. Every time one of them opened his mouth, you expected him to offer to mow your lawn or carry your groceries. But at the same time, you wanted him to ask if you’d like to climb into the back of his pickup truck and hump him like a porn star. Which she most definitely wanted to do to Tom Kelly. The problem was, he was humping everyone these days. She shook her head. He’d apparently discovered he was bisexual once he hit Birmingham, and that boy was making up for lost time with both sexes. She envied him that carefree sexuality. She’d give anything to be a happy slut right about now.

  Carmina turned on the vibrator and let it rest against her clitoris, the low hum of the toy loud in the quiet of her room. The vibrations made her toes curl, and she spread her legs wider, bending her knees. She’d read up on how to do this right, even watched some how-to videos. She’d felt like a total pervert watching women get themselves off, but she’d studied those videos like she was taking the masturbating SAT tomorrow. She tried all the tricks, all the steps. She let the little rabbit ear massage her clit, she powered up the vibrator as her excitement escalated, she pushed that fake, plastic dildo right against her G-spot, imagining it was Tom Kelly’s dick.

  Her thoughts wandered and she found herself thinking about Tom’s best friend on the team, Danny Smith. He was an enigma to her. She’d run into Danny and Tom a few times over the last couple of months when she’d been out with Sam and King and Jane. Tom and Danny were always together, it seemed. A few times when she’d been talking to T
om she’d caught Danny looking at her with an intensity that unnerved her. Danny had gorgeous, dark-brown eyes with long lashes, and dark-brown skin covering a seriously hot body. It was a very potent combination. Normally, guys that intense didn’t do it for her. But she wasn’t sure whether his intensity was directed at her or at Tom, and because she was screwed up in the head, that uncertainty did do it for her. Just thinking about it, wondering if he was hot for Tom or her or both, got her hot and sweaty and crazy turned on. In the past, her mind never would have gone there. But she’d clearly been influenced by Sam’s unexpected revelation that he was bi, and that he was in a relationship with King and Jane.

  She let her mind follow the fantasy until she was imagining her and Tom and Danny together. She’d like to hold Danny’s shaved, smooth head down and make him lick her clit while Tom fucked her. Because why not? It was all in her imagination, after all. She could make them do anything she wanted. She didn’t have to talk to them in her fantasy. When Fantasy Danny broke free from her hold and slid in behind her, nudging his big cock against her ass, Carmina felt a rush of excitement that had her trembling on the edge. But she didn’t come. She fought for it, but gradually her clit got numb and she felt sore and eventually she turned off the vibrator. She lay there panting for a minute or two and then threw the vibrator across the room, where it bounced off the wall with a thud and fell to the floor.

  She was going to have to try something else. There was no fucking way she was going to bring this up in a group session at the VA, and she wasn’t going to go see yet another therapist. She was in physical therapy and speech therapy, as well as the group sessions. That was enough people crawling around inside her head, thank you very much. No, this was a problem she needed to solve herself. But how?

  Chapter 2

  “Hey, Carmina.” Tom grinned when he saw defensive lineman Sam Taylor’s sexy best friend. She was waiting in the hallway outside the Rebels locker room at Gulf Coast Arena, and she had her dog with her as usual. Buster K was the smartest dog Tom had ever met. He watched Tom approach but didn’t bark or jump on him. Sam had told him therapy dogs were trained not to do that.

  Practice had just ended and Tom was the first guy to leave the field. He had a date with this cute dude he’d met a couple of weeks ago at a bar. He loved being a big football star. He was getting all the pussy and dick he could handle. Thank God some of the guys on the team had gone public about being bisexual and had showed Tom the ropes. He’d be forever grateful. It had opened up a whole new world for him, and he thought he was a better person for it. He was certainly more open and accepting of himself and other people now. Fucking pussy was sweet and he still loved it, but fucking a guy in the ass was a forbidden thrill he didn’t think he’d ever get over.

  But the truth was he was getting a little tired of the merry-go-round. He didn’t seem to attract the kind of people who wanted more than a night in the sack. That had been good for a while, but he wasn’t really the one-night-stand type of guy. He wanted what a lot of his friends had—long-term bi relationships. But he wasn’t fooled by how easy it had been for them to find the right ones. What he wanted wasn’t the norm and he knew it.

  His best friend wasn’t helping, either. Danny wasn’t bi, despite the fact he’d had sex with Tom and a few other guys from the team—that had been strictly a one-time thing, and there had been a woman involved. That night had opened Tom’s eyes to what he felt and what he wanted. But Danny was still strictly het. He didn’t even like to talk about that night. But it had been so fucking hot Tom had a hard time not thinking about it. A lot.

  What Danny did like, though, was going out and getting lucky. He’d never partied much in college; he’d been too screwed up by something that happened in college, too angry and hurt. Now he was trying to make up for lost time. So Tom put his own goals on hold while he helped Danny out. That’s what best friends did. But for a guy who used to think a big night out was ordering pizza and playing videogames, the last few months had been exhausting.

  He’d sure like to get something going with Carmina. She had curly, dark hair that she wore natural, just skimming the top of her shoulders. Her skin was the color of cappuccino, and he wanted to lick her all over until he got to her creamy center. Which actually made it a metaphor—or simile, whatever—about a candy bar, not coffee. He’d been a psychology major in college and barely passed English. The point was, he wanted to eat her, pussy and all. Then he’d like to fuck her. She had a Boricua ass that put J-Lo’s to shame. But he hadn’t been able to figure out how to get close to her yet. She was really closed off.

  Carmina raised her hand in greeting, blushing as she met his eyes briefly, then looking away. Tom knew about her speech issues, so he wasn’t offended she didn’t actually say hello. He talked enough for two people anyway, so he figured they’d get along just fine.

  “How’s it hanging, gorgeous?” he asked, just to be a smart-ass and get a reaction from her. It worked. She turned back to him with wide, incredulous eyes and then looked down at her crotch.

  “It’s not,” she said slowly. Tom laughed, thrilled he’d gotten her to talk. She had a little bit of an accent that was very cool and sexy, just like the rest of her.

  “Are you here to meet Sam?” he asked, wiping the sweat off his neck with his damp practice towel. Carmina nodded. “He’s still out on the field. You can go out there. We’re done for the day.” He noticed she was wearing workout gear. “You going to work out with him?” Damn, he’d be sorry to miss that if they were going to do it here. She was probably sexy as hell all wet with sweat.

  “Run,” she said. She blinked slowly, biting her lip. “Going running,” she corrected herself. Tom was pretty excited that they seemed to actually be having a conversation.

  “Cool,” he said. “You run here a lot? At the arena?” She nodded. Buster K had his head tipped to the side as if he were listening to their conversation. Tom waited patiently. He remembered Sam telling him that it was important to give Carmina time to think when you were talking to her. He squatted and reached over to pet Buster K, who made a rumbling noise at the attention and butted his head into Tom’s hand, asking for more.

  “Yes,” she said finally. “I like the track.”

  “Better for your knees,” he agreed. “I think they’re supposed to have the US Track Championship here in a couple of years. You always been a runner?”

  She shook her head. “Since the Army,” she explained. “And it’s good for Sam.”

  “You ever run the stairs here?” Tom asked, grinning. “We did that a few months ago and I thought it would damn near kill me.”

  Her eyes went wide again and she shook her head with a smile. “Not for me,” she said. “Too hard.” Tom stared a few seconds too long at her eyes. They were the prettiest eyes he’d seen in a long time. The brown in them was so light it looked almost gold. He’d never seen eyes like them. She looked away and he noticed she was blushing again as she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

  “Anyway,” Tom said a little too loudly as he stood up. “I’ve got a date. Got to go. But Sam and King are still out there with most everybody else. I’ll see you around, Carmina.” He waited.

  “See you,” she said at last, with a wave, as she hurried down the hallway to the tunnel that led out to the field. Tom watched her until she was out of sight. That ass in running shorts ought to be illegal.

  —

  Carmina ran out of the tunnel onto the track around the field. She could feel how hot her face was from blushing. She mentally cursed. She could talk better than that now. It had taken a couple of years of speech therapy, but she could carry on a normal conversation, even if it was a little slow. But she always froze when she talked to Tom. Memories of her very naughty fantasies last night hadn’t helped. As she stood there talking to him, all she could see in her mind was him and Danny wrapped around her fucking her brains out. Nice. It had clearly been the farthest thing from his mind. He had a date. Which meant he’d be
fucking someone else tonight and she wouldn’t. She growled and made two fists but there wasn’t anything around to punch.

  “Whoa.” Carmina spun around to face the man behind her. Nigel Locke, a former soccer star in Britain who was now a kicker for the Rebels, stood there frowning at her. They’d become friends when she’d kicked his ass at pool at a party at Tom and Danny’s, the first time she’d met them all. “Someone looks upset. Care to share what’s the matter, love?” She shook her head. “Well, don’t hurt yourself,” he teased. “You should never run angry.” She made a face at him and rolled her eyes. He snapped his towel at her and then waved as he headed for the tunnel.

  When she turned around her breath caught in her throat. Danny Smith was standing there staring at her. He was surrounded by other players, but she barely noticed them. His dark skin gleamed with sweat in the fading light of early evening and she wanted to lick him clean. She’d run from one fantasy just to confront another. As he watched her, Danny had that same intensity she’d noticed before. Tom wasn’t around this time. Did that mean Danny’s intensity was focused on her and always had been? Several of the guys called out hello and she absently waved at them, unable to break away from Danny’s stare. Beside her, Buster K whined softly as if sensing her confusion. Just then, Danny was jostled from behind and broke their eye contact. Before he could say anything or she could make more of a fool out of herself, she ran off toward the sidelines, where she’d spotted Sam and King waiting for her.