Book Title: Playing Dirty
Author and Publisher: Beth Bolden
Cover Artist: Cate Ashwood Designs
Release Date: January 12, 2023
Genres: Gay contemporary sports romance
Tropes: Bisexual awakening, roommates to lovers
Heat Rating: 4 flames
Length: 41 000 words
It’s the prequel novella to my Miami Piranhas series.
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited
Universal Link | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Blurb
All Wade Lewis wants during rookie preseason camp is to play great football and to make it to the final fifty-three man roster.
He absolutely does not want Tristan Nicholson.
His complete and total opposite.
His teammate.
His competition.
And his roommate.
During the day, Tristan unexpectedly proves to be helpful on and off the field, but at night, when the lights go out, Tristan also becomes the only man he can’t resist.
First, he’s a friend, then astonishingly, he becomes a lover.
And then he becomes the last thing Wade ever expected: everything.
This novella was previously published, and some light editing has been done, but no new content has been added.
It was a problem.
Wade was lifting on one of the stationary benches, curls and crunches with one of the bigger weights, his muscles bunching and releasing as he went through his reps, the strength and conditioning coach talking him through it.
That wasn’t the problem so much as he was doing it shirtless and it was doing things to Tristan’s insides.
Things that were so distracting he was finding it tough to focus on his quad reps.
“Nicholson,” Niko, the assistant strength and conditioning coach, barked at him. “Heads up. Get those reps done. You’re dawdling.”
He totally was dawdling, and he flushed bright red, hating that he’d just been called out on it.
Eight years playing football and he’d never let the obvious physical attributes of another player distract him like this.
But then, he’d never seen a player quite like Wade before.
He was so big and wide and so fucking strong. The way the muscles rippled under his skin, the gleam of the sweat, the way he gritted his teeth and worked for that next rep . . . God, it made Tristan weak in the knees. Which, when he was trying to work on his leg strength, was a real fucking problem.
“On it,” Tristan muttered under his breath, pulling his eyes away from Wade and focusing instead on the South Orange poster on the wall. Reminding himself that this was where he’d started—playing Division III ball—and he was trying to make it in the NFL, something that very few players had ever done before.
If he wanted to make it happen, if he wanted to reach the peak of his possibilities, then he needed to fucking focus.
He made it through the rest of his reps, and Niko gave him a begrudging nod. “Good job,” he said, tossing Tristan a towel. “You’re coming along.”
Tristan didn’t feel like he was coming along. He thought he’d come into camp in great shape, but after an hour in the weight room, he definitely had gotten the impression that he wasn’t quite as far along as anyone would’ve wanted.
Chalk that up to his ankle injury and missing those critical few weeks.
“Let’s work on your core,” Niko said, gesturing to the mat. He pulled out a medicine ball, demonstrated the first exercise that he wanted Tristan to do.
Just think, he thought as he got through the first set of reps, of the great fucking six-pack you’ll have when this is over. You’ll get any guy you want, just by taking your shirt off.
The rest of the sets were even worse than the first, and by the end he was sweating, fingers slipping on the ball, grinding his teeth against the pain. But he did it, he made it through, and there was undeniably respect on Niko’s face.
Then Tristan leveraged himself up, abs aching, and came face-to-face with a shirtless, sweaty Wade.
A smiling Wade.
Yeah, he was definitely that masochistic sort that actually enjoyed the torture.
Tristan didn’t get it, and he wasn’t sure he ever would.
“Hey,” Tristan said.
He grabbed a towel and wiped down his face. Because as attractive as a sweaty Wade was, Tristan was pretty sure it wasn’t that good of a look on him. He could only imagine how red and flushed he was.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Wade asked as they walked over to the water station.
“No, it feels like hell,” Tristan grumbled. “You’re one of those annoying exercise endorphin people, aren’t you?”
“Yep,” Wade proclaimed happily.
Tristan was marginally less annoyed because a Wade flooded with endorphins was undeniably adorable.
A lifelong Pacific Northwester, Beth Bolden has just recently moved to North Carolina with her supportive husband. Beth still believes in Keeping Portland Weird, and intends to be just as weird in Raleigh.
Beth has been writing practically since she learned the alphabet. Unfortunately, her first foray into novel writing, titled Big Bear with Sparkly Earrings, wasn’t a bestseller, but hope springs eternal. She’s published twenty-three novels and seven novellas.
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