Balls Up Read online

  Balls Up

  A Heart of Fame Story

  Lexxie Couper

  Published by Farm Boy Press ([email protected])

  Copyright © 2014 Lexxie Couper, all rights reserved

  Edited by Correctamundo Edits

  Cover by Lexxie Couper

  ISBN: 978-1-941641-50-7

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s note:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It 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 recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].

  Balls Up

  It’s a game changer…

  Rhys McDowell. Striker for Manchester United. Bad boy on the soccer field. Badder boy in the bedroom. Rhys lives by the motto: never second-guess anything. His only regret in life is that he fell in love with the wrong man decades ago and no one has ever been able to erase that guy from his heart.

  Until now.

  Curtis Clarkson. Ex-captain of the Australian cricket team. A man once feared on the pitch, Clarkson is now a highly respected businessman with a devilish glint in his eye and a willingness to follow wherever life leads him. He never expected it to lead him to a man. A cocky soccer player, no less. And a private shower in Heathrow airport.

  When lust and desire take control of both men, all the rules of the game utterly change. Curtis never thought he’d fall for a guy. And Rhys never thought he’d fall again, period.

  But when fame follows your every step, what happens behind closed doors, doesn’t always stay there. And the penalty box may very well leave you not just sweaty…but broken.

  Table of Contents

  Balls Up

  Title Page

  Synopsis

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Compliance

  About the Author

  Additional Titles by Lexxie Couper

  Chapter One

  Off-season was always a pain in Rhys’s arse.

  For one thing, he ate too much, drank too much, partied too hard and slept too little.

  For another, he never knew how to choose which country to spend his downtime. It sounded like a ridiculous First World problem, but his friends in London—friends that included such illustrious people as the youngest of the royal princes, an Olympic pole-vaulter and the British Prime Minister’s black-sheep son—wanted him to stay in the UK. His family in Australia expected him to come home and spend time with them, but he sometimes suspected it was because they worried about his partying ways and the influence of his UK friends.

  His family had a point, of course. The latter were partly to blame for the excessive eating, drinking, partying and lack of sleep.

  Partly, mind you. The other reason for the self-destructive behavior—rock god Josh Blackthorne—was spending most of his time on the other side of the planet in Australia.

  Which made it hard to head back to Oz, even if Rhys wanted to. Which he did.

  Sort of.

  Sort of? Bullshit. You don’t just want to go back. You want to go back, storm into Josh’s home, slam him to the wall, look him in the eye and tell him you’re in love with him—and that you’ve been in love with him since you were both fifteen.

  Turning to study the planes on the other side of the Qantas first-class lounge window, Rhys’s gut clenched. It was a raw fantasy he tortured himself with often. But it was only that: a fantasy.

  Joshua Blackthorne, his life-long best friend and one of the world’s sexiest, hottest, biggest rock stars, was deeply in love with a woman Rhys knew to be absolutely perfect for him.

  Josh had no clue what Rhys felt for him. None at all.

  And Rhys would never tell him.

  Ever.

  Which made returning to Australia in the off-season not just hard, but painful, because the moment he touched down in his country of birth, Josh and Caitlin would be there at the airport waiting for him, and he’d spend the next few hours/days/weeks in their company, watching them together, seeing them so very much in love…

  And wanting to be in Caitlin’s place with every fibre of his body.

  “Excuse me, Mr. McDowell?”

  Rhys turned his gaze from the 747s and Airbuses beyond the glass and smiled up at the woman in the Qantas uniform leaning towards him. “Yeah?”

  Her eyes flicked over him, no doubt taking in the stubble on his jaw, the scruffy hair, and the crumpled T-shirt and baggy jeans. “Your flight is boarding now.”

  He nodded at the lounge attendant. “Ta, love.”

  She smiled, straightening away from him. “You’re welcome, sir. Looking forward to going back to Australia?”

  Rhys’s gut clenched again as he rose to his feet. “More than I can possibly say.”

  Scooping up his knapsack—packed with his on-flight toiletries, a Joe Hill paperback, his iPad and the latest Synergy CD—he left the lounge and headed for his flight.

  He was recognised, of course. He couldn’t move around London these days without being so. In all honesty, he didn’t know if his fame came from his position as striker for Manchester United or his notoriety as a partier. Probably both.

  Surprisingly, no one approached for an autograph or photo. Perhaps everyone in Heathrow expected his bodyguard—a hulking mountain of mouth-breathing muscle called Timmy—to suddenly appear from the crowd.

  Timmy, however, would not be making an appearance, although Rhys wasn’t going to announce that unusual fact. This trip back to Australia was without bodyguard, manager or even token arm candy.

  This trip was strictly Rhys McDowell, boy from Oz who needed to touch base with his family. A man who needed to have his sister ground him, his father lecture him and his mother embrace him.

  This trip was, in other words, an attempt to once and for all get over his twelve-year ache for a man he could never have, by finally confessing to his family how he felt.

  They’d tell him how stupid he was being. They’d mend his wretched heart with harsh truths and uncompromising logic. And then, once they were done, he could go to dinner with Josh and Caitlin without being in a state of perpetual horny torment and get on with existing in the off-season without the need to destroy himself with booze, wild women, wild men and wilder parties.

  A sound plan.

  Somewhat sound.

  Okay, not really sound, but the only plan he had.

  After twelve years, he’d come to the realization he had to do something and this was what he was doing.

  Confession, parental insults, maternal hugs.

  He was but a few feet away from his flight’s gate, knapsack slapping against his hip, hair hanging in his eyes, when the first camera flash fire
d.

  Followed a second later by another one.

  Instinctually, he flinched, raising his hand to shield his face from the unexpected attention.

  And let out a surprised grunt when a man half a head taller than him, wearing black sunglasses, bumped into him, head down, jaw clenched.

  “Whoa there, dude,” Rhys said, stumbling back a step before his natural reflexes could correct his balance. “In a hurry are—”

  The man swung towards him.

  Rhys sucked in a sharp breath.

  Fuck, the guy was Curtis Clarkson.

  The ex-captain of the Australian cricket team fixed him in a steady stare. Rhys could feel the older man’s gaze on him even through the dark lenses of his Ray Bans.

  “McDowell?” The Australian accent licked at Rhys’s ears, sounding both strange and exquisite after so many months in the UK. “You look like—”

  Another camera flash fired right beside them. Curtis flinched.

  So did Rhys. Not a lot, but enough to catch Curtis’s attention.

  Straightening, the ex-cricket player let out a low chuckle. “Our egos, ‘eh?”

  Rhys forced out a wobbly laugh. The last time he’d seen Clarkson was at the Australian Sportsman of the Year awards two years ago. They’d ended up in a metaphorical pissing contest over their chosen sports and which sport pulled the hottest groupies.

  Both men had also been more than a little inebriated during said pissing contest.

  If Rhys remembered correctly, they’d decided their chosen sport had nothing to do with the groupies; that it was, in fact, the size of their dicks that pulled the chicks, a decision that led to—again, if Rhys remembered correctly—both men dropping their tux pants to compare their respective packages.

  They’d been stopped before either could shame the other. But Rhys had a vague recollection of a bulge in Clarkson’s boxers far bigger than most men’s.

  Rhys also had an equally vague recollection of leaving the awards dinner with a sizeable boner that had nothing to do with the little honey on his arm.

  Staring at Curtis Clarkson now, twenty-four months later, his mouth turned strangely dry. Fuck, he’d never actually been this close to Clarkson without having more than a few drinks under his belt. Had never noticed how…how…fuck, how hot the cricket-playing bastard was.

  “You heading back to Australia?”

  Giving himself a mental slap, Rhys nodded his head. “I didn’t know you were over here,” he said. Damn it, what the fuck was up with his voice all of a sudden? It sounded as if he were trying to talk with a throat full of gravel.

  “Cricket thing.” Curtis let out another one of his famous chuckles. The guy was known for his sardonic sense of humour, as well as his lethal bowling arm. And, if the gossip mags and bloggers were to be believed, his equally impressive bedroom skills. Hadn’t he just recently been linked to some kind of a scandal with some computer guy and an American? Or was Rhys imagining that? He was certain another Australian celeb on the UK party circuit had suggested something like that.

  Before he could stop himself—Jesus, what was wrong with him?—Rhys dropped his gaze to Curtis’s crotch.

  “I’d say my balls are up here,” Curtis’s dry voice murmured, “but you’re actually looking in the right spot.”

  Rhys jerked his stare upward, chest squeezing tight.

  Christ.

  Curtis chuckled again, the relaxed sound sending a lick of tension straight into Rhys’s groin. “Sorry, mate, just giving you a hard time. I’m jetlagged. Flew in two days ago and heading back now.”

  Rhys forced out his own laugh. The world was quite familiar with his bisexual tastes. Rhys himself played up the reputation often, usually tongue firmly in cheek. He hadn’t, however, expected the ex-captain of Australia’s cricket team to join in the jest, especially not in the middle of Heathrow Airport surrounded by people who—more likely than not—knew exactly who he was, given the UK’s obsession with cricket.

  The fact Clarkson captained the Australian team to a crushing defeat of England in three Ashes series in a row would have contributed to his fame over here.

  And here he was now, talking about his balls.

  Before Rhys could stop it, an image of Curtis’s boxer-clad bulge entered his head again.

  Why the hell was he suddenly so aware of Curtis Clarkson? And more to the point, why was he nervous?

  Because after a lifetime aching for Josh, you’ve decided it’s time to move on? And because you’re you, a masochist, you fall instantly in lust with a man known to be straighter than your best friend? You’re a fucking idiot, McDowell.

  “Last boarding call for passengers flying first class Qantas Flight 42.”

  At the speaker-amplified announcement, Rhys shifted his knapsack on his shoulder and gave Curtis a grin he hoped was wide and unaffected. “That’s my flight. Better get my arse into gear.”

  Curtis shot the waiting attendants standing at the entry to the gangway a quick look over his shoulder. “Mine too.”

  He turned back to Rhys, and for a split second they both seemed frozen. Staring at each other.

  Shaking himself, feeling more flustered than he had in a long time, Rhys let out a laugh. “See you in there then.”

  Before Curtis could reply, Rhys damn near sprinted for the gangway.

  He was completely settled in his window suite, paperback on his lap, doing his absolute best to absorb the luxury of first class, when movement from the corner of his eye told him the passenger assigned to Seat 4F had arrived.

  “Why, if it isn’t Man U’s party boy.”

  A husky feminine whisper scraped at his unsettled nerves. He snapped his stare to the woman buckling into her seat, his heart thumping faster.

  Angel Waters, tabloid reporter for one of Australia’s most notorious newspapers, smirked back at him, leaning towards him in such a way he couldn’t help but notice the rather exquisite perfection of her cleavage peeking out at him from the plunging neckline of her T-shirt.

  Of course, Angel being Angel, she would be very aware of the amount of flesh exposed by such a position before she even moved. She was that kind of reporter: calculating, manipulative and sneaky. She was also—Rhys knew from personal experience—that way in bed as well. It made for incredibly wild, borderline-insane sex. It also made for scathing articles about your “on-field sporting prowess and over-inflated ego” when you didn’t agree to a follow-up session between the sheets.

  Affecting a wide, goofy grin, Rhys wriggled his eyebrows at her. “Well, if it isn’t the worst sex I’ve ever had in my life.”

  Angel’s red-glossed lips compressed. A finely plucked eyebrow arched. “Surely not. What with the menagerie of people you’ve slept with?”

  Rhys flashed her a toothy smile. “Angel, as always, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  She sniffed, ran her gaze over him from head to toe, and then traced the tips of her fingers along the deep cleft that was her cleavage. “You’re looking tired, McDowell. Frazzled even. Too much partying? Or has someone finally broken that shallow heart of yours?”

  “I hear the Walkley Award for Best Journalism was announced last week.” Josh pulled a pout of mock pity. “And you didn’t win it?”

  Angel hissed at him, literally hissed at him, the sound as venomous as the anger in her eyes.

  He laughed as he began to settle back into his seat. “Good to see you again, Angel. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pretend you don’t ex—”

  At the sight of Curtis Clarkson lowering himself into the seat on the other side of the aisle next to Angel, Rhys forgot how to talk.

  He stared at the man, his pulse a thumping canon in his throat.

  His balls joined in the throb. His gut churned in harmony. His cock, completely independent of the tumultuous reaction to the sight of the ex-cricket captain, flooded with liquid heat.

  Holy crap, he was getting a hard-on just at the sight of the man? What the fuck?

  Movement at
the edge of his vision jerked him out of his ridiculous stupor. He snapped his focus back to Angel, and bit back a groan.

  The journalist studied him, eyes narrow, contemplative, before—with deliberately exaggerated action—she turned to look behind her.

  Angel regarded Curtis for a silent moment and then turned back to Rhys. Her lips danced. “Still lusting after the unobtainable, McDowell?” she murmured.

  Fuck.

  Biting back a growl, Rhys sat back into his seat, snatched his sunglasses from the side table, shoved them onto his face and opened his Joe Hill.

  Beside him, separated by the narrow aisle, Angel chuckled. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

  Getting comfortable seemed out of the question.

  Shifting in his seat for the umpteenth time, Curtis fought the urge to flick a glance at Rhys.

  For one, he didn’t think his balls could take any more surreptitious glances at the guy. For another, there was no way in hell he wanted to inadvertently engage the attention of Angel Waters.

  Thank god the flight attendants kept making their way back and forth along the strip of emptiness between him and the journalist or he’d be forced to interact with her.

  The last time he’d come face-to-face with Angel Waters, during the last Ashes tour in the UK where he’d been compering the match for Channel Eight, she’d blindsided him with a muck-digging expedition.

  She’d been trying to rattle him into responding to the rumours he’d had a threesome with his best friend, Logan, and Logan’s now wife.

  He’d responded by telling her that if she wanted to discover what it was like to piss off the man who owned and controlled most of the internet-connected technology she used daily, then to go ahead and print whatever the hell she wanted.

  The fact those rumours were…

  Fuck.

  Rhys McDowell was moving.

  Before he could stop himself, he tracked Rhys’s progress to the first-class loo.

  Damn, the man looked good.

  There was a wired energy about the soccer player Curtis had never really noticed before, as if the man was on the cusp of exploding with…what?