Craving The Player (Amateurs In Love Book 1) Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Playlist

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  More From Hannah

  Our Tattered Souls

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  Portions of this book are works of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblances to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021, By Hannah Cowan

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address the publisher.

  Edited by: Faith Lane @faithlaneauthor

  Formatted by: @bookobsessedformatting

  Cover Design by: Acacia Heather @thegraphicsdistrict

  First Edition

  Playlist

  Come Back To Bed — Sean Stemaly

  Heartless — Diplo, Morgan Wallen, Julia Michaels

  Just Friends — Virginia To Vegas

  Think Of Me — Olivia Lunny

  Sex — Eden

  Side Effects — Carlie Hanson

  Whoever Broke Your Heart — Murphy Elmore

  Shh…Don’t Say It — Fletcher

  Like No One Does — Jake Scott

  Beautiful Mistakes — Maroon 5, Megan Thee Stallion

  Hard Boy — Frawley

  Like This — Jake Scott

  Maybe — Jake Scott

  Shivers — Ed Sheeran

  Hate u cuz I don’t — Bea Miller

  The Only Exception — Paramore

  No Right To Love You — Rhys Lewis

  Dedicated to all of my ex-boyfriends. Thank you for making me feel unworthy and subpar. Because of you, I pushed myself to find what makes me happy, and have found my self-worth again. Suck it, assholes.

  Chapter One

  BRADEN

  Sharp nails tear their way down my back, ripping through the sensitive skin and drawing blood. The busty blonde beneath me moans in my ear, greedily begging me to pick up the pace. We've been going at this for what feels like hours now. She's come more times than I can count, quite the opposite of myself. This chick's overexaggerated moaning and squawking has halted every single one of my impending orgasms.

  "Just like that!"

  My growl is loud as I pull out of her in one swift movement and lean back on my legs, dick starting to sag.

  "What are you doing?" she whines, lips jutting out in a juicy pout.

  "Sorry, Becky. I just remembered that I have to go pick up my grandpa's friend's dog from the vet." My tone is dry and careless. I move off of the silk red sheets left in a disarray on her bed and toss the unused condom into the nearby trash can.

  "It's Victoria." Her breathless voice makes me cringe. It’s one of those overly raspy man voices. A total boner killer. I try to block her out and focus on finding my clothes. I can just about plant a thank you kiss on the lamp in the corner of her room when I spot my button-up hanging from it. “And you expect me to believe that you have to pick up this dog in the middle of the night?” She doesn’t spare me an unconvincing frown as she wraps the blanket around her otherwise naked body—a wise decision on her part. It was her hot body that enticed me enough to come here in the first place, and as much fun as it is to stare at her smooth, olive skin, I already have a terrible case of blue balls. The thought makes me reach down and anxiously rub at my limp cock with a deep, aggravated sigh.

  "Sorry, what?" I hum and slide my arms through my shirt. My back burns when the material rubs across the new cuts in my skin. At least I know she enjoyed herself.

  "What is your deal?" she replies snarkily, snapping me out of my thoughts. I run a hand through my messy hair and pull my phone from the pocket of my jeans. As soon as I switch it on, I'm met with several texts asking about my whereabouts and disappearance.

  "You're unbelievable!" she scoffs and shoots a less than terrifying glare my way. She pulls the blanket tighter around her and hurries into the ensuite bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

  Well, that makes things easier. I pull my keys out of my pocket and the cold metal bites into my palm. The nauseating smell of her fruity perfume wafts throughout the house, making me rush to the front door even faster. I slide my sneakers on and fight back the urge to kick myself in the ass for letting my dick get me in trouble again. I'm out the door and in the driver's seat of my car before my stomach has a chance to start swirling with disappointment.

  “If you keep dropping your arms like that, I'll gladly bruise up that pretty face, Clay." Clayton takes a risky swing at my chest and I roll my eyes at his poorly placed move. "C'mon, buddy. You gotta do better than that." I grab and twist his arm behind his back. I turn the six-foot ginger around and shove his face into the boxing bag in front of us. Poor guy didn't stand a chance in hell with that sloppy throw.

  "Your mouth twitches before every swing. That needs to stop. Anyone who studies you even in the slightest will know your tells. You’ll never win like that. Ever." I move back a step and lift my arms into position before I nod for him to try again.

  His eyes narrow as he bounces on his feet, observing me. Trying to learn my tells. As if I would put them on display for him. Less than a second later, his top lip lifts just the slightest bit, causing mine to lift in a grin. In an instant I’m tucking myself under his right hook and swinging my left arm. I make contact with his abdomen and the air is pushed from his lungs in a raspy wheeze. He clutches his stomach and curls over.

  "Fuck you," he coughs while lifting his gaze briefly to me before his eyes slam shut.

  "Damn, I guess I should have put my gloves on. My bad." I shrug carelessly.

  "Remind me again why I can't have another trainer?" He asks me the question like he doesn’t already know the answer while pushing himself upright again. After a few seconds his grimace slowly evens back out into a scowl.

  "Because nobody else wants your whiny ass," I snicker, walking towards my gym bag and pulling out my gloves. The gold stripes wrapping around the slick black material never fail to make my chest swell with pride. I worked day and night to afford these babies, and damn are they ever worth it.

  "We both know that you just don't want to get rid of me."

  "Yeah." I snort. "That's it." Sliding my hands in my gloves, I clench my fingers and tighten the Velcro strap. Patting both gloves together, I raise my brow and nod for him to try ag
ain. The balls of my feet tap against the concrete floor as I bounce while keeping my eyes locked on my best friend. He's finally got his arms in the correct position, at least, but the tension in his shoulders worries me.

  "Drop your shoulders!" I bark. "You're going to hurt yourself."

  "I'm trying," he snaps but drops his shoulder slightly, most likely to humour me more than anything. Without a second thought I send my fist towards him, but stop mid-throw when he drops his arms just enough to expose his face to me.

  I warned him. Pushing my arm forward again, I hear a loud smack.

  "What the fuck!" he shouts with eyes full of fire as he grabs his now bleeding nose. I bite back my laugh and shrug.

  "It's not broken. Relax." I grin to myself and give my head a quick shake. "I told you that if you dropped your arms again I would mess with your pretty face." I turn away from him and reach into my gym bag, pulling out two towels. After I toss him the darker coloured one for his gushing nose, I keep the lighter one for myself. The sweat covering my bare torso is wiped away quickly as I crinkle my nose up, throwing the towel back towards my bag once it becomes wet.

  "What if you would have broken it?" he groans.

  "Then you wouldn't have dropped your arms next time. Take the pain as a learning experience."

  "You were coming for my stomach!"

  "It looked like I was aiming for your stomach. You would have no idea if that were a trick or not. That's why you don't drop your arms," I say with unwavering confidence. I’ve trained to be a boxer nearly my entire life, learned almost everything there is to know about the sport. He needs to gain a bit of confidence in me. If my ego weren’t the size of Texas I would have been offended. "Anyways, pizza for dinner?"

  "Sure," he replies, voice nasally from the pressure he's applying to his nose. His ability to go with the flow is one of the reasons we get along so well.

  "Come on, if you get blood on the floor Dad will kill me." I roll my eyes and grab my bag, waiting for Clay to do the same before leading the way to the showers.

  "Maybe I'll leave a trail then." His smirk is immediate when I grunt in annoyance.

  Working for your dad has its benefits, but dealing with his rage when you break one of his rules is not one of them. No bloodshed is the most crucial rule in this gym. It has been since before I can remember. We Lowry men don't follow many rules, but the ones we do, we live by. As if by breaking a single one would throw the entire Universe off kilter.

  "If you want to go that far, I might as well get a couple more hits in. Soak the floor in your misery," I half-heartedly threaten and turn to Clay with a teasing grin.

  He just scoffs, shaking his head. "I'd like to see you try."

  "Yeah? Want to bet on how long you'd last in the ring with me?" I tilt my head and straighten my back so all six-foot-three of me tower over him.

  Clay gulps but keeps his lips pressed together. "Whatever. Arrogant bastard.”

  I laugh. "Always full of compliments, Clay. So, stuffed or regular crust?"

  "Grab me a beer, would you?" I shout as I drop back on the couch. My words are muffled as a slice of pepperoni stuffed-crust pizza is clenched between my teeth.

  "Do I look like your damn mother?" Clayton calls back. I shove my hand between the couch cushions and grab hold of the TV remote. My greasy fingers fiddle with the remote before finding the power button and the familiar sound of my favourite, hot as hell sports announcer fills the room. "Pretty please can you bring me a beer?" I try again, snickering to myself when I hear the fridge door slam shut.

  "Here."

  I catch the cold can midair when he throws it towards me like a softball. I turn to face him and crack it open nice and slow. I take a long swig and rest my head back against the couch. "Thanks."

  “Don’t mention it,” he grumbles and sits down beside me, holding out a paper plate. He wears a look that dares me not to use it, so I take it with a huff and set it down on my lap. My attention drops to my phone when it vibrates, shaking the glass coffee table it's lying on. Reaching for it, I notice the several names spread across the screen.

  I lean back and unlock the phone, grinning. A picture of a naked body fills the screen and my eyes narrow. The girl's athletic, toned figure lies outstretched on what looks to be a bed, with a sheer, white, silky robe sagging off of her narrow shoulders. Her knees are bent, legs are spread wide open, the soft pink skin of her bare pussy glistening between them. I reach down to adjust the bulge in my pants with a needy grunt.

  "What are you smirking at?" Clay asks, only to get a shrug in response. "Holy shit. Who is that?” He groans into his fist when he moves to look for himself.

  Locking my phone, I roll my eyes. “Fuck off and go find your own.”

  “I have my own.” He sounds less than mildly confident in that statement.

  “Then what are you waiting for?” I raise a brow, testing him before he flips me off and pushes off the couch. “Maybe if you got laid, you wouldn’t be so damn uptight. You’re acting like a twenty-seven-year-old virgin.”

  “Not everyone wants to be a ‘fuck it and chuck it’ kind of guy until the day they die. We’re not all that young anymore, dude.”

  Registering his words, I nearly blow chunks all over the living room. “I stopped ageing when I turned twenty-four, remember?”

  “Right,” he snorts with a heavy roll of his eyes. It’s not like I don’t know how close I am to reaching my thirties. With Clay getting his shit together with most things, I’m reminded nearly every damn day of the week. The thought of becoming someone that needs to start meeting society’s standards makes a knot form in my stomach the size of Texas and my blood run ice cold.

  I feel proud of Clay for realizing what he wants in life goes farther than a good fuck and a cold beer afterward. But his path will never be mine. The whole idea of going to a job I hate five days a week before coming home to a wife and three identical kids waiting on the porch of a two-story suburban home makes me want to kneel and pray to be shipped off to another planet.

  Nah, I’m happy with staying twenty-six forever. Society can kiss my pearly white ass for demanding a change

  I’ve just wrapped a towel around my waist when Clayton pushes open the bathroom door, eyes droopy and dull as he shoves past me, stopping in front of the sink. He follows the same routine as every night: wets his toothbrush with cold water, smears a thick line of spearmint toothpaste onto the rough bristles before shoving it into his mouth and brushing his teeth for precisely two minutes. I’m no shrink, but I would diagnose Clay with a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder any day of the week. But Wednesday’s are his worst.

  We’ve been living together for two years now, and I would still only be able to explain his behaviour as erratically unerratic. He becomes zombie-like—undead and empty—every Wednesday morning, seconds before dawn. It’s like he’s taken a backseat and switched his brain into auto-pilot, deciding to kick back with a bottle of scotch in his hand and watch his body be controlled by something other than himself. The need to be perfect in every aspect of the word.

  I should probably sit him down someday to talk about how creepy it is having a living, breathing robot walking around the apartment, eyes twitching with a murderous gaze whenever I so much as leave the cap of the orange juice a bit too loose. But I’m not even sure if he realizes that he does it—that he’s different on that taunting day of the week. I don’t know if it would do any good more than it would bad.

  After exactly two minutes since he shoved the toothbrush in his mouth and started scrubbing every square inch of his mouth, Clay spits into the sink and wipes a fresh towel across his lips. He doesn’t tear his concentration from the small container of dental floss pinched between his fingers as he mumbles, “I forgot to tell you that there’s some sort of concert tomorrow night at SP, and you need to be there.”

  I raise my brow, although he stays focused on the minty string slipping between his teeth instead of looking at me. “There’s a concert?
At Sinners? Since when do they do that shit there?”

  “Don’t know. Ethan got tickets or something from one of the bouncers last week. There’s one for both of us.”

  “Could be fun.” I shrug and rub at the sting in my eyes, exhaustion stepping on me with its dirty shoe. I don’t give the invitation much thought. Ethan is an eighteen-year-old boy stuck in the body of a twenty-six-year-old man. This isn’t the first time that we’ve been told to go to out with him, and it won’t be the last. I just nod my head and follow along. Night clubs aren’t my venue of choice anymore, but a beer is a beer regardless of where you drink it.

  Clayton gives me a nod but doesn’t look away from the mirror.

  “I’m going to bed. Don’t forget that I need you ready to go to the gym at eight,” I remind him before leaving the bathroom. I don’t get anything more than a brief grunt in response, and I chuckle.

  Our two-bedroom apartment—if you could call a full bedroom and a small den without a window two bedrooms—is so damn tiny that it only takes me a whole two seconds to walk down the hallway and reach my room. I was lucky enough to earn my right to the actual bedroom by sucking back two more shots of tequila than Clay at a pub on Halloween the night before we moved into this place. I’m damn grateful for my stomach of steel, too, since there’s no door or a lick of privacy leading to the den Clayton calls the Boom Room. But boom, it does not. Where I might seem picky about the women I bed, Clayton damn near refuses anyone that doesn’t meet his iron-set criteria to the absolute T. It’s safe to say the Boom Room is filled with more tepid echo than anything else.

  I don’t bother turning on the light as I quickly swap out the towel for a pair of briefs that I find in a rare, clean basket of laundry and crawl into bed. When I get under the covers, I close my eyes and pray to God himself that I’ll pass the fuck out soon.

  Chapter Two

  Sierra