It started as fun and games. Now I’m playing for her heart—and my own ➱ Finding the End Zone a Sports Romance by Tam DeRudder Jackson Book Tour with Rafflecopter
It started as fun and games. Now I’m playing for her heart—and my own.
Finding the End Zone
Game Time Series Book 1
by Tam DeRudder Jackson
Genre: Contemporary Sports Romance
Never date a player.
Football god Callahan O’Reilly can keep his blazing blue eyes to himself. I have a scholarship to maintain, and I do not have time to babysit a jock through a make-or-break class project. Even if one smoldering glance from him sets my panties on fire.
Time to change her mind.
Jamaica Winslow opens her mouth and spews sass like a volcano. One look at her uptight package and I want to coax the genie from the bottle, unleash all the passion she hides beneath a mop of unruly curls and a smart-ass attitude. She’s not my type, she doesn’t know one damn thing about the game that rules my life, and I can’t stop thinking about her.
Jamaica does her best to keep me at arm’s length, but I’m not a pro prospect because I let the plays come to me. With the game on the line, I always want the ball. When an alum with deep pockets and delusions of grandeur makes demands that threaten my NFL chances and Jamaica’s scholarship, I have no choice but to man up and do the right thing no matter the cost.
It started as fun and games. Now I’m playing for her heart—and my own.
Game Time.
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Short
teasers for Finding the End Zone
1.
“You know
what I’ve been thinking about all day?”
I smirked.
“Football?”
He tugged
at my curls, and I inched closer. “No. I’ve been thinking about an even more
fun game.”
Narrowing
my eyes, I asked, “There’s a game you like playing better than football?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“What game
do you like better than football?” With his eyes zeroed in on my lips the way
they were, my question came out on a whisper.
“Tongue
tag.”
His warm
lips covered mine, and I sighed into the soft pressure of his mouth.
2.
At last, I
tore my mouth from his. Panting, I said, “I thought we established there would
be no shenanigans.”
“Correction,
that was your idea.”
“But you
saluted.”
His grin
was positively wicked. “I had my fingers crossed.”
I pushed
at his chest. “I knew it! I saw how you kept one hand behind your back.”
Fluffing my hair, I said, “You promised me ice cream.”
“I’d
rather lick you.”
3.
“Let me
guess—you have a 4.0.”
“Lucky you
to be paired with me, huh?” I shot him a smug grin.
A naughty
smile broke over his features, and I think his voice dropped an octave. “Oh,
yeah, but not for your GPA.”
Beneath
the table, I crossed one knee over the other and willed myself not to react to
that voice. “Exactly what’s that supposed to mean?”
Callahan
leaned forward on those delicious forearms. “It means I get to study with the
hottest girl in class.”
With a
snort, I shook my head. “I don’t get involved with study partners, especially
study partners who are also jocks.”
“I prefer
football player.” He winked. “And those were your rules before you met me.”
4.
“Sorry I’m
late. A group of girls from the freshmen dorm rolled in at ten minutes to close
and spent twenty minutes deciding to buy one bag of sour gummy worms and a
couple boxes of Red Hots.”
Without
acknowledging my outlay on the table, she began extracting notebooks, folders,
and books from her bag as though it were Hermione’s magic purse from Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows. At last, she set her pack on the floor beside
her chair, pulled a pen from somewhere in her curls, and opened one of her
notebooks. “I’ve outlined a list of themes we could explore. I’m sort of
partial to exploitation in Hardy’s novels.”
“Hello,
Jamaica. How was your day?”
When she
glanced up at me, I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. She
might have ideas about how this partnership was going to go, but I had ideas
too.
“What?”
I jacked a
brow. “How was your day?” Letting a little grin slip out, I shrugged. “Aside
from annoying freshmen at closing time.”
Her head
tilted to the side as she finally looked at me, a puzzled expression on her
stunning face. “Um, it was fine. Good, actually. Yours?”
“Better
now.” I leaned my forearms on the table and dropped my voice half an octave.
“I’m looking forward to pairing up with you.”
She
scolded me with her face. “Partners. We are project partners.”
I coughed
into my hand to hide my laughter at her expression and her schoolteacher tone.
“The difference is—what?”
“We aren’t
‘paired up’ as in getting together. We are partners preparing a class project
for our mutual advancement.”
“Is that
what we are?” I drawled.
5.
Callahan
In football, timing is everything.
When the quarterback does a three-step drop and throws a slant, the receiver
needs to shed the defender and hustle his ass to the center of the field to
catch the throw that’s coming about two seconds after the center hikes the
ball.
The other night, the timing had
started moving in the right direction with Jamaica. Then Finn and that bunch of
jersey chasers he lets hang around him showed up and blew up the play. Or maybe
it was only the one jersey chaser who was the problem. She didn’t react much
until Tory opened her whiney mouth.
Usually, I catch Jamaica sneaking
peeks at me several times during the hour we’re in class together. I won’t lie,
catching her looking at me makes my pickle puffy, as my buddy Wyatt Baxter
likes to say. Yesterday in class, I didn’t catch her glancing my way even once.
Didn’t take a genius to figure out she thinks I have something going with that
spoiled little sorority chick—and she’s not impressed. Right when I dispel one
of her stereotypes about me as a football player, something comes along to
reinforce a different one. In this case, that football players only date jersey
chasers.
I shoved my gear into my over-sized
duffel bag, slung it over my shoulder, and headed out of the locker room. As I
made my way up the tunnel to the exit into the parking lot, Finn fell into step
beside me.
“Hey, what put that Debbie Downer
expression on your pretty-boy face, ’Han? You can’t look like that when we’re
playing the Trojans this weekend. We are going to mess. Them. Up.” A joyful
laugh accompanied his words as he punctuated them with three not-so-easy
punches to my shoulder.
“Dude, do you get any school work
done when you ‘study’ in the library with that pack of freshman and sophomore
hyenas you let hang around?”
We stepped out the doors of the
sports complex and headed across the parking lot to the bus.
“Wait, is that what’s bugging you?”
A feral grin slid over his features. “It’s that curly-haired hottie you were
with. Now that I think about it, you were sitting with her in the library one
night last week too.”
“Knock it off, Finn. She’s my
partner for my lit class project.” I slung my bag into the compartment in the
undercarriage of the bus, resituated my backpack over my shoulder, and headed
for the doors.
“You won’t mind then if I make a
run at her the next time you’re studying with her in the library.” He tossed
his duffel in beside mine and followed me onto the bus. “What’s her name?”
“Don’t even think about it,
asshole.”
Tam DeRudder Jackson is the author of the paranormal romance Talisman Series and the contemporary romance Balefire Series. Her favorite “room” in her house is her patio where she dreams up stories of romance and risk. When she’s not writing her latest paranormal or contemporary romance, you can find her driving around in her convertible or carving turns on the slopes of the local ski hill. The mom of two grown sons, Tam likes to travel, attend rock concerts, watch football and soccer, and visit old car shows with her husband. She lives in the mountains of northwest Wyoming where she spends most of her free time trying to read all the books. Her TBR piles are threatening to take over her office, and she’s fine with that.
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This sounds like a good sports romance. I like the blurb and excerpt.
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