The Second Coming (Rogue Academy Book 1) Read online

  “You missed a stitch,” Patricia points out as she walks past.

  A breath escapes my lungs, and I mentally slap my brain to get it back into focus. And this is why I don’t think about Jude Davies.

  “I’ve just got to finish the Morley and Muncheiser lettering on the warm-up jerseys, and then I can call the distributor to talk about the fabric for the new rip away pants,” I tell her since she is essentially my boss.

  William rarely comes to the sew house, as everyone on campus refers to it. He stays in the main administrative building, where the admissions officers, headmaster, coaches, trainers, and other staff work during the day. The academy covers more than thirty acres, with ten buildings in total. There are the athletic facilities, consisting of weight, massage, spa, physical therapy, and film rooms that occupy two of the World War II era stone church-looking buildings. Three dorms, two buildings that house the academic classrooms the players learn in around four or five hours a day depending on their practice schedules, the main administrative building, a hall with stadium seating and a stage for presentations or social events, and the sew house.

  Our building is the smallest and is set on the southernmost corner of the property. It’s an old chapel that was expanded and outfitted as a tailor’s shop. We sew, fit, clean, and repair every single article of match day clothing these players wear. While the big brands might produce the actual jerseys or gear, we customize it all. The player’s names, their numbers, special occasion kits like those worn on Boxing Day … every article goes by Patricia, Louisa, or me.

  “He may really have cocked it up this time, though. Word is, Niles wants to trade him,” Louisa muses.

  “They can’t trade him if he hasn’t signed his official contract yet.” The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them.

  Patricia raises an eyebrow. “Looks like someone knows more about Jude Davies than she lets on.”

  An annoyed huff blows past my lips. “Stop it. Everyone knows about that. People around here talk about Jude finally signing his pro contract as if it’s the second writing of the Bible.”

  That much is true. There is always a buzz about when the owners and Harrington would offer Jude his real contract. Right now, he is on his academy contract … which is still a cool three million pounds a year. But a player like Jude? His real contract is going to be epic. Like nothing British football has ever seen.

  That is if he can keep it in his pants long enough to prove to the powers that be that he’s worth all that money.

  Not that I cared, or anything.

  3

  Jude

  “It’s mad that you’re back here, mate.”

  Kingston dribbles a ball idly from foot to foot, his skill so advanced that he doesn’t even need eyesight to keep the thing in the air.

  “A load of bloody bollocks,” I agree, stretching my quads as the rest of the squad warms up.

  After the cigarette scandal exploded all over the tabloids, Harrington chewed my arse out and sent me packing, all the way back to Clavering and the academy. It gutted me, although I would not show anyone that. I’ll bide my time, wait a month or two until Niles realizes that the first team was losing too many matches without me, and he’ll call me back up.

  “At least you get to see us every day now,” Vance says quietly, his pure mass making Kingston and I look like stick figures.

  There is that. Kingston and Vance have been in the academy with me since almost day one. I was recruited first, Kingston, a left back, a year later, and Vance, our keeper, six months after him. Kingston comes from a line of footie players, his father is the great Edward Phillips of Italian soccer fame. The pressure to live up to his last name is even greater than the one sitting on my shoulders.

  And Vance was pulled out of the foster care system after a local coach noticed his intense ability. The chap is a brick wall of fierceness. Being abandoned as a baby and tossed around adoptive homes hardened him … but that hardness also made him bloody brilliant on the field.

  We’ve been inseparable since the time Kingston convinced us to toilet paper the headmaster’s office when we were nine, and since then, we’ve been mucking up trouble everywhere we go. As we got older, pranks turned into nights out at the club, sneaking girls into our dorm rooms, street racing, and whatever other adult debauchery we can dip our hands into.

  We are twenty-year-old phenoms with money to spare and talent in spades … and the world is setting the stage to worship at our feet. Why wouldn’t we take advantage?

  “That’s true, mate.” I pat his arm, knowing he’d missed me.

  Although cocky assholes in our own unique ways, we are brothers. These two are closer to me, even more so than my biological brothers, who I love very much. But Kingston and Vance understand what this life is like, which is a rare bond to come by.

  “It’s not fair, mate. You’re the best player they’ve got, but Niles just gets pissy when you cock up. As if Luigi isn’t out there screwing women outside his marriage, or Daton isn’t sucking coke up his nose like a vacuum. And we all know Jasper is gambling away his entire contract at those underground poker tournaments.” Kingston winds up and smacks the ball with his foot, sending it flying across the field.

  Out of the three of us, his temper is the worst. Make him mad, and he’s like a pit bull about to be put into a ring.

  “Settle down, killer. If you fire balls at me like that today, I’ll dye all your underwear pink. Again.” Vance smirks a devilish smile.

  A chuckle works its way up my throat. “That was brilliant, actually. Can you do it again?”

  “Bugger off the both of you.” Kingston flips us his middle finger as Coach Gerard trots out onto the field with his whistle.

  Gerard runs most of the Top Squad practices here, which is the team the three of us are on. Top Squad is comprised of the players who are almost, if not already, ready to sign professional contracts and go play for Rogue FC in London. There are four or five more squads under ours, for those who will only ever play in second-tier leagues, or the kids who are recruited at a young age like I was.

  Practice is grueling, especially on me. I’m never one to feel much pain when I play, and it is extremely difficult to get me winded. It’s my biggest asset as a player to the trainers and squads I work with, I’ve even been called the Energizer Bunny. And no, I’m not going to make a dirty joke about how I could be called the same thing by the babes I shag … that would be too easy.

  But by the time Coach Gerard and the members of the best training squad are finished with us, it feels like I’ve been gut-punched repeatedly, that’s how bad the running cramp is making the left side of my stomach seize up.

  “Jude … hang back,” Gerard yells over the wind, the elements harsh on this blustery English landscape.

  Kingston slices across his throat as if to say I’m dead meat, and Vance just gives me those pitiful puppy dog eyes he’s famous for. I nod for them to go off without me, knowing they’ll shower and then go back to our dorm suite to scream at each other over the latest edition of the FIFA video game.

  My boots dig into the grass as I walk to my coach, head hung low, breath coming in spurts.

  He puts a finger in my face, which is his first big mistake. “You’re the reason every one of your teammates in there is going to be unable to walk for days. I am bloody sick of your shenanigans, Davies, as are a lot of other people within the RFC organization. If you don’t get your act together, not only will we not be offering you your contract, but you will no longer be allowed to stay at the academy. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Everything I do is under a bloody microscope. From the time I was seven, I was in the academy. When I turned ten, national papers and television stations started doing stories on me. They called me the next Killian Ramsey, said that I would bring honor and victory back to English football. Me … a ten-year-old. Imagine having that kind of pressure on your shoulders?

  And then, at age fourteen, my two baby brother
s and I were left orphaned. Talk about pressure … it was as if the whole of Mount Everest had been hoisted and placed down on my shoulders.

  The media, my trainers, the lifestyle … it molded me into the cocky, egotistical, prick I am today. It’s how I survive. Drama, selfishness, havoc … I thrive in it. Fuck it, if life was going to throw me shite, I was going to kick it and score goals.

  I was going to be the fastest and most daring player, playboy, and man this country, or the world of international sports, had ever seen.

  So, of course, I understand what Coach Gerard is saying. My career, my future, is on the line. And while the devil inside me is warring with the angel who barely got a word in, my brain, the logical part of me, wins over both of them. I know I have to straighten up.

  “Yes, sir,” I bite out but keep eye contact and my chin held high to let him know I am serious.

  “Good. Dismissed.”

  4

  Aria

  After finishing all the tailoring and stitching I needed to in the sew house, I set to work on my groundskeeping tasks.

  Well, that’s not exactly true. First, after my six-hour shift that finished at three p.m., I went home to cook, clean up, and administer medication. This is my normal routine, work the first leg of my day, go home and ensure that every single thing is in order and then go back for my second six-hour shift. Then I head home, clean up, and play nurse some more, fall into bed, and get up the next day only to do it all again.

  Most would say it is no life to live … but as I said, life or death here.

  I plug my earbuds in my ears as I enter the athletic facilities building, armed with a rolling laundry cart and cleaning supplies. Every Friday night, I’m responsible for scrubbing down all three locker rooms that the numerous age groups rifle through each week. While my old mates from school are taking the train into London to dance their arses off at the hottest new nightclub, I am sponging dirty tile and plugging my nose as I throw the odd jockstrap into my laundry basket.

  But it pays twenty pounds an hour, and at that price, I couldn’t afford to say no.

  Adele’s “Hometown Glory” blasts through my ears, and I sing along, knowing that no one will hear me.

  I only sing when no one can hear me because the last person to tell me my voice was worth something abandoned me at age ten.

  But down here, in the empty locker rooms, as I go about my maid duties, no one is present to listen. I almost cherish this alone time, even if I am putting elbow grease into every motion. I’ve never minded cleaning and chores, and this is the only time in my life when I can let my hair down, sing, and let thoughts wander without worry or someone else chirping in my ear.

  Lyrics are tumbling out of my mouth as I wipe each locker down with a disinfecting wipe, and then straighten and hang all the kits, clothing, and team merchandise within each. Then I move on to mopping the floor in this area, working my way toward the hallway, and into the shower area. The crescendo of the song has me raising my voice, testing out the falsetto that I only practice down here.

  I let the beat take me, swaying my hips and getting lost in the emotion of it for a moment, dropping the mop in the bucket.

  Someone clearing their throat, loud enough for me to hear over the music in my ears and my singing, has me jumping out of my skin. My body does a full one-eighty, freezing when my eyes fall upon the only other person occupying this space.

  Jude Davies. Fully naked. Standing under the spray of shower water. His infamous blazing green eyes fixated on me.

  My eyes eat him up, starting from the shock of black hair on his head, neatly trimmed but longer at the top. He usually swoops it back with gel to give his already intimidating persona just that much more swagger. Arms braced against the wall, long and lean with biceps that seem to flex as I flick my eyes over them. All of that caramel skin on display, from the way it stretches across his carved-in-stone abs, to the tapered set of his waist, to the bulging thigh and calf muscles, honed over years of running up and down the pitch.

  I’m stuck to the spot, my mouth hanging open, no noise in the room besides the spray of his shower and the next Adele track humming in my earbuds. I rip them out, mortified and … if I had to admit it with a gun to my head, completely turned on. How could I not be? Here is the man who stars in probably ninety percent of adult British women’s fantasies, standing in front of me with his long, perfect …

  It’s impossible not to stare at his penis. Because as far as penises go, and I have only ever seen one other this up close and personal, it’s pretty spectacular.

  I dated my secondary school boyfriend from the time I was fifteen, up until the day my life changed forever two weeks after my seventeenth birthday. My virginity was mine to give, and I’d gifted it to him as I thought I’d been in love. Turns out, cowards don’t stick by you when your world goes to shit. Plus, he wasn’t working with anything near what Jude Davies is.

  The skin there is darker than the milky-coffee hue of the rest of his flesh, the veins thick and roping around the long member. A husky chuckle leaves his lips as he catches me staring, and I realize I’ve probably been looking at this man for a solid two minutes without saying a word.

  “No one is supposed to be in here,” I squeak, unable to pull my eyes from his nether regions.

  Jude shrugs, a devilish smile gracing those full lips. “My roommate is shagging someone in our shower, and I wanted some peace and quiet.”

  “You can’t have girls in your rooms.” Random ideas are just tumbling out of my mouth at this point, apparently.

  This makes him chuckle. “Would you like me to show you exactly how we sneak them in?”

  Now he’s sauntering toward me, completely comfortable with the fact that he’s naked and dripping wet in front of a virtual stranger. What kind of superhuman specimen is this? He’s perfect in every single way, from the small cleft in his chin to the golden shade of his skin, to the thick member hanging between his legs.

  And now I do something really childish.

  Slapping my hand over my eyes, I throw my other arm out, palm open and splayed, as if to say “STOP!”

  Only, Jude doesn’t. No, two seconds go by before I feel the smooth warmth of his chest, the muscles of his pecs pulsing under my fingertips. And when I peak through the hand shielding my vision, he’s right in front of me, a wicked grin dancing in those surreal emerald eyes.

  “I won’t bite, love. Unless that’s your sort of thing, of course.”

  “Oh my God.” I swear, at this moment, my entire body flushes the deepest shade of pink imaginable.

  Jude is still standing in front of me, knob blowing in the wind. Unless it’s hard … which I most definitely will not peer down to sneak a peek at.

  “Your voice is brilliant. Do you sing?” Now he’s in my face, trying to make me look into his eyes.

  And I blush even harder. He heard me singing … bloody hell. There I was, belting it in the men’s locker room in the middle of the night, and arguably the most famous football player in all of England was standing there, naked, watching me.

  The realization has me faltering, not that I wasn’t before, but I’d been like a deer caught in headlights because I’d seen him. But Jude Davies hearing me sing? That is the utmost violation of my privacy … it was the flicker of a dream I kept most secret.

  That intrusion is the thing that snaps me out of my spell.

  Backing away, I gather my supplies. “I’ll come back when you’re … done.”

  “Hey—”

  I turn on my heel and vanish before Jude can say whatever it is he was about to.

  In all the time I’ve spent at Rogue Academy, I’ve always been able to keep my head down. To be invisible.

  Except Jude Davies laid his eyes on me, and his skin under my fingertips. And now, I’ve never felt more exposed.

  5

  Jude

  My cock has never been harder.

  Certainly, I’ve seen the intriguing blonde on the academy groun
ds a time or two. She’s got a gorgeous, if not innocent, face. It’s not one any red-blooded male would forget. She wears baggy clothing, to try to conceal those perfect tits I’ve gotten an almost-glimpse at a time or two when she bent down. Average height, desperately attempts to be invisible, all the while never realizing she’s as forgettable as a bullet to the chest.

  Every player here over the age of thirteen has been trying to subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, hit on her since she got hired about six months ago. In my time at the academy, I’ve seen a handful of attractive female employees come and go. The blonde is the hottest of them all.

  So, it’s no wonder that when she walked into the locker room, headphones in, belting at the top of her lungs and not noticing me … it’s no wonder my cock instantly perked up. It has been a whole week since I’ve had a proper shag, and my knob has been well-trained to stand at attention anytime a fit bird comes within twenty feet of it.

  Too bad said bird didn’t want to play. A shame really, because I could have shown her a very good time, alone in that locker room. It’s a prime hookup spot of mine, as it is always deserted after seven p.m., and the room full of showers adds a bit of fun.

  Whoever she is, she fled so fast that I hadn’t even been able to get her name, much less convince her to take another long gaze at my proud cock.

  Not that it mattered much … I found out where she primarily worked in three seconds flat. Rogue Academy is my puppet, and I am its master; if I want something, it is given to me in less time than it takes to ask.

  Which is how I end up outside the sew house at seven a.m. the next morning. I haven’t seen this campus before dawn in a very long time, nor have I seen this building probably in that span either. The sew house is the one building I’ve spent the least amount of time in during my thirteen years at the academy. Once for a torn kit, and again to pick up my first team warm-ups that were made on a rush order before my debut game in London. Those were the only times I’ve been here.