Dirty Player: A Rough Riders Novel (26 page)

Tears burned the backs of my eyes and I forced myself to look away. “I miss her. All the time. I missed her when she was alive because Beaux and I were always alone, and then I missed her when she was gone.”

His hand reached out and cupped the side of my neck, and his thumb began making small movements just beneath my chin. “How’d she die?”

“Exhaustion, I think. She was never officially diagnosed with a cause of death other than heart failure.” Tears began blurring my vision as the memories slammed into my mind. “She got pneumonia one winter and didn’t have paid time off. So she kept working, and it took forever for her to get better. But she never really did, either. She kept getting sick, kept refusing to go to the hospital because she didn’t have the insurance to pay for it. Once she lost her jobs and kept getting sicker, I think she just gave up.”

His hand at my neck tightened and he tugged me forward until my forehead hit his chest. His other arm wrapped around my lower back and he held me against him while I began to cry. Swaying back and forth, he held me close, letting me expel all the emotions I worked so hard to keep bottled up.

And it was in that moment, with the sun beating down on us, the rustling of a breeze through the trees and the waves lapping against the shore the only sounds around us, I knew I was falling in deep.

So deep I was drowning, but didn’t want anyone to rescue me.

I pulled back and wiped my tears away, my smile shaky when I looked up at Oliver. The understanding in his eyes made all his hardened features seem softer and made my breath catch in my throat.

“Sorry,” I whispered, cleaning up my cheeks.

“Don’t be.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek, my jaw, my lips, back by my ear. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You ready to go?”

“Yeah.” I sniffed one more time. I erased the sadness in my eyes and grinned, biting my tongue between my teeth. “I still have more things planned for tonight anyway.”

His soft grin turned wicked. “Then by all means, let’s go home.”

***

“What a fucktwit,” Melissa exclaimed after I filled her in on Patrick’s phone call from earlier in the week.

I swallowed my sip of wine before I choked on it. It was Saturday, and for the first night since I’d been in Raleigh, I was alone. No Beaux, no Oliver, just my newly bought and set up television—complete with satellite so I never had to worry about missing a single football game all season—and Melissa’s made-up curse words.

“But Oliver, man, he sounds like a man I wouldn’t mind being claimed by. Not in that way, at least.”

“Yeah, he’s something else.”

It was safe to say I was falling fast.

It seemed surreal at the same time that it was natural.

What didn’t feel natural was the little white box I’d found sitting on the nightstand next to my bed this morning when I went back to grab my purse after Oliver had left.

It was too big to be jewelry. It was also way too soon for him to be giving me jewelry, despite the amount of money he made.

Maybe he left it by accident. Maybe it wasn’t for me, but something he’d forgotten. 

Maybe he wanted me to wait until he called me after the game like he’d promised he would.

I’d spent hours downstairs thinking of the rectangular box. It seemed to shout through the floor, down to my workroom in Stamped, “
open me, open me, open me, come on, you know you want to.”

I’d caved two hours earlier, curiosity almost killing me.

Now, I was going to kill him.

The box hadn’t contained jewelry. It hadn’t even contained a memento, something cheesy to remember him when he played in his away games.

Nope.

A butt plug.

Butt. Plug. It wasn’t a small one, either. He’d mentioned it once and, interested in what he’d done to me, I’d hoped we’d go there. We hadn’t. For the past week he had backed off the backdoor entrance. After the first time he’d pressed a finger inside of me, though, I had looked butt plugs up online.

The plug he’d left surreptitiously next to my nightstand, giving me a clear indication he wanted this, was much smaller than him. It was also
not
a beginner, small-sized plug.

Hence the sudden need I had for wine.

“I tell you what, Shanna Banana,” Melissa said. 

It occurred to me that she’d been speaking, but I’d drifted off. I dragged off my eyes off the box I could spy down the hallway and focused on her. 

“Patrick was never good enough for you. I know Beaux told you that, and now I’m telling you that. I stayed silent even though I never liked the guy, but you did and you deserved your happy, but Patrick was never going to be it for you. And frankly, I’m glad you’ve now got a large dick sticking it to you so you can realize that there are men out there who are real men and not the pussy guy Patrick is.”

She was right, in a sense. I was tired of defending the guy, talking about him, and even thinking about him.

“Well, it’s done now,” I murmured and took another drink of wine. “Let’s put it behind us.”

“Yes, let’s. Now, let’s talk more about this hunk of a man you have. He is
fine…”

She continued speaking and rambling, like she usually did, and I quit listening. The truth was, there was no comparison between Oliver’s six foot four, two-fifty, muscled frame that held a bit of thickness around his sides and Patrick at five-ten and one-eighty. Both were built and in shape for their build, but Oliver was on another level.

A man who had spent years honing his body into a machine was no match, physically, for a man who occasionally ran on the weekends and lifted weights only when the spirit moved him.

While Melissa rattled on, I continued thinking about all the years I’d spent with Patrick, finally letting the truth everyone spoke to me sink into me like it should have long ago.

They were right about Patrick. Patrick had always expected me to bow to him, to go along with what he wanted because he was a McDonnelly. 

I had fallen for it. I had craved the security his financial situation could provide someday, not to live a life of luxury, but to know with certainty that I’d never eat a week of bologna and cheese sandwiches again, and even then only eat twice a day.

But had I ever craved his touch the way I already craved Oliver’s? Had I ever responded to him physically so quickly? So deeply? Did I miss him when we were apart, waiting for the minute I could see him again?

If they ever existed, they’d evaporated a long time ago.

Regardless of the passion we could have had in the beginning, it had long since burned out by the time he proposed. I had chalked it up to that’s what happened when you moved in with someone. When you knew them so well after so many years that it was easy to settle into roommates with lackluster sex lives where you knew every move that would come before it happened.

We’d been stale. I hadn’t even been bothered by it.

Already I knew that if that passion with Oliver waned, I’d fight tooth and nail to get it back, hanging onto it with everything I had to keep from losing it again.

“I didn’t love him,” I whispered.

The babbling voice on the other end of the phone went silent. “Jensen Ackles?” Melissa finally asked, confusion thick in her voice. “Because I was talking about—”

“Sorry, I wasn’t listening, and I’ll let you rant about
Supernatural
later, but I think I just had an epiphany.”

“About Patrick?” Any other friend might have been offended by admitting they’d been talking and you’d totally drifted off. Not Melissa. Of course, her obsession with
Supernatural
rivaled mine with
Sons of Anarchy
—something she never understood.

“Yes. I didn’t love him. Or if I did, I stopped a long time ago.”

I didn’t have to see her to know she was rolling her eyes. “Well, duh. I could have told you that.”

I finished my glass of wine in one large swallow. “I love you. You know that, right, Pissy Missy?”

She snorted. “Sure, hooker. I know that.”

***

My palms went clammy as soon as I saw Oliver’s name flash on my phone.

I was tipsy, having drunk more wine after Melissa and I hung up. Then more wine while I watched Raleigh cream Miami. For two guys who had seemed to think the game was going to be close, they had played a game that the sports announcers were declaring “prophetic of the rest of their Super Bowl-bound season.”

I’d been so excited that I’d finished the bottle of wine while I cheered for every completed pass, every touchdown, every dodged sack and tackle.

Now, I was about to have a heart attack. If it was possible, the butt plug on my nightstand had grown throughout the day.

It wasn’t even just a phone call that made me nervous. It was the small white video camera inside a green circle.

FaceTime?
Oh God.

My stomach sank to my gut as I hit the Answer button. When we connected and I saw his eyes crinkle behind those sexy as hell eyeglass frames when he smiled, I swallowed past the lump in my throat.

“Hey, you. Good game tonight.” I cringed as my voice cracked.

Oliver’s smile disappeared as he noticed. “You okay?”

“I’m good. I promise. Maybe had a bit too much to drink tonight, excited to see you. You played great.”

His eyes softened. His smile was a bit tremulous, as if he wasn’t used to the praise. It was that vulnerability that made my heart skip a beat. “Thank you. Everything about the game was good, like we’re figuring out our shit on the field.”

“It looked like it.” There was an awkward pause and heat crept up my neck to my cheeks.

“You’re nervous,” he said, adjusting in his seat. He leaned back, and that was when I noticed he wasn’t wearing a shirt. All I saw on the small screen in my hand was tanned and firm muscles, slight bruises blooming on his ribcage, but I knew enough not to ask. Bruises and injuries were part of the game. “Would you care to tell me why?”

I blinked harshly and forced myself to look him in the eye. He smirked and ran his tongue along his teeth. Slowly.

Teasingly.

God. He knew why I was nervous and he was loving it.

“I found your present,” I admitted, my voice thick. 

His lips twitched. “And you’re not going to say thank you?”

My voice went soft. “I’m a bit too afraid for that quite yet.”

“You will.” He nodded confidently. “When I’m inside you, with your ass full of the plug, you’ll be thankful for it.”

“You sound so sure.” My body was already responding to the idea, to his words and his confidence. Warmth hit my inner thighs, making everything tingle.

He crossed his arms over his chest, excitement flashing in his eyes all while seeming so unconcerned at my nerves. “Tell me what you first thought when you saw it. And while you’re doing that, take off your shirt. I woke up hard this morning, wishing I could put my mouth on your tits.”

“God, Oliver.” I was already practically panting. My breath quickened from nerves mixed with desire. I still listened. I took off my shirt and my bra, sitting in my bed in only a simple white cotton thong. Without being told, I adjusted my position on the bed and propped up my phone so I could talk to him without holding it.

Something told me I would need my hands soon anyway.

“When you saw the plug?” he asked, his hands disappearing below my line of sight. I knew what he was doing as he shifted his hips, pushed down, and then the muscles in one of his arms began to bunch and flex while he began working himself.

God, I wanted to see it. See him stroke himself.

“I liked it,” I admitted, breathless now. “We talked about it but then you didn’t mention it again. I’ve been curious.”

“Scared?”

I nodded, then blinked as he continued working himself. “I want to see you,” I blurted.

He barked out a quick laugh but pushed back from the desk. Shit. He was naked. Completely, except for those glasses I wanted him wearing sometime when he was on top of me. They made him seem less like a god and more like a man. A completely edible man. His hard dick stood straight up while he wrapped his hand around it. His thighs were spread wide, unashamedly.

Always so confident.

I dragged my gaze off him masturbating and blinked quickly. “I’ve never done this. Or that,” I admitted, thinking of the plug and him taking that part of me. “It makes me nervous. Scares me. But I want it, too.”

“You’ll fucking love it. God, do you see how hard I am for you? So damn hard for you all the time. And all you have to do is listen to what I say. Can you do that, Shan?”

I nodded, dropped my gaze back to his dick. Wetness dampened my thong.

“Take off your underwear, then. As sexy as you are covered, I want to see you.”

I shifted again, listening to his rich voice, the way his hazel eyes had gone as dark as the forest. Every muscle in his face was tight and his abs bunched and rolled while he worked himself. He was just as turned on as me.