Dirty Tackle: A Football Romance (20 page)

“Dinner is ready!” Shane called from the kitchen. We joined him at the dining room table. The conversation over dinner had nothing to do with what had happened in the kitchen, not that I expected it to. Scarlet was animated talking about what had happened at school that day. Shane asked her a lot of questions, and I sensed that he was deliberately keeping the topic away from anything that might have to do with the topic of us. It seemed like forever before it was time for Scarlet to go to bed.
 

I waited expectantly in the living room for Shane. I was as nervous as I had been when I was nineteen.

He entered the room and stood for a moment in the doorway. Then he made his way over to the couch and sat down next to me. “I think that I might be ready to try something. I’m not sure exactly what, but I know that these last few weeks where you and Scarlet have been with me all the time have been some of the happiest times of my life. I know that with your parents’ struggles, you might be tempted to do something like leave D.C. and move back to Rosewood to support them. I want you to know that I think there is a future here for you too. You should know all your options.”

His words made my body and heart sing. “I’m glad to hear that. I think so too.”

His lips were on mine again, and this time, it was his hunger that I felt behind the kiss. His hands were everywhere it seemed, and I melted against him. He swept me up into my arms, and I yelped. He walked towards his bedroom quickly, and I laughed quietly when he bumped into one of the walls in his haste.

As soon as we were inside the bedroom door, he let me slide gently to the floor. It seemed like we were both in a hurry to remove as many clothes as possible, but we were unwilling to take our lips away from each other. As soon as we were both undressed, he walks me backward and gave me a nudge to push me down onto the bed. I lay back and stared up at him. He was so magnificent in his nakedness. Looking at him staring down at my body taking in every naked inch made me feel so sexy.
 

I gave him a sultry smile and bucked my hips in a silent invitation for him to join me on the bed. That was all it took as he sank down next to me. I turned on my side facing him. He stretched against me and pulled me into him. There was nothing quite like the experience of feeling skin against skin, and I lengthened my body as long as I could so that we touched everywhere possible. My fingertips glided across every hard muscle that I had seen and observed in the locker room but hadn’t actually been able to touch in what seemed like forever.

His hands similarly explored my curves, and I felt them move down my collarbone and cup my breasts. I arched my back as his lips followed the path of his hands and found my hardened nipple. As they teased the sensitive skin, I moaned. It was if he knew me so well. We had been apart for weeks, and both of our bodies seemed to be ready for more and as quickly as possible.

Shane flipped me onto my stomach, and I felt the nudge of his hard cock against the crevice of my butt. I scooted back swiveling my hips against it, eager for him. One hand grasped my hips and the other slid between my thighs and found my warm, welcoming center. I moaned louder this time as his fingers slipped inside of me, teasing me with several small mock thrusts.

Before I could think anything else, Shane spread my cheeks and entered me with a long, hard thrust. I felt as if I was finally complete with him inside of me. We had come full circle. Shane reached around my waist, and his fingers found my swollen clit. As his thrusts grew more demanding, he rubbed my clit faster as well, bringing the swelling crush of pleasure to the forefront. I called his name even as he climaxed inside of me. I heard his long groan as he bent over my back pulling me even closer into him.
 

Then I heard him whisper the words in my ear that let me know that everything was going to be all right.

“I love you, Maddy.”

That was all it took. I felt another wave of dizzying desire sweep over me. Even as I climaxed, I said that I loved him too. I wasn’t ashamed of my feelings. Scarlet and this man were my everything.

As we lay next to each other afterward, I felt his hips start to grind against my belly even though his eyes were closed. I chuckled. “Are we planning on making up for lost time?” I asked.

As I felt his lips found mine again, it was all the answer I needed.
 

It was the week before Christmas, and Scarlet was in a panic trying to figure out what she was going to buy Shane. We had been to dozens of stores over the last couple of weeks, and she couldn’t make up her mind and settle on one thing over another. Although we had looked at everything from a custom made jersey with ‘#1 Dad’ on the back, to slippers, to a popcorn maker for movie nights, it seemed that nothing was quite right. She wanted her first Christmas gift to her daddy to be perfect and special. I understood that, but there was no way that I could get her to believe me that no matter what she gave me gave him, he would treasure it forever.

“One more store, please?” she asked me. It had been ‘one more store’ the last three stores, and I was exhausted. We stood in the middle of the mall with all of the people doing their last minute shopping bustling all around us.
 

It wasn’t just the crowds that had me exhausted, though, but I hid the small smile that threatened to cross my face. I had my own special Christmas surprise for Shane. I thought that he was going to be excited. At least, I hoped he was going to be excited. Somewhere along the way, I had found an opportunity for redemption in the mess that I had created. After all of this time, I was going to give him something that I thought could partially make up for what I had denied him with Scarlet.

I had taken a pregnancy test the day before, and it was positive. It wasn’t even something that I had considered since I had been on the pill for years. But fate had a way of happening no matter what you did. I was a little scared, but more than anything, I was excited about what this would mean for us and our family. I knew by now that Shane was incredible with Scarlet, and I couldn’t wait to see him with a tiny baby in his arms.

I wanted to tell him right away, but I decided to do it at Christmas instead. Then we would figure out how we were going to tell Scarlet together. Of course, this was all assuming that he would be just as on onboard with the idea as I was, but there was nothing to indicate to me that he wouldn’t be.

Since our reconciliation, he had been nothing but an attentive partner. He and Scarlet were getting together better than ever. We were staying over at his condo almost every night of the week now. My mother and father were still deciding what they wanted to do, and I wasn’t pressuring them. Now that they didn’t have the sinking business pulling them down like a weight around their ankles, they could decide what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. I had a feeling that they would figure out something new to try. My parents were entrepreneurs at heart, and my mother had always wanted to open a bakery.

Either way, I had finally come to accept that it wasn’t because of me that they were in the position they were in. I wasn’t sure if I would’ve been able to do that if I hadn’t found Shane again. He was helping me see that accepting a little help was okay, but ultimately we were all responsible for our own decisions and our own lives.

“There!” Scarlet said. She was pointing at a sports memorabilia shop.

“I don’t think that’s probably the best place to find something for your dad,” I said.

“No, I know exactly what to get him now,” she said. She ran ahead of me toward the store. I chuckled at her enthusiasm and had no choice but to follow her. Once I got inside, I saw her talking animatedly to the man behind the counter. He was giving her a considering look.
 

I knew what he was thinking. There were probably very few eight-year-olds that would show up in front of him and know as much about football as Scarlet did now. She absorbed everything that Shane told her and probably knew more than I did about the game.

She turned and looked at me with a triumphant smile as I entered the store and walked up behind her. The man behind the counter smiled at me. “So what does your mom have to say about this?”

“About what?” I asked.

“Your little girl here said that she wants to get an autographed Jerry Rice football for her daddy. She said he was her daddy’s favorite football player to watch every Sunday when he was growing up. That true?”

Honestly, I had no idea. But if Scarlet said so, I believed her. “I’d say you should believe her.”

He tapped some keys on his computer looking at the screen. “I don’t have one here in the store, but I can get one. What you think?”

I saw the intense look of hope on Scarlet’s face. Then the man showed me the price on the computer screen. I felt a small drop in my stomach when I saw the price tag, but I knew that this was exactly what she wanted to get him. I would figure out how to make it work.

“Can we get it here before Christmas?” I asked.

“We can make it happen. A little extra for shipping, but it should be fine.”

I got out my credit card, and Scarlet clapped in delight. Knowing how excited she was made it worth every penny.

As we left the store, Scarlet tugged on my sleeve. “Don’t forget, Mom, we need to stop at Daddy’s before we go home. I left my PSP there.”

It had been a long day at the mall, and I had been looking forward to a hot bubble bath. My feet were killing me. Shane was spending the evening with Marvin reviewing tape for the game the next day. If the Redskins won, they were going to clench the division title championship and head into the playoffs. I knew it was a big game, and I didn’t want to distract him. I wasn’t exactly sure the coach would end the practice, and I assumed he would head home before going to Marvin’s.

“I don’t think that we should bother him,” I said. “You can wait until tomorrow.”

“But mom, I’m at this point in my game where I think I’ll win it, and I’ve been waiting all day. Please? You said we could.”

“I think that you forgot your PSP there on purpose just so you could use your new key,” I said.

The week before Shane had given Scarlet an early Christmas present. It had been a key to his place. I had shared a secret smile with him over Scarlet’s head. It was as if we were all taking another big step together in our relationship. She had been dying to try it out ever since she’d gotten it.

“Please, Mom. Please?”

“Fine,” I said. We both had known that I would give in eventually. “But then it’s straight home, and we’re going to make dinner and go to bed without a fuss.”

“Hooray!” she said. Fifteen minutes later, we were walking into Shane’s building. Scarlet couldn’t stop talking about her gift for Shane and how it was going to be hard to keep it a secret until Christmas. That was exactly the reason I wasn’t giving the slightest hint to her about my own surprise for Shane. Scarlet was terrible at keeping secrets.

As we approached his door, I waited for her to pull out the key out of her backpack. She presented it to me with a look of smug delight on her face, which again led me to believe that she had forgotten her PSP there on purpose. When I opened the door, I was surprised to smell food cooking.

“Shane?”

There was no answer. I pushed ahead of Scarlet as I walked deeper into the condo. I turned into the kitchen expecting to find Shane there cooking dinner, and then it was as if my world shattered around my feet.

“Who’s that?” Scarlet asked.

That was Olivia. She stood in the middle of Shane’s kitchen with an apron covering her body and little else. My mind barely registered the lacy thin gauze of garter belts and skimpy lingerie that was barely present underneath the apron. She looked like she was some kind of French maid with her blonde hair piled on top of her head falling around her face in long ringlets. She turned just in time so that Scarlet didn’t see her wholly exposed backside. I slapped my hand around Scarlet’s eyes.

Olivia saw us then and started to laugh. “Don’t you bitches know the schedule by now? Tonight is my night.”

I couldn’t believe that she had the nerve to refer to me and my daughter that way, but then all of the things that she had said to me over the months rang in my ears. That every time Shane wasn’t with me, he was with her. I felt my heart breaking, and I wanted to run across the room and smack the smug smile off of her face. But I wouldn’t do that. Not in front of Scarlet anyway.

I pushed Scarlet towards the hallway. “Get your game. Then we’re leaving.”

It looked at for a moment as if Scarlet wanted to argue with me, but then she saw the look on my face and scampered away.

“What are you doing here?”

Olivia looked around the room as if in confusion. “Shane will be hungry after practice today. I just wanted to make sure he could eat whatever he wanted to satisfy that hunger,” she said emphasizing the statement in a way that brought a horrible image of Shane nestled between Olivia’s thighs to mind. I could just imagine what he would do to her with her wearing that kind of get-up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Scarlet emerge from the hallway.