Game of Love (16 page)

“It’s a calculated risk, and it’s the one we’re taking. If we cower to KI’s bullshit, it says we don’t believe in our product. I believe in our product.”

And I believe in Ellie.

Dex took one last look around the room and said, “So that’s the game plan. Let’s go out there and make it happen. Regina, I’m taking off.” Dex had created his world. Now it was time to make something more of it. He could use this world he created for fun or for good.
I’m choosing both
.

“Wait. We have the podcast at six and a marketing meeting at eight.” Regina shot a look at Mitch.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve got something I need to take care of. Mitch, you take the podcast. Reg, you can handle the marketing.”

Dex headed out the door—and toward his future.

THE APARTMENT WAS quiet when Dex walked in. Too quiet. He called Ellie’s name. She hadn’t answered her phone and now the silence caused his stomach to feel funky. He found the empty envelope from her bank card and her cell phone on the table by the front door. Her black boots were on the rug beside the table.
She’d never leave without her boots
.
Why am I even thinking that way?
Shouldn’t today have proven to him that she wasn’t going anywhere? At least not right now.

“El?” He walked through the empty living room and dining room. Her cell phone vibrated, and he picked it up on his way back to the bedroom.
Asshole
flashed on the screen.
Asshole?
He smiled. That was
so Ellie
. He didn’t have to wonder long to figure out who Asshole was. Ellie could have used that term for any guy who pissed her off. A boss.
A boyfriend
. The thought made him cringe. He squelched the urge to read the text when he caught sight of Ellie through the halfway-open bathroom door, dancing in her lacy black underwear and T-shirt. He tossed the phone on the bed and stepped closer. The sound of her humming caused his ears to perk up. He watched her through the partially open door. Her hips swayed as her shoulders moved from side to side in a seductively slow dance. Damn, she was hot. The hair dryer was beside the sink, and the scent of her sweet perfume filled his senses. His body heated up, and when she threw her hands up above her head and did a sexy little shimmy, he just about lost it. Christ almighty, she was his midnight fantasy come true.

He couldn’t have stopped himself if his life depended on it. He stepped into the bathroom, and Ellie started; a yelp slipped from her lips. He took her in his arms and captured the balance of the fright—her panting breaths—in his mouth. She smelled fresh and feminine, and her skin was so damn soft as he slipped his hands beneath her T-shirt. When he met the bare skin of her breasts, a deep growl escaped his lungs.

She was totally in sync with him, loving him right back with her hungry kiss. She tugged the earbuds from her ears, and he lifted her up to the countertop, pushed her shirt up to her shoulders, and shoved his hips between her legs. He could barely hold back. He wanted Ellie. All of Ellie. She buried her hands in his hair and drew his mouth to her breasts. He gratefully obliged and stroked her nipples with his tongue until she writhed against him.
Fuck, she’s so hot
. She drew his lips back to hers and kissed him hard and deep, and as she drew back, she licked his bottom lip, then took it in her mouth and sucked it, letting it go slowly through her teeth. Dex groaned, unable to form a coherent thought. He grabbed her ass and pulled her to the edge of the counter, then rubbed her through her damp panties. She settled her teeth on the tender skin of his neck while her tongue worked slow strokes over his already-heated skin; then she pressed his hand firmly between her legs.

“Ellie,” he whispered. He pulled at her panties, and she lifted up, giving him access to draw them down; then he lowered his mouth to her and loved her until her body shook with tiny pulses of pleasure.

“Dex. Please. Please,” she begged.

He ripped open his jeans, and they dropped to his ankles. Their eyes locked, and she leaned in to him, kissing him again. Knowing she tasted herself on his lips nearly made him explode. He grabbed her hips and drove into her. She gasped a breath against his lips, unwilling to release her grip on the back of his neck, and then kissed him again. She was so wet, so hot; he wasn’t going to last. Shit, he wanted to make love to her for hours. He wanted to keep her in his arms forever, breathe air into her lungs, and fill her heart with happiness so she never had reason to feel sad or alone—or leave him again. He’d waited so long to be with her, and now his body trembled with a mixture of desire, anticipation, and worry that he refused to acknowledge. He needed more of her—to drive the fear away. Far, far away. In one quick motion, he lifted her off the counter. Her legs clung to his waist; her breasts pressed against his T-shirt, her lips against his mouth. She used his biceps for leverage and met each thrust with a slide of her own.

He carried her to the bed, still buried deep inside her, and they tumbled down together. She smiled up at him and his heart swelled. He pushed her hair from her face. “God, I love you.”

Ellie grabbed his hips and whispered, “Dexy, go slow.”

He obeyed, and she did that incredibly sexy thing with her hips again, that little move that stroked him—and her—in the spot that sent them both spiraling toward the edge, and as her eyes fluttered closed, she whispered, “Now.” He surged up, penetrating deeper. She clawed at his back, and her inner muscles squeezed every inch of him in erotic contractions, pulling the come right out of him. He nuzzled against her neck, teeth clenched, grunting through his own earth-shattering release.

THEY LAY ON their backs wearing only T-shirts and gratified smiles. The murmur of a vibration rattled beneath Ellie. With one arm, Dex hoisted Ellie against his side and grabbed her phone from beneath her.

“Sorry. I tossed your phone there. It was buzzing when I walked in, and then I saw you and…” He licked his lips.

She moaned. “You kill me.” Ellie kissed his chest and made no move to look at her phone. Today had been too perfect. She didn’t want to chance seeing another text from Bruce and clouding her happiness. She snuggled against Dex. “Something changed for me today. For the first time in forever, I feel like lots of good stuff is happening at once.”

He kissed her forehead. “Your life is going to be nothing but good things, El. We just had to find our way back to each other.”

She leaned up on her elbow and looked into his eyes, remembering the first time she’d snuck out of her house. It wasn’t just Dex’s kindness that drew her to him that night. She’d seen something else in his brooding, shadowed eyes. A hidden unhappiness that tugged at her heart. She’d braved the darkness, following the sidewalk to the next street down, then turned and went to the Remingtons’ address. She couldn’t remember what had compelled her to look it up two weeks earlier, but she had felt the need to do so. That night she stood outside his house trying to figure out which window might be his. She’d peered into the three bedroom windows she could reach, and though the first and second were dark, she’d found him in the third. She had no idea how long she’d watched him. Fifteen minutes? An hour? She’d been mesmerized by his ability to lie still for so long. Absorbed by whatever he was reading. Her mind was always running in ten different directions, trying to determine a way out of the hell that had become her life. If she wasn’t lovable enough for her own mother to sober up and reclaim her, how could she ever expect anyone else to? By the time she got to the foster home on Carlisle Avenue she’d already become jaded by the system. She’d known her foster homes were temporary, and something about Dex had seemed permanent. Even then.

Through the window that night, she watched Dex in the dim light of the reading lamp. He was lying on the twin bed, which looked too small beneath his lanky frame, wearing only a pair of cotton boxers. She’d been twelve the first time she stood outside his window. He was thirteen. They’d known each other for almost two years. Even at her young age, she’d seen more in Dex than just a boy on the cusp of growth. His legs were thin and long, his muscles yet undefined. He set down the book and pressed keys on a keyboard beside his bed. The monitor came to life and illuminated his handsome face. Back then his cheeks were smooth, still too young to have sprouted hair. His jaw and nose were still buffered with the last bits of youthful tenderness, less angular, and his eyes—those piercing midnight-blue eyes—called to her even then. She’d been standing on her tiptoes in her jeans and oversized sweatshirt. It was October, and the leaves were damp from a light evening rain. The toes of her sneakers had slipped out from beneath her, and as she grasped the windowsill in an effort to remain erect, her knuckles had rapped against the glass. She remembered the metal-on-metal sound of the window as it slid open and the look in Dex’s eyes when he saw her clinging to the sill.

“Hey,” he’d said.

“Hey.”
Gulp
.

He hadn’t said another word. He’d held his hands out for her to take hold, and when her hands touched his, she didn’t think. She scaled the wall, holding on to his hands and using her feet to walk up the bricks. She put her arms around his neck when he reached for her, and when he helped her down from the sill, inside his room, then took her hand and led her to the bed, he knelt down and took off her shoes without a word. She remembered watching him move around her like he’d been waiting for her his whole life. He’d looked at her and smiled with the right side of his mouth. And then he’d sat back on the bed against the headboard in the same position he’d been in when she’d arrived, and he lifted his arm. She’d crawled in beside him, one hand on his bare belly, the other against his side—in what would become their nightly position—and she’d closed her eyes. That was the first night she’d slept, really allowed herself to forget the world and fade away, in all the years she could remember.

Dex’s hand on her cheek pulled her from the memory.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked.

She laid her head on his chest. “Better than okay.”

“What were you thinking of just then?” He ran his fingers through her hair.

“You.” For the first time in her life, Ellie wondered if she should return to their old neighborhood and face what had driven her to sneak out for all those years. Find some closure.

“That’s good, right?” He flashed that crooked grin she loved.

She pushed the thought from her mind, unable to deal with anything that heavy right then. She wanted to focus on what she had now and the hope that was growing inside of her for a future…with Dex. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Dexy?”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking. You have misgivings about what PC games do to kids, and I know you love making them, but what about balancing those misgivings by helping kids in another way? Would you ever consider helping us make that software program for kids? I mean, I know it’s not your thing, but—”

He lifted her chin so she was looking into his eyes. “I’ve thought about it since you mentioned it to me. I even talked to Mitch about it. Yeah, I want to.”

She sat up and pulled the blanket over her lower half. “Really?” Excitement prickled her limbs.

“Yeah. I was thinking, most educational software programs
feel
like educational programs. The way you explained what you had envisioned the first time you told me about it, it made me think of a multiplayer platform. So I took that idea a little further. We could develop educational software that feels like a game. Obviously, it can’t be like
World of Thieves
or have weapons or those types of elements, but we can use the same type of premise, set the program in a made-up world with cool characters and reading prompts, match prompts, whatever educational elements you need. You’ll have to guide us on that end, but it’s totally doable.”

“You really have been thinking about it.”

“I’ll always make games, but I worry about what’s going to happen ten years from now. I mean, now that both guys and girls are gaming all the time, if you look down the road, their kids will grow up doing it, too. Soon no one will play sports or go to museums, or hell, even leave their houses.”

Ellie wrinkled her brow. “A little overdramatic today?”

“Maybe. A little
over
everything today. But I do want to be involved with something that will help kids. So yeah, whatever you need. I’m in.”

She sighed and tumbled down beside him again.

“You’re waiting for the other shoe to fall and clunk you on the head.” Dex touched the top of her head.

“You can tell?”

“I can always tell.” He leaned over her and lifted up her shirt, exposing her stomach. Dex drew a heart on her skin with his index finger. “Nothing’s gonna clunk you.”

Her phone vibrated again, and she groaned.

“Just answer it,” he said.

“I don’t want to.”

He stared at the phone, and guilt speared her heart.

“Who is
Asshole
?” Dex’s voice turned serious. He held her gaze, and when she tried to look away, he shook his head. “Ellie, we owe each other honesty. I will never lie to you, and I don’t think I could stand it if you lied to me. Not after all these years and everything we’ve been through.”

She closed her eyes for a breath.
Tell him. Don’t ruin this
. She covered her eyes with her arm. “If I tell you, you can’t judge me, because it’s not my fault. And you can’t look at me, either.”

“Ellie.”

She shook her head, her arm acting as a barrier between the hurt she knew would fill his eyes and the embarrassment that would fill hers. And if she dared tell him the whole truth, he’d go ballistic. She knew this about him. He’d go to the ends of the earth to protect her. But he couldn’t slay the demons that haunted her heart if he didn’t know what they were. He wouldn’t morph from sweet, loving Dexy to man-on-a-mission without a reason, and right now she needed sweet, loving Dexy.
Just this last time
. It wasn’t a lie, really. She was going to tell him the truth, omitting only one tiny piece of information.
Tiny, my ass
. Okay. One big fucking chunk of information that she wasn’t ready to relive.