Play Maker (9 page)

I
could get used
to this, I thought, as we lay catching our breaths, James’ body hot and deliciously heavy on mine. He groaned, and rolled off of me, no doubt fearing he was crushing me, but I missed the weight of him immediately.

But the thrill of it all, the intensity of my orgasm fading, the realization that I was feeling a little too comfortable in his room, in his bed, had me sitting up. And that’s where he found me when he returned from discarding the condom.

“Hey.” The word was casual, but cautious.

I tried to keep my eyes on his face, not linger on his gorgeous naked body. A naked body that until a few minutes ago had been wonderfully pressed up against my own. I wanted to stay and that freaked me the fuck out. This was supposed to be casual. It needed to stay casual. No spooning, no room service, no goodnight kisses. Anything more than what we had just shared was a recipe for disaster. I needed to leave.

“Hey.” I got up from the bed and began looking for my clothes.

“You know.” He crossed his arms, watching, but didn’t try to stop me. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were using me for sex.” The words were teasing, which I appreciated. He was giving me the out I wanted.

I pushed my hair back from my face, trying to keep my tone light. “I hate to break it to you.” I gave him a smile as I wiggled into my thong and bra. “But that’s exactly what I’m using you for.”

He groaned, a hand pressed against his chest. “Well, then show some mercy with that body. Any more of that.” He gestured towards my struggle to put on my pants, which was causing my breasts to sway despite my bra, “and you’ll be leaving me with a very big problem.”

I winked at him. “Oh, I know exactly how big of problem I’ll be leaving you with.” The memory of how good he had felt inside of me, gave me pause. Could I stay for another round? No. Curfew. Rules. I knew that the trick to making this second one night stand stay casual, was to leave before anything too personal was exchanged. I had no problem fucking the guy, I just didn’t want things to get any more personal than they had to. “I’m afraid you’ll have to take care of that yourself, though.”

The look he gave me was positively dangerous. “Are you sure you don’t want to give me a hand?”

I gulped. Because I really did. If I had thought that another series of orgasms would get James out of my mind, I had sorely underestimated how much I enjoyed those orgasms. And I knew that it had a lot to do with him. Which is exactly what made it so important that I left. The last thing I needed was to get attached to a guy just because he was especially good at making me come. It had just been a long time since I had had good sex. An orgasm was an orgasm. I could have what I was having with him with someone else. Right?

I needed to push that doubt out of my mind. I needed to go.

But a part of me was a little disappointed that he wasn’t really trying to stop me. Not like last time. Maybe it had been all about his ego this whole time – he couldn’t comprehend that someone didn’t want to sleep with him again and now that I had, his ego had returned to its usual size.

“Well.” He was still standing there naked, an amused grin on his face. “Can I call you a cab?”

“No thanks,” I said, my voice sounding overly cheerful, even to me and I immediately kicked myself. I did need a cab – and hated to dip into my budget to pay for it. But for some reason, I didn’t want him paying for it either. I didn’t want him paying for anything. I didn’t need another reminder of how different we were.

“I guess I’ll see you around then.” He quirked an eyebrow at me. “After all, there is only one bar in this hotel.”

Another reminder that this was all temporary. That his presence here was temporary. If we kept it casual, there’d be no problems when he left. Which he was going to do.

I squared my shoulders and plastered a smile on my face. “I look forward to it.”

Yeah, my body did, but my mind was wondering if I could call in sick for a few days. James had clearly scratched whatever mutual itch we had had, but I was tingling like I was covered in ants. Sexual ants.

I headed towards the door, remembering that I had left my bag there. Grabbing it off the ground, I turned around to find that James hadn’t moved. I gave myself a moment to appreciate the perfection of his naked body – the muscular legs, the toned, tattooed chest, the rock hard abs…and other things below that general area that I was getting a little too attached to.

“Ok. Bye,” I said and got out of there as soon as possible. Ok. Bye? I got in the elevator, smacking my forehead with my palm. What was I? Twelve? Ugh.

I got down to the lobby and had the front desk call me a cab. A cheap one.

It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I remembered the gift James had given me at the bar. The one I had stowed in my bag and immediately forgotten about once I arrived in his room and launched myself into his arms. I pulled it out of my purse, the brown paper bag a bit crinkled and dented, but I held it like it was the most perfectly wrapped gift of all time. A part of me didn’t want to open it. I knew if I did, I might regret going back there tonight. I might start feeling things for someone who was going to be going back to the U.K. soon. Someone who was supposed to be good in bed, but not so good that I had started to question the abilities of every other guy I had slept with. Someone who I needed to forget about as soon as possible.

But despite my better judgment, I found myself opening the bag anyways. There was a card and a bottle of liquor. That wasn’t a surprise, but then I opened the card.
For the woman who knows what she likes
. I held up the glass. It was a bottle of the most expensive cognac money could buy.

I
took
a deep breath of salt air as I jogged along the beach. It was my first morning off since we had arrived in Los Angeles and though I couldn’t take the day off from my intensive exercise routine, I figured I deserved the change of scenery and headed to Venice to see more of what Southern California could offer me.

And it seemed to be willing to offer me a lot. I had barely stepped out of my rental car before a bevy of babes in bikinis passed by, some of them turning back to ogle me openly. I couldn’t help winking at one of them, though I found that my heart wasn’t really in it. She was cute, but my attention was still focused on the blonde that had been in my bed and in my arms last night.

My cock was still pretty focused on that too, and I had to increase my speed, pounding my feet against the sand to keep my erection under control. With the sun beating down on my face, I worked up a great sweat, feeling more alive than I had in a while. I knew I owed it to Nicole. Last night had been incredible. She had been incredible. Any lethargy I had felt about the decisions I was making about my future, any reluctance, seemed to have been banished completely.

I didn’t really understand why. Nicole still had left, even before I could ask her to stay, but somehow, this time, I wasn’t worried. She would be back, I told myself, confidence surging through me, my feet picking up speed. Whatever was going on between us, it wasn’t something that was going to go away after one night, or even two. If everything worked out according to plan, I would be staying in sunny California for a while. And I was definitely interested in taking a more focused look at the chemistry between Nicole and I. Didn’t Americans have something called ‘friends with benefits’? That was something that sounded appealing.

I felt like I could do anything. The future was suddenly full of potential and I was ready to take it on. It helped that Ethan had called that morning with a list of possible charities, all of which sounded eager for someone to get involved in a hands-on way.

And this – I kept running – watching people on the beach, the surfers in the water, couples strolling by. I loved it. Unlike London, where everyone recognized me and paparazzi waited outside my flat, no one here seemed to realize who I was. Sure, there had been a few photographers outside some of the fancy restaurants I had gone to with the rest of the team and Rick kept managing to get himself (or rather, me) in the tabloids, but it was nothing like back home. Thank god Americans didn’t follow our football the same way they followed their own.

I could see myself being happy here in the sun and the sand. I made a mental note to look at houses in the neighborhood. Close to the beach. Very close to the beach. I pictured Nicole in a bikini and smiled. Oh yeah. Extremely close to the beach, but with a private shower for us to enjoy each other under the SoCal sky.

T
his day sucked
. Usually I didn’t think that on my day off, but I was having a shitty morning. First, the dryer at the laundromat hadn’t been working properly so I had been stuck there for hours running our clothes through several cycles until they were dry enough to take out. It had put a major dent in our quarter supply and our towels were still going to need to dry out for a few more hours. Ugh. I fucking hated doing laundry.

Then I lugged it all home to find Mikey sitting in the corner, staring at the wall.

I looked at my phone and realized that we had missed the movie. The movie I had
promised
him we could go to. On my day off. Our special day. Dammit. I had been so distracted by laundry and the occasional daydream about James that I had forgotten to call to tell him I was going to be late. I dropped the laundry to the floor and went over to kneel next to him.

“I’m so sorry buddy.”

“We missed it,” he informed me, his eyes filling with tears.

“I know and I’m sorry.” The headache that had started after the third round of drying our clothes was now compounded by the guilt I felt. I was exhausted all of a sudden. I just wanted to lie down.

“We missed the movie. You promised.” He was shaking his head now as a few tears ran down his face, and my heart broke.

“You’re right.” I gathered him in my arms, thankful that he allowed me to. “I messed up. And I’m sorry. But I can make it up to you, ok?”

He wiped his nose on my shirt and leaned back. “How?”

“I’ll make you a special dinner.” Thankfully I had gone to the grocery store before starting the laundry. “I can make cheesy noodles with hot dog bits.” That was Mikey’s absolute favorite.

“Ok,” he said quietly, but I could tell that he was still upset.

“And we can watch the first Doctor Who episode of each season,” I offered.

His eyes lit up. “Really?” It was a serious time commitment, but since it was my day off, I would be able to sit with him the whole time. I reminded myself to text Maya to cancel our evening plans.

“Really,” I told him.

Over seven hours later, when he had finally fallen asleep in front of the TV, my mom came home from her full day of work. I was sitting at the kitchen table still nursing a headache. In front of me on the table was my untouched plate of cheesy noodles and hot dog bits. I had been staring at the bottle of cognac James had given me for a half hour. My gum had lost its flavor and I still couldn’t decide if I should open it.

“Gift from work?” my mom asked, putting down her cleaning supplies.

“A guy,” I said, without thinking. I immediately wished I could take it back. My mom and I weren’t at the point in our relationship where I wanted to share the personal details of my love life with her. Especially not what was going on in this particular situation.

She held up the bottle and let out a whistle. “Expensive.” She gave me a sideways look. “Is he rich?”

I grabbed the bottle away. “I’m not interested.” Total lie.

“He obviously is,” my mom noted. “Is he expecting something in return?” She paused. “Or did he already get it?”

I really didn’t appreciate the implication in her voice, even though she was pretty much spot on.

“That’s not really any of your business,” I said quietly, not really wanting to get into this discussion with her.

“I’m just trying to help,” she responded, hands on her hips. “I want to make sure you’re not making the same kind of mistakes that I did.”

“Well, you’re about twenty years too late to give me the don’t-give-it-away-for-free talk.” It came out much more harshly then I intended, but it was true. She didn’t have any right to lecture me on my personal choices.

Her face hardened. “I’m just thinking of Mikey,” she said.

I gaped at her, unable to believe her nerve. After the day I’d had, with the laundry and Mikey and everything, I just couldn’t hold back on everything I had been feeling since my mom had come back into our lives. I was tired of pretending that everything was ok. That we could just ignore what she had done. The pain she had caused.

“You should have thought about Mikey when you left us,” I snapped. “You have no right to criticize me. I let you back into our lives for Mikey’s sake. We were doing fine without you – I was doing fine. So you can mother Mikey as much as you want, as much as he allows, but I gave up on that the day you walked out on us.” Even as I spoke, I knew that I didn’t really have any right to chastise her after what I had done to Mikey today. We had both failed him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, face wilting and tears welling up in her eyes.

Guilt rose in my throat. I needed to get out of there.

Grabbing my purse, I pushed past and headed out of the apartment. She didn’t try to stop me. It wasn’t until I was three blocks from my house that I realized I didn’t really have anywhere to go and it was nearing ten o’clock.

I stood on the sidewalk and took several deep breaths. This day fucking sucked. I was a bad sister and a bad daughter. I couldn’t do anything right, it seemed. I dug into my bag looking for my phone, thinking I would call Maya, maybe even go into work and make a little extra money. Instead of my phone, though, I found a flat, thin keycard.

James’ room key. I had forgotten to give it back to him after our last night together. It lay on my palm, staring up at me, tempting me. There was no way he’d still be interested. Right? He had let me go the last time without any fight. Clearly he was done with me. And I should be done with him. But what if he wasn’t? Because I still wanted him. Despite everything, I wanted him badly. And I couldn’t help the thrill that went through me when I thought of what could happen if I went to the hotel tonight. If I left behind everything that was shitty about my day, forgot about the awful afternoon I had had. If I indulged myself completely. If I did something that was for me, just for me.

Before I could stop myself, I ordered an Uber. No matter what happened, there was no way my night could get worse. It could only get better. A lot better.