Player: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (15 page)

“I- I think that might be a gray area.”

I chuckle into her ear, curling my fingers inside of her and loving the way she rakes her nails down my biceps and moans. “That a yes, princess?”

“
Please.
” she gasps out.

Music to my fucking ears.

I suddenly spin us around so that I’m on my back with Natalie perched on top of me, her legs astride my hips. I slide a hand into her hair, tugging it and making her gasp as I pull her down to my lips.

“I need to fucking taste you,” I growl into her ear. My hands slide down to her ass, fingers squeezing the smooth, supple skin there as I start to pull her up my bare torso.

“Get up here and sit on my mouth.”

She blushes scarlet, her eyes going wide and hungry as she stares at me. “You’re so demanding.”

“
Get
,” my hands grab her ass hard, “that sweet pussy-” she moans as I pull her up my chest, “on my mouth.
Now.
”

Her face is red and flushed, her mouth hanging open and her hair wild, but she nods as she slowly rises up and moves her hips forward.

My hands slide up her creamy thighs, pushing her skirt up with them until it’s bunched at her waist. I growl
as my eyes drink her in - bare, wet, and ready for me as I use my hands to guide her down onto my mouth.

Natalie cries out as I push my tongue deep inside. I lap at her, dragging my tongue up and down her slit and teasing her clit with the tip. I push deep, using my tongue to slowly fuck her as my hands guide her back and forth across my lips.

She’s gasping, moaning wildly as her hands grasp at my hair, holding on as I push every button she has. I swirl my tongue around her clit, teasing the hard little nub mercilessly as her body rocks and shudders above me.

She drops one of her hands back to my hip. Slowly, almost tentatively, it’s moving towards the waist of my jockey shorts. I groan as I feel her fingers follow the trail of hair down over my abs and under the waist, until they curl around my rock-hard cock.

“
Yes
,” she moans, her fingers slowly moving up and down, stroking me as I wrap my lips around her clit.

Suddenly, she’s pulling away from me, and I growl.

“And where do you think you’re going.”

“What’s yours is mine, right?” She tosses back with a sassy look, her hair wild as she winks at me and slings her leg back over my face.

My hands grab her ass, bringing her back to my face though she’s facing the other direction now. I groan into her wet heat as I feel her fingers push my briefs down my thighs, freeing my cock and wrapping both hands around it.

I can
feel
the metal of her wedding ring against my shaft, and damn if it doesn’t get me even harder.

I feel her weight shift as she leans forward, and I groan as I feel her slowly wrap those perfect, velvety lips around my head. Her tongue teases the very tip, swirling round my crown as I push my own tongue deep into her pussy. My hands grab her ass, planting her firmly on my mouth as she starts to bob up and down, sucking me as she moans.

I’m in fucking
heaven
.

We’re moving together, her hips bucking against my mouth and my tongue as she muffles her moans around my cock. Her hands stroke me, reaching down to cup my balls as her hot, wet mouth sends me into fucking orbit.

I slip a hand down between us, cupping a breast and letting my fingers tease her nipples. My tongue dances across her clit, swirling around and around until she finally pulls away from me and cries out.

“
Oh, God…
”

And I want to tell her how I want her to come for me. I want to tell her that I want her to explode on my tongue until her honey covers my chin.

Instead, I just use my tongue to shove her screaming over that edge.

Natalie cries out, stroking my cock in quick, wet strokes as she reaches back with her other hand, grabs my hair, and just fucking
explodes
against my mouth. She moans, her whole body shuddering as she comes - shattering, exploding, breaking for me.

She suddenly drops her mouth back down and inhales as much of my thickness as she can, and it’s the last thing I can take.

I roar out, fingers digging into her skin as I explode into her mouth. She moans, swallowing my cum as I grit my teeth and groan, her lips bobbing slowly and coaxing every drop from me.

Holy. Sweet. Hell.

Natalie moans as she rolls off of me. She turns, sliding against me, throwing one leg over mine, and letting her hand rest on my chest.

And it’s damn near
perfect
.

“
That…
” she trails off, her finger tracing lazy circles across my chest. She grins, burying her smile in my shoulder. “That was a
necessity
,” she finally says, blushing as she looks up into my eyes.

“I could not agree more.”

What I don’t
say, because I don’t feel like pushing this or making her weird, is that the other
necessity
is that we do that again.

We need to do that
a lot
, again.

I
wake
up sometime during the night. There’s a slight chill across my bare back from the wide open French doors, but the other side of me - the side pressed against Austin - is warm.

The side pressed against Austin
.

Right…that.

I slowly bring my cheek away from his sleeping chest, rubbing my eyes with my hand as I scrunch my face up.

I’m apparently making a habit out of getting drunk and waking up naked in bed with Austin Taylor.

I shake my head, wincing at the thought.

No.

Because I know damn well what happened earlier - what I
wanted
to happen. And I may have been drinking, and still buzzed from the champagne from earlier, but I wasn’t
drunk
, that much I know.

Just drunk off the heady rush of letting myself go with the stupidly attractive scoundrel with his arm around me right now as he sleeps.

I glance down at his chiseled face, illuminated by the moonlight - his tattoos etched across his skin. His chest rises and falls with his sleeping breaths.

God
he’s beautiful. Everything from the messy and yet somehow
perfectly
messy mop of hair on his head, to his dark brows, shadowed eyes, and perfect, utterly kissable lips. The hollow of his cheeks, the strong lines of his jaw, the scruff of his five o’clock shadow.

Or his finger, or his tongue, or that
perfect
cock that took every single ounce of my restraint not to jump on top of.

I’ve never felt like that. I’ve never had my body
played
like that.

Perfect - utterly in tune.

He’s just a man when he’s asleep. There’s no reputation, no broken background, no highly-publicized track record. No arrangement, either. It’s just me, and my beautiful cowboy, in bed.

If only it was that simple.

And as much as I hate to even think it, the truth is right there, waiting to pounce on me: that shouldn’t have happened, because
this
isn’t real.

This might feel good right now, just him and I, and pretending the rest of it isn’t a thing. But that’s a fantasy - a fantasy more fantastical than this sham marriage.

This is for money, nothing else.

The thought instantly sends a souring feeling through my body.

God, what does that make
me?

Whore, harlot, prostitute.

The words are crude and jagged, and I shake my head to clear them. They’re also overly dramatic, because I know that’s not what this was.

But they still aren’t pleasant thoughts.

Austin’s eyes slowly open.

“Hey there.”

“You should go,” I whisper.

He frowns slightly, the move casting dark shadows across his eyes and deepening those hollows in his cheeks.

“I don’t
have
to, you know.”

“Yeah, you do.”

The words come out harder than I meant them to, and I wrinkle my brow as he sighs, clearing the sleep from his face with his hands before pushing them through his hair.

“Right okay, are we back to that mode now then?”

“What mode?”

He gives me a wry smile. “You know what, princess? I can’t even fucking keep track of them.”

He sits up, the warmth of his body lost as he shakes his head and looks away.

“You’re one thing, then the other. You’re hot, you’re cold-”

“I’m confused, because I shouldn’t have let that-”

“Then why
did you?
”

His face is tight, lined in dark, moonlit room - his voice like rough leather.

“I-” I shake my head, almost embarrassed to use it as an excuse. “I was drunk.”

“Fuck off, I’ve seen you drunk.”

And he’s right. And I feel like an asshole. But it just can’t happen. This whole thing is
business
, that’s all - even if we keep forgetting that.

I don’t respond to him, I just pull the sheet up, holding it to my chest and looking away.

He blows air through his teeth, shaking his head. “Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”

“You don’t know what
you
were thinking?”

“Look, you want business?
Fine.
” Austin stands from the bed, his gorgeous body uncoiling from my sheets.

“You want to get your fun though too, and I think I’ve made it clear I’m good with that.” He slips his boxers back up his legs, snapping them on his waist before leaning over the bed towards me.

“But
make up your fucking mind.
”

He turns before I can say anything else, storming out of the room.

The last of the warmth and the last of the moment gone with him.

W
hy is
it things always go from bad to worse?

I’m sitting by the pool, stewing over Natalie’s little freakout and sipping a beer. This would be the classic case of money not buying happiness, because here I am sitting by a pool outside my twenty million dollar home. I’ve got a cold beer in my hand, the southern California sun shining down, and if I turned on the television, there’s a
very
good chance that I’d be on it.

Am I happy?

Fuck no.

Goddamnit, why did I even go there with that girl? She’s clearly too uptight, too much of a stick up her ass for me to be involving myself with her.

And yet, she’s the only one I
want
to go there with - the only girl I want,
period.

I’m one of the most wanted men in the fucking country, with my pick of damn near any girl I want. Cheerleaders, Hollywood actresses, models - you fuckin’ name it and I could probably make it happen
right now
.

Except I’m broken somehow, because my mind’s all twisted up with
her
.

Damnit
.

I sip my beer and let my head drop back onto the sun chair. My eyes close, my mouth tight as I try and force my mind to clear, if even for one damn second.

“Little different from Texas, huh?”

I’m jumping out of the chair and whirling in a half second at the sound of his fucking voice, my hands clenched into fists and a snarl on my face.

“How the
fuck
did you get in here?”

My dad grins and I sneer at him. “Oh, right, I forget that you’ve had
lots
of practice breaking into places.”

He chuckles, holding his hands up palm forward. “Hey now! Easy there boy.” He winks. “Your front door was open, big-shot.”

“And the driveway gate?”

Dad’s mouth curls into a devil smile. “Well,” he shrugs. “Old habits, huh kid?”

Yeah, I know all about his “old habits.” Habits like meth, like stealing from my mom.

Like giving her black eyes, and then to me whenever I was dumb enough to try and stop him.

He plants his hands on his hips, looking around and whistling at the spacious, tree-filled backyard of my house.

“Nice place, boy. Can’t believe I’ve never seen it.”

“Shocking, isn’t it.”

He turns back to me, reaching up to scratch the back of his silvered head. “You know, you did good.”

“No thanks to you.”

He blows air loudly through his lips and reaches to his back pocket for what I swear is the
same
fucking flask of Rebel Yell whiskey that was there fifteen years ago.

“Hey, who’s the one that brought your ass to peewee football, huh?”

“
Mom,
” I say evenly.

“Aw,
what
?” Dad waves his hand at me dismissively. “I definitely took you.”

“Yeah, when Tommy Rooney’s dad was there, cause he was dealing.”

Dad grins at me as he takes a pull from his whiskey.

“The fuck do you want, Harry.”

He fidgets, that same fucking junky shuffle that hasn’t changed one damn bit since he walked out before. “I wanted to talk to you about somethin’.”

“You’ve got one minute.”

“Son, it’s important.”

I roll my eyes. “
Try me
.”

Harry scratches the scruff on his chin. “I owe some guys some money.”

I laugh out loud, the sound mirthless and hollow sounding. “Oh, yeah, a
real
changed guy, pop.”

“A
lot
, Austin,” he says evenly. “I owe a
lot
of money.”

I snort, raising a brow at him. “Well, that sounds a whole lot like your problem.”

Dad’s suddenly right up in my face, the smell of stale cigarettes and rot-gut whiskey clinging to him like a second skin.

“Nah, son, that’s
your
problem, actually.”

I plant my hand on his chest and push him back a step, feeling my other hand clench into a fist. “I can promise
you, it’s not.” I glare at him. “What do you mean by
‘a lot’
.”

“Two million.”

I instantly throw my head back as I start to laugh. “Alright, a minute’s up. Thanks for the laugh.”

Dad’s not laughing when I glance back at him. He’s not smiling either, just slowly shaking his head. “I ain’t.”

“No one in the
world
would give a two-bit hustler like you two fucking million dollars, you’re out of your mind.”

He grins wickedly. “Some people would, if they knew my baby boy was a big-shot millionaire now.”

A shiver runs down my back as I freeze, narrowing my eyes at my father. “What the hell did you do.”

Dad pulls a crumpled pack of smokes out of his pocket and jams one in his mouth. “Had an investment opportunity,” he mumbles out, flicking his thumb across the cheap plastic lighter and bringing it to the end of the cigarette. “Real solid one.”

“Oh really.”

He blows out a plume of smoke, muttering under his breath and spitting on my fucking patio.

“Well, supposed to be.”

I swear. “Jesus fucking Christ, Harry.” I narrow my eyes at him. “
Who
.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, well, there’s the rub of it, kid.”

“
Who.
”

“They go by ‘La Cosa Nostra.’”

My jaw drops as I stare at him. “The
mob
.”

Dad shrugs again, puffing on that fucking cigarette.

“Jesus, Harry, you’re fucking unbelievable.” I jab a finger at him. “Still
your
fucking problem though. Your shitty debts are on you.”

He grins a yellow-toothed grin. “Nah, kid, they’re on
you
.”

“Spell that out for me,” I growl.

He nods, rubbing his chin and looking away. “You know your mother loves me, right?”

I bristle, taking a step towards him with my fist raised.

“Uh-uh!” He backs up, wagging a thin, sallow finger at me as he grins. “What can I say, kid, I’m a charmer.”

“You’re a disease.”

He chuckles out a rattling, hacking laugh. “It’d break her heart, you know, if something happened to me.”

“I’m very much willing to take that chance.”

Dad stretches, doing that junky shuffle again like it’s about time for him to start looking around for a fix. “Shame if I disappeared.” He grins. “Died maybe? Disappeared? No body?” He winks at me. “Pretty hard to collect debts from a dead guy, kid.”

I can feel my blood run cold as what he’s saying starts to sink in. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

He grins toothily at me. “I’m a resourceful man Austin, you know that. If I disappeared, it’d break your mama’s heart.”

“She’d get over it.”

“And the debt?”

I go quiet.

Dad takes a last drag of his cigarette and then flicks it in the pool. “That two mil? Yeah, that don’t go away though. Those Cosa Nostra guys are good like that,
thorough
.” He steps towards me and points a finger at my chest. “Real
family
people, those Italians.”

I’m shaking my head because I don’t want to believe if, but I can already put the pieces together.

“Better get your checkbook, kid, or this whole thing lands in your lap.” He unscrews the cap to his little flask and knocks it back. “They’re
sticklers
for late payment-”

I’m on him in a second, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and slamming him back against the house. “Clean up your own damn
mess
, Harry!”

Dad just grins, even pinned to the wall like that. “Austin, Austin, Austin.” His skeletal hand comes up to pat my cheek. “I
will
, but
my
way.”

I let him go and he chuckles as he regains his footing and straightens his shirt. “Now c’mon now, boy, look at this fucking house! Look at this fucking
life
you’ve got! Two mil ain’t nothin’ to you.”

“You think I keep it under my fucking mattress or something?”

Dad’s eyes perk up.

“I
don’t
, Harry. It’s in the bank, it’s tied up in this house, and Mom’s, and funds. I can’t just
pay
that kind of money.”

He shrugs. “Well, sounds like we should put our thinking caps on and figure it out, huh?”

I shake my head, staring at him with rage in my face. “Why couldn’t you just stay in whatever hole you were in the last eight years?”

Dad chuckles as he tucks his flask in his pants and starts to head towards the side gate that leads back to the front of the house.

“Cause I’m a
disease
, boy,” he calls over his shoulder. “I’ll be in touch.”

I stand there for another ten minutes just staring at the cigarette floating limply in the pool.

Fuck.