The End Zone: SPORTS ROMANCE (Contemporary Sport Bad Boy Alpha Male American Football Romance) (New Adult Second Chance Women’s Fiction Romance Short Stories) (3 page)

Alone in the car, Chris allowed himself a small chuckle. He had never eaten vegetarian in his life. Almost every meal he’d ever eaten had contained meat. The fact that he was putting his meat loving pride aside was, he decided, a sign of how much he liked this girl.

Taking a deep breath, Chris finally got out of the car and allowed the valet to park it for him.  Michelle would probably be waiting inside as she had insisted on meeting him there.

As expected, when he got to the front door he found Michelle already waiting in the lobby of the dimly lit, high-ceilinged restaurant.

She stood when he came in and gave him a bright smile that made her green eyes sparkle.

When he looked down at the rest of her, his breath nearly caught in his throat. Her hair was down and lay in soft waves that framed her face. She wore dark skinny jeans that skimmed her long, shapely legs. A sparkling top glided away from her long, thin torso and the v-neck revealed just a hint of creamy peach cleavage. He swallowed hard before moving to her.

“Hey gorgeous,” he said.

“You clean up pretty well yourself,” she said.

“Sorry, I’m late. Were you waiting long?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said. “I asked if I could save the table for you but they don’t seat incomplete parties.”

“I wonder if that’s true,” he said. “Maybe they just don’t want to serve a notorious meat-eater.”

She rolled her eyes. He was glad to see that her smile was still present though.

“You don’t have to be a vegetarian to eat here,” she said.

“If you say so,” he quipped.

Despite his concerns, they were seated without a fuss and the hostess left them with dinner and wine menus.

“Do you feel like getting a bottle of Chardonnay?” he asked. “To celebrate my first ever vegetarian meal.”

“No thanks,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “I don’t drink.”

“You don’t?” he asked.

She shook her head no.

“I know,” she said. “Shocking right?”

He almost agreed before realizing that it might make him sound like a bit of an asshole. So, he moved his face into a neutral expression.

“Not really,” he said as evenly as he could. “In fact, it’s probably smart.”

She gave him a half-smile that said she didn’t really believe him, but appreciated the effort all the same.

Their server came and she ordered an iced tea. He thought about ordering a water or soda, something to make her feel a little less embarrassed, but the wine list was calling to him. So, he ordered a glass of his favorite Cabernet.

“So, is the no drinking a recent thing or have you never had a drink?” he couldn’t help asking after the server brought their drinks and took their dinner order.

She gave him a smirk that said she’d caught him at something.

“I thought my drinking wasn’t that shocking,” she said, taking a sip of her tea.

“It’s not shocking,” he said, “just interesting. And I meant what I said. You’re probably smart not to.”

She gave a slight nod that told him she accepted his defense.

“To answer your question,” she said, “I decided not to drink early on. I was about . . . eleven, I guess when I told myself I would never drink.”

“Wow,” Chris said. “That is early.”

“I guess so,” she said.

“So, what happened when you were eleven?” he couldn’t help but ask. When her smile faded, he almost wished he hadn’t.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, “I didn’t mean to . . .”

“No, it’s fine,” she said. All the same, she looked down and seemed to gather herself before speaking again.

“When I was eleven,” she said, “my mom got her third DUI. Dad decided he couldn’t take it anymore and they got divorced.”

She looked down at the table as she said all of this, as though she was afraid to show him what was happening in her eyes. She took two deep breaths before looking up at him again.

“That’s when I decided I was never going to drink,” she said.

“Your mom ever get better?” he asked quietly. The story hit much closer to home than he was ready to admit at the moment.

“Not really,” she answered with a sigh, “she promised to go to AA meetings, tried to get clean, but nothing’s worked.”

“I’m sorry,” he said honestly. “I guess I can relate. I kind of decided the same thing with drugs when I was younger.”

He felt the words rush out of his mouth before he was fully aware of speaking them. He realized that this kind of discussion was not exactly first date appropriate. But after Michelle had told her story, and had seemed so open with him, it seemed only fair that he returned it.

“What happened?” she asked gently. Perhaps guessing, rightly, that there was a story similar to hers behind the decision.

“My mom was an addict,” he said simply. “Crack, meth almost anything you can think of. I remember people coming in and out of our house at all hours of the day and night when I was little.”

Now it was his turn to look down at the table as the memories flooded over him. Memories of his mother strung out on a chair and not moving for hours, or of having to get himself ready for school and make his own lunches when he was all of six years old.

“Did she get better?” Michelle asked.

She sounded so hopeful he almost didn’t want to tell her the truth. He wanted to tell her a beautiful redemption story about his mom's kicking her habit. A story where she had gone into a program which turned her life around, and of her being there to see him play football in the NFL. It was a dream he’d lived a thousand times in his mind. But that’s all it was, a dream. And one that would never come true, not now.

“She overdosed,” he said. He heard his voice crack and felt embarrassed heat rush to his face when he realized that tears were beginning to fill his eyes. He couldn’t help it. He remembered coming in from school and seeing his mother lying on the carpet with a bottle of pills in her hand. He remembered calling the cops, then lying down and curling up next to his mother’s still body.

“I was eight,” he said. “My grandma took me in after that.”

Tears were flowing freely now and when he looked down at the table he realized that his hand was shaking. He tried to will it to stop but could not seem to move any other limb of his body to combat the shaking.

Suddenly, he felt a small, warm hand reach out and cover his.

When he looked up, he looked straight into Michelle’s eyes. She was giving him a watery smile. The tears streaming down her cheeks mirrored his exactly. She moved her hand to intertwine her fingers gently with his. He pressed his hand against hers as though she were an anchor saving him from an upcoming storm.

He knew then, that he couldn’t let her go.

*****

Michelle didn’t know why she’d gone home with him. She hadn’t meant to. That was the whole point of meeting at the restaurant. The whole point of taking two cars. So that, at the end of the night, she wouldn’t be tempted. She would just say thanks for a fun night and be on her way. That’s fully what she’d expected to do.

But then he had told her about his mother, and they had talked the rest of the night about their crazy families, their friends, movies, books and everything in between.

That night she had caught a glimpse of a man she wanted to know. Not just over dinner or drinks, she wanted to know him intimately.

Maybe that was why, when he had invited her over to see his place, she had accepted.

“It’s pretty big, so a tour could take a while,” Chris said unnecessarily as he opened the door to a huge mansion and ushered Michelle inside.

She couldn’t help but look around the home in awe. She was in the middle of a long hall with marble flooring and an incredibly high ceiling. To her right, was a spiral staircase that curled its way up to a second level.

“Like it?” Chris asked her. She turned to him to find that he was smiling at her, clearly pleased to see how impressed she was.

“It’s definitely bigger than my place,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “it’s the biggest place I’ve ever had too.”

He took off his coat revealing an impossibly tight white shirt, and all thoughts of the house left Michelle’s mind completely.

He turned back to her and gave her another smile. This one was undeniably sexy and she felt heat rush up her face.

“You want coffee or something?” he asked.

She found that she could do nothing but nod.

“Ok then,” he said, “the kitchen is over here.”

She followed him and as she walked, she found that she could not take her eyes off his muscular features which were well defined in his fitted suit. Not to mention that his see through white shirt combined with a tight backside was driving her insane.

“Decaf?” he asked as he turned on the lights to a large and pristine kitchen. She could not help but notice that there seemed to be a multitude of half-drunk liquor bottles on the counter, another reminder that she really shouldn't be here.

“Of course,” Michelle answered, finding her voice. “Caffeine would keep me up all night.”

He turned to her and grinned. Then, he leaned down and whispered in her ear. “That might not be a bad thing.”

Then, teasingly, he pulled back as she gasped and felt heat race to an entirely different part of her body.

“Cream and sugar?” he asked as he moved towards the Keurig machine.

“Should I turn that into a cheeky double entendre?” she asked, trying to hold her own in this little game they were playing.

“Only if you want to,” he said with a smile and a wink at her.

Somehow that caused another shiver to run through her body. It seemed that everything this man did from speaking, to moving, to pulling out a sheet of paper would cause a pool of desire to form inside of her.

“Then I’ll take cream-” before she could finish the thought, she felt herself jerk forward. Her foot burned as it scraped on an open bottom drawer beneath the kitchen’s second oven.

Before she could fall forward, towards the mess of pots and pans lying before her, she felt a strong muscular arm make its way around her waist. She turned around to see Chris’s bright blue eyes looking down at her. Not with a teasing smirk, but with genuine concern.

This, combined with the warmth of his arm sliding around her waist, caused her breath to stop in her throat.

“Are you ok?” Chris asked.

That question, that simple genuine question, caused the dam to burst inside of her. Throwing caution to the wind, she reached up, grabbed the back of his neck and brought his mouth down to meet hers.

He seemed to be frozen in shock for half a moment. Long enough to make Michelle think that she may have made an incredibly embarrassing mistake.

A moment later, however, his lips were moving urgently against hers. Michelle felt his hands move from her waist to tangle in her hair.

The next thing she knew, she was being lifted bodily from the open kitchen drawer by her arms. She gasped as she felt her back collide against the cold wall of the kitchen.

She felt his hands move against the light fabric of her shirt. The warmth of his skin tantalized her causing every nerve in her body to jump and throb.

That little voice, the one that told her to be reasonable, to be sensible, was telling her that this was wrong. It implored her to remember the bottles of alcohol on his shelf.

She felt rather than heard a moan rise up from the bottom of her throat as Chris moved his lips to nip and suck hard on the skin of her neck. The moan had barely subsided when a sharp gasp issued from her as his hands moved to firmly knead her breasts beneath her shirt.

His lips were still licking and sucking at the soft, tender skin at her neck. Slowly, his lips made their way to her ear.

“God you’re perfect,” he whispered.

She could smell the alcohol on his breath and that nearly made her stop. The horrible and all too familiar scent reminded her why she shouldn’t be doing this.

Then she felt his hand slip beneath the loose fabric of her shirt. His thumb drifted over the bare nipple under her bra. She moaned again and lost track of any objection she may have felt.

“Do you know how fucking perfect you are?” he whispered roughly into her ear.

Suddenly, she didn’t care how many drinks he had had, she didn’t care what she had promised herself. She needed him. She desperately needed to feel his skin on hers, to feel his body surrounding her, enveloping her completely.

Without a second thought, she grabbed hold of his hands and moved them to the edge of her shirt. Then, with a smirk of her own, she leaned towards him, putting her lips on his ear.

“Why don’t you show me?” she asked.

Then she moved her own hand between them until her palm began to caress his growing member. He growled as he pushed her shirt above her head. She moved her hands behind her and quickly unhooked her bra.

As soon as she felt her breasts spring free from the fabric, his hands moved to cup them.

“Mmm,” she moaned again as he moved his hands to her bottom and bodily picked her up so that her feet were dangling above the floor.