And that’s when it got interesting on the field. All the players bent over facing each other like a group of Sumo wrestlers wearing helmets and padding, and then I swear to God – one of them bent over and stuck his ass in the guy's face behind him. Glancing over at Levi with my eyes wide, I pointed with my massive hand at it like what the fuck?
Bursting out laughing, he pulled me so that my back was against my seat again. “It’s meant to happen, dork.”
What the hell does he do next, fondle the dude’s balls? Although, just to say, if that’s what happened I was totally ok with that. I wasn’t expecting it, but it would definitely be memorable, that’s for sure.
Lily stuck her hand in front of me, recording what was going on. “It’s a charity game,” she yelled over the roaring of the crowd around us. “I’m recording parts of it for the charity to put on their website.” Skimming over the crowd, I could see at least forty journalists and numerous professional cameras trained on what was going on. Pointing them out to her, she leaned in as everyone roared. “Yeah, but they want a spectator’s point of view, so I said I’d do it for them.”
Fair enough. Settling back, I watched as the game played out. Players running this way and back that way, knocking other ones down, kicking the ball, running like their lives depended on it (although, with the size of the dude behind him, I can’t say I blamed one particular guy). And each time they crossed a line or kicked the egg through the H, a buzzer went and people went wild. I might not have understood the finer points of the game, but I was enjoying the hell out of it. In fact, when I got home, I was going to look up the different teams and pick one to follow.
Still watching, I picked up my big ass cup and was about to take a mouthful of my drink, but – and as embarrassing as it is to admit it – I sucked at sucking right now. Sucking through a straw hurt my throat because of the pulling and tightening of my throat muscles. Fuck it, even in my head that sounds filthy, but there was no other way to phrase it.
Feeling my cheeks burning, I pulled the lid off and placed it on my knee, ignoring the look that Levi was giving me.
Apparently he wasn’t too good at reading signals and body language, though. “I would give a thousand dollars to know what was making your cheeks that color.”
No, trust me, you wouldn’t.
Just as I was raising it up to take a mouthful of water, I lowered it and reached for some of the napkins that Lily had placed between us when she’d sat down. Apparently, it wasn’t unusual for things to spill at games – especially when things got rowdy and arms were flying around – so she’d come prepared. Seeing as how the rim of the cup was wide, it would be just my luck that I’d take a mouthful and tip it down myself.
Holding the napkins under my chin this time, and mentally patting myself on the back for being so conscientious and protecting myself from potential embarrassment, I tipped the cup up and opened my mouth just as something happened on the field and everyone jumped up and started screaming around me.
Almost like it was happening in slow motion, Lily’s arm swung out knocking the cup in my hand, and shooting some of the contents onto Levi’s crotch as he stood up cheering with everyone else.
Looking down and seeing the spreading wet patch over his dick, he growled, “What the hell?”
And this, folks, this is why we have voices – to talk our way out of situations like this. To apologize like nice people do, blame it on the twat beside them who was still jumping up and down, totally oblivious to what had happened. Not that Lily was a twat, it had been an accident and all that, so she was just a little bit of one.
Reaching over and grabbing the whole stack of napkins, I yanked Levi back down into his seat and started furiously rubbing at it. People were going to think he’d peed his pants, and he’d never talk to me again so I had to fix this.
Chuckling awkwardly, he tapped me on the shoulder. “Whoa, Lottie, it’s ok. It’ll dry.”
Yeah, that it would, but I was just so freaking embarrassed by it all that I just wanted to make it disappear. If anyone saw it, he’d never live it down. And there were cameras out there, what if a photo ended up online?
Through all the rubbing and worrying, I didn’t notice that the stadium had gone quiet around us. Nothing registered except drying off that fucking wet patch. Why did shit like this have to happen to me? Why couldn’t I have been the person who did moves like they did in the Matrix, and duck in slow motion when Lily had bumped into me?
“Uh, Charlotte,” Lily hissed, poking me in the side. “You might want to stop…”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice boomed through a speaker. “Let me remind you that there are children at this event, so if we could keep ourselves in check and not let the excitement carry us away…”
Confused, I picked my head up and looked behind me at Lily who was pointing her phone at something high up on the field now.
Following where she was looking, I saw that I was on one of the huge screens which had previously showed the scores and video replays. Now it had me, bent over with my head in Levi’s crotch as I rubbed at the…
Oh, fucking bird shit on a feather, no!
And that’s when I discovered the best use of the huge foam hand and placed it over my face. I was aware of Lily curled up in a ball in her chair, laughing her ass off, and a high-pitched squeaking wheeze coming out of Tate, but aside from that I was now in hiding for the rest of my life. And Levi Townsend and his poor molested cock totally didn’t exist in hiding.
The one time I got taken out to do something fun, I ended up spilling water on Levi’s dick, and then got video footage of me trying to dry it played across the stadium from an angle that looked like I was jerking the poor guy off.
Once I got over the embarrassment of it, I was going to look online to see if that had ever happened to someone else – there was totally comfort in numbers in this scenario. That’s if I survived the embarrassment, and the jury was out on that one right now.
The shuddering coming from Levi became hard to ignore, but I was going to do it. Well, until he tugged me under his arm and pressed his face into my neck, making my body shake as he continued laughing.
“I’m so sorry, Lottie,” he snickered, not making me feel better at all. “But you’ve got to admit – after what happened a couple of days ago, that was the funniest shit ever.”
He had a point, but it wasn’t him who’d molested a nice guy’s penis. If he’d done it, he wouldn’t be laughing.
Tugging the foam hand away from my face, he used his thumb to turn my face toward him. “Baby,” he whispered, choking halfway through the word – the big rat bastard. “Look at me.” Reluctantly, I did what he asked, and was surprised by the soft expression on his face as he looked at me. Running the tip of his nose down my own, he mumbled, “Thank you for being you. You’ve given me more laughter in the short time I’ve known you than anyone, and I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
Whoa. It was cheesy as hell, but shit I loved it at the same time. And it meant a lot to me to hear it, especially after the stadium had witnessed me violating his poor crotch.
Grinning at him, I decided to live for the day. Hell, I’d already jerked the poor guy off with water and napkins on a huge television screen, so what could I possibly have to lose?
And on that thought, I leaned in and kissed him, making the first move for the first time in my life, and hoping I wasn’t fucking up even more.
Chapter Nine
Levi
“She’s already embarrassed enough, so don’t make it worse,” I warned my brothers, making sure they knew how serious I was.
Thanks to the fucking internet, clips of Charlotte trying to dry my crotch had gone viral. Thankfully, my family had kept her distracted with Thanksgiving prep so she had no idea they existed and had been seen by thousands of people – yet. It was only a matter of time, though, given how often she looked shit up. I’d never known anyone to do as many internet searches as she did. Wouldn’t
you run out of questions or shit to think up?
Looking slightly offended, Noah sat up straighter in his chair. “I wouldn’t do that to her, none of us would.”
“Not intentionally, no,” I agreed. “But our family has a habit of joking around about things, and I’m worried that this will make her withdraw. Don’t forget, she’s never had this in her life, so she’s not used to it.”
“Neither was Luna,” Noah pointed out quietly. “At least, not until you brought her home with you that first time.”
Tate was uncharacteristically quiet throughout all of this. Archer, Madix and Rich were in the room, too, but they weren’t the ones I was worried about the most. Although Archer and Rich had an uncanny ability to piss off Dahlia’s best friend Bonnie and Lily’s best friend Beau, they tended to be more reserved and gentle with the other female members of the family.
Speaking of which.
“Has anyone seen Ariana recently?”
My sister had been spending more time away from us all since Parker moved to Gonzales County, and it was starting to worry me.
“Saw her at the bar with Bonnie and Beau last night,” Rich replied, the muscle in the side of his jaw ticking at the mention of the woman who we all knew drove him insane.
I wasn’t sure what the back story was between them, but there was definitely something there, something juicy. I had enough of my own shit to worry about, though, without digging into his.
Hearing Bonnie’s name, Archer straightened out of his slouch. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Flicking him an annoyed glance, Rich muttered, “I wasn’t aware I had to.”
“Well now you are.”
Watching them closely, Noah crossed his arms in front of him. “What the hell is going on with you guys? You obviously like them, why not just make shit right?”
Rich had worked with us for years and was like a member of the family, so no offense was taken when he shot Noah a dirty look. “And how exactly do you propose we go about doing that, oh wise one?”
“Apologize,” he replied simply, raising an eyebrow. “You know what that is, right? The word sorry, flowers, chocolates, maybe a few pecks on her ass cheeks.”
“And is Parker meant to do the same thing to Ariana?” he challenged back.
This was where I needed the topic to change. She was my baby sister and the thought of her and a guy made me feel like stabbing myself in the brain with an ice pick. We’d all known she had feelings for the guy since my cousin Tom’s wife was kidnapped and we’d gone to help find her – maybe even before that seeing as how he’d always been around when we’d gone to visit them all – but feelings and actions are very different things.
For months she hadn’t been ok, changing from her normal happy self to someone who looked like she had a ten ton weight on her shoulders. Then he’d moved to obviously be closer to her, and she’d distanced herself even more. I didn’t like seeing my little sister hurting, and even though I was preoccupied with what was going on with Lottie just now, I didn’t like that she was distancing herself from us. That shit better fix itself soon.
Finally, Tate broke his silence. “Not to add more shit to your already overflowing plate, but does anyone know if our grandparents are coming to celebrate with us?”
It’s funny how one question can make your colon turn inside out, whilst at the same time make the three quiet members of the group laugh theirs inside out, too, isn’t it?
* * *
Five hours later…
Walking tiredly through the house, I made my way toward the bedroom, not noticing Lottie curled up on the couch. It had been five days since she’d been attacked, and thankfully she hadn’t shown any psychological aftereffects from it.
She’d written down that it was because she was safe, she felt safe, and she knew that it was an isolated event. She’d also said that as scary as it had been, she didn’t feel like he’d hurt her – although I begged to differ on that one – and that she wasn’t going to let some drugged up, small pricked, asshole ruin her life. Again, I begged to differ on that, but I was relieved she was strong enough mentally and emotionally to not let him continue to affect her.
It wasn’t that I thought he’d ruined her life, but he’d definitely hurt her and scared the shit out of her. I really was proud of her for being strong, but I didn’t want her to feel like she had to be strong because I was going to do that for her. She’d shouldered everything from the day she was born, it was time she let someone else do it for her – me.
As I passed the couch, something moving on it made me jump until I saw she’d been sitting writing in her notebook while she waited for me. She still couldn’t talk and swallowing food was still painful, so it wasn’t like she could have called out my name, so I should have been more aware.
Changing direction, I walked over and squatted down on the floor in front of her.
“Hey, baby.” The smile she gave me every time I called her that was worth every eye roll and gag my brothers made when they heard it. Some of them were hypocrites, the other one would find out when he finally got the woman he wanted. “Sorry, I had to get some paperwork finished and I was talking to the guys. Have you had a good night?”
The blush that filled her cheeks when I asked that question intrigued me, but then I looked down and saw what she was wearing and almost groaned.
On her second night, she’d come out of the bathroom in a pair of shorts and these thigh high sock things, almost making me inhale my tongue. When I’d asked her if she wanted me to get her a pair of sweats to sleep in – desperate for her to say yes – she’d told me that she struggled to sleep in bulky clothing and wore these during the winter. The night before had apparently been a fluke and was more than likely down to the painkillers and stress of what had happened. This meant I slept next to a wet dream and fell asleep every night hoping I didn’t embarrass myself in my sleep.
How could socks be that hot?
Looking down at the roughly four inches of bare flesh between the top of the socks and the bottom of her shorts, I mumbled, “I’m in the deepest, darkest depths of hell.”
Unable to help myself, I lowered my forehead onto her thigh and took deep breaths trying to clear my mind. Unfortunately, with where I was, all I succeeded in doing was breathing in her scent with my face inches away from her pussy, which just made it all much worse. Then, just to add to my struggles, her small fingers started to run through the hair on the back of my head, scratching gently with her nails.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I lifted my head up and focused on her face, seeing her confused expression at whatever she saw on mine. Catching her hand, I brought it up to my mouth and pressed a kiss on the palm of it. The line between doing what I figured was the right thing at this moment and doing what I wanted was as thin as a strand of human hair, but my control snapped when I saw her look down at my mouth.
“Lottie, you’ve got to know that I have feelings for you,” I began, pausing when I saw how shocked she looked. Seriously? “You didn’t know that?”
When she shook her head, it raised a new question for me. Was she that naïve, or was she not as clued into me as I was to her?
Reaching up, I gently cupped the side of her face, avoiding her neck completely. “I do. I’ve loved the heck out of the time we’ve spent together, and I know that this isn’t exactly great timing to tell you all of this, but I want more with you.”
As soon as the words were out, I almost winced. I want more with you? That’s the best you could do, Townsend?
“I wouldn’t ever force you to do anything, and it won’t change anything if you don’t feel the same way about me, but I need you to know where I’m at.”
Her face softened to an expression I hadn’t seen before as she raised her hand to skim the tips of her fingers over my beard. Please don’t let that expression be pity!
On one hand I wanted her to be able to speak so she could tell me she felt the same way, on the other hand I was glad she cou
ldn’t in case she didn’t. But the longer we went with just her gently touching my face, the more I started to panic that she was thinking how to let me down in a way that wouldn’t ruin our friendship.
Needing to say something, I added, “I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt you, you know that. And…”
Whatever else I was going to say was cut off when she leaned down and kissed me, her hand moving off my face and around the back of my neck like she was trying to stop me from pulling away from her. Letting her lead, I leaned in closer to her, waiting to see what she did next, and shuddering slightly when the tip of her tongue skimmed across my lower lip. Our mouths opened at the same time, and then her tongue was skimming across mine, and I could feel her breath hitting my cheek as she let out little gasps.
Unable to help myself, I trailed my hands up her thighs and wrapped them around her sides to pull her into me, ignoring the pain starting to set in from being on my knees on the ground for so long. That pain faded into the ether when her legs lifted up to wrap around me, holding me tightly against her.
Before it could go even further, I reluctantly pulled my mouth away from hers and waited for her to open her eyes.
When I saw her baby blues looking back at me, I whispered, “I don’t want to take this somewhere you’re not ready for, Lottie. This isn’t just a one-off for me, so there’s no need for us to rush into it.”
Reaching out, she grabbed up her pad from the couch and started scribbling on it. I could throttle that bastard myself for many reasons, one of them definitely being not being able to hear her voice right now. Passing it over to me, I read her uncharacteristically untidy writing.
Going For Gold: Providence Gold Series Book Four Page 9