by Kata Čuić
I glance down.
“What the hell?” I mutter before turning over the badge where—sure enough—a key is taped to the surface.
Tori’s cheeks are still redder than a tomato, but her eyes are burning bright. She whispers, “Do we have time?”
“Fuck that. I’ll make time.” Still, I don’t want to draw undue attention. If we’re gonna make this work, we’ve gotta play it smart. I set her down on the turf. “Go first. I’ll follow. Don’t open the door unless you hear four knocks.”
“For being so risk averse my whole life, I’m really excited about this.”
I laugh and send her on her way with a quick pat on the ass. There are still plenty of Wolves on the field being interviewed by reporters, talking with Rushers players, and hesitant to step off any field for the last time this season. The coaches and staff are busy tearing down our equipment on the sideline. It’s the usual controlled chaos. Just enough distraction for me to slip away unnoticed.
Tori swings open the door while I’m still on the fourth knock. She’s already down to her bra and panties and wearing a wide smile.
I flip the lock behind me then get to work unlacing my pants. I don’t have time to peel off my shoulder pads. “Beggars shouldn’t be choosers, but, uh…could you put the jersey back on?”
She raises an eyebrow. “I have some conditions first.”
I’m calling her bluff and getting increasingly frustrated with these laces. “You’re already half naked, and now you want to negotiate?”
She smiles and holds the jersey with my name on the back on a single finger. “How much do you want this fantasy, Mitchell?”
“The clock’s ticking, Peaches. How much do you want this?” Finally, finally I get my dick free of these fucking tight-ass pants. I am ready to go when she is.
“I can multitask.” Her voice comes out mumbled as she pulls the jersey over her head.
I hoist her up around my waist and pin her to the wall. “Fine. Name your terms.”
Since she needs her mouth, I suck on her neck. We don’t have much time, but I don’t want to impale her after a few months without at least a little foreplay. I’m horny, not an asshole.
“Uh,” she moans. “No more lying about injuries. If you’re hurt, you’re not playing until you should be.”
“Deal,” I mumble through nipping at her soft skin.
She whimpers and whines and grinds her hot center against me. I slide the head of my shaft through her slick folds, lining us up while waiting for the rest of her terms before we seal the deal.
“What else?” I pant. I can’t hold back much longer. I need to be inside her more than I need my next breath.
She kisses me long, deep, and enough to steal my next breath. “If anything happens to me, find another unicorn. I don’t want you to live a long, lonely life like my dad.”
“Okay,” I lie then push into her as deep as I can.
Her head falls back against the wall even as her nails dig into the skin at the back of my neck. She lets out a long, low moan of satisfaction and presses her hips more firmly against mine.
I hold perfectly still and breathe through the urge to make this the fastest dash I’ve ever run. “Now, my terms.”
She blinks glassy eyes at me. “I’ll agree to anything if you’ll just move already.”
I file that information away for later as I drag myself out then back in slow enough to drive me insane. “Never mention your dad while doing this ever again.”
She chuckles. Her pussy grips my cock tighter. She’s so tight and hot and wet, I have to fuck her harder to distract myself from coming too fast.
My words come out stunted in between thrusts. “No living apart just for our jobs. We’ll split the difference between Albany and New York and buy a new house.”
“Deal,” she moans. “Harder, Mike. Please.”
I love it when she tells me exactly what she wants. I grip her ass tight and use the wall as leverage to pound her until her pussy spasms around me. She cries out, so I swallow down her ecstasy with my mouth. The blush would never leave her face if anyone overhears us.
A few more thrusts, and I follow her over the edge, emptying myself inside her as deep as possible.
Our foreheads rest against each other as we catch our breath. I want nothing more than to wrap her in my arms in bed tonight and smell her sweet hair beside me, but this will tide me over for now.
“I love you,” she whispers, kissing me tenderly.
I take what she offers. Gratefully. “I love you, Peaches.”
“Teddy Bear.” She smiles.
Slipping out of her is the last thing I want to do, but it’s time. I place her gently on the floor again and wait to make sure she’s steady before letting go. “You still can’t call me that in public. Templeman will never let me live it down.”
“Your balls are already drained, and now you want to add terms to the list?” She chuckles as she straightens her panties that she never even took off.
Damn, that’s sexy as hell.
“I’ll probably think of a few more.”
“I look forward to doing business with you, Mr. Mitchell. I think this is going to be a beautiful partnership.” She grins.
“I might be okay with you calling me Mr. Mitchell in bed every once in a while,” I admit as I redo all these damn laces. Why can’t football pants be simpler?
“Ooh. Kinky.” She tsks. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
“Keep it up, and I’m not going to replace your favorite toy that Alex stole.”
She opens her mouth, but a knock on the door makes her snap it shut again. Red spreads all the way down her chest. She’s probably blushing beneath the jersey, too.
“Psst. Hurry up.” Rob’s voice comes through the door. “You’re out of time.”
Tori’s mouth drops open. She hisses, “Has he been standing out there all along? Did he hear us?”
“He would’ve heard a lot more if I wasn’t strategically kissing you,” I mutter.
“You weren’t exactly silent,” she fires back.
As soon as she slips her shoes on, I swing open the door. We don’t have time to be embarrassed, and I’m still grateful for this opportunity.
Rob pushes off the opposite wall and holds his hand out for the key. If he really was standing out here all this time, he doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest. He tips his head to the tall guy in a suit standing at the end of the hallway. “Byers will take you back to Evie in the box. I’ll see you at the house in a few hours.” He turns his attention to me. “Most of your team is in the locker room already. A few of the reporters wanted shots of us together and to get a quick blurb. Come on.”
Tori turns to leave, her cheeks still bright.
I catch her around the waist and pull her to me, not caring who’s watching. “Hey. I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe we can grab a safe dinner in the Big Apple and get some of those shots you wanted.”
She reaches up to kiss me. “Deal.”
“Love you, Peaches,” I whisper against her lips.
“Love you, Teddy Bear,” she whispers back.
Rob cracks up laughing. “Holy shit, wait until I tell Alex!”
Tori laughs as she saunters down the hall.
“What the fuck? You promised!” I call after her.
Rob’s laughter echoes in the corridor. The asshole already has his phone. His thumbs are flying over the screen.
“I didn’t break my promise,” she yells over her shoulder. “This isn’t public! It’s the circle of trust!”
“Gimme that!” I dive for Rob’s phone as soon as Tori and the security guard are out of sight.
He holds it up over my head like we’re kids, and he still loves to push me around because he’s taller. “No way! Get your own phone!”
“I can’t believe you told Alex about this!”
He cackles as we walk toward the stadium lights. “Oh, I didn’t…yet. I wanted to tell Evie first.”
Suddenly,
I understand perfectly what Peaches meant about wanting to run to me first.
“She’s pregnant,” I mumble to my wife under my breath while my son does his best to gnaw my finger off. It’s too bad I forgot to pack the teething rings, but at least my finger is a better option than Evie’s poor nipples.
She’s handling the inevitable biting way better than I am.
“Yes, dear. That’s why we’re at a baby shower.” Evie’s not paying attention to anything other than the mother-to-be, who’s seated in the center of the open-concept living room, unwrapping gift number ninety thousand.
I lost interest a long time ago. I can only fake excitement about onesies for so long. I’ve had to occupy myself for the past forever hours in other ways. “No, not Amira. Well, yes, Amira. That’s not who I’m talking about though.”
“Who are you talking about?” Evie sighs. She’s probably tired of trying to entertain two Robs. I’m tired of needing to be entertained in ways that I don’t find remotely entertaining. I swear, becoming a father has shrunk my attention span to the level of my son’s.
“Tori,” I whisper, forcing myself to focus.
“What?” Evie finally snaps her attention to me, even though she manages to keep her voice low. “What makes you think that?”
“Just look at them!” I gesture toward Mike and Tori nearby.
He’s fawning over her in ways that are completely obvious to my highly observant eyes. Keeping her plate full of food, refilling her drink before it’s even completely empty, constantly watching her instead of even trying to pretend to be interested in baby games and baby gear and…someone else’s baby mama.
“She’s not pregnant,” Evie decides after only a few milliseconds of watching them. “They would have told us.”
“Baby.” I give her my best disappointed look. “Bet me.”
“Okay, fine.” Evie crosses her arms. That determined glitter in her ocean eyes proves she’s about to dig in her heels. “What’s the wager?”
“A weekend away. Just the two of us.” I’m not going to lose, so I pull out the big guns. I love my son more than life itself, but I miss my wife dearly. We’re constantly pulled in so many directions that our schedules are increasingly like ships passing through the night.
“All right,” she agrees. “We’ll ask when we break for dinner.”
I wince. “Can we do that? If they wanted us to know, wouldn’t they have told us?”
She flattens her brow. “Exactly. So, you see how you’re going to lose this bet.”
“Just because they don’t want to tell us, doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” I insist.
Robbie bites my finger particularly hard then has the audacity to laugh about it.
“See?” Evie grins. “Even our son agrees with me.”
“Traitor,” I whisper to him.
He laughs again and bats at my face. I kiss his chubby hands.
Evie leans closer toward me. “I think we have a bigger problem, Rob.”
“You’re right.” I move my tongue around in my mouth. “His hands taste funny. Where did you let him crawl?” Something crunches between my teeth. “Jesus Christ, Evie, was he in the litter box?”
Alex has never been a cat person, but apparently, Amira is. Now that she lives here, Alex has cats for the first time in his life. He whines constantly about having to be the one to clean the litter box because pregnant women aren’t supposed to.
Evie snatches Robbie off my lap and inspects his hands. Her expression turns guilty, guilty, guilty. “I thought I cleaned it all off of him!”
I gag.
She hands me her drink. “Seriously, honey. Something’s really wrong here.”
“I know.” I drain her cup and still can’t get the crunch out of my mouth. “This is like a war zone, complete with trenches.”
We glance back and forth at the obvious division. Alex’s family and friends are on this side of the room, clapping with glee and enjoying all things baby. His mom is showing off a diaper tower she made. Amira’s family sits on the other side. They look like they’re at a wake instead of a baby shower.
“Maybe they’re really traditional. Didn’t YiaYia pitch a fit about our baby shower because it’s bad luck to celebrate the baby before it’s born?”
“Amira’s family is Lebanese, not Greek. The traditions are probably similar, but it’s more than that. Alex looks like he could care less.”
Alex has been on the periphery of the room the entire time. He’s leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, a blank expression on his face.
“He has a really strained relationship with his mom. I’m actually surprised he invited his family at all.”
Evie pins me with a look that screams You don’t think I know that by now? “He would never exclude his brothers from something this important.”
That’s true. Alex loves his younger brothers dearly. Now that he lives in Florida, he doesn’t get to see them nearly as often as he’d like.
Evie squeezes my knee. “Baby, what I’m worried about has nothing to do with either of their families. When you told me to look at Mike and Tori, what did you notice about their behavior that makes you think she’s pregnant?”
I describe exactly what I’m seeing even now. Mike is not letting up, and Tori looks increasingly green around the edges when she’s normally red.
“Okay,” Evie concedes like she’s finally admitting I might be right. “Now, do you see any of that same behavior from Alex toward Amira?”
“No, but why would he have to cater to her? Her entire family is here.”
“Rob.” Evie’s voice is losing patience. “My mother and grandmother moved in with us when I was six months pregnant. You still fawned over me every second that you weren’t at work.”
“Well, yeah,” I say, a little offended that she seems offended. “Because I lo…Oh. Ohhhh, shit. He’s been lying to us.”
She nods, her lips pursed. “He said he was going to fight for her to stay with him. To make her realize he’s in it for the long haul, that he’s never been happier. He told us he’s excited to be a father. What about any of that…” She gestures subtly in his direction. “…seems excited to you?”
None of it. None of it at all. If anything, Alex looks bored out of his mind. Even if he doesn’t love Amira—and she really is just a baby mama to him—the Alex I know would be out of his mind if a woman was having his baby.
The answer slaps me in the face.
“Oh my God, Evie,” I whisper. “It’s not his.”
Also by Kata
Moving the Chains series
First and Goal
Second Down
Third and Long
Fourth and Inches
Standalone Novels
Revenge Love
Keep the Beat
Homebound
A Bird in the Oven
About the Author
Kata Čuić lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and three teens. No one told her life was gonna be this way. She holds a degree in Linguistics with a minor in Religious Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. Her plans of becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon were foiled by OChem 1. Fortunately, she’d been making up stories in her head since the days of her imaginary friend, Choosy. Putting pen to paper, er—fingers to the keyboard—came surprisingly naturally after her aforementioned teens decided it was time for them to cut their respective cords.
Kata writes everything from angst-filled series to standalone rom-coms and has been known to dabble in a bit of paranormal on the free stories section of her website. She believes nice guys shouldn’t have to finish last (except in the bedroom where she prefers an alpha between the sheets but a gentleman in the streets), and that the surest way to a woman’s heart is through laughter and food.
You can judge her standards to your heart’s content in the following places:
Facebook Reader Group
Website
Newsletter
Acknowledgments
I was genuinely unsure if this book would ever happen, but here we are. I think that about every book I write. It’s simultaneously my favorite yet also perhaps the last I’ll ever create. Maybe one of these days the muse will work for me instead of the other way around. In the meantime, it’s good to have people in my corner who understand the perils and pitfalls of authoring and who are willing—sort of—to listen to me bitch about my fickle willpower.
Karin Enders and Ryan Ringbloom, author buddies extraordinaire—I’m glad we’re not neighbors on one-way streets.
My family—Please, stop leaving lights on in empty rooms and every door in the house open. You know I can’t concentrate when random things are out of place. It’s like you’re training me to work no matter what. Oh. Wait…
Sarah Kil, Lisa Salvucci, and Alison Evans-Maxwell—my team without which I could not produce such beautiful finished products. I swear, I’ll get better at scheduling. As soon as I can master the muse…
Danielle, Jo, Kylie, and Alyssa—thank you for rolling with my hectic schedule and always so graciously, too. You make the world a better place with your joyfulness (and Star Trek memes)!
Bloggers and readers—literally no author would exist in a vacuum. Thank you for your voracious appetites for the written word. I’ll happily share imaginary people with you for as long as they continue to whisper to me. I also fully recognize that outside of reading circles, that statement would sound like a verbal acid trip.
Onto the next wild ride!
Holding Playlist
Holding Playlist
Lean on Me | Bill Withers
Over My Head (Cable Car) | The Fray
Thnks fr th Mmrs | Fall Out Boy
Bite My Tongue | Relient K
Natural | Imagine Dragons
Tightrope | Janelle Monáe
Crush | David Archuleta