Playing for Keeps: An Enemies to Lovers Sports Romance

by Stephanie Queen

  He grins at me, the full double-dimple smile, and I almost cream my panties right there. When he leans in and rewards me with a kiss on my temple, just a light and quick touch of his lips, I swear I get dizzy. I never believed swooning was a real thing until this moment. Shameful for a southern girl, but now I’m worried for my sanity.

  When Max pushes his chair back and stands with his date, I’m relieved. We won’t be the first couple to leave the party. I look at Tate and he squeezes my thigh, nodding.

  We stand next and after a round of good byes and a quick hug with Cat, we walk out behind Max and his date, Natalie.

  It’s not until we’re around the corner and into the main dining room, heading for the bar area, that I remember Foley and friends. Fuck. “Can we leave through the back door?” I say, stopping.

  He has my arm and keeps moving, pulling me along. “What the hell are you talking about, Smitty?”

  At the same time, Max stops in front of us, flashes a look at me and says, “Hey Foley. What’s going on? Great place, isn’t this?”

  Tate freezes for no more than two blinks, seeing Foley and the others sitting at the bar and sizing up the situation. He gives me a questioning looks, then seems to answer his own question. “Shit. I hope these guys don’t make it a regular habit to come here.”

  He doesn’t assume it’s my fault. He assumes—correctly—that they came here tonight of their own volition, not at my urging. Of course he gives me the benefit of the doubt. Tate’s a decent guy. That’s what decent guys do. Guys who trust you. Whether they should or not.

  “This is a great place,” Foley says sliding his eyes to mine. “Look who’s here,” he says to me and then nods at Fontanna. “Chloe and Tate.” I can almost hear him singing the refrain. He’s put us together as a couple and I shoot him daggers.

  “In the flesh,” Tate says. “Enjoying the best Italian in Boston.”

  Max says, “Fontanna should know since his family’s in the restaurant business.”

  “That right?” Foley says, though he probably already knows. I could kiss Max for trying to deflect attention away from me and Tate as a couple.

  I take a step, moving for the exit. Tate holds me back and I look at him, surprised.

  He leans in and whispers, “All my friends think I’m banging you. May as well give your friends the same idea.” Then he squeezes me in a tight hug telling the world I’m his and says loud enough for all the reporters at the bar to hear. “We’re taking off now. Better things to do than shoot the shit with a bunch of reporters.” He laughs and so do Foley and the others.

  We head out the door and this time Max and his date are following us.

  “You two have a good night,” Max says, taking Natalie in his arms. “See you tomorrow for films, Fontanna.”

  We walk a few cars down the street in the opposite direction until we reach Tate’s car.

  “My car is down further,” I say, “I’ll follow you.” He shakes his head no and my heart drops like an anvil.

  “You come with me tonight. We’ll come back and get your car tomorrow.”

  “You don’t trust me to follow you?”

  “I don’t trust you about anything,” he says as he takes me in his arms.

  “That’s not what it sounded like earlier. Now all our friends think we’re banging each other and it’s all a lie.”

  “Why don’t we make it true?” He nuzzles my neck, but I’m feeling less romantic by the second.

  “Is this a case of keeping your enemies close?”

  He sighs and leans his forehead against mine, holding me close enough so that his scent, his hard muscles, sheer size, and sizzling heat all swirl around me, intoxicating me all over again.

  “I honestly have no idea what this is all about, Chloe. I only know I’m having a hell of a time resisting you. I want you. Hard and bad and, like you said, the damage is done as far as gossip goes.”

  “Oh, well, how can a girl resist a line like that?” I say, but my voice is too shaky with desire to carry off the smartass sentiment. His dimples show up under the street light and he lowers his mouth to mine, letting his kiss talk romance and seduction for him. That perfect match of his lips to mine, the soft and hard and hot moist feel, the taste of wine mingling between us sending me all the way to sold, forgetting all about whatever reservations I had.

  By the time he ends the kiss, we’re both breathing heavily and he opens the door for me, helping me inside the low-slung car. We drive most of the way to his place, which isn’t far, in silence unless you count the wild beating of my heart, the anticipation barreling through my veins.

  The tension thickens, my heart climbing into my throat with the edge I’m riding on ready to slice me down the middle, until we get in the elevator. As the doors slide closed, he takes me in his arms and I feel him simmering as he nibbles on my earlobe. I bite my lip to prevent a moan, though I don’t know why I bother since it’s late now and no one is around.

  By the time we walk into his apartment or condo or whatever it is, I’m too worked up to be impressed with the walls of glass overlooking the water and the Boston skyline in the distance, lights glittering. The sight is worth no more than a glance and I barely register the slick new kitchen as he drags me by it and through the living room.

  “This way. I’ll give you the tour in the morning.” His assumption that I’m staying without an invitation or a chance to say yes or no excites the fuck out of me. He’s wreckless and out of control and this is how I’ve wanted him all along, isn’t it? He lets go of me as soon as we step inside his room dominated by an enormous bed and he starts ripping off his shirt.

  Of course I stop to watch because his body is more than drool-worthy. Tossing his shirt on the floor, he starts unzipping his pants. His shoes are already gone.

  “Don’t just stare. Either help me or take off your own clothes,” he says.

  “Back to the killer romantic. You make a girl’s head spin,” I say as I kick off my shoes and start unzipping my dress. It’s a more businesslike sheath than I would normally have worn for such an occasion, but I dressed for my job of getting comments on the sidelines at the game, not for a seduction scene. I manage to step from the dress while my eyes are riveted on him as he drops his jeans, his eyes on mine.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful, Chloe. How did you manage to stay out of trouble all these years with parades of professional athletes lusting after you?”

  “Who says I stayed out of trouble?”

  One devilish dimple shows on his face and his jaw tics with tension. I’ve thrown caution to the wind admitting to him I might have a past. In fact, I don’t even remember the meaning of the word caution. It’s as if the entire concept has been erased from my memory. Standing in my bra and panties, I watch him pull his cock, hard and swollen, free from his shorts.

  The sight draws me in like a snake charmer in reverse, the snake charming the fuck out of me. I move close and touch him and he wraps an arm around me, trapping my hand on his cock between us. I don’t mind at all when he grabs a handful of my hair and pulls me in for a hard kiss, punishing me for something or other, for being a reporter, the enemy. His other hand cups my ass, sending a chill of want through me.

  “Take it easy with that hand, Chloe. I want to come inside you tonight.” He talks in between nibbles on my lips, his breathing raspy, or maybe that’s my breathing, all uneven and desperate. True to my form, I squeeze him tighter, slide my thumb over his leaking tip and want it in my mouth bad. He sucks in a breath and clamps his hand over mine, separating us.

  “You’re on birth control?”

  Nodding, my pulse thudding in my head, I removing my hand from his cock. He brings it to my panties and we both pull them down my thighs while he unhooks my bra with his other hand. And now I’m naked, watching him pull his shorts off in one quick athletic movement.

  “You’re spectacular,” I say. “I must have been a real good girl in another lifetime to have ended up here with you right
now.” The words tumble out because I’m off filter, off the record, and off my rocker with delirious desire.

  “You don’t fool me,” he says, taking me in his arms again, skin to skin now from top to bottom and I revel in the heat and silky hard feel of him, the rough hairs of his chest against mine, his scalding cock pressed squarely against my pussy and reaching up to my belly button. The idea of him being inside me sends my heart palpitating and my insides bubbling with mindless greedy lust.

  “Fool you?” I’m not comprehending him, his words second to the feel of him as he pushes me back onto the bed, the glorious weight of him enveloping me, consuming me, taking up all the sensory capacity I have. He grows in my mind, becoming my universe, shrinking everything else there is down to nothing.

  He’s kissing my face, my eyes, my nose, my temple, and my lips, worshipping me with his mouth and tongue as he talks in an urgent whisper.

  “You know how fucking good you are. Right now. Good enough to eat.” His words make me shiver as he trails his kisses down my body and I caress his head, running my fingers through his thick silky hair, his shoulders, anything I can touch as he slides down further, kissing my navel and then nuzzling his open, ravenous mouth between my legs.

  Crying out, I clamp my hand in his hair and arch up to him. He chuckles and I can feel his fucking gorgeous dimples as he slides his hands under my ass and literally raises me off the bed, holding me like a feast in front of his mouth as he kneels in front of me. We watch each other as he licks, long and slow and my legs quiver. He’s so strong, holding me in place as he sucks on me, then flicks his tongue exactly where I’m begging him to.

  “Oh . . . God . . . Fontanna . . . yes . . . yes . . . don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.” I ramble in between moans, my hands gripping his hair, pressing his face into me. He bites down, the explosive sharp pressure making me scream at the pain-pleasure as the spiral starts at my core and every muscle in me tenses and my legs clench, squeezing him between me. But he doesn’t stop sucking and flicking and nibbling the nub of my clit as it pulses wildly in wave after wave and I moan and call his name like it’s a prayer.

  “Tate . . . oh Tate.” The shuddering inside of me takes a long time to stop as he releases me and moves up on top of me, holding me in his arms, kissing my sweaty temples as I bury my face in his chest. My breathing still hard, I feel his cock stir between us and the need for him inside me burns through the post orgasmic haze.

  “Your passion is so mind-blowing,” he says and I laugh.

  “You are the mind-blowing one. But I confess, I need more from you.”

  “Is that right?” He presses his cock between my legs. I nod, opening my legs wide under him.

  “Yes. I need you inside me. Right now.” I reach my hand down and pull his tip to my slick opening and thrust my hips forward, sliding him inside me a little way. He groans loud.

  “Fuck, Chloe.” The strain in his voice excites me as much as the feel of him filling me as he moves. I arch up and reach around to hold his ass and pull him in all the way as hard as I can, the mindless conquering need in me heedless of anything, of everything but owning him, having him become part of me right now.

  “I want you so much,” I say, not caring what the words mean, only knowing I mean them.

  “Sweet Jesus . . .” His throaty voice drives me wild and I move my hips to meet his thrust. He drags himself back out slowly and I grit my teeth, feeling every last cell of his long hard cock sliding through me. And when his tip comes out, he brushes my clit with it and I cry out and shove it back inside my dripping pussy. I slam my hips up against his fast and hard, urging him on, feeling him hit up against my wall, filling me so completely, leaving nothing inside me untouched. Not even my heart.

  Moving in and out now in a frantic rhythm, gasping like we’re running for our lives, slamming our hips together, slapping our sweaty skin, the climb of my tension is feverish with an intensity I’ve never felt before, my nerves tightening to a pinpoint of excruciating pleasure, then an explosion that’s so massive it’s like a vaporizing nothingness, a flash, and then blackout for an instant, then the relentless crashing waves of scintillating seizures as I cry out.

  Shuddering uncontrollably, as he groans my name and shoves into me with a ferocious clench and release that sends in a shooting warmth, another layer of pleasure washes over me. He murmurs my name and takes my mouth with his, sealing the devastating moment between us, the moment where we bare our souls, becoming vulnerable enough to join as one, feel part of each other.

  He lies on top of me, holding me for a long while, our breathing gradually returning to normal, his kisses coming to a stop until he raises himself off me, shifting to the side, still holding me.

  “Chloe . . .” He trails off without finishing his thought, but his eyes say more.

  “I know.” I tighten my arms around him, giving him everything my eyes can show, down to my soul, communicating the specialness of this moment to me. Telling him how special he is to me.

  “You probably do know,” he says with a lopsided one-dimple smile that melts me into heaven, into a crazy Tate-induced giddy state that I’ve never known before.

  “I know how I feel—”

  “Satisfied,” he says, cutting me off. And there it is. Fear. He doesn’t want to hear how I really feel. But I’m going to tell him anyway.

  “That and giddy too. Happy. Over-the-moon crazy about you.”

  He smiles, but I see the wariness in his eyes. There are no dimples.

  “Don’t get carried away.”

  “Too late. I already have. And,” I pause for dramatic effect. “I’m pretty sure I’ve taken you with me.”

  Now he laughs. “I admit I have a warm fuzzy feeling that I wouldn’t have thought possible concerning you. So I must be crazy.”

  “That’s quite a concession speech. You sure you weren’t a politician in a past life?”

  He laughs again, giving me a double-dimple grin, totally disarmed, vulnerable and adorable. I’m about to tell him I adore him, but I stop myself. That’s one step too far, Chloe. Be reckless to the point of the edge, but do not go over that line.

  Chapter 14

  Tate

  Waking up with Chloe is like a dream and a nightmare. Once we get past another round of mind-blowing sex and I take her back to her car, I’m not sure how to handle her.

  I’m not comfortable having a relationship with her—fuck no, but I’m not comfortable with the whole enemies with benefits thing either, though that’s where we’re at. That’s what I tell her. I feel like a fucking jackass saying it.

  “If that’s the way you want it,” she says. “You got it.” I’m too much of a coward, or maybe too concerned about self-preservation, too cynical, to ask her what other way there is, what way she wants it.

  “Look, I have a busy week this week. With the game on Thursday night.”

  “No need to explain to me. I’m right there with you—on the other side, of course—behind enemy lines.”

  “You’re a troublemaker,” I say, no heat, giving her half a smile.

  “Notorious,” she says. Then she leans in and kisses me, quick and easy and hot, and gets out of my car.

  I watch her as she drives away. I’m not sure where she’s going, to the studio or to her attic lair.

  I throw my car into gear, wishing it were that easy to get myself into gear because my head isn’t where it should be for this game and I’m going to need to catch up fast. It’s a big one with our main division rival. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I am so fucked up.

  Can I really have a relationship with a sports reporter? A woman who hounds me for intel about my injury status as if she wants me to be injured to make a good news clip?

  Not to mention the havoc she could reek on my contract negotiations with the team and with sponsors. According to my agent, unless it’s about my spectacular play on the field, the less said in the press about me, the better.

  If I thought the locker room was going to be my s
olace, my escape from Chloe-on-the-brain, then I’m seriously delusional or I forget what my friends are like. Because the first thing I hear on the way to my locker is a wolf whistle loud and clear from Sean Patrick and a mile-wide grin as he slaps me on the back.

  “We had bets you’d be late, but you did me proud. I knew even a woman like Chloe couldn’t keep you—”

  “Shut the fuck up. And what do you mean a woman like Chloe?”

  Hi grin doesn’t diminish one iota. “You know—someone special.” I take that in and don’t know how to respond, how to explain that she’s not special when my gut and my heart know otherwise. When that’s the exact thing that has my insides in fucking knots and my head messed up. Because if she weren’t special, I’d have dismissed her after that first day we met.

  But how does Sean know she’s special when he doesn’t even know what I know, that she’s the kind of woman who makes crazy anonymous donations and lives in a fucking tenement while she devotes herself to preserving her father’s legacy by carrying on in his footsteps. That she’s the kind of woman who’s endured in spite of losing everyone she’s loved and still moves ahead, bent but unbroken and brave.

  Fuck. I look away from him only to hear Gabe and Hunter snorting with laughter and heading my way.

  “Here he is,” Gabe says, too loud for my comfort, as I throw my things into my locker and pretend he’s no more than a pest. “The man with the biggest, bravest balls of the day. Gutsy enough to parade around with a sports reporter in front of her fellow reporters. The least likely—”

  “Fuck off,” I say, attempting a smile, knowing it’s more of a scowl. Predictably he laughs, as does everyone else in earshot. Taking a deep breath, I know I’m being a fool letting this all get to me. Knowing he has no idea how messed up I am. He probably thinks it’s a casual fling. It should be a casual fling.