Bad Ballers: A Contemporary Sports Romance Box Set

by Bishop, S. J.

  “You’re sorry! You’re supposed to be my big sister. You’re supposed to watch out for me…” Becca’s voice broke on a sob, and I had to wait while she cried, while she struggled to compose herself.

  “Becca…”

  “No,” my sister said. “No, you’re going to listen to me. You think Dash wants anything to do with you? You think you are anything to Dash other than a way to get at me? I feel sorry for you. Dash Barnes has never cared about anyone but himself. He only cares about appearances and about how good you make him look. He dates actresses and models. He doesn’t date high school English teachers.”

  “Becca…”

  But she’d hung up.

  I felt as though my heart had been ripped out of my chest. I dialed her number again and again, but she wouldn’t pick up.

  In the end, I called Dash. When he didn’t pick up either, I left a voicemail. “How could you?” I said into the phone. I was sobbing, my words barely comprehensible. “How could you tell her like that? You’re not the man I thought you were.”

  24

  Dash

  I don’t think I’ve felt worse in my entire life. Not even during the Super Bowl against the 49ers, when LaShawn Robbins had intercepted the game-winning touchdown pass. To hear Annie like that on the phone was pure torture. Annie was a sweetheart, and she didn’t deserve what I’d done.

  To be honest, I don’t remember saying anything, but apparently, Burke had witnessed the whole affair. He repeated our conversation verbatim. I’d told Becca about the pregnancy – bragged about it, in fact. According to Caz, she’d been wrecked. She’d left immediately with her rocker boyfriend.

  I didn’t care about Becca’s hurt feelings, but I knew I’d hurt Annie, and I felt terrible about that.

  You’re not the man I thought you were.

  Those words humbled me, ran through my head all the way to airport, and beat against my skull like a pulse until we landed at Ronald Reagan. I’d called Annie, but she hadn’t picked up. Go figure. She had work tomorrow, no doubt, and was probably asleep.

  I should be asleep, too. I was still suffering the lingering effects of a terrible hangover, and our season started in just two days’ time. But that wasn’t going to stop me. I’d been doing a lot of thinking today, and I’d come to one obvious conclusion: Annie and I should be together.

  I’d woken up feeling miserable, and all I’d wanted were Annie’s cool fingers against my skull and Annie’s sympathetic lips at my temple.

  And when I’d gotten her message, I’d wanted to throw myself at her feet and apologize. Her family had disowned her? That was fine. I could be her family.

  My assistant had a car waiting for me the minute I got off the plane, and I gave the driver Annie’s address. On the car ride over, I tried to think of what I was going to say to her when I got there. I tried to compose at least a dozen texts and erased them all. What I had to say was better said in person.

  I arrived at Annie’s apartment around 11 p.m. I had to ring her doorbell four times before I heard the latch of the front door open. I took the stairs two at a time.

  Annie met me at her door, looking sleep tousled: red hair tangled and mascara smudged beneath her eyes. Her eyes looked red and swollen from crying. I swear to God, it broke my heart.

  “Dash?” Annie blinked, as if trying to bring me into focus. “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk,” I said. Only, I didn’t push my way into her apartment. I waited.

  “Come in,” she said after a moment, stepping aside.

  I walked into her apartment, taking stock of the small space. God, when was the last time I’d ever lived in a space this small? College, probably. My freshman year, before the team had gotten me off-campus housing in a spacious townhouse. I probably made, in one game, more money than Annie made in an entire year.

  My heart hurt for her. She stood there staring at me, wearing nothing but a pair of flannel shorts and a regatta t-shirt, looking up at me with such confusion, and I was overcome. This was the mother of my child; this was the woman I couldn’t get out of my head.

  I opened my mouth, the words I’d planned flooding onto my tongue and then evaporating.

  “Dash, why are you here?” Annie asked.

  I didn’t think. I reached down, hauled her into my arms, and kissed her.

  25

  Anne

  I didn’t know what to think when I saw that it was Dash storming up my stairs. He looked intent and frazzled, and yet he waited patiently at my door until I invited him in.

  When he entered, he looked lost. His eyes kept travelling across my rooms and over my belongings, as if trying to make sense of my life.

  “Dash,” I said. I was so tired, so incredibly exhausted with everything, and I was beginning to feel the first signs of my pregnancy: the nausea and the mood swings. “Why are you here?”

  I watched him open his mouth, and time stood still for a moment. Was this it? Was he going to tell me that he loved me? That he’d never loved anyone but me? That his heart beat for me? That he yearned to have me in his arms?

  But he didn’t say anything. Instead, a look came over his face, one I couldn’t describe, and he reached down, tugged me into his arms, and kissed me.

  For a moment, shock overwhelmed me and turned me to stone. It had been two months since our last encounter, two months of me thinking about him every day and pretending that he was holding me in his arms at night. And now, here he was, holding me as if he didn’t dare let me go, kissing me for all he was worth.

  I kissed him back. I kissed him with everything I had. I stopped rationalizing and reasoning; I stopped thinking about my family, or my friends, or my future, and I kissed him back.

  It was incredible. A sweet liberation came over me, with burning lust in its wake. I whimpered against his mouth, climbed him like a tree, and wrapped my legs about his waist.

  Dash responded in kind, gripping my ass with both hands and pressing me to his raging hard erection. I writhed. I was part-animal, a slave to my need. I needed Dash inside me. I needed him to erase all of this doubt, this second-guessing.

  And he seemed more than happy to oblige.

  I didn’t realize we were moving until the wall hit my back. No, not a wall – the door to my bedroom. Dash laid me on the bed, not willing to waste any time.

  Refusing to let him go, I clung to his neck like a vine, nearly sobbing as his mouth left mine, found the soft spot beneath my ear, and feasted.

  I was lost to sensation, my body aflame with need, with desire stronger than anything I’d ever felt. I wasn’t even aware that he’d managed to get us both naked until his bare chest met mine. His fingers fastened around one nipple, his mouth on another.

  I arched off the bed, shouting wordlessly. His fingers raked across my ribs and skated down past my hips, his mouth following. At the same time, his finger parted my lips and slid inside while his tongue found my clit and swirled.

  I sobbed at the sensation, but he didn’t let up. His tongue laved at me, a second finger coming to join the first, moving in and out in a relentless, demanding rhythm.

  My hips pressed up, seeking the heat of his mouth. My hands tangled in his hair. “Dash. Oh fuck, Dash,” I said. I was going to come, and I didn’t want to come without him.

  “I need you, Dash,” I sobbed. “I need you inside me. I need to feel all of you. Goddamn it, Dash! Fuck me!”

  He didn’t need to be asked twice. His mouth released me, his fingers sliding out, and he covered me, his mouth finding mine again.

  I sucked at his mouth, hungrily, tasting myself on his lips. My hips rose up at the first touch of his erection, hot, hard, and throbbing at my entrance.

  For a moment, he teased me, sliding back and forth between my thighs, coating himself in my wetness and driving me demented.

  Then he positioned himself at my entrance and entered me in one hard stroke.

  I came.

  My release was shattering, like lightening cou
rsing through me, pulses of electricity rendering me senseless. I screamed with the strength of it, holding him to me and riding the sensation until it wore out. But it didn’t stop. Dash wouldn’t let it. He moved with intention, his hips shifting and his shaft hitting me in just the right spot to keep the orgasm going on and on.

  “Dash,” I gasped against his neck. “Please…” But I didn’t know what I was begging for.

  Dash seemed to know. He slid out of me and, in one move, flipped me until I was on my stomach. His hands lifted my hips in the air, and he entered me from behind, the new sensation almost too much to bear.

  One hand snaked around to press against my clit. He drove into me from behind, each thrust pressing me against his hand, demanding a response – demanding I come again.

  But I didn’t want it like this. I wanted to see him; I wanted to see his face.

  “Dash,” I gasped, another brutal orgasm building out of my control. “Dash…”

  But he was nearly as lost as I, his body demanding I respond to him, demanding I come again, driving in and out, unyielding.

  I came again, my body responding to the demand of his, the tension releasing in a firework explosion. I sobbed into my pillow as he came hard behind me, slamming in and holding me still as he throbbed deep inside. “Fuck,” he barked, and all but collapsed atop me.

  26

  Dash

  I don’t think I’ve ever come so hard in my life. Annie lay beneath me, her face obscured by thick locks of red hair, her body arched up to take me inside her, and her hands fisted in her sheets.

  She was panting, her body still shuddering with the force of her climax. I held on to the sensation, loathe to separate myself from her and to come back to an imperfect reality. But I had to stop being a coward.

  I slid out of her, slowly, and she groaned, turning onto her side as I lay down next to her.

  “Annie,” I said, my voice a plea. She opened her eyes, and I wished it wasn’t so dark in the room so that I could read the expression in them.

  “Dash,” she responded. She reached out and laid a hand on my hip. The touch said more than words could, and I reached over and pulled her close.

  “Annie, I’m sorry about Becca. I was drunk. She was out with Gil, and she… it doesn’t matter what she said. I shouldn’t have used you as a way to get even with her. I didn’t think about the consequences. I’m so sorry.”

  She was silent, but she didn’t back away from me. I continued. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve always wanted a family. When I met your sister, I thought I could have it all: the beautiful wife, the amazing career, and children. But I was wrong. I couldn’t have that with Becca. But with you – with you, I can. And it feels so right, so natural with you. You’re going to be a phenomenal mother, and I don’t want to miss that. I want to be in your lives. I want to be a family with you, Annie.”

  I wished I could reach over and turn on a light, just to see her face. She’d gone so still beneath my hand. “It just makes sense,” I said. “These last few months have been so confusing. But you, me, and a baby? It makes sense.”

  I stopped talking, and I waited for her to respond.

  27

  Anne

  I didn’t know what to say. My body was still throbbing from our encounter, my heart still thudding against my chest. Dash’s words barely registered, and when I realized that he was talking about our future, I strove to hear him.

  A family. He wanted to be a family with me. I tried to hang on to that message; I tried to ignore what he’d said about Becca, about thinking that things would be perfect with her, but when they weren’t… well, then, he’d settle for me.

  “You, me, and a baby? It makes sense.”

  Sense. I suppose it made some degree of sense. I knew he was waiting for me to respond, and maybe it was the sex that had addled my brain, or maybe it was the confusion of a long and emotional day – but all I could think about was Maxim De Winter, Mr. Rochester, and Colonel Brandon, the heroes from my novels. What would they have said?

  I closed my eyes. Why wasn’t this enough? What was it I was waiting to hear? I want you. I want to be with you. I’ve always wanted to be with you. I’d loved Dash for years. I’d loved him even before becoming pregnant with his child.

  Becca’s words came back to me: He dates actresses and models. He doesn’t date high school English teachers.

  I took a deep breath. “I just don’t think this is a good idea,” I said. Hell, sleeping with him tonight hadn’t been a good idea…

  “To be honest, Annie, I’m sick of hearing how you don’t think this is a good idea. At first, it was because we couldn’t let your family know. Well, now they know. And they’re upset with you. Do you know who isn’t? Me. I’m not upset about anything other than the fact that you keep pushing me away. I’m telling you that I want to give this a try. I understand why you don’t want to, and I call bullshit. The least you can do is give this a try.”

  I closed my eyes and rolled away from him. This was all too much.

  “Annie,” said Dash, his voice soft. “I know my own flaws, trust me. You’ve told me; Becca’s told me. I get it: I’m selfish, I’m impatient, and sometimes I’m downright rude. But I’m not a liar, and I’m not unfaithful. If you and I don’t work, it won’t be because we didn’t at least try. So, can we try?”

  I knew I couldn’t ask for anything else from him. I knew I was being irrational in expecting declarations of love. Just because he doesn’t love you now doesn’t mean he can’t. And can your heart really get any more broken than it is right now?

  Yes! a part of me cried.

  Stop being a coward, the other part said.

  “Okay,” I whispered to the ceiling. “Okay. Let’s try.”

  I felt Dash relax next to me. I hadn’t realized he’d been holding himself so tight.

  “Come here,” he said, his voice rough with an unnamed emotion. He held his arms open for me, and I curled into him. And just like in my dreams, Dash held me to his chest as I fell asleep.

  28

  Dash

  “Can I get you two anything else to drink?” asked the waitress, coming over for the sixth time.

  “No,” I said. “Thanks.” She was becoming irritating, and my temper was about to snap.

  My agent, Hal, sensing my mood, said, “We’ll wave to you if we need anything, honey,” and took a sip of his water. Hal was in AA and never drank. Now that the season had started, I was back on the wagon, myself.

  I’d gotten the shit kicked out of me in practice today. Coach had pulled me aside afterward to make sure I was okay. “Listen, Dash, I know these last few months have probably been rough with the divorce and all, but I’m going to need you to get your head out of your ass and focus on the task at hand.”

  So, I’d called Hal.

  “So let me see if I have the gist of the situation,” said Hal, eyeing me over the rim of his round, tortoiseshell glasses. “In about seven months, you’re ex-wife’s sister is going to have your baby, and you want me to make sure that nobody knows about it.”

  “That’s the gist,” I affirmed. “The baby will be due right around championship season, and assuming we make it to champs, I don’t need the distraction of the press.”

  “Are you in a relationship with this girl?”

  “Annie? Yes. We are making a go of it,” I affirmed. “At least, we’re trying to. I’m trying to see her without tipping off the media.”

  “I have a few suggestions,” said Hal, rubbing thoughtfully at the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Misdirection,” said Hal. “The press is watching you. But if you start seeing someone in Boston, then they’ll expect to see you out and about in Boston. You said this young woman, Annie, lives in DC? Fine. If the press are looking in Boston, you can fly down to DC without issue. But how much are you going to be flying back and forth during the season?”

  “Not often,” I allowed. But that wouldn’t be an issue
for another few months. In the meantime, Annie had the summer off and could travel to me. I had a few weeks off between camps, but I’d need to be around the trainers and the facilities. She and I hadn’t talked about that yet.

  “My recommendation is to line up a series of dates. Go out with a few women. The press won’t know where to look for you next. You just have to hope your ex-wife will keep her mouth shut.”

  I frowned at Hal’s mention of Becca. I’d tried to call her and talk to her, but she’d refused to return my calls. In the end, I’d stopped bothering. It just wasn’t worth the effort.

  “What do you think?” Hal asked. “Can you misdirect the press, or do I need to start preparing a statement on your behalf?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll handle it.” It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle the publicity, myself, but I didn’t want Annie to have to deal with any of it. I would warn her ahead of time so she’d know the dates didn’t mean anything. If we could get away with flying under the radar until after the baby was born, that would be ideal.

  In the meantime, there was no shortage of women I could take out around Boston.

  29

  Anne

  “I’m not happy with your pregnancy right now,” said Abe as he swung into my classroom.

  “That’s a rude thing to say,” I said to him.

  “Well, it’s true. It’s the last day of school, the kids are gone, our grades are in, and the classrooms are clear. I want to go out and get mind-numbingly drunk, but you can’t go with me!”

  “Trust me,” I muttered. “There’s nothing I’d like to do more than get mind-numbingly drunk.”

  Abe considered my comment for a moment before narrowing his eyes at me. “All right, Anne Arbor, what’s going on? Spill it.”