by Amber Malloy
Chapter Ten
When he’d left Murphy’s Pub that evening, Hawk had had every intention of going home. Hopping into his truck, he’d lost all sense of direction and driven straight to Moe’s. His plans for the night hadn’t included the little blues bar. With the short amount of time he had off, Hawk wanted to use it to catch up with friends, but an edginess had sunken into his soul.
Tomorrow a couple of his teammates would be auctioned off at some charity function for the franchise. Hawk, on the other hand, had a sponsored meet-and-greet, then the Northern Royals were back on the road. With Lexi heavy on his mind, he wanted to settle the restlessness that had pulled him into her sphere by twisting his gut into knots.
Weeks had passed since the last time he’d seen her. Positive the distance between them had magnified his feelings, he’d driven his truck into the alley behind the bar. It hadn’t slipped his mind that Lexi was not only his boss but was also related to one of his closest friends. Worst of all, that pesky title ‘most successful’ flashed brighter than a neon sign above her gorgeous head.
He’d avoided the web search that would tell him she was way too smart for him, but that gold member status perfume had always wafted off her skin. Determined not to embarrass himself further, he threw the truck in reverse but stopped when he caught Simone and Crazy Leg Carl leaving the bar.
“Shit.” Without moving a muscle, he held his breath. Waiting until they were well out of sight, he turned off the truck and opened the door.
As he stepped into the heavy snow, he grabbed his phone out of his jacket pocket and pulled up iTunes.
Hawk walked to the back door, which was slightly ajar, and pulled the heavy door open. The lock probably hadn’t engaged when Simone had left. He set a mental reminder to check it later. No longer interested in fighting the magnetic pull that had brought him to the bar, Hawk maneuvered around the steel kitchen island.
Attempting to come up with a conversation piece that didn’t make him sound stupid, he worked on a whole sentence besides a monosyllabic Hawk like girl, pretty.
While he toyed with his phone to rock SZA, those wicked nerves threw a mean MMA-style fight in his stomach. The jitters were a telltale sign that he was a goober, but he didn’t realize how big until he pushed open the door and set eyes on Lexington Waters.
After a few words were exchanged, the only thing he could focus on were those glossy, pert lips on that beautiful doll’s face.
Not that Lexi’s tight skirt, form-fitting sweater and knee-high, black boots held his attention, but mainly it was her plump lips that stayed at the forefront of his mind. Before he could explain all the reasons Champagne Supernova was technically the better choice, he took the liberty to feel her lips against his. A simple taste of her skin, he told himself, then I will apologize and completely understand if she never wants me to step foot inside this establishment again.
Prepared to pull away and offer his resignation, he was stopped by the soft caress of her hand. Lexi had gently drawn her palm down the side of his stubble before parting his lips with her tongue.
With his dick springing into a hard brick at her moan, he had no choice but to explore where the rest of the evening would take him. Initially, all he’d wanted to do was see her and perhaps talk, not get his rocks off. He had his pick of groupies for that, but he actually desired something meaningful.
She was soft and sweet, and he sucked on her tongue. I can beat back the need of want, but for how long? Lexi pulled away from his lips, slipping down to his neck. “Want to—?”
“What?” Lexi asked, in a sexy, rough tone. The hottie pulled back to stare at him with those big doe eyes as she grabbed his crotch. His dick hardened to an uncomfortable degree… He needed relief.
The guttural instinct to pound her pussy into oblivion overwhelmed his senses. Uptight and always put together, he didn’t anticipate her assertive attitude. Hawk expected a King Kong-Fay Wray type of reaction—that whole damsel in distress response, not the Basic Instinct interrogation scene that he received.
“No. Uh…” He leaned his head against hers, hoping to slow down his freight train of emotions. “Talk?” The request sounded ridiculous to his own ears, considering he initiated this strange interaction in the first place. Hawk wanted to take things slow. He was too old to keep engaging in empty, one-and-done encounters.
“Okay.” Lexi’s warm breath tickled his neck. “What about? Oh, I know, we can discuss the impact Napster had on the music industry?” Quicker than an Olympic sprinter, she unzipped his jeans and slipped her hand into his pants.
“Ahh-h.” He swallowed. Many things collided in his mind once her soft palm clutched his dick.
“Is that what you want to talk about? Or would you like to lay me down on this table and fuck me good?”
As tingles of warmth ran up his spine, Hawk gathered her close. “Napster destroyed the music industry as we knew it.” He kissed his way up her neck while she pulled his cock out of his pants. The sensation of her dainty hand choking his stiff rod shot warm tingles throughout his core. “However…” He picked Lexi up and plopped her down on the table. Wanting to make his intentions perfectly clear, he leaned his face close to hers to stare into her pretty, brown eyes. “The Internet allowed independent artists to shine. And yes, I want to fuck you on this table.”
“Look at that,” she whispered. “We agree on something.”
Unable to wait another freaking second longer, Hawk seized her beautiful lips with his. Everything about this woman turned him on. Desperate for another taste of her minty chocolate lips, he slipped his tongue into her mouth and leaned into her body.
Lexi’s breasts pressed into his chest. Ready to explore every part of her, Hawk reached underneath her sweater with his left hand.
Pulling down the top of her bra, he sought out her nipple. She had these small, peach-sized numbers he wanted to pop into his mouth.
Lexi had the kind of tits that looked great braless in sweaters and even better with summer dresses. He thumbed her nipples until they pebbled. Impatient to be inside of her, he curbed the urge to lick, kiss and possess every part of this woman. Hell, maybe he should take his time? She might never let him do this again.
What the hell is that? Hawk had to shove that negative shit out of his mind. He was Hawthorne Maze. Regardless of her sexy genius status, he was a freaking star.
“Mmm-m,” she moaned.
Inching his hand up her thigh, Hawk damn near destroyed the lacy thong barrier that separated him from his goal. He yanked at the side and tried to pull them down. Usually he had more finesse, but he couldn’t control his frantic need. Thankfully, Lexi tilted her hips up, which helped him pull the thin fabric the rest of the way off.
Anticipating one another, they moved together in a sensual dance. She unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them down while he sucked on her neck. Palming her slick pussy within his hand, Hawk placed his tongue against her smooth chocolate skin and inhaled her sweet taste into his mouth.
“Mmm-m,” she moaned again. He rubbed his thumb over her taut clit while D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar streamed from his phone.
Hawk lifted his head to meet her luscious lips and attack her beautifully kissable mouth. Lexi gave a healthy tug to his shaft, forcing his insides to jump. Biting down on her lower lip, Hawk surged forward and bucked into her warm, wet slit.
“Shit,” he hissed while slipping his hand across her breast to grab her lovely neck. Hawk rolled his hips and thrusted deeper into her.
“Ahh-h,” she mewed.
Tightening his grip on her throat, he pumped his cock with controlled strokes. As he ground into her pussy, she dropped her head back, muttering words he couldn’t decipher. She was soft and feminine, and he took comfort in her body. Anchoring her neck within his grip, he fucked Lexi limp.
A sweet hitch in her breath signaled for him to increase his pace.
“Fu-uck!” she cried.
Before Hawk released his load inside of her, a burst of c
olored swirls of emotion rendered him blind. His heart seemed to stutter in his chest. He leaned over the beauty, fighting to catch his breath.
“Whoo-o.” Lexi wiggled from beneath him. Damn near drained to a point of fatigue, Hawk fell on to the table. Balancing himself precariously with his forearm across the wood surface, he fought to get his heart rate back to normal.
“That was…” Lexi adjusted her bra.
Hawk attempted to bring himself back to the land of the living by meditating his way out of a fatal heart attack.
“I mean, I really…” Lexi kicked her panties off the tip of her boot and caught them in one hand. “Man. So…” A pretty blush of red flushed the rounds of her brown cheeks. She turned toward the window behind her, then faced him again. “It looks like it’s coming down hard,” she rushed out. “You better get going.”
“Whooa, what?” With his cock hanging out, he sat up.
“How bad would it look for the Northern Night Enforcer to get in a car accident coming from a bar?” Lexi said.
“Royals,” he muttered, suddenly feeling like a groupie. “Uh, well, I’m from Canada and—”
“That door sticks like crazy,” she chirped.
Hawk couldn’t quite put his finger on her sudden hyper demeanor. Jazzed, geeked out? He didn’t know what to call it, but he was confused. Pushing his cock back into his jeans, he zipped himself up as Lexi smoothed out her skirt.
“So, slam it real hard on your way out.”
“Huh?”
“The door.” She stepped closer and planted a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Thanks for that, I really needed it.”
In all the days of his slutty, skirt-chasing life, this had never happened to him. Feeling worse than a discarded tissue in Las Vegas, he moved his mouth, to tell her exactly what he thought about it. However, no words came out. He tried to say goodnight, but she’d already crossed the bar and pushed the kitchen door open.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked no one but himself.
Chapter Eleven
The last bit of sunlight shone through his floor-to-ceiling window. It was that weird time of year where it got dark early, but it wasn’t time for daylight savings quite yet.
After he had his hot but weird-ass encounter with Lexi, he’d gone home and vegged in front of the TV. Old Bruce Lee movies played back-to-back and he got lost in the wonderful world of martial arts. Anything had been better than dwelling. He felt worse than a used condom.
Clad in nothing but a towel, he idly considered where the hell he’d left his robe. He loved the big, plush ones. On more than five occasions, his past sleepover guests had snuck straight out of the door with them. Hawk snorted. Tiny girls with big purses couldn’t be trusted.
As the sound of his phone chimed, Hawk grabbed the coffee mug from under the Nespresso machine and groggily made his way to the bathroom.
Too early in the morning for anybody other than someone who had kids, he hit the accept button to FaceTime with Knox. “Big dog! What’cha got planned for later?” Knox’s enormous head filled his tablet screen that leaned against the bathroom mirror.
“Why? What are you trying to rope me into?” Hawk smirked at his best friend. After taking a sip of from the rich coffee, he set the mug down and reached for his shaving cream. When Knox didn’t answer, he decided to speed the conversation along. “Marketing event at NikeTown.”
“Coming to Moe’s later?”
Not if my head was on fire and Moe’s is the last place on Earth that had water. “Maybe,” he lied. “But I have this thing with the team. Some get-together one of the bigwigs is throwing.”
“Okay, what’s up? You never go to shit like that.”
Hawk avoided any and all eye contact and lathered his face with shaving cream. “Nothing. I feel like I should put in a little face time,” he muttered.
“Are you avoiding something…or, better yet, someone?”
Hawk dried his hand on his washcloth before he grabbed the razor off the sink.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, knowing full well what he meant. Knox could read him better than a football playbook, and that’s why he decided to keep his eyes trained on the mirror and tighten up the edges of his stubble. The grizzly bear transformation didn’t appeal to him. The first year most the rookies attempted to rock that crazy lumberjack look, but most of them hadn’t even hit puberty.
“Right.” Knox sighed. “Look… Moe’s is having an amateur night, and a couple of A&R reps from record companies are supposed to be there. We thought it would be cool to support the bar, and since you’re off tonight—”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to pass.” Hiring a barber would be a lot less time-consuming, but Hawk had learned to do everything for himself. To rely on others never seemed to work out.
“How about you—?”
“No.” He turned to face Knox head-on. “I’m not watching the girls.”
Once his best friend’s huge smile widened to the point it damn near took up the entire tablet, Hawk knew he had been caught. “Tell me you didn’t, bro. Tell me you didn’t.”
Shit! The guilt must have been written across his face. “Sorry, no babysitting tonight.” Hawk hit the side of the sink with the razor, knocking off the hairs.
“Yeah, we’re good on that front. I just needed to see that stupid ‘what have I done’ expression on your face in person.”
“Nothing—”
“Happened, right? I got it. You usually call me when you get in town, but not this time.” Hawk tilted his head toward the screen to catch Knox’s slimy smirk and shrugged. “Let me know if you change your mind about the bar.”
“Sure,” he muttered, irritated that Knox could get under his skin.
“And, Hawk—”
“Let me say hi to Uncle Hawk. Let me say hi, Daddy.”
Hawk waited for the cutest kid to take over her dad’s tablet.
“Later, sweetie. Uncle Hawk needs to figure out what he’s going to tell Mr. Moe at our next poker game. I mean, ‘oops’ isn’t going to cut it this time.”
“Bye,” Hawk ground out before he hung up. Considering Knox ran a team of legendary misfits, Hawk found it hard to believe the Maverick’s GM had enough time on his hands to mess with him. “Worry about your pregnant wife and your first-rate team of idiots,” he remarked far too late.
* * * *
Moe’s line went out through the door and around the corner. Lexi helped Simone behind the bar. They had a good rhythm going—throw in the ice, pour, mix, repeat.
Don’t forget to smile, but not with too many teeth. One of the regulars had warned her it was a creepy turn-off. Of course, he’d been beyond drunk, but it had seemed truthful enough when she’d helped him into the cab two weeks ago. As the emcee took the stage to kick off the show, Pop’s hard, scruffy voice rose above the bar noise. “I’ve never seen it this crowded before.”
“Didn’t think you’d make it tonight.” Lexi turned around to fist bump her old man. Seriously swamped, she didn’t have time to greet him properly. Since Moe had been under the weather, Lexi was happy to see him out and about. The music would do him some good.
“And miss all the fun?” Blues artists were the biggest snobs on the planet. Regardless of the good buzz around all the up-and-comers, they reserved the right to pick the newbies’ bones clean.
Lexi had set up a video feed of the stage in the VIP room for the regulars to voice their opinions in peace. Moe tipped his derby cap at them, and Simone threw him a two-finger salute before he moseyed along.
“Need help?” Remy asked, joining them.
“Something tells me if I say no it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
“Probably not.” Remy slid behind the bar, going straight to the tap, which was smart. If someone knocked out the beer orders, they could keep the complaints down to a minimum.
“Did your husband manage to put you in time-out like he wanted?”
“He mentioned that?” Rem
y chuckled.
“Who couldn’t use a time-out?” Simone said.
“Came off a little sexist,” Lexi admitted.
“It’s actually really sweet. Knox books a five-star hotel room. I binge on junk food and Netflix for the rest of the day.”
“Please, someone give me a time-out!” Simone cried.
“I’ll give you a time-out, baby.” A group of guys laughed on the other side of the bar and high-fived each other.
“Hey, hey, hey, this is the era of ‘me too’ and ‘time-outs’.” Simone threw Peaches’ special lemonade mix in the blender with vodka and turned it on. “You can’t say things like that,” she screamed over the noise. “For instance, what if a waitress, who will remain nameless, said that a part of your anatomy is not only a tiny boat but a very disappointing motion in her ocean?”
“Ooohh,” the dude’s group of friends mocked him.
He flicked off Simone, and snatched his drink off the bar. Used to Simone’s little zingers, Lexi turned her attention back to Remy.
“But she’s basically using kids’ terminology for a cute euphemism on his wife.”
“True, but my time-out is all about adult hedonisms he can’t very well say in front of the kids… You want to get pounded until you’re limp, then eat Doritos all night?”
“Now I want a time-out,” one of the dudes at the bar whined.
Chapter Twelve
Hawk’s Nike event had gone better than he’d expected. A ridiculous amount of fans had shown up to buy his exclusive jersey. Once he’d hawked enough products and charmed his way through the media junkets, he headed to a housewarming party for one of his teammates.
Adrift without an anchor, he stepped into the posh, high-rise condominium. Usually after a huge meet-and-greet, Hawk would go to Moe’s. If he hadn’t been dismissed outright by Lexi, he would have skipped this bullshit with his teammates entirely. There was no one for him to hang out with, which sounded teenage angsty, but who wanted to deal with this type of shit alone?