“I’m going.”
“You said that already,” I said.
“Okay.” Noah grabbed his T-shirt and hopped off the bed. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
“Right.”
He backed away, clenching his shirt in his fists. “Good night, Gavin.”
“‘Night, Noah.”
Noah fled the room, shutting the door too hard behind him, and I fell back against the bed with a groan. Phantom touches were all over my body, Noah’s mark imprinted in my flesh. There was no way I’d be able to scrub that sensation away and no amount of jerking off would replace my need for his touch.
Kissing Noah might have been the most masochistic thing I’d ever done, but I didn’t regret it. Not by a long shot.
Chapter Twelve
Noah
What is wrong with me?
It was a question that had been on repeat in my head since the previous night. When I’d straddled Gavin while grinding all over his dick and trying to eat his face. There would come a point in time when I was capable of self-control, but it was clear that time hadn’t arrived yet. I was weak and thirsty and pitifully unable to make good decisions.
I stared down at the array of bills I’d laid across his desk, trying to will myself to start making phone calls and setting up online accounts (because for some batshit reason Gavin had never done so, and most of his bills had piled up and gone overdue), but I couldn’t. My brain was stuck on the previous night when Gavin Fucking Brawley had clutched at me and shivered while kissing me.
A man who could have anyone he wanted, man or woman, had acted like a brush of my lips had given him life. And that was fucking surreal. And dangerous.
It could never happen again.
That was another thing I repeated like a mantra, but it wasn’t sticking. Evidence came in the form of me setting up autopay on his accounts one by one, right before I navigated to the surveillance system he’d set up in the house. Initially, I’d been annoyed about the cameras, but his paranoia about having a stranger in his house made sense. It also came in handy when I needed to track him down in the several-thousand-square-foot home without running around from room to room.
It was how I located him after hanging up with his mortgage company and showing them how scathing I could be regarding the fact that they didn’t have an autopay option. I looked at the video screens and found Gavin stretched out on a lawn chair by the pool. He’d already finished his workout and was wearing a very small and tight pair of swim shorts. His eyes were closed and his hand was cupping his bulge.
It could have been my hand cupping him last night. My hand drawing his towel away and figuring out just how big Gavin Brawley was and whether I could fit him all down my throat.
Holy shit, I needed to stop.
I clicked off the screen, put away the bills, and marched down to the pool. He didn’t open his eyes before saying, “Hey.” He also didn’t move his hand.
“We need to talk.”
“So talk.”
“About last night.”
Gavin’s lashes lifted enough for his intense golden eyes to lock onto me. “I’d figured you were gonna pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Well, I am, but I need to tell you why.”
Gavin moved his hand entirely and glared up at me. “If you’re gonna give me a rundown about why I’m not the type of guy you usually fuck with . . .”
“No,” I said dryly. “That is not what I intend to say. Stop assuming the worst about me. I’m not here to insult you or whatever you’re expecting. I’m just not the type of person to play games or be coy. I don’t just close my eyes and plug my ears without explaining to you why it was a mistake. We need to clear the air and set up boundaries.”
“Uh-huh.”
I sat on the edge of the lounge chair and put a tentative hand on his knee. “Seriously. It has nothing to do with you. It’s me.”
“You’re a regular fucking cliché, aren’t you?”
“And you’re defensively defaulting into dick mode,” I shot back. “What it comes down to is that you’re my boss. The boss I live with.”
“For four more months.”
“Yeah, but even so, I would think you’d understand why I don’t want to go through this again. I don’t want to be the guy who . . . fucks up every job because of an inability to draw boundaries at work.”
Gavin’s expression flickered and his jaw unclenched. “That was a different situation. I’m not like that douchebag, and this job is temporary.”
“I know you’re not and I know it is, but it doesn’t change the messed-up power dynamics in this situation.”
“I don’t have power over—” he paused, frowning. “Fuck, okay. I get it. But I’d be just as screwed if you abruptly bail on me. I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to owning a house or organizing my life. I need you here.”
It was the first time he’d admitted to my value as his assistant, and I couldn’t stop myself from smugly grinning. “Yeah. You do. Case in point—your mortgage was two months overdue. Please don’t be that athlete whose home goes into foreclosure despite having a nearly sixty-million-dollar salary.”
Gavin didn’t look surprised. “I never had money before, and I’ve never owned anything. I don’t know what to do with all this shit now that I have it.”
“I know. I get that.” I patted his thigh, and it flexed beneath my hand. “I’m not coming down on you. I’m just saying you need to start paying more attention or invest in a personal assistant in the long term. Paying your mortgage has nothing to do with you being under house arrest.”
Gavin grunted and crossed his arms over his chest. “Get back to rejecting me.”
“I’m not rejecting you. I just can’t fuck up this job because you’re a good kisser. I’ve done it before, and I’m not doing it again.”
“Okay, I get that, but be real and admit I’m a better kisser than that other guy.”
“Stop being a clown. I’m serious, Gavin. We need some boundaries.”
“So then have boundaries. I’m not stopping you.”
“We both need to stick with them. No flirting. No eyefucking—because in retrospect I now realize you’ve been doing it all along.” And boy, did it blow my mind to realize Gavin Brawley’s intense stare down had been him checking me out. Including the first time I’d stepped into Joe Carmichael’s office. “No more asking to kiss me.”
Gavin stared at me from beneath his eyelashes. “I won’t push up on you if you don’t want me to.”
Relief hit me. I’d expected him to argue. To somehow turn things around and say I was the one tempting him. Or accuse me of flirting with him and instigating the entire situation. It was the type of shit I’d gotten from guys in the past when I’d tried to end things, or slow things down.
“Good. Things will be a lot easier if we both keep our hands and eyes to ourselves.”
“If you say so.”
He was sullen, but I could deal with that. I stood and began to turn away, but his voice rang out clearly and loudly.
“But what if you ask to kiss me?”
I looked over my shoulder. “That’s not going to happen.”
Gavin had closed his eyes again. “We’ll see.”
***
The day went by too quickly. There was a lot to do before I went home for the weekend, which turned into me running around for most of the day, and I barely saw Gavin after our conversation. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for that to happen given how cavernous the empty house was, but it left me feeling unsettled.
Was he avoiding me on purpose? Was he upset by our conversation? The most frequent question in my mind was, Was he really that disappointed that we wouldn’t fool around again? It was an odd concept. I’d been operating under the assumption that Gavin was horny, and I was the nearest available warm body. But maybe not.
Before going outside to catch my cab to the LIRR, I found him in the game room. He was holding a pool stick in one hand and his
phone in the other.
“This weekend?” he asked the person on the other end. “Yeah. I got you. Uh-huh.”
I hefted my backpack over my shoulder and waited. He hadn’t yet faced me.
“Right. Well, I’ll let you know. Look at my schedule and whatnot.” Another pause. “Yeah, talk to you later.”
Gavin hung up and turned to me.
“There’s nothing on your schedule for this weekend except a call with Joe.”
“‘Bout what?”
“Vice wants to do an interview with you. Send one of their journalists to the house to hang with you for a couple of days.”
Gavin’s mouth pulled to the side in a skeptical sneer. “Those little hipster dipshits? Fuck all that. Pass.”
“Don’t be that way. They’re like . . . alternative media for millennials, and primarily interested in a day in the life of Gavin Brawley, rather than trying to dig for dirt about why you’re such an asshole.” I cocked my head. “Although if you’re an asshole to the reporter, I’m sure that would end up in the story.” When Gavin just pinned me with the same flat stare, I smirked. “Just think about it. They took interest after the hashtag ‘DatBrawleySmile’ started trending.”
Gavin was again blank.
“I took my own videos of you playing yesterday, and uploaded them to Instagram. Within an hour, people were obsessing over the grin on your face during the scrimmage. Apparently, it was the first time your fans had seen you look remotely happy.”
“Oh.” He still didn’t seem too impressed. “And that shit started trending?”
“Yeah. Apparently, smiling makes Brawley the Alpha Asshole a sexy bad boy instead of just a jackass.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah, you seem really interested.” I snorted. He was predictably apathetic about the media’s, and his fans’, perception of him. “Anyway, I guess one of the editors at Vice was intrigued enough to reach out to Joe. They want to talk tomorrow morning. I think you should consider it. If it makes you more comfortable, you could make sure he comes over while I’m here.”
Gavin brightened. “Yeah. Let’s do that. But only for a day.”
“Cool. Tell them when you call. Don’t let Joe try to talk you out of it.”
“Joe can’t talk me out of shit.”
His defensiveness had gone from being exasperating to endearing over the past eight weeks.
“Who was asking about your schedule, anyway?”
“Max. He wants to come over.”
My chest clenched. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Gavin studied me. “It’s probably a good idea. Might help out with our little situation.”
I nodded, backing out the door. “Yeah, that’s true.”
Gavin eyed me for a moment longer before turning to the window. “Cya on Monday, Noah.”
“‘“Bye.”
I fled the room and didn’t stop speed-walking until I was down the spiral staircase and in front of the mansion. My heart was beating fast, and my chest was still constricting. I wasn’t normally a jealous person, but the feeling expanding in my chest couldn’t be anything else. The idea of Max being in his bed for an entire weekend made me want to destroy shit.
Logically, it made no sense. I’d told him to keep his hands and eyes off me. What the fuck was I thinking? That him coming on to me really had been something other than a moment of hard-up postgame exhilaration? That he actually liked me enough to be celibate and wait until we were no longer employer/employee before getting laid?
It was stupid. So why the hell was I so upset?
The cab ride to the LIRR was miserable, and the entire commute home was worse. I was grim and moody, and the people around me seemed to pick up on it and felt the need to stare. I wanted to be left the hell alone to stew in my impotently jealous rage for the next two days before returning to the sight of Max, the fitness model, prancing around with a post-orgasmic glow.
Fuck my life.
I returned to the apartment to find my father and Jasmine sitting on the couch with the newspaper spread out between them. There was a two-page spread of Gavin running across our homemade field while wearing that adorable smile. The headline read:
Locked Down But Still Scoring, Brawley Plays DB with a Pick 6 While Under House Arrest.
“Wow.”
My father nodded. “You’re doing amazing things for this boy’s press.”
I set my backpack down. “All I did was arrange the scrimmage, and I didn’t do it just for publicity.”
“Uh, yeah, and I was there too.” Jasmine rolled her eyes at my father. “Who do you think set up the field? Not your son.”
His booming laugh filled the room. “Good point.”
Them hanging out was awesome, but I wasn’t in the mood. “I’m gonna go lay down. I have a headache.”
Jasmine popped up from the couch. “I’m coming with you. We need to talk.”
“About?”
“Marcus Hendricks.”
Dad sobered. “Both of you better not be getting mixed up with these football players. Hendricks seems like a good kid, better than Brawley, but athletes have wild lives.”
“I’m not getting involved with Marcus, Mr. Monroe,” Jasmine said at the same time as I muttered, “Athletes don’t have the exciting lives everyone thinks they do during the season.”
He gave both of us unimpressed stares before I pulled Jasmine into my room. She flopped onto my bed, flannel shirt lifting to expose the shredded jean shorts she wore with tights, and covered her face with her hands before I could ask why she was here waiting for me.
“What do I do about Marcus?”
“I thought you weren’t seriously considering going out with him?”
“I wasn’t,” she said miserably. “But that was before he started sending me cute gifs and pictures of puppies on Snapchat. The boy has game.”
I sat on the opposite end of the bed and kicked off my sneakers. She looked so flustered and irritated that I couldn’t help but laugh. For as long as I’d known Jasmine, she’d been picky about who she spent her time with and unflappable when it came to sticky situations.
“Where did he invite you?”
“Just out to dinner sometime when he’s not traveling for a game.”
Jasmine pushed herself up, palms planted against the mattress. She looked disheveled and confused with her hair everywhere and her shirt twisted around her torso.
“Do you not like him?”
“He’s unfairly likeable,” she grumbled. “He asked how my day was and actually showed interest when all I did was rant about work. Most jackasses just wait for me to reverse the question so they can talk about themselves.”
“Maybe he would, if he had something to talk about other than crushing the scout team during practice,” I said. “Or maybe I’m just being cynical.”
“Nah, that sounded pretty realistic. He literally has nothing of interest to say,” she concluded. “I like this. We’ve found a flaw.”
Sighing, I fell backwards on the bed. “Seriously, don’t listen to me, girl. I’m just being an asshole hater.”
“Because your football player isn’t sending you cute pictures?”
“Gavin isn’t my anything. Well, he’s my boss.”
There was a silence, so I looked up to see her cocking one arched brow at me with her full lips twisted to the side.
“You think I can’t tell you like that man?”
“I think the entire planet can tell I like that man.” I groaned louder and covered my face with my hands. “Why does this always happen to me, Jasmine? What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re a sucker for a pretty face and a good heart?” She threw herself backwards and turned her face so we were nose-to-nose. “Or an allegedly good heart. You realize Gavin could just be pretending to care about donating football shit to poor schools just to get in your pants, right? He knows you really do care about things like that.”
“Now you sound just as cynical as m—” Her words ful
ly processed in my brain, and I nearly swallowed my tongue. “Wait, what? Why would you think Gavin is trying to get in my pants?”
She gave another extravagant eye roll. If there was an Olympic sport in eyeball movement, she’d win gold every four years.
“I’ve spent enough time with you to identify when some guy is breaking his neck trying to check you out, and when we came over that day? The guy was all up in your shit. If he plays that well while sweating cute, overdressed nerd boys across the field, it’s no wonder he’s a beast during a real game.”
A denial swelled in my throat, but she knew. There were zero doubts in those big dark eyes of hers.
“Fuck. Please don’t even hint to anyone else.”
“I’m not stupid, Noah.”
“I know you’re not, but I signed a confidentiality agreement that could get my ass in major trouble if anything leaked.” I propped myself up on my elbows. “And it could ruin him.”
Jasmine pursed her lips, brows furrowing in thought. “You really think so? He’s already big-time. It’s not like they can cut him before he gets a real payday like the Rams and the Cowboys did to Michael Sam.”
“But what if his team turns on him and they cut him after his contract ends?”
“Then he’s off, out of a homophobic fucking league with all his brain cells and a billion dollars,” she replied.
I couldn’t fight a smile. She wasn’t wrong but, at the same time, I didn’t know what Gavin would do without football. In the past several weeks, I’d watched him go from hostile and defiant to hostile and withdrawn as the Barons got deeper into the season. It was like part of him was being withheld, and he didn’t know what to do with himself besides punishing his body every day in the gym.
“Football is all he’s had for his entire life. I don’t think he’d know what to do without it.”
“Well, they retire by thirty-three, so he better figure it the fuck out.”
Illegal Contact (The Barons) Page 16