by June Winters
“Jack Cameron! Oh my God!” I squealed. “For all the grief you've given me over keeping secrets! You've been secretly dating a Blizzard player of your own?!”
She clicked her tongue. “Well, we're not dating, first of all. We're just friends.”
I folded my arms. “Oh. Right. Sure.”
“Seriously! We haven't done anything together at all. We've only talked, and mostly through texts.”
“Mmm-hm.”
The interrogation would've continued, but the doorbells jangled as the shop door opened.
We both whipped around to see the two men enter.
This time I saw him walk in? My heart swelled fondly and I felt as light as air. Beau, dressed casually but fashionably, wore a huge smile and couldn't keep his eyes off me.
“Camille,” he said at last—and I could barely hold his gaze. His eyes were so ravenous, so powerful, so demanding that I had to look away.
I knew it then: he couldn't wait to get me all to himself. He couldn't wait to run his hands, his mouth and tongue over every inch of my body—instead of just his eyes.
“Hi Beau,” I answered quietly, my throat aching shut. “Good to see you again.”
I turned my eyes to the guy Beau had brought with him. I'd expected Piper's boyfriend, but the man wasn't Jack Cameron. He wasn't Hunter, either.
“And who's this?” I asked.
Chapter 23
Calling in a Favor
Beau
Once I finally got back to New York, I took a cab to Dave Leroux's apartment building in Brooklyn and gave him a call.
He came out slowly, checking over his shoulder, looking like he half-expected me to jump out of the bushes and attack him on the sidewalk.
I rolled the window down. “Hey Leroux. Over here.”
He spotted me and neared. “What's up, Bradford? What's this about?”
I climbed out and explained.
First, I told him how much I hated to ask him for that favor—because, as far as his hit went? To me, the matter was already solved. He didn't owe me any apologies or favors.
If anyone needed to apologize, it was me. I told him I was sorry for the mind games I'd played in the media and on the ice last week. I told him what I really thought about him: that he's a damn solid player with a great hockey mind, and not to give one single fuck for a second about who thought he might be overpaid, because he's not overpaid, end of story.
And then I told him how I'd met a girl I liked. One that was helping me turn things around, on and off the ice. And how much she meant to me, and how I wanted to make her happy.
Leroux was a married man—thus a bit of a softie, just like Hunter. I was counting on that.
“So, I'm not asking you for this favor because of the hit, but like … I'm reaching out to you for help because you seem like a good guy and I can't do it on my own. I need help, Dave.”
He shrugged. “Well uh, alright, what is it?”
I told him.
“Alright. Sounds easy enough.”
“Thanks, dude. It'll mean so much to her.”
“When do you wanna do it?” he asked.
“You got time right now? We're in the neighborhood.”
“Sure. Let's do it.”
We climbed into the cab and took off for Velvet Bakery.
***
Finally.
The longest fucking week of my life was over.
And there we were, together at last, frozen in time.
How badly I wanted to jump across that counter and kiss her. She looked so goddamn beautiful, eyes shining, long hair shimmering, flawless skin radiating. The tops of her breasts drew my eyes in, the way they jiggled so firmly in her dress with every movement …
“And who's this?” Camille asked politely.
I'd gotten so caught up in the moment, I'd almost forgotten why I'd come here.
“Oh, right. Dave, I want you to meet Camille Kennedy, an old high school girlfriend of mine.”
“High school girlfriend,” she muttered under her breath with a laugh.
“And Camille, this is Dave Leroux.”
Camille's eyes suddenly narrowed. “Dave … Leroux?” She turned those slit-eyes at me. “The guy who hit you last week?”
“Erm, yeah, but babe it's okay—”
She turned those angry eyes back on Dave. “You really almost hurt him, you know? He could've been paralyzed!”
Dave held up his hands. “Whoa, hey. Believe me, I get it. I have a wife and kids at home myself, so I know what it's like. I—”
“Then how could you possibly hit him like that?” she asked, shaking her head. “What the hell came over you to do such a thing?”
I smacked my forehead. This was going wrong.
“Cammy—don't—he's not a bad guy. I asked him here for a favor.”
She folded her arms, looking as stubborn as an ox. “A favor?”
“Heh …” Dave laughed uncomfortably. “Tell you what. I'm gonna go grab a breather out front real fast. Grab me when you're ready.”
When he stepped outside, I explained. “Dave's a vegan, sweetie. I asked him and he agreed to do a little photo-op. He'll grab a cupcake, we take his picture, he posts it on Twitter and recommends it to all his vegan followers and Scouts fans.”
“Why can't you do that instead? You're a professional athlete too.”
“People still hate me, sweetheart. Especially New Yorkers. I'm not going to help you sell any cupcakes to a bunch of 'sewer rats'—remember?”
She stifled a laugh. “But all week, everyone was talking about how you've turned your game around.”
“Sure. But not everyone's convinced just yet. These things take time. Plus, Dave's a hero here in New York. And like I said, he's a vegan! C'mon, can't you see this is a perfect opportunity?”
She went quiet and stared at Dave as he stood on the sidewalk watching traffic go by.
“I still don't like him,” she said sternly.
“I know. And believe me, I'm flattered by that. But I'm telling you. He's a good guy and I really do respect him.”
She sighed. “Well … okay. I trust you. Let's do it.”
I went outside and grabbed Leroux.
“Hey bud. I'm really sorry about that.”
He laughed. “Don't worry about it. My wife's the same way. You should've heard what she had to say about you last week.”
I clapped my hand on his back. “Ha! I can only imagine.”
***
Two hours later.
Camille legs wrapped snugly around my back. With every thrust into her sopping wetness, she squeezed her legs against me and forced me into her deeper.
When I tried to pull back out, she clamped her legs against me, struggling to keep me in her hot, tight grip for just a second more.
But I always overpowered her strength and pulled out anyway.
And then we came together again, our bodies slamming together with the wet, pounding thwack of sweaty flesh; the sound of my hips stapling her to the mattress.
I pumped harder, faster. Her nails dug deep into my back as she let loose with a fury of passionate screams and moans.
“I'm coming, Beau,” she wailed, her voice wavering in orgasmic falsetto. “I'm coming so hard!”
The two of us exploded into a crescendo of grunts and groans as I emptied my balls inside her.
We held each other tight while we tried to catch our breaths.
“Damn,” I panted, still buried deep inside her. “I've been looking forward to that all week.”
“Me too.” Her blissful smile looked so innocent with her flushed cheeks. “Thanks for arranging that favor with Leroux. Sorry I was a jerk about it at first.”
I gave a shrug. “He understands. He's a good guy.”
“It really was sweet of you, Beau. It says that you care.”
“I do care.”
“I know. I'm starting to see that.”
I smiled. “So? Does that mean you trust me now?”
“Trust you for what?”
“Trust me enough to be my girlfriend.”
“Beau!” She slapped at the round meat of my shoulder. “You're serious? After one week you want to make it official?”
“You don't?”
“… Of course I do. I just can't believe it. How much will we even get to see each other? We live in different states! You're so busy, and well, so am I, but …”
“We'll find a way to make it work. I'll fly you out to Colorado as often as you can come. And I'll come visit you here anytime I can.”
“Beau … you make it sound so easy.”
“That's because it is easy. If you want it.”
A calmness set over her. “Okay then: yes. Yes, I'll be your girlfriend.” She paused and smacked her forehead. “Wow, I can't believe I just said those words to Beau Bradford.”
I smiled. “Hey babe. You should be getting used to the thought of me by now.”
As for me?
The thought that Camille was now my girlfriend made me harden like a rock. I swiveled my swollen cock around inside her, just wanting to feel her from the inside.
“I've got one last confession,” she blurted out in a panic.
I ground to a halt, my heart fluttering with a little worry. “What's that?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and admitted it. “It was me. I added you on Facebook.”
“I fucking knew it!” I laughed. “So you knew that all along?”
“No. I forgot—or made myself forget, I dunno. But while you were gone, I searched my e-mail and found the confirmation from Facebook. Five years ago, I added you. The day you were drafted, in fact. And then the memory came back.”
“Tell me,” I said. And slowly, I started thrusting back into her—and she struggled to speak without moaning and gasping for air.
“Well … I was hanging with some friends—ohh!—and, ugh, we watched the draft on TV. We were all talking about what a dick you are … and how glad we were that we wouldn't have to see you—”
I sunk my cock deeper into her, and the words got caught right in her throat. Her whole body quivered on the end of my cock.
“Go on,” I teased.
“Fuck that's good!” she gasped. “But I was secretly sad we wouldn't see each other anymore. You looked so cute in your—ooh!—suit when you got drafted, Beau … I hated it … I hated you. But I couldn't let you go.”
I grinned. “That's a hot story, babe.” With every pump into her, my cock displaced more of the cream I'd unloaded into her earlier—and a trickle of frothy cum dribbled down her ass cheeks and pooled on the bed sheets.
“Fuck, Beau,” she panted. “This—is a bad idea. Bad, bad idea.”
“Since when are we a bad idea?” I asked.
“Since you've got a hockey game to go to, mister,” she panted, pointing at the clock.
But her hips writhed with me, daring me to thrust into her again.
“We better make it quick then, huh?”
I sunk my weight into her wet, velvet grip. Our lips met, and she let out a deep, sexy moan—right into my mouth.
Hell yeah. I'm fuckin' crazy about this girl.
Epilogue
One and a Half Years Later
Beau & Camille
When Camille exited the plane and walked through the departure gate at Denver International Airport, she only needed a second to pick Beau out from the waiting crowd—but then, with his tall and broad frame, he towered over everyone around.
That was just one of the many deeply satisfying niceties about dating a professional athlete.
Camille hurried to her fiance and threw her arms around his neck. He scooped her up in his arms and brought her lips to his.
It'd been three weeks since they'd seen each other last. In their first few months of dating, getting to see each other every three weeks would've been a luxury. But as their bond deepened and grew, and their visits grew more frequent, their tolerance to time spent apart quickly began to diminish.
These days? Three weeks apart was a special kind of hell. Phone calls and video chats were great, but neither could replace being right there with your lover, being able to touch and smell and taste them. In some ways, all that technology seemed a bit of a tease, and only made Beau and Camille miss each other worse.
“Hi Beau!” she said once they finally managed to pry themselves apart from each other.
“Hey babe. How was the flight?”
“Fine.” She paused as her face lit with ecstasy. “So glad I won't be needing it anymore.”
Beau returned a smile that was every bit as happy. “Me too.”
He lifted her suitcase from the baggage carousel easily. For Camille, it'd been a struggle to get the cumbersome thing from her apartment, to the subway, to an airport shuttle, and then lug it around LaGuardia … But Beau threw the suitcase around as if it were lighter than air.
Hand in hand, they started walking to Beau's car. Camille loved the way her hand disappeared totally in his firm grip; how his giant paw just swallowed her comparatively tiny hand right up.
As they walked, a passerby spotted Beau and said his name: “Beau Bradford.”
Beau, donning his usual disguise—ball cap and sunglasses—nodded back at the fan.
These days, the disguise was almost a necessity when Beau went out into the public with Camille. In the span of a year, Beau had managed to turn his on-ice reputation completely around. He didn't wear the 'pest' label anymore; now he was a 'goal-scoring power-forward.' And once the Blizzard team executives were convinced that Beau's shift was real and permanent, they happily began marketing him as one of the faces of the franchise. His handsome mug adorned billboards, fliers, and bus ads all over the city.
“How was practice, Mr. Famous?” Camille asked.
“Practice was fine, babe,” he answered. His smile spread, and she knew he had something on his mind.
“You're awfully smiley,” she said, poking a playful finger into his abs.
“Yeah, well, I figured you'd be upset if I wasn't pretending to be happy.” He wiped the smile right off his face and turned to her, looking stone-cold and grave. “See this face? This is how I actually feel about you coming to live with me.”
With a smile, she landed an upper-cut into his gut. “Dick.”
… But she knew perfectly well he was kidding.
It was Beau, after all, who relentlessly campaigned for more visits to Denver and practically pulled Camille away from working at her bakery 24/7. (And thank God for that, she'd say to herself, because she knew she could've easily spent her whole life tirelessly working otherwise.)
It was Beau who proposed on their one year anniversary, too.
And after she excitedly shouted yes!, it was Beau who didn't miss a beat and started asking when, exactly, she planned to move to Denver so they could live together and start planning their lives together as husband and wife.
Not that Camille was just going with the flow; she was just as crazy about Beau as he was about her. It also helped that the time she spent visiting Beau in Denver always made her feel she transformed from 'small-time business owner trying to eke out a living in a stressful, crowded city,' to 'Denver royalty living a fantasy life in the lovely mountains.'
Beau always lavished her with gifts, took her out dining to the fanciest restaurants, took her traveling whenever his schedule allowed. They enjoyed a jam-packed, jet-set life together. In some ways, Camille didn't feel like she deserved it; she felt like she should be working on her own business instead of enjoying the fruits of Beau's sporting fame. But she learned to temper that inner voice and let herself enjoy the various ways Beau wanted to spoil her, without feeling guilty, without freaking over the day-to-day stressors of owning a business.
Because hey: Beau had changed a lot for her. It was only fair that she should work on herself, too. Learn to live a little, learn to enjoy what she had.
And so, when a Manhattan ownership group emerged from the blue and offered Camille an
d Piper a jaw-dropping sum for their popular and now wildly successful vegan bakery? The two girls agreed to live a little and sell.
Camille also found the challenge tempting: could she open a vegan restaurant in Denver and catch lightning in a bottle twice?
“Seriously though, why are you smiling so much? What are you hiding?” she asked Beau.
“I'm happy! This is a big day in our lives, Cammy. It's finally happened.”
She pressed herself into his side. “Aw. I'm so happy too, Beau.”
… But still, she knew he was hiding something.
They found his Range Rover parked just outside the airport. They hopped in and drove off. Later, on the highway, Beau missed his usual exit.
“Dude!” Camille yelled. “You missed your exit!”
“I did …? Damn it, I did, didn't I?” Beau said, pounding his fist on the steering wheel in a fashion that struck Camille as far too theatrical to be genuine.
Camille narrowed her eyes. Now I know he's up to something.
The next exit came, but sure enough, Beau didn't pull off there, either.
“Where are we going, Beau?”
“We're almost there,” he said with a grin.
A little while later, he pulled off the highway and they were soon rolling down the wide, leafy streets of Denver's Hilltop neighborhood.
“Beau …?” Camille asked nervously, drawing the vowels of his name out.
Surely he wouldn't do this to her, right? He knew how much she loved that house they looked at on a whim. The majestic red-brick house, with the lush sprawling green acres that were hidden by the soaring cottonwood, oak and sweetgum trees.
He had to know how much he was getting her hopes up right now.
Beau smiled coyly, playing perfectly dumb. “Huh? What's up, babe?”
“Beau …!” She shot her hand into his lap and clamped tightly on to his thigh.
Her hopes were definitely up now as the house neared on their right.
Sure enough, Beau flicked on his signal and turned the car into the driveway.
He shut the engine off, looked at her, and said, “Welcome home, babe.”
“Beau!” she squealed, rabid excitement pounding in her veins. “You did not buy this house!”