Curveball (The Philadelphia Patriots)

by Sykes, V. K.

  “God, Taylor,” Ryan said in a rough voice. “You’re so hot, so ready. I want you to come for me, right now.”

  She rocked against him, burning up with passion. His fingers slicked across her and little contractions started deep in her womb. She gasped, trying to hold back, still not ready for it to end.

  “Don’t want to,” she gritted out. “Not yet.”

  He let out a guttural laugh, and then she felt his hand lift from her ass as his body pulled back from her. She started to object when she felt him move. A nanosecond later, his palm connected with her ass, broadly smacking her low and across both cheeks. His other hand, still under her, held her with a firm, steady pressure.

  She jerked and cried out, stunned more by the jolt it sent rocketing through her clit than by the mild sting on her bottom. He followed it up with another one, while his fingers rubbed and teased her tender flesh. When the third smack landed on her ass, Taylor flew apart. It felt like electricity racing across her skin and the strongest, most delicious contractions she’d ever experienced pulsed out from her womb.

  Sucking in air and trying to breathe, Taylor collapsed on the bed, completely dazed by the force of her release. Ryan hadn’t even been inside her but she’d been overwhelmed by a storm of passion, jerked out of her normal responses by the way he nudged her closer to the edge.

  A few moments later she felt him move, his hands quickly slipping under her to remove the thong from her body. Then the mattress dipped as he got off the bed. She turned her head to peer after him as he disappeared into the bathroom.

  “What the hell was that?” she said when he returned. He still had his pants on, but he’d finally gotten rid of his belt and unzipped his zipper. The swollen head of his cock was already thrusting up from his briefs.

  “Just a little foreplay,” he said.

  He came back to the bed, his tanned upper body gleaming in the reflected light from the bathroom. Taylor wished she had the energy to crawl to the bedside table and turn on the lamp so she could him in all his Technicolor glory.

  “If that’s foreplay,” she said, “I hate to see what comes next. I think I practically went blind after that last maneuver.”

  She heard a little rip as he moved around behind her again. “Baby, we’re just getting started.”

  Taylor shivered with anticipation at the implied sexual threat in his voice. “Yeah, well, give me a minute to find my brain. I think gray matter leaked out all over the sheets.”

  “No time,” he rasped. “Now it’s my turn.”

  Puzzled, she pushed up on her elbows and looked back at him. Ryan had unzipped his pants all the way and shoved his briefs down below his cock, but that was as far as he’d bothered to undress. He unrolled a condom over his straining erection, his eyes riveted on her with a dark intensity she found unnerving.

  Unnerving in a good way, now that she thought about it.

  “What—?” she started.

  But before she could get out another word, he hauled her up, keeping her back to him, and came behind her on the bed in a kneeling position. He plunked her down on her knees, opened her legs wide and then lifted her, almost in the same motion. Ryan nudged his cock into her entrance, pressing her down as he came up with a powerful thrust. A moment later, he was seated fully inside her, one big hand splayed across her belly as he held her pressed against his chest and abdomen.

  Taylor gasped, the breath driven right from her lungs with shock. She held perfectly still as she adjusted to the feel of him, huge and hard and filling every inch of her.

  “God, Taylor,” he groaned. “Nothing has ever felt this good.”

  Now that she was adjusting to his surprise invasion, she was inclined to agree. No man had ever swept her away like Ryan Locke. It was terrifying, exhilarating, and so damn hot she could barely think. All she knew was that—unbelievably enough—she wanted more. After that last orgasm she’d thought she was almost done for the night. But with the feel of his huge erection inside her and his muscular body enveloping her, Taylor couldn’t do anything but respond to instinct. She started to bend forward, wanting to go onto her hands and knees so he could take her.

  “No,” he whispered, his hand on her belly clamping down. “Let’s do it this way.”

  Then his fingers wrapped around her hips, silently showing her how to move in a gentle rocking motion.

  That’s it,” he murmured. “Let me do most of the work.”

  Then he began to thrust into her, using the superb, controlled power of his athlete’s body. In this position she could feel everything, his thick erection nudging into her very center. Taylor rocked against him, finding the rhythm as her breath fractured into gasps. Sensation flickered back to life, her arousal starting to wind tight all over again.

  As Ryan’s thrusts came harder, one of his hands jerked the cups of her bra down below her breasts. Taylor blinked. She’d forgotten she was still wearing the darn thing, but when Ryan began to play with the tight points of her nipples, she realized how much she’d missed his hands on her breasts—caressing her, playing with her, squeezing the stiff beads until she arched back and cried out, her body overwhelmed by all the competing messages of pleasure washing through her.

  “Fuck, Taylor.” He breathed hotly in her ear. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t get enough of you.”

  This time she did sob, swept up in both the physical bliss and the emotion. As she rocked against him, his hips rolled with strong, driving thrusts. The hand on her belly moved down, his long fingers finding her clit, rubbing it gently.

  Taylor exploded. Contractions rocked her deep inside, rippling outward as she stiffened and arched against him with a barely stifled scream. Ryan’s hands clamped on her hips, holding her still as he came inside her, his breath hissing harshly from between his lips. For several seconds, they seemed to hang suspended and weightless before collapsing in a heap of sweaty, exhausted limbs.

  And only then, as Ryan rearranged them in a more comfortable position, murmuring silly, sweet compliments to her in a dazed voice, did Taylor finally recognize how much trouble she was in.

  Because it wasn’t just the sex that was so great, it was the man. If push came to shove, Taylor could do without sex, but she was beginning to think that she just might not be able to do without Ryan Locke. And that was beginning to scare the hell out of her.

  19

  FOCUSING ON WORK had never been harder. Taylor had bluffed her way through three different meetings as she struggled to contribute to discussions ranging from marketing promotions to analysis of the Patriots’ first week of games. She had to chair two of those meetings since Dembinski was on the road with the team for the Patriots’ four-game series in Atlanta. Her professionalism had kept her head above water, but barely, because it proved impossible to shove Ryan Locke out of her mind.

  Now, as she pulled into the driveway of her mother’s townhouse, she vowed to finally put aside her obsession with the man, both his continuing troubles on the field and all the deliciously sinful things they’d done in the days since that wild romp in Ryan’s hotel room after the reception. Now, she had to devote her full attention to Bridget for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Her mother deserved that, not some dutiful, half-interested interaction.

  When Taylor let herself in, Bridget remained in her worn La-Z-Boy recliner, a cup of tea in her hand and one of the family photo albums open in her lap. “There’s ginger tea in the kitchen if you want some,” her mother said, as Taylor juggled two grocery bags and her keys.

  “Maybe later. How are you feeling, Bridget? Any better since we talked?” She’d complained of back and neck pain earlier that afternoon when Taylor checked in.

  “A little.” She sipped her tea and made a satisfied sound as if it went straight to her pain center.

  Taylor dropped the bags on the carpet, took off her raincoat and hung it up. It had drizzled all day, adding to her troubled state of mind. She tossed her keys into the little ena
mel dish that her parents had used for that purpose since Taylor was shorter than the mahogany side table on which the dish rested.

  “Samantha mentioned that you’d asked her to help you find an apartment for one of the new fellas,” her mother said as Taylor leaned down and kissed her cool, lotion-scented cheek. “I have to say I was surprised, Taylor. Surely the team has gophers for that sort of thing.”

  Samantha should learn to keep her mouth shut.

  Taylor couldn’t help a little sigh as she lowered herself onto her mother’s ancient chintz sofa and cast a glance at the photo album. Bridget rarely hauled the family photos down from the top shelf of her bedroom closet, and when she did it was usually to reminisce about Carter and Taylor’s pre-school days. But today this volume was open at a page containing honeymoon pictures—ones Taylor hadn’t seen for about a dozen or more years. A shot of the newly-married Vance and Bridget Page grinning in front of a poolside cabana on Waikiki Beach immediately caught her eye.

  Happy days, if sizzling looks could be relied upon.

  But she still needed to answer her mother’s comment. “It just came up in casual conversation when one of the new guys was telling me he needed to find an apartment as soon as possible. Since I knew Samantha had an in with Becky Greenbaum, I thought I could do the guy a favor by helping to speed the process along.”

  “I see,” Bridget said dubiously.

  Taylor’s stomach twisted a little. She recognized that tone of voice. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “Oh, it’s just that I could tell from the look on Samantha’s face that there might be something going on between you and this Locke,” Bridget said. “You know Samantha—you can read her like an open book.”

  Grrr.

  “Just tell me what she said, please.” Taylor hadn’t told her sister-on-law anything other than that she was looking to help one of the new Patriots locate an apartment as soon as possible. Could her tone of voice have been so transparent that Samantha had leapt to a conclusion—like that Taylor had spent the previous evening having hands-down the best sex of her life with the player in question?

  Or was she getting paranoid?

  Bridget shrugged. “Oh, just that you seemed particularly anxious that this Locke get himself set up.”

  Taylor didn’t fail to register the depth of innuendo in that innocent-sounding statement. “Bridget, the player’s name is Ryan Locke, so you can stop calling him ‘this Locke’, as if he was some sort of convicted felon or something. And it was important that he locate a place, because he told me needs an apartment where his daughter can feel comfortable when she comes home from boarding school. He’s a single parent, so it’s not easy for him.”

  “A single parent?” Her mother made a humming sound. “Ah, well, then. But why you? You’re the assistant general manager of the team, not some flunkey.”

  Taylor tried for a dodge. “You’re going to like what I’m making for dinner tonight. I found some really nice asparagus and green beans at Whole Foods. And some great-looking artisan bread, too. I just love that store.”

  Her mother eyed her over the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. Wisps of fragile blond hair dangled around her thin face. “That sounds lovely, Taylor, but aren’t you going to answer my question? Can’t you just tell me whether you’re seeing this man—this Ryan Locke—or not? It certainly sounds that way to me.”

  Her mother should have been a detective, because she had the ability to grill people with relentless efficiency.

  Reluctantly, Taylor pondered the question. Was she seeing Ryan? What was the honest answer to that question, and did she want to give her mother one, anyway? Should she tell her that before Ryan took off for Atlanta, she’d spent three straight nights in his hotel room—or part of those nights, anyway—and yet she had no real understanding of what the two of them were doing.

  Other than having fabulous sex and engaging in extremely dangerous behavior. Dangerous to her, anyway, prompting her to slink up and down in the elevator between his floor and the parking garage, anxious to avoid being recognized by anyone, even the hotel staff.

  “We’ve seen each other a few times socially,” Taylor said after a few moments of indecision.

  And now, ladies and gentlemen, here comes the lecture. Her mother had always warned her that practically the worst thing Taylor could ever do was to get involved with a baseball player.

  Bridget heaved a dramatic sigh. She flipped two pages in the album until she found what she was looking for. Without a word, she picked up the heavy book and struggled to pass it to Taylor who had no choice but to take it from her mother’s weak, trembling hands.

  “You see the photo in the lower right corner?” Bridget asked.

  Taylor glanced down. Her mother was referring to a candid shot of her father and another Toledo player—Johnny Tremaine, if she remembered, correctly—at a publicity photo shoot for one of the Triple-A team’s advertising campaigns. Taylor had always thought it was one of the best images of her father—handsome, virile and incredibly buff in his white uniform at just twenty-five years of age. “What about it?”

  “There are two people in the background. A woman and man.”

  A well-dressed, long-haired brunette with doe-like eyes and an impressive bust, and a curly-headed young guy with a clip board and a pencil stuck behind his ear. “Yes,” Taylor said. She’d never paid the slightest attention to either of them in all the times she’d seen this photo, assuming they were part of the photography crew.

  “That woman was your father’s lover, Taylor,” Bridget said with barely a trace of emotion in her voice. “For quite a long time.”

  Taylor wouldn’t have been more stunned if the ceiling had suddenly cracked apart and fallen down on her head. “What?” she finally blurted. “Are you serious?”

  It was a stupid but instinctive thing to say. Her mother wouldn’t make up a painful story like that, would she?

  Bridget nodded, then sipped her tea. Taylor knew the photo was more than three decades old. It was a couple of years before she was born, but a quick and horrifying calculation told her that Carter would have been less than two at the time.

  “Dad had an affair when Carter was practically a baby?” Taylor asked, her stomach lurching. She wouldn’t have ever nominated her parents’ marriage for storybook romance of the twentieth century, but it had never crossed her mind that Vance Page would have cheated on his young wife. Yes, ballplayers were constantly tempted, but her dad? He’d always seemed like such a straight arrow, putting loyalty to his family above everything else in face of the difficult circumstances facing major league scouts with wives and kids.

  “Yes, indeed, he did,” Bridget said coolly. “When your father finally owned up to it—after I found him out, of course—he told me the affair had gone on for a whole season.” She gave a little snort. “That woman—Delia Crane—handled the publicity for the team. It was no wonder they were always using Vance in their advertising.”

  Taylor couldn’t help focusing again on Delia Crane’s image. The woman was lovely in a sultry way and—now that Taylor took a really hard look—she noticed Crane’s eyes held a sensual, almost proprietary look as she gazed at Vance Page’s muscular form.

  Oh, yeah—she was doing Dad, all right.

  “I forgave him—eventually,” Bridget said when Taylor remained silent, too stunned to speak. “I had a little boy to think about, after all. But we were never the same again. I thought maybe that having another baby could repair some of the damage, but I learned it doesn’t work that way, Taylor.”

  Taylor snapped the album shut. Why was Bridget doing this to her? All her life she’d adored her father—why would her mother want to tarnish his memory now? What was the point? So much anger boiled up inside her, that she didn’t trust herself to speak. Problem was, she didn’t know who to direct that anger at.

  Bridget went on in a relentless monotone that seemed to hammer into Taylor’s brain. “Delia wasn’t the last, either.
I tried to tell myself it wasn’t really Vance’s fault. Taylor, you’re in the business. You know that certain women are relentless in hounding athletes, especially the handsome ones like your father. It would take a very special man to resist those temptations, and I’m afraid he just wasn’t up to it. Not until much later, anyway. But, actually, I’m not sure he ever really was.”

  The undertone of bitterness in Bridget’s voice made Taylor feel sick. It was like she was hearing about a completely different couple. A whole other life had been going on beneath the calm surface of what had appeared to be a successful marriage.

  Her mother obviously needed to talk so Taylor simply nodded her head, resisting the temptation to speak.

  “Pro baseball did that to Vance. Tempted him with women. Tempted him with money and fame, and then dashed his hopes. So, he ended up in a crummy scouting job, Taylor, his dreams gone, his career reduced to running all over the country trying to convince spoiled adolescents to sign with the Patriots. That was your real father—an ordinary, flawed man, not the larger-than-life hero you idolized.”

  Her mother’s bitingly calm description of her husband utterly jarred with the memory of Vance Page that Taylor had cherished for so many years. Her dad had doted on his children—well, at least on her—and had treated Bridget like she was made of the finest porcelain.

  She gave her head a mental shake. Was that image merely a product of an impressionable young girl’s mind? Her brother Carter would probably say it was. After all, he and his father had mixed like oil and water after a certain point, the jock father riding the non-athletic son so hard that by his early teens Carter had abandoned any attempt at pleasing him. To this day, Carter hated sports and baseball in particular, choosing business and political pursuits in obvious rejection of the path his father had followed. Had Taylor been so entranced by her dad’s love and endless enthusiasm for her accomplishments that she hadn’t been able to discern what was going on inside her own family?