“Scary,” I whispered.
“Big man hits ball,” she whispered back in a caveman voice.
“I am so glad I’m not playing water polo against that man.”
She laughed. “I think he’d pick you up and launch you into the net.”
The Olympic Village had plenty of kiosks with maps and orientation guides wearing bright orange jumpsuits offering directions, but it still took me upward of an hour to find the compound where Tori and I would be staying. I should have stuck with the swim team entourage. I hadn’t fully processed how huge the area would be, with over thirty buildings containing thousands of condos plus parks and bike paths and shops everywhere. Chase and I had discussed meeting up that night. Now I wondered if I’d manage to make it to his physical therapy session tomorrow morning, even if I started finding my way over to it right then.
Tori was not there when I arrived, as expected. I did manage to get through to her via text. She responded quickly.
Tori: YOU MUST COME HERE NOW
A slurry of emojis followed, including a barfing face, and then a photo of what looked like blurred lights in a dark club and maybe a few faces. But no address.
Chase checked in as well, wanting to make sure I arrived safely, wanting to see me.
Chase: Want me to send a car to pick you up and bring you over to my place?
I paused, my fingers hovering over the keys. Should I? The answer was yes, of course, yes. And so that’s exactly what I did, letting a car whisk me away to the sweet house he and a few of his teammates were renting just outside the fray of the Olympic Village. The mood was celebratory, in a stone cold sober kind of a way, and no one seemed to bat an eye when I walked in and Chase greeted me with a full-body hug and a deep kiss.
Chase and I and a bunch of the group with and on the U.S. Swim team spent the whole next day together, starry-eyed, walking around, getting familiar with the new setting. I got to be with Chase when he first walked in and saw the pool where they’d be competing. At this point, we didn’t care anymore. We held hands, tight, walking into the Olympics Aquatics Stadium.
“There it is!” I fairly jumped up and down with excitement. The arena was huge, set up to hold around 15,000 spectators. They’d all be watching the swimmers in those 10 lanes, but really most eyes would be on Chase, in the middle of the pool, pushing ahead.
He gazed down at it, nodded his head, and gave me a slow smile. “That’s where it’s all going to happen.”
I had no idea where he found his cool, calm confidence. I personally felt like throwing up and I wasn’t even the one going to compete.
It was a good thing he knew how to deal with the spotlight, because he sure was in it. At six foot three, with his face on the cover of every magazine smart enough to put him on it, everyone recognized Chase everywhere we went. After the pool, we made the mistake of trying to grab lunch at a café nearby. We didn’t even get up to the front of the line before he was swarmed with admirers, people asking for photos and autographs.
After that, he joined his team for meals, accepting it as a necessity for the games. No private, romantic tête-à-tête dinners for us at a quiet little table in the corner, at least not while we were in Rio for the next week. But after, he assured me, after we’d have all the time together in the world.
The night before the opening ceremony, he had a meeting with his team, of course, and Tori had plans with the Italian soccer team, of course again. This time, I did meet her out at the nightclub where she apparently was keeping office hours. It seemed to be the only way in which I could manage to talk to her. She hadn’t been responding to my texts. I almost felt like she was avoiding me. I texted Chase the address and hoped he’d be able to join us later.
“There she fucking is!” Tori shrieked from across the bar when I walked in. “I wondered if you’d even made it to Rio!”
“Hey, sorry,” apologies came tumbling out of my mouth, though she was as much to blame as me for our missing each other. Sure, I’d been spending most of my time with Chase and his team, but it wasn’t as if she’d been sitting back in the condo waiting for me. The couple of times I’d stopped back there to grab clothes and toiletries, she’d been nowhere to be seen.
“Drink!” I had shots thrust in front of me, guys giving me hugs, arms pulling me out onto the dance floor. When in Rome! I joined them, sidestepping the majority of the hard drinks but bringing it on the dance floor. Oh my, those Italian men with their dark good looks and the way they moved their hips! Such rhythm!
One of them started hitting on me, telling me I was bellissima and claiming to not believe me that I wasn’t there to compete in the games, I was so fit and perfect. He was fun to dance with, so I didn’t mind, and after the first couple of refusals he stopped trying to get me drunk. Until I made the ultimate mistake.
“So what position do you play on the soccer team?” I asked, trying to be polite.
He and several of his teammates heard my ultimate party foul. They all erupted in a roar. “Football! Not soccer! Drink!”
A shot appeared out of thin air, big and fat and looking suspiciously like tequila. Until an even larger hand dropped in from above and snatched it away.
“If the lady doesn’t want to drink, you’re not going to make her.”
Chase. A smile broke across my face. My hero.
“But you do know you can’t call it soccer outside the U.S.,” he whispered to me, wrapping me in his arms.
“I know! I’ll never make that mistake again.”
“Now, do I have to beat anyone up?” he asked, his finger under my chin as we started to sway to the music. “I saw one of those soccer players hitting on you pretty hard.”
“Oh, Leo’s harmless.”
“First name basis, are we?”
“Not like that,” I assured him.
“Chase the Ace!” Tori swooped in, snaking her arms around my man.
“Tori?” Chase mouthed her name as he looked at me. I nodded. My crazy friend, drunk as a skunk.
“I hear you two have been getting to know each other!” she sang out, waggling her finger between us. “Naughty, naughty! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do! Which means you can do a whole hell of a lot!” She burst out into gales of laughter, making her way over to the bar again and a circle of gorgeous, attentive Italian men. Chase and I stayed a bit longer, then made our escape. Chase called a car and we headed back to the house he was renting.
Sitting together in the back seat, he stretched his arm out behind me. “So that’s your best friend?”
“Since we were nine,” I confirmed. “She’s crazy, I know, but she’s a lot of fun. And she’s been a really good friend to me, always there when things go horribly, tragically wrong with men.”
“Men who weren’t me. That was the problem.”
“Obviously,” I agreed, but I continued on the earlier subject. “I know you probably don’t get it. Tori and I are really different.”
“Oh no, I do get it,” he insisted. “The friends you make when you’re younger, they’re in.” He peaked his fingers together as if forming the roof of a house. “You get real tight when you go through stuff as a kid.”
“Right?” I was the first person to admit, Tori was off her rocker, but all those nights we’d stayed up sharing secrets, the good stuff and the bad, our fears and dreams, it went deep. Plus, neither of us had a sister, so I guessed we’d become that for each other. You didn’t cut out a sister.
“I’ve got friends…” He shook his head. “Thankfully, you’ll be meeting Liam later this week. He’s the one I can take out in public.” He cracked himself up. “Ian might bite your head off. He’s a cranky son-of-a-bitch. And Jax, well, he’d probably try to talk you out of your panties.”
“It wouldn’t work,” I reassured him.
“You know, it does all the time, though,” he marveled at his friend’s skills. “Even though he has a criminal record.”
“You’re friends with a criminal?” I wasn’t one to
judge, but, really?
“I’m not just friends with him. I’d lay down my life for him.”
OK. That was intense. It wasn’t the first time I’d taken note of that characteristic in him. It did make me wonder, though. It was clear with Chase, if you were in, you were in. But how did that work on the other side? What if someone did something that pissed him off? Were they out forever?
Back at the house, a bunch of his teammates were still up with a few friends, sitting around watching TV. We said our hellos, but then headed back into his bedroom. We hadn’t seen nearly enough of each other over the past few days.
He locked the door behind us, backing me up against the far wall, pressing me against it with hot kisses. “You’re driving me crazy in this dress.” He licked kisses down my throat, to my cleavage, unzipping my dress to get more access. It fell to the floor and he wasted no time in pulling off my panties and reaching up to find me slick and waiting.
“I want you so much,” he whispered into my ear, moving against me, touching me as only he knew how, coaxing desire from inside me deep. “I hated seeing you surrounded by those men tonight at the club,” he grit out.
“You know nothing was going on.” I kissed his throat, his shoulders, his perfectly chiseled chest. I missed touching him so much. I hadn’t even been able to work on him as often as I wanted over the past couple of days—less workouts, more team meetings, more PR obligations had meant so much less time together. He stepped out of his jeans and briefs and brought his thick cock into the palm of his hand as he pulled on a condom. Then he returned to me, kissing, pinning me against the wall.
“But I want everyone to know,” he told me, speaking the words low and hot into my ear. “You’re mine.” He drove into me in one swift, full thrust. I gasped, my eyes wide he stretched and filled me so much. I moved to grab onto his shoulders, but he took my wrists and brought them up above my head where he could pin them in one of his large hands against the wall.
“Mine,” he repeated, taking me hard and rough against the wall, grasping my ass as he held me and fucked me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and surrendered to it, the feel of complete possession. He looked down at me, predatory, commanding, hard and driving, claiming me. And as he clasped my wrists and held me firm against the wall, he drove into me again and again, ruthless, demanding everything from me. I started to moan, loudly, but he covered it with a quick, deep kiss.
“You need to keep it quiet, my beauty,” he reminded me. We had company, right outside the door. “Can you keep quiet when you come?” Now his voice sounded wicked, teasing, as he brought his finger to my clit, pushing against it as he thrust. I was so wet. He slid in deep, the friction between us so intense I didn’t know if I could keep quiet. I whimpered, closing my eyes, trying to silence myself as the storm built inside me
“It’s hard, isn’t it,” he tormented me, stroking and fucking me until I shuddered and panted, barely able to stand up I could feel my orgasm coming on so strong. “You want to scream, don’t you, baby?”
I whimpered again, struggling, about to come.
“I’ll cover your mouth so you can scream my name.” With his hands firmly around my wrists and clamped down over my mouth, I came so hard I nearly blacked out, feeling so commanded, so dominated and yet so cared for and satisfied I couldn’t even think straight. When I felt him come, too, thrusting into me so strong and long and deep, another shudder tremored up through my body, my pussy clenching around his cock.
“Ah, Emma.” He said my name like I was a goddess and he was worshipping at my altar. I’d never felt so possessed before, so swept away, so out of control. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once.
§
The following day was the opening ceremonies of the games. I watched it on a huge screen at a bar with the whole swim team crew. Tori had invited me to go out with some of the friends she made through her PR role, but I wanted to be with the swim people. We’d grown close in the past three weeks, on such an emotional roller coaster, and it was fun to be with Megan and the others when Chase and his teammates came on the jumbotron.
I couldn’t believe it when I saw him up on the big screen. It felt crazy, like watching someone you knew walking on the moon, doing something that looked both so familiar and so unbelievable all at once. Chase looked happy, waving and smiling. I couldn’t imagine what a rush he was feeling and I wished I could be there with him, by his side. I saw him hold up his phone and snap a photo of the crowd. Then my phone blipped with a text.
There it was, his photo of the crowd in the Olympic stadium. And his message.
Chase: Wish you were here with me.
He got back to the hotel room late that night and he had to wake up early, what with the Olympic Games and all. I was freaking out, not handling it at all well. Honestly, I thought it might be better for him if he stayed away from me. But he wanted to spend the night together before his first events. I was so nervous I practically balled up like a cat at the edge of the bed, perched and ready to spring. But Chase, the true athlete, fell right to sleep, getting his required rest before his first competitive events.
The next morning at the swim arena, I worked on his shoulders and quads briefly while his head coach talked to him non-stop. We managed a quick moment to ourselves with a kiss and my wish for good luck, and then I was spat out into the stands where thankfully Megan and Tori were waiting for me. I purposely didn’t sit anywhere near his parents. The TV cameras kept flashing over to them. Chase told me they were sitting together, even though he wondered if they might need some kind of a guard to keep them from doing harm to each other. Apparently the divorce proceedings still rankled, 12 years later.
They looked terrifying to me, like a Ralph Lauren ad. His mom wore a stiff navy blazer and a patterned scarf. I bet she’d take one look at me, Florida girl in my flip-flops and athletic tank and shorts, and turn her nose right up.
Add it to the list of reasons I was glad that the press hadn’t identified me as Chase’s girlfriend. I already felt like I’d swallowed a bird. Not a small one, either, like a large angry turkey flapping around in my stomach. It wasn’t a good feeling. All I’d need to push me right over the edge was a camera focused in on me.
Chase was swimming the 400 Individual Medley first, a killer event with all four strokes. The moment he walked onto the pool deck, I lost my mind, starting to stand up, then sitting down again, my hand halfway inside my mouth as I chewed on it nervously, screaming his name along with the crowd around me.
Out by the blocks, many of the other swimmers wore earbuds to drown out the noise and keep them focused. Not Chase. He didn’t need it. He created a world of his own, impervious to his surroundings as he shook his limbs loose.
“Stretch your quads!” I yelled from up in the stands, as if he could hear me. There was no way he could, but as if we were telepathically connected—or maybe he’d rehearsed his pre-swim routine a hundred thousand million times—he stretched his quads.
I couldn’t watch. I had to watch. He dove in with a powerful, masterful swoosh and led right out of the gate. Butterfly was his standout stroke, where he looked like a wild, swooping animal closing in on its prey. I’d seen him swim many times before, but it still stopped my heart, made me clutch my hands together in prayer and scream until I had no voice left. He swam with such power and fluid grace, defying all laws of gravity as he seemed to literally fly out over the water.
In backstroke he still held the lead, but then came breaststroke. There was a Brit next to him, pulling up, then ahead. No! I wanted to leap down into the pool and throw myself onto him, holding him back. But that probably wouldn’t count as sportsmanlike behavior. Plus, they’d all just probably have to swim the event again and my heart definitely couldn’t take it.
So I watched, and screamed, balancing on my tiptoes as they all flip-turned, Chase no longer in the lead until the final lap of freestyle.
“Go for it!” I screamed. Megan and Tori both clung to me, all of us lo
sing our minds as Chase started to even up, then pull ahead in the final stretch. When he touched, we were half watching him, half watching the scoreboard. He did it! He came in first! Gold!
Screaming, crying, jumping up and down, someone draped an American flag around our shoulders and we held it up, doing a dance. I felt elated, overwhelmed, thrilled.
And he still had eight more final events to go. Another one that afternoon. It was too much! It wasn’t fair to make him swim two 400-meter events on the same day! Were they trying to torture Chase? No human could do that. I needed to lodge a complaint with the organizing committee. Or start taking high quantities of Valium.
Chase might be the one exerting himself full-throttle in the pool. But it looked like I would be the one who might not survive the Olympics.
CHAPTER 16
Chase
Yesterday I won gold in the 400 IM and the 400 Free. Today I had the free relay, and I had to rely on my teammates to bring it home. I knew they could do it, and they did, pushing themselves to the limit and beyond, each of us becoming better than we could on our own as we pushed together as a team. We won gold. That made three.
My mother and father were there to cheer me on, and as far as I could tell they were managing to keep it together. I knew they hated each other with a passion. I also knew I couldn’t change or fix things between them. I’d learned that lesson long ago. All I could do was take notes for my own life. Don’t hold on to grudges. Don’t stay angry. It never did any good.
Monday I had the freestyle finals and then Tuesday Liam would arrive for my remaining five. I was looking forward to seeing him and introducing him to Emma. I knew they’d get along.
What Emma didn’t know was what was happening on Wednesday. I still had events all the way through Saturday, and I was flying out some other people as my special guests: her parents. Whereas my mom and dad were a source of stress and tension, requiring management, wrangling and peacekeeping, her parents seemed to really make her happy. And I loved making Emma happy.
In Deep: Chase & Emma (All In Book 1) Page 16