Rookie Mistake

by Tracey Ward

  That’s what he’s come here for tonight. I know it just looking at him. It’s in the air around us as he stands ten feet away, breathing slowly through his nose. He’s had other women, but now that I’ve had other men, now it’s too much. Now he wants this, wants me.

  He’s such a selfish son of a bitch.

  “Stop prowling around my apartment,” I demand, feeling my temper flare.

  Trey frowns at me. “Prowling?”

  “Yeah, prowling. You’re sniffing out the place like an animal searching for his competition. He’s not here. It was a one-time thing.”

  “Trust me, I don’t see him as competition.”

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  “I’m an asshole?”

  “Yes, you’re an asshole. What are you doing here, Trey? Shouldn’t you be out with some club whore catching crabs?”

  He smiles, pointing at my face. “You’re jealous.”

  “So are you.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  I laugh bitterly. “Maybe? What brought you over here? We haven’t been in the same room with each other in months. So what’s changed?”

  “Nothing,” he snaps, cutting his large hand through the tension in the air like a knife. “Nothing has changed. I still want you, you’re still my agent, and we can’t do fuck all about any of it.”

  “You should leave.”

  “Don’t you think I would if I could? I wouldn’t be here if I had any control over any of this, but I don’t and it makes me insane.”

  “I’m free to sleep with who I want, the same as you.”

  “Are you?” he asks quietly, stalking slowly toward me. One step at a time. “Is that the truth, Sloane? Can you sleep with who you want?”

  I shake my head, my heart in my throat. “Stop.”

  “Answer me.”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Why? Are you worried what you’ll do?”

  “You’re right,” I argue quickly, watching him devour our distance slowly. “Nothing has changed. We can’t suddenly do this again. You’re still my client. I’m still your agent.”

  He’s in front of me, his body blocking out the light, leaving me in shadow. “Tell me you haven’t thought about it?” he whispers, his voice rich with the heady scent of whiskey and sugar. So bitter but still so sweet. “Tell me you haven’t thought about me over and over again since it happened.”

  “No,” I breathe.

  “If you can tell me that you didn’t think about me even for a second while you were with him, I’ll leave right now. I’ll go and I’ll never come back, because I’ll tell you a secret, Sloane. When I’m with those other girls, you’re all I can think about.”

  “Is that supposed to be flattering?”

  “It’s supposed to be honest. I can’t get you out of my head. Out of my system. So I’m asking you, did you get me out of yours?”

  I can barely breathe. My eyes are latched onto his, my head tilted back to look up at him. My mouth lies open, desperate and un-denying because I can’t. If I’m being honest, and I always have been with him, I can’t deny it.

  “Yes,” I answer breathlessly. “I thought about you.”

  Trey lowers his head, his lips hovering over mine. “When you were with him?”

  “Yes.”

  He kisses me lightly. “When he kissed you?”

  “Yes.”

  He kisses me again, lingering. Tasting with his tongue. “When he touched you?”

  “Yes.”

  His hands take my hips. They’re searing hot on my skin, burning me alive.

  “Are you thinking about him now?” Trey growls.

  I shake my head faintly. “I can’t think.”

  “What do you want, Sloane?” He kisses me again, delving his tongue inside my mouth in a slow rhythm that leaves no doubt in my mind what he wants. “Tell me what you want.”

  I put my hand over his, over his throwing hand, and I drag it down my body. Across my abdomen. Inside the hem of my shorts and down to the direst desire in me that begs for him, and only him.

  “I want you to play with me.”

  He growls as he tackles me, his lips crashing against mine. He moves so fast it’s unreal, his speed almost frightening. He backs me against the wall, pins me to it with his massive body, his hand still in my shorts. His long fingers slide along the length of me, opening me. Testing me. I whimper in the back of my throat, into his mouth. It urges him on. It sends his tongue into my mouth, his finger inside me, and I’m squirming against the wall to get away from the overwhelming feeling that runs through me like fire.

  He doesn’t let me escape.

  “We’re gonna go slow this time, Sloane,” he whispers to me between kisses. “You’re going to call all the plays, have all of the control. You’re going to show me how to love you, but remember this; you get no time outs.”

  He moves his thumb over my clit, only once. I gasp, burying my face in his chest.

  “Do you want me to do that again?” he asks, his voice rumbling deep against my forehead.

  I nod my head, my hands clinging to his shoulders.

  “You gotta tell me, baby,” he reminds me patiently. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Again,” I breathe. “Do it again.”

  He does as he’s told. His thumb darts over the most sensitive part of me again and again, falling in rhythm with his finger. I ball his shirt in my fists, trying to hold onto him, gasping for breath as my body bucks and jolts with every touch.

  “Faster,” I demand, my voice high and nearly unrecognizable, begging for more. More of him. More of this. More of everything.

  His breathing is ragged, the hard contours of his chest rising and falling heavily under my head still pressed against him. “Talk to me,” he urges roughly.

  “More,” I plead.

  He adds a second finger.

  I pull on his shirt as I lift my leg, unconsciously trying to climb him. He wraps his free hand around the back of my knee to hitch it higher. To open me wider.

  “Faster.”

  Trey moves faster, his breathing matching pace. I squirm against him, desperate to get away and closer at the same time. I’m strung tight, pulled in every direction and I cling to him to keep me upright. To keep this feeling that’s spiraling inside of me, coiling in my stomach and igniting in my veins.

  I whimper, weeping, my fingers aching where they’re knotted in his shirt. My legs trembling. Finally I break apart with a scream that’s muffled in his chest as he wraps his arms around me, holding me tightly. He’s all that’s keeping me together, keeping me from shattering into a million shining pieces on the floor.

  I release my fingers slowly, smoothing them over his chest as I lift my head to look up at him. He stares down at me with dark eyes that are both demanding and patient, his chest still heaving. This is his control. His natural born ability to be in the thick of the chaos, pulse pounding, body screaming, and still he’s able to hold strong. To keep his cool until the call is given. Until his power is unleashed.

  “Take me to the bedroom,” I tell him, my voice hoarse but commanding, “and love me the way you want to.”

  He sweeps me into his arms without a word, lifting me off the ground. He carries me to my bedroom where he sets me on my feet, strips us both down to nothing, and lays me out underneath him. The cold light of the moon is on his skin as he hovers over me, but still he’s radiant. Still he’s warm and golden, glowing, even in his ebony eyes that take me in. That drown me in their depths as he lowers himself over me.

  It’s different this time, the way he consumes me. He’s not rushed tonight, not the way he was in the office. He’s slow and torturous. He leaves me breathless and strained, turned out from the inside until everything in me is there for him to see. Every need, every itch, every hidden thought. Too many of them are about him, and he knows it.

  He kisses me as he drives inside me, stretching me. Groaning deep in his chest as he pushes me to my limits, giving me what
I want. He gives me love, slow and steady. I memorize every agonizing moment. Every thrust, every brush of his skin. Every tender kiss and painful pinch, because I have no idea if it will be the last. And that’s what I truly want; I want this to last.

  In the morning he’ll be gone. This will be gone, this moment and its meaning will go with it. With him. And maybe it’s nothing. Maybe we’re nothing but a handful of sweat soaked minutes that run out the clock to the last second, squeezing every play we can manage into the time we’re allowed, but when it runs out, that’s it. Game over. It’s a painful thought, one that pinches in my chest like a gunshot wound even as my body blows apart on a wave pleasure that takes him with me. That washes us away together.

  Later that night when the time comes, when I know he’s going because the dawn is coming, I feel a desperate ache in my bones that I can’t ignore. I can’t escape.

  I roll over on the bed, straddling him with my legs, waking him with my mouth, and I tell him to love me again. I tell him to go slow.

  I tell him to do it like it’s the last time.

  September 10th

  Hyatt Regency

  New Orleans, LA

  I lay across the bed flipping through the channels, my phone pinned to my ear by my shoulder. It’s been there so long the side of my face is starting to sweat. “No, Mom, it’s fine. You don’t have to cook for me when you get here.”

  “You probably haven’t eaten a home cooked meal in ages,” she complains.

  “I did last week. I went to Fiso’s place to have dinner with his family. His wife made chicken longrice. It was good.”

  “I’ll make you poke when I get there.”

  “Mom, no,” I chuckle, rolling over onto my back so I can switch the phone to my other ear. “Don’t make me anything. I can’t have any surprises in my diet right now. Not before a game.”

  “Your first game,” she corrects proudly.

  “Yeah. My first game.”

  “Okay, I’ll leave you alone. You know your body and you know your job. I just want to take care of you. I always will.”

  “I know. And if it wasn’t game day tomorrow, I’d let you. Just come watch me play and enjoy the vacation. That’s all I want you to do for me.”

  “Do you have our flight information?”

  “Sloane does. She’s picking you up at the airport and bringing you to the stadium. You’re coming in too late in the day for me to do it. I have warm ups.”

  “She’ll be there on time?”

  “She’s always on time.” I reach for the nightstand, grabbing my tablet. “Hey, speaking of Sloane, she sent me something I wanted to ask you about.”

  “What is it?” Mom asks warily. She always reacts like this when I mention Sloane. She likes her, she’s happy with how the Draft turned out, but she doesn’t like the way it went down. She doesn’t trust her, not like I do.

  I swipe my hand across the screen to bring it to life. It opens immediately on the e-mail I last read. “It’s a letter she got in my fan mail. The person who wrote it says they’re family and they want me to call them to catch up.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “David Brandt. He says we’re cousins?”

  “David Brandt,” she mutters to herself, thinking. “It doesn’t ring a bell—Oh! Oh,” she repeats, the second exclamation much more subdued than the first. “I think that’s your Aunt Candace’s stepson. She was married to a Richie Brandt for a while, he had two sons at the time, but they split years ago. They lived in Boise the last I heard. I don’t think you’ve ever even met his kids.”

  “So we don’t know who this guy is?”

  “No. You’re definitely not related by blood.”

  “I’m gonna ignore him then. He says he wants to catch up and talk about some exciting ideas he has.”

  Mom grunts. “Sounds like he wants to ask you for money.”

  “That’s what Sloane said.” I close the cover on my tablet, falling back on the bed to stare at the ceiling. “She said that’s going to happen a lot. She’s filtering most of it so I don’t have to deal with it. She said you should get your phone number unlisted so people can’t find you and hassle you.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  I close my eyes, prepping for the storm. “She also agrees with me that you should take my offer of buying a condo there on the island with a doorman.”

  “Don’t start this again,” she warns sternly.

  “I’m buying one whether you live in it or not.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I’d rather you stayed in it than strangers I’d have to rent it to.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Mom.”

  “Trey.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, baby.”

  “Let me buy you a home.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  “No.”

  I take a deep breath, going in for the killing blow. “It would take a lot of stress off my mind if I knew you were safe and not getting harassed because of me.”

  She’s silent for a long time, and part of me wishes I hadn’t done it. It’s not a low blow, but it’s a calculated one.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks quietly. “Are you doing okay getting ready for this game?”

  “I’m good. I’m calm.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. I’m not worried about work. The only thing I worry about now is you.”

  She sighs heavily. “Oh, Trey… I don’t want you to worry.”

  “Then let me do this. Just this one thing and I’ll stop. I’ll never ask you to take anything from me again. Not even a stick of gum.”

  I wait with my breath frozen in my lungs. It’s an argument we’ve had so many times, and she’s shut me down every time. I can’t imagine why tonight would be any different.

  And still somehow it is.

  “Alright,” she agrees softly. “You win.”

  I smile. “You’ll let me do it?”

  “Yes, Trey, I’ll let you do it. But you’re buying it for yourself, not for us. We’ll live in it and take care of it and someday when you come home to Hawaii you’ll have it for yourself.” She pauses, prepping her own killing blow. “You can have it for you and your family.”

  “That ‘someday’ is a long ways off,” I remind her.

  “I know. You have a career to think about now. I’m not pushing.”

  I chuckle. “Aren’t you?”

  “Not yet. Give me a few years and it’ll be all you hear from me. For now I’m happy to see that you’re not popping up in the tabloids every two seconds with a new girl on your arm anymore.”

  I sit up, running my hand over my head roughly. “Yeah. I’ve been busy. I’ve been focused.”

  “Focused on the game or on a girl?”

  “The game.”

  “Have it your way. I need to get to bed if I’m going to wake in time for that flight to Louisiana, and you should get some sleep too.”

  “I’m wide awake.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be,” she scolds lightly. “Goodnight, baby. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Mom.”

  “See you tomorrow. Remember to have fun!”

  “I will. Bye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  I let her hang up, watching the phone’s screen go dark in my hand. I swipe my thumb across it twice, each time watching it light up only to let it go dark again without doing anything. I shouldn’t do anything. I should go to bed. I should hit the gym or go for a run, or one of a million other things I could do to calm the rising in my veins, but there’s only one thing that will help it. Only one person who can bring me down, because just speaking her name is what brought me up.

  I bring up my text messages. Her name is at the top. It always is because she’s always the last one I message before I go to bed. She’s the first one I hit up when I wake.

  I can’t sleep.

  I wait only
three minutes for a reply.

  You should try. Busy day tomorrow.

  I have tried. I can’t make it happen.

  I can’t help you.

  You’re the only person who can help me.

  I wait five minutes this time. I’m sweating by the second.

  We can’t.

  I just want to sleep.

  You just want to get laid.

  I want to lay down next to you. I don’t have any condoms, don’t bring any with you. We won’t go there tonight.

  Then where are we going?

  To sleep. That’s it. I swear.

  I wait seven minutes. Eight. Nine. My heart is thudding in my chest, my stomach knotting and dropping low where it aches with anxiety. No one calms me the way Sloane does, and no one winds me up like her either. She can make or break me in an instant and it’s a power I never intended to give to anyone. It’s not something I especially enjoy.

  But when that soft knock comes on the door, I don’t give a damn. I jump up off the bed, swing the door open, and usher her in with an arm around her waist. I dip my face low into her neck where I can feel her hair around me, smell her scent wafting warmly from her skin, and I inhale her like she’ll save my life. I haven’t seen her in days. Weeks. It’s too long to go without her.

  She takes hold of my arms, laughter on her lips, but I silence it with mine. I kiss her deeply until she melts in my arms, going soft. Going weak.

  She’s in her pajamas. Short shorts, a Kodiaks hooded sweatshirt, and probably nothing underneath. It makes me desperate, and I struggle to remember my promise. I try to remember if I have a condom stashed somewhere in my bags.

  As if reading my mind, she pulls back, shaking her head. “You promised,” she reminds me softly.

  I drop my forehead to hers, nodding faintly. “I remember.”

  “Well, remind him,” she tells me, looking down at my waist, “because he’s not listening.”

  “He has a mind of his own and fuck, he likes you a lot.”

  She wraps her arms around my neck slowly. “I like him too,” she purrs.

  I grimace. “That’s not helping.”

  “What will?”

  I stand up straight to reach behind her. I turn off the lights. All that’s left is the glow of the TV and the ghostly shade it casts over her. I pull her with me to the bed where I sit down and pull her to stand between my legs. She releases me to lift the sweatshirt up over her head, tousling her long blond hair into a mild mess. Underneath the sweatshirt is a tank top. Orange and yellow. It has ‘Domata’ written proudly across her breasts.