The Big Hit

by Jamie Bennett

  He stepped close to my back. “They both were nice enough,” he said. “They like you a lot and that makes me like them. That Jerry told me he was worried when you went over to their house today.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said again. “When did he have a chance to get a word in edgewise?”

  “When she went to the bathroom and you went to move your car out of their driveway.” Knox’s hands went to my hips and he stood even closer. He rested his chin on my head.

  “You don’t have to worry, too, ok? This will happen again, I’m sure, and it’s just part of my life. You should be focusing on your game. Do you have a routine that you do that I’m pulling you away from?”

  “I have things I do when I get to the stadium to prepare, but I’m not superstitious like some of the guys I’ve played with.” He started to tell me about the things they did for luck, like the old standard of refusing to change their dirty socks, or driving a certain route to the stadium and shaking hands with Lyle the security guard before the games. The best safety on the Woodsmen only ate orange foods on game day; one of the linemen on Knox’s college team had refused to have sex with his girlfriend during the season because he thought it would sap his powers or something.

  “How did that work for him?” I asked, laughing. The laughter felt good, as did Knox’s hands, which were rubbing my hips and waist, up and down.

  “It didn’t work so well when she broke up with him for a man who didn’t have those limitations.” He squeezed my waist. “I change my underwear, eat all colors of food, and I don’t think sex before games is any kind of problem.”

  “Oh?” I coughed to remove the knot that had tied up my throat at that last comment. “Has that been your experience in the past?”

  “I think it will be my experience in the future,” he said, and laughed, very quietly. He bent to kiss my ear.

  “I think you may have heard the expression about counting chickens,” I said, trying to sound playful, but instead sounding more like I was being strangled.

  Knox kissed me again. “I didn’t mean tonight, bunny. It’s a long season, all right? It’s a long life. We can just see where it goes.”

  I had tensed up, but relaxed again against him as he talked more. He told me about another player he had known who had insisted on wearing a “healing crystal” that had become partially embedded in his chest after one particularly hard hit. “He decided that he was wrong about it having healing powers and bringing good luck when the trainer pulled it out of his skin,” Knox explained.

  “Yuck! That’s—Knox, look!” I pointed to the yard, at the grey shadow that was skulking around near the witch hazel bush. “That’s my cat. Well, someday he will be.” I took our dinner off the stove and went to quickly prepare the cat’s bowl of food. “He lets me touch him now, a little. Watch.”

  I went out onto the deck and put down the bowl, then settled beside it. The cat trotted over when he saw me and right up the steps. I stayed still while he tasted his food, then started petting as he dug in. I felt the purr through my fingertips.

  Light footsteps vibrated the wood underneath us and I looked up at Knox. Very slowly and carefully, he lowered himself to sit on the other side of me. He put his hand on my back.

  The cat froze, as did Knox. They looked at each other, then both apparently decided that the other was not a threat. The cat went back to the food, and Knox moved a little closer to me, so that our bodies touched.

  “See?” I whispered. “He’s getting to be my friend. When I first moved in here, he would hide if he only saw me at the window. I just had to be patient with him. He’s loving and sweet, now, but it took a long time.”

  Knox watched the cat. “Don’t let him scratch you or bite you.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.” The purr got louder until Knox could hear it too and I smiled at both of them.

  “I guess I can’t get you the guard dog I was thinking about,” Knox commented.

  “Is that a joke?”

  “No. This cottage must be isolated in the winter, when the summer people are gone. And now that reporter is bothering you. He wouldn’t, if you had a big dog next to you.”

  I scratched behind the cat’s ears. “I don’t need a dog. You don’t need to worry about me being at my cottage, either.” I looked at Knox. It did bother him a lot, when I was doing things alone—like he had even been concerned about me by myself in the library basement.

  His forehead crinkled. “I have to stay with the team tonight. We all stay over at the Wequetong Inn before every game so I’ll have to leave here and go.”

  “That’s ok.”

  “If that guy comes back, call me.”

  “Knox, he isn’t doing anything but his job. If he comes back, I’ll ignore him or tell him to leave. I just got worked up because it surprised me so much. When I get startled by things, new things, sometimes it makes my anxiety get stronger.” I leaned up and kissed him, feeling very bold, because I added tongue. And I put my hand on his thigh, and squeezed. These new things made me anxious, but they were worth it.

  Definitely worth it, because it broke some kind of dam inside of Knox. His silvery eyes started to burn into mine. He picked me up and before I really knew what was happening, my back was against the sliding door with my legs wrapped around his waist, him grinding his hips into mine. We fit perfectly together in a way that made me lose my breath and the glass door bowed a little under our combined weight. I heard a whoop from the direction of Shelby’s house, “You go, Daisy!” and Knox pulled away, his mouth leaving mine.

  “Inside,” he muttered.

  Inside. He stalked back to my bedroom with its normal sized mattress, with his Woodsmen t-shirt on the floor where I had stripped it off earlier. His foot caught in it and we slid a little and landed on the bed. He landed on top of me, his personal parts right against mine. It might have hurt, but instead, it felt…

  “Knox, I think we should. I think we should, tonight.” I was tired of waiting for everything, of being careful and scared. This was right.

  He looked at me. “Tell me what we should do.”

  “I think we should have sex. You and I, right now,” I said, so overwhelmed by wanting him that I was able to say it flat out.

  “Are you sure?” He pushed back pieces of my tumbling braid. “Are you sure, bunny?”

  “Keep calling me that,” I told him, and I pulled at his shirt so that it came up over his beautiful, carved abs and then over his head. Knox pulled off mine and our skin pressed together.

  “I like this,” he said, and ghosted his fingers over the lace of the black bra. My nipples stood up.

  “It has a matching thong,” I answered, just as boldly as before, and his eyes burned brighter.

  “Let’s take a look at that.” He moved down my body and slid off my shorts, and yes, there was my thong. And there I was, almost all of me. I started to shake a little, my boldness disappearing as the nakedness increased. Knox picked up my foot and kissed it, kissed my instep, and it made me giggle nervously. He did it again, until I twisted and laughed. “Ticklish there,” he murmured. He cradled my calf in his hands and kissed, nosing behind my knee. I gasped. “You like that spot,” he mentioned, then did it to the other side, holding both my calves so that I was open to him. He kissed up my thigh until his tongue touched the lace of the thong.

  My hips jolted on their own, with no prompting from my mind. They wanted his mouth there, at that spot in between my thighs. Knox put both his thumbs under the black lace waistband and ran them back and forth, making me squirm. “Ticklish there, too,” he said. He kissed my bellybutton and my stomach. His thumbs now pulled down the lace and his mouth trailed behind it. “And blonde,” he remarked.

  “Knox—”

  He stopped and looked at me, then moved up on the bed to put his head next to mine. “I’m here. Ok, Daisy?”

  I kissed him again, pulling him on top of my body. “Yes. I like it when you talk to me like that.” I loved the sound of his deep
voice, his accent, the feeling of his skin, what he was doing with his hands and mouth. I did, but I was nervous, too.

  “I’ll try some things and you give me your opinion,” he suggested. He pushed the black straps down my shoulders and reached under my back to undo my bra with his fingers, the ones that could have been so heavy and hard but were so skillful and gentle. And effective. They trailed over my bare breasts, barely touching, just whisper-light. “What do you think? A, or B?” He bent and licked my nipple with a quick flick of his tongue.

  “Yes!” I hissed, my back bending so I pushed toward him.

  “Both, then,” he agreed. “God, bunny, you’re so beautiful.” He held my breasts in his big hands, the callouses rubbing gently against my soft skin, teasing. He licked more, then sucked, rubbing, rubbing. When he moved down again, to where the thong had been, and asked, “Yes? I want to, Daisy,” I just nodded, my lips parted as I breathed in and out with soft moans. It was so good. It was all so good. Then he held me open with his fingers and his tongue delved inside me. He licked up and down, telling me again how beautiful I was. “Every part of you,” he said, and licked.

  I was rolling along on a wave, the bliss that he was creating in my body driving every thought from my mind. I just felt him, his fingers and his lips, his tongue and his teeth. My legs shook, my hands tangled in his dark hair and I was talking to him, too. “I love it,” I said. “I love what you’re doing to me. Please, don’t stop. Please, keep—that—yes—” My hips rolled, jerking. He held them steady as he licked me again and I came, and as I did, he put his long fingers deep inside me so that I clenched around them.

  “Now, Daisy? Yes?” Knox panted. I squirmed, bearing down on his fingers because they felt so good.

  “Yes, now. Please?” I begged. I felt him fumble with his other hand, but his fingers kept moving in and out of me until I was crying out.

  “God, Daisy, honey…” He groaned, and I reached down and felt his huge girth sheathed in a condom, poised between my thighs. I guided him to my entrance and his fingers slid out.

  “You’re so big,” I gasped. His face was tight.

  “I’m going slow. I’m trying to go slow.” He reached between us to touch my clitoris and I pushed my hips to his. No more slow. He was inside me then, all of him, and he waited a moment before he started to move.

  It quickly built, Knox thrusting harder, rubbing me, rolling my nipples, biting my neck. “Daisy, are you ready?” he said, and I kind of wailed a yes. My whole self, inside and out, held on to him. He buried his face in my hair and growled, like a wolf, and I was wrapped up in a cloud of happiness and fulfillment.

  “It’s Xanadu,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine.

  “What?” He pushed back my messy hair from my face and I opened my eyes to his silver ones. “What, bunny?”

  “It’s Xanadu. It’s not just the color of your house. I looked it up and found a poem that said Xanadu was a place with a pleasure palace.”

  He laughed low, and it vibrated through me, more, because he was still inside me. “Your cottage is our Xanadu.”

  “No, I mean, you’re mine,” I tried to explain. He was my Xanadu, my pleasure palace, and he was everything else to me, too.

  He looked down at my face for a moment, studying my features. Then he kissed me, driving me back into the pillow, and I moaned into his mouth. I heard something creak, very ominously.

  Knox broke away. He pulled out gently and carefully, but I still gasped with the feeling of it. He kissed me again, soothing. “I’m sorry about your bed,” he said. “I’ll replace it.”

  “What?” I picked up my head and realized that we were lying in the bottom of a V. The bed, and the mattresses, had collapsed. “Did that really happen?” I struggled to my elbows, then flopped back down. I felt like I had no energy left in me. It had been orgasmed right out.

  “That really happened. All of it,” he told me. He flipped us until I was on top of him, lying on his chest. “Daisy.” His arms held me tight. “I can hardly believe it. This is…”

  “What are you saying? Is it something good?”

  “Very good.” He held me even tighter. “Very good.”

  Chapter 14

  “No.”

  “Daisy. Daisy?”

  “No,” I repeated, angry at the disruption to my sleep. Slowly, I came to realize that it was morning, and I opened my eyes and squinted into the sunlight. Tatum was staring down at me. “What are you doing in here?” I asked groggily.

  “I had breakfast with Shelby and Jerry and they let me in. She has your key for emergencies, and you weren’t opening the door or answering your phone. I got nervous.” She sat down at my feet on the couch.

  I pulled myself up to sit also, the big Woodsmen t-shirt billowing around me. “I’m fine, I was just a little tired. Wait, you had breakfast with Shelby and Jerry? How do you even know them?”

  “I know a lot of people, and I’ve always loved motorcycles,” she explained.

  “Are you hanging out with Jerry’s club or something? Those old guys?”

  “Age is just a number,” she told me seriously, then bounced on the cushion. “Why are you in the living room on the couch?” She picked at the sheets. “It’s all made up, like a bed.”

  I felt heat spread through my face. “I had to sleep out here because there’s something wrong with my mattress.”

  Tatum’s eyes narrowed, and before I could say another word, she darted off down the hall. “Daisy McKenzie!” I heard her shriek. Her feet pounded back into the living room. “You fucked Knox Lynch!”

  “Tatum! Your language!” Because that was not at all what had happened. It had always made me a little queasy when people said they “made love,” but—

  “You screwed him. Boned him. Banged him. Pumped him! You broke the damn bed! I’m so proud.” She hugged me. “Now, spill.”

  “No,” I told her. More heat rushed to my face as I thought back to the night before. Knox had carried me out of the broken bed to the couch, and we had carried on more, right here. Dinner had been put off until much later, because oh, his fingers…

  “You’re thinking about it right now! I can tell by the look on your face.” She threw herself into a chair, the one that Knox had previously broken, but Tatum didn’t weigh that much and it stayed upright. “Just tell me this, since it was your first time: was it ok?”

  “It was wonderful. Amazing. Kind of life-altering,” I admitted.

  “Wow.” She sat up straight, staring at me. “Oh, wow. Daisy.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You have it pretty bad for him, that’s all,” she said softly, and I nodded. I did. Tatum jumped to her feet. “You need to hurry and get dressed. Come on, I’m picking your clothes. And you’re wearing the bra with the nipple cutouts, now that you’ve joined Club Boom Boom.”

  “Club Boom Boom?” I let her pull me to my feet and down the hall to the bedroom. I was stiff in whole new ways this morning. “Where are we going? We have to be back here for the game, I can’t miss that.” After dinner and after Knox had helped me make up the couch-bed, he had kissed me and told me to watch if they put the camera on him. I had clung to him for a while, not wanting him to leave, and a lot of kissing had ensued. And stroking, and petting, and licking. Oh, the licking.

  “Stop thinking about that! I’m so jealous I could die.” Tatum was rifling through my underwear drawer. “What did you do with the red bra?”

  “I’m getting in the shower,” I announced, and turned on the water. I looked at myself in the mirror, and yes, I did look different. Maybe everyone would be able to see that I had joined Club Boom Boom.

  I could hear Tatum through the door again, talking to herself. “Broke the bed! He must have pounded her like one of those oil pump things. What is this, a shirt? Where would you put your head? I’ve never seen anything so ugly, but Daisy can get away with all the ugly things she wears.”

  “Tatum, I can hear you,” I said. The water felt good
, but it did sting a little between my thighs. I had beard burn there. I held on to the tile wall as I remembered how I had gotten it and my body clenched.

  “What’s that big machine to get oil out of the ground called, a pumpjack?” she asked. I didn’t answer that, but it did bring up even more memories of the night before.

  “There,” she told me a little later, and replaced the mascara wand into the tube. “You don’t need much makeup. You’re a natural beauty, you lucky girl.”

  “Thank you, Tatum.” I looked at myself in the mirror. I did look pretty, and I felt good, all through me. Not from the sex, although, now that I thought about it again…

  “There you go with that face,” she complained. “Do you understand how horny it’s making me? And can you tell me about his dick now?”

  “No.” I stood up from the stool I had sat on for her to help me with my hair and makeup. “And I’m not leaving the house this time until you tell me where you want to go.”

  “Sit back down,” Tatum ordered. I did, and she put her hands on my shoulders. “We’re going to the stadium.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, because I was reading about exposure. I don’t mean being naked in front of a large group of strangers, we’re not doing that today.”

  “‘Today?’ We’re not doing that any day, ever!”

  “Exposure is when you make yourself go to the stadium even though you’re scared,” she explained. “You have to try new things even if they freak you out, and then they won’t anymore.”

  “Tatum, I’ve been doing that technique for years, and yes, it works for me. But I can’t just go to a Woodsmen football game and sit in a giant crowd making tons of noise, with me afraid the whole time that Knox will be hurt. I have to start smaller.”

  “Exactly!” She nodded vigorously. “So we’re going now, when the stadium isn’t even open for fans yet. We’ll walk around and look and see everything, and then sit in an office and watch the game on TV there. Or if you want, we can go into my dad’s box. He has a huge TV in it and if you sit at the back, you can’t even see the crowd.”