by Lila Price
Courtney smiles. “You look amazing. You’ll have to give me the name of your stylist, because mine has run out of ideas.”
I glance at her lean, Pilates-shaped figure under its shimmery designer gown. “I doubt that.”
She laughs, then leans over to whisper to me. “I thought you might need saving from the wicked witch of the west before she turns back around on her broomstick for another swipe.”
It’s as if Courtney has taken a shine to me, and I smile at her. “Thanks. I thought I was the only one who didn’t get along with Lulu.”
“Anyone can see she’s jealous of you. And since she never makes an effort to get to know any of us, I choose Team Jeli.”
Courtney’s so nice that I wish I didn’t have to lie to her about Eli and me. I wish I could tell her that I’m a total imposter. I wish…
Yeah.
“You know what?” she says, her dark eyes bright. “Me and a few of the girls have a secret when we come to these things. We like to take a break from mingling with the hoity-toity on a consistent basis.”
“Should I venture a reminder that you are the hoity-toity?”
“Only because my husband was blessed with a good football arm. Come on.”
She guides me down a hallway, then toward a parlor where I discover five football wives and girlfriends sitting around a piano. One of the offensive linemen’s wives is hammering away on the keyboard, playing some Billy Joel. They’ve got bottles of even better champagne in here than out there, their glasses raised, their laughter threading through the air, and when they see me…
I get ready for them to go back to giving me a civil yet cool shoulder, but instead they smile.
That’s right. Smile.
“Any requests?” the lineman’s wife asks me, as if I’m not totally out of place among this casual luxury. Her name is Amy, and she doesn’t even stop playing, she’s so good.
“Give me anything you’ve got on your playlist and I’ll be happy,” I say.
“Will do.”
As Amy launches into “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” Courtney slides a champagne flute into my hand. The tune is obviously a party favorite for them, because they’re all singing along. When they gesture for me to join them at the piano, there’s a scratch in my throat. Only a quick swig of the expensive champagne can chase it away.
I go to them, fitting my voice to theirs.
Fitting into a place where I shouldn’t—and still don’t actually—belong.
Chapter 15
We shouldn’t be celebrating anything after the Rustlers’ next two games. There’s nothing to be happy about after we lose both, not by many points, but close doesn’t count.
After the latest one, Eli wants to go out to dinner instead of staying home and licking his wounds.
“Fuck everyone if they think the world has ended,” he says as we drive away from the stadium. “The team’s gonna be fine. I’ll get them to the big show.”
I have to admire his confidence. After all, he did score two touchdowns today before Michael Dexter got sacked so hard that he was carted off the field with what’s turned out to be a fractured fibula. It looks like the starting quarterback will be out for a while, leaving our second-stringer to lead the team, but this doesn’t seem to put a dent in Eli’s cockiness.
I’m not feeling so great about the team’s chances, though, especially since I was sitting next to Courtney Dexter today. After Michael’s injury, when she left me and the other girls in the box she invited me to watch the game in, she didn’t return any of my texts, and I’ve been waiting to hear from her ever since.
After Eli and I get to the house, he coolly tells me to put on a cocktail dress that I bought a couple days ago during one of a few shopping excursions with my new football wife friends. Although the design is sweet, with a breezy skirt that skims down to mid-thigh, the light pink material dips down in front and swoops so low in the rear that the small of my back is visible. It makes me feel sexy and innocent at the same time. Ivy would give me a sarcastic wolf whistle if she could see me now, but I haven’t had time for more than phone calls to my family lately.
I don the cocktail dress, and when Eli sees me, he doesn’t say anything. He’s broody, stalking around the front of the Ferrari after he helps me inside. I suspect his bad temper comes from more than just today’s loss: his dad was in Randal Preston’s box during the game and he never even bothered to meet me—again. Eli doesn’t have to say that I might as well be the Invisible Fiancé and that his father is obviously punishing him for being his own man, as well as for losing two games in a row.
Wordlessly, Eli drives me to an expensive Moroccan-French supper club on the Strip, a place where the lights are low and the tables are enclosed in sheer cream curtains that remind me of my own bed. The entire room is decorated with brass and dark wood, almost harem-like, sultry and mysterious.
After the waiter leaves us with menus then closes the curtains behind him, I look out at the restaurant, where everything is now veiled. Movement outside is hazy, blurred. We might not be hiding from the world, but we’re definitely lurking.
Eli hasn’t touched his menu. He’s leaning back in the upholstered booth, his arms propped on top of the seats. He’s wearing an expensive button down, trousers, and boots. His hair is uncombed and still slightly damp from the shower he took after the game, and it gives him a wild look. The famished gleam of his gaze only adds to his agitated mood.
“Is this a favorite restaurant of yours?” I ask, just to break the ice. Or the heat. I’m not sure which it is, but that’s no surprise with Eli.
“Moroccan-French isn’t at the top of my list,” he says, “but I thought you’d like it here. It’s public enough so that Jeli can be out and about, but private enough to avoid crowds.”
“I’m used to the crowds by now.” And the pictures and the gossip on the Internet. Even with the occasional story about how the football wives don’t like me, there’s a lot of love I’m getting. People seem to support an underdog, and that’s me—a girl who’s not too pretty, a normal person who’s cracked the code of high-society, a true-blue love story in the making.
Eli leisurely surveys me, his gaze searing me. “Lean forward, Jenna,” he whispers.
I frown, not understanding, but I do it anyway, resting my elbows on the table. When I feel air against the tops of my breasts, I suddenly understand what’s going on.
Eli has an extra itch tonight.
He wants to forget another bad game.
“More,” he demands. “Show me.”
My breathing quickens as I slowly lean forward a little farther. I didn’t wear a bra with this dress, and I position the menu so that no one but Eli can see me. I can feel a tiny breeze on one of my nipples as it puckers.
“That’s it.” His gaze has that burning, wicked look I know so well. “God, you’ve got beautiful tits.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah.”
I shouldn’t be egging him on, not in public. But based on what happened in the Hula Shack on the first day we met, I start to wonder if he’s got a thing for semi-private restaurants, if he’s about to lure me into his kind of trouble by pushing the boundaries of decency where anyone might catch us. I like that I can make him feel better after losing games. It’s a powerful discovery, and I’m pounding for him, anticipating what he will ask of me next.
“If you’ve got panties on,” he says, “take them off.”
“Here?”
He nods, his eyes glimmering like a wolf eyeing its prey.
I look at the gauzy curtains that blur every candle that flickers on a table. There’s movement out there: diners, busboys, waiters. People who might spot what’s happening with us behind this barely-there curtain.
But I find that I don’t really care.
Carefully, I inch up my skirt, then hook my thumbs into the sides of my lacy thongs and ease them down. After I pull them over my high-heeled strappy sandals, I kick them away. Later, I think. I’ll get them
later…
“Good,” Eli says in his scratchy voice. It brushes over my skin like the light burn of sandpaper. “Now, Jenna, show me your beautiful kitty.”
My sex jerks with lust, and my mouth opens, even though I know I’m not going to protest his kinky command—not when he’s looking at me like I’m the most desirable woman in the world and nothing can take my place. There’re dirty thoughts in his mind; his gaze tells me that, and I want to be a part of every one of them.
He reaches down and over to me, taking the side of my skirt between his fingers. He slides it up my thigh. Instinctively, I angle myself so that he can see what’s beneath the material, then I part my legs.
“Goddamn,” he breathes. “Have I told you that seeing that sweet pussy gets me hard every time?”
“Careful,” I say, glancing around.
“How bad do you want me to pet you?” he asks.
“You’re bad.” My face flushes.
When he skims his fingertips over my thigh and to my pussy, I gasp. With only the tablecloth to hide what we’re up to, he rubs me, spreading the cream in my folds up and down.
“Fuck,” he says quietly, “you’re ready. Always so ready for me.”
He pushes the tip of his thumb into me, and I rise a little off the seat. He does it again and—
The curtains part to show a busboy with a tray filled with bottled water and iced glasses. My sex nearly explodes as Eli swirls his thumb in me, so casual that you’d think nothing is going on underneath the table.
I press my menu against my chest and hold back a moan while the busboy barely glances at us. It takes him a damned eon to fill our water glasses and leave, the curtains whisking shut behind him.
“Do you think he saw?” I whisper.
In answer, Eli presses his thumb up to my clit, and I squirm, holding back a wince. I’m so slippery down there that juices are starting to bathe my thighs.
“What’s on the menu, Jenna?” he asks.
“You’re kidding.” Does he really expect me to talk when I’m throbbing so hard that I’m about to come?
He takes his thumb away from me, then lifts his hand up so I can see my cream on his skin as he rubs his fingers together and then licks each one in turn. “Read me the menu,” he growls.
Fuck. I want him to work me again so that all the pressure inside me can be released.
“Read it to me,” he says. “I’m hungry.”
I peer at the menu and try not to shift around in the seat, tipping him off that I’m still hot and bothered and pierced through with a sexual ache.
I start to read the menu, and as I finish the appetizers and get to the entrees, he reaches over, resting his hand high on my bared back. Then he slips his fingertips down my spine. As he brushes over each bump, I shiver. My nipples are so stimulated that they’re aching, my pussy so desperate for him that it’s pulsing with wet urgency.
He comes to the small of my back, where my dress dips low, then eases his fingers inside the fabric, down my naked cheek. I stop reading.
“Go on,” he says.
There’re rocks in my throat as I recite things like “braised lamb shank,” “chickpea tagine,” and…
He skims toward my crevice, and I choke on the next words.
He leans against my arm, his chest solid, hard. To anyone who might enter this little gauzy world of ours, it might look like he’s only hugging me close, not coaxing his hand down the back of my dress.
“What’re you hungry for?” he whispers to me. His hot breath tickles my ear.
“I don’t know.”
“Say it, Jenna.”
I swallow while he continues caressing my naked ass. Then I finally say, “You. I’m hungry for you.”
“Glad to hear you finally admit it. But you’ve already got me—in front of the cameras, even away from them.”
No, I don’t. I don’t have all of him. And pretty soon, I won’t have any of him, and it shouldn’t bother me as much as it does.
I’m going to lose what we have—even if it’s fake, I’m starting to feel like I need it.
Maybe I’m addicted…
“And,” he adds in his low, persuasive voice, “if you keep being a good girl in front of those cameras, you’ll keep getting rewarded.”
“There’re no cameras here.” At least I hope not.
“No, there aren’t. You’ve pointed out before that we need to look wholesome in public. This is anything but.”
Without warning, he slips between my cheeks, pressing his finger up against a place I never expected anyone to press. Then he pushes the tip of his finger into me, and I drop the menu, reaching back to grab his wrist. The candle on the table flickers from the disturbance.
“Oh,” I say as he plays with this sensitive, taboo spot. “I…”
“Didn’t know you wanted this?”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“Your body’s telling me something different.”
He’s right, because I can feel an orgasm pulsating, rotating and growing like something being born inside me.
“Don’t you dare come right here,” he murmurs against my ear. “Don’t do it, Jenna.”
But it’s coming…and it’s going to be so hard that I have to close my eyes to fight it. I’m throbbing so violently that everything is starting to go dark, only a flicker of light teasing the backs of my eyelids every so often.
“Stop yourself from exploding,” he says. But he wants me to. His finger is still playing with me, and I can hear the yearning in his voice, and when he kisses my ear—
Boom!
That’s all it takes—one deeper nudge of his finger that has me bursting apart right there at the table. And as I pant and try to get myself together, I reach over and cup my hand over his cock, finding how stiff it is.
Eli’s primal growl warns me that this is too far over our lines, but I massage him in revenge. So what if the waiter appears. I want to see the look on his face, the shock. Oh God, do I crave it…
Suddenly, Eli pulls away from me, and before I know it, he’s left the booth.
I keep breathing hard, unable to grasp the situation. Has he gone to whack off in the restroom because I got him all worked up? Is he annoyed because I took control?
After a while, I smooth my dress out, then covertly pick my undies up off the floor and tuck them into my evening bag. The curtains rudely part.
It’s Eli, and he has a fire in his gaze that I’ve never seen before.
“Let’s go.” He tosses a wad of bills on the table and stalks away.
His tone brooks no argument, and I slip out of the booth. I obviously pushed some kind of button in him that I shouldn’t have. I’m thrilled. I’m disappointed. And I’m not sure which matters more.
I barely think about the fifty thousand dollars I might’ve just blown if he’s done with me. No, I’m thinking about what I’ll do without these hot nights with Eli. Without…him.
But that’s bull crap. I’m not attached. I can’t be.
He strides ahead of me into the elevator that’ll take us to the lobby of the hotel where the restaurant is located, but instead of pushing a Down button, he pushes Up.
Everything after that happens in slashes of time: the doors opening, the realization that we’re on top of the hotel with the Vegas lights glittering below us, the way he’s urging me to a door that he opens with a keycard and—
As he picks me up off my feet and crushes his mouth to mine, my brain registers that we’re in the dim light of a penthouse.
Eli wants more of me, not less.
Chapter 16
He kisses me as if demons are after him and this is the only thing that’s going to save him, and I respond with just as much frenzied passion. My fingers pull at his hair as we bite at each other, steal each other’s breath, teeth knocking against teeth as if we’re savages, ripping and clawing at one another.
He backs me against a wall, and the breath huffs out of my lungs.
“Shit,” h
e says, coming up for air, cupping his hand to the side of my face and looking into my eyes like he’s seeing if he hurt me.
Instead of assuring him that I’m okay, I go in for another fierce kiss. He brings my leg up, hooking it around him while lifting me so that I can feel his hard cock against my pussy. He licks at me, the tip of him pressing against my clit. Without any underwear on, I feel the material of his trousers slipping and sliding against me, my cream coating him.
“I couldn’t do this to you at the restaurant,” he says against my mouth. “I couldn’t fuck you the way you deserve to be fucked.”
“And how’s that?” I whisper.
“Let’s just say you’re never going to forget me after this.”
As if I could ever forget someone like Eli Brennan.
He nips at my lower lip, then grinds his cock against me. I churn with his every movement until he’s dry humping me, his tip parting my folds with every smooth thrust.
God, this is good. My thoughts whirl like a carnival ride, and I don’t want to get off, not when I know that Eli will truly get me off…
The surface of the wall behind me is smooth—too smooth—and I realize it’s a mirror. The sweat on my bared skin allows me to slide up and down as he drives against me and I clutch at his shirt. Inside, I’m a mess of vibrations and buzzes, a swarm of need and steam that’s heating up.
“How long are you gonna last, superstar?” I don’t know where the teasing comes from, but I suspect it was in me all along. Eli brings it out.
“As long as I’m fucking pretty pussy,” he says, “I can go all night.”
“And how many pretty pussies have you—”
He stops me from saying the rest with another breath-stealing kiss. I push my hips against him, running my fingernails down his muscular arms, the abrasive sound filling the room until he sucks off of my lower lip.
“Do you want my cock or do you want small talk?” he growls.
Like he needs an answer. I see the white of his feral smile in the bare light just before he turns me around so I face the mirror. As he lowers himself, he skims his hands down the backs of my thighs. I press my cheek against the smooth coolness of the glass, my humid breath fogging it.