She brought it, putting it in the middle of the table.
I reached for it the same time Jacob did, and our hands touched in the middle. I looked up at Jacob, and his eyes found mine. A current ran from his hand to mine, and I swore he could feel it, too. My breath hitched in my throat and something passed between us, something almost palpable.
I swallowed. “It’s a business meeting. I’ll pay.”
He hesitated before he let go. I didn’t know if he hesitated because he was reluctant to let me pay, or if he didn’t want to let go of my hand. I hoped it was the latter and scolded myself for it almost right away. I was looking for trouble even thinking about him this way.
“Okay,” he mumbled. “But if this was a date, I would insist on paying.”
“Good thing it’s not a date then,” I told him. “I mean, for that reason, anyway.”
“Uh huh.”
He looked at me with a half grin, half thoughtful expression on his face. It was clear he didn’t want to say anything more, and neither did I.
Jacob was a client. Not only that, but he was one of the most famous clients our company has ever had. I couldn’t think of him as someone I would be interested in.
Plus, right now no one had found out about us, and it was likely no one ever would. If I did something else with him and it all came out, God, I could just imagine the bad publicity. And the poor man didn’t need any more of that. He was pretty torn up over what they were saying about him already. I could tell.
He was the kind of man who would pretend like everything was fine, but things got to him.
I didn’t know him all that well when he’d been friends with Kyle, because they were both always doing their own thing and rarely wanted me around. But it wasn’t hard to see that side of him now.
The waitress came back to our table with a card machine, and I swiped my card to pay for our meal. When that was done, Jacob got up. I got up, too, and took a deep breath.
“You can smell the sea,” I said when my lungs filled with the tangy, salty air that was so strong this close to the beach.
Jacob nodded. “I haven’t even been to the beach since I’ve been back.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
He shrugged and nodded, looking a little embarrassed about it. “I’ve had my hands full. You know, training and bad publicity and all that. It’s a full-time job.”
I chuckled. He was good at making light of a serious subject. It was good to know, to see how he handled things.
“I can’t believe you haven’t been,” I said. “You must be dying of withdrawal.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been in Texas for a good five years,” he said. “You get used to not being close to the ocean.”
I shook my head. “I can’t imagine being away from the ocean. I think I might die.”
Suddenly, he jerked his head up, as if a thought occurred to him that he couldn’t ignore. “We should go to the beach.”
I frowned at him.
“Now?”
He nodded, a devilish grin on his face.
Oh, how I wanted to agree. But I shouldn’t. Should I?
Stalling, I glanced at the time on my phone and then outside.
“It’s after nine. It’s dark already.”
“The ocean doesn’t go away when the sun sets.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but I was smiling.
“Okay,” I said. “Why not?”
“Why not indeed?” he said a bit sarcastically, but he was smiling, obviously happy that the night wasn’t over yet.
And so was I.
I couldn’t seem to resist this guy.
Chapter 10 – Kina
We left the BurgerFi and made our way down Collins Avenue, down Sixty-ninth Street, and then onto the walkway from where various little paths led to the beach. During the day, the beach was full of life, but at night, it was empty and quiet except for the constant rush of the ocean as the waves collapsed on the sand again and again.
We stopped just before we stepped onto the sand and removed our shoes. I held onto Jacob’s arm while I lifted one foot and then the other to get rid of my wedges.
His hard bicep was strong and muscular under my hand. I tried not to notice. I couldn’t help myself. I knew the tattoo that was on it, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was about to see it again. I just knew it, despite also knowing that I shouldn’t.
The sand was cold beneath my bare feet when we stepped onto the beach, our shoes in hand. We walked along the shore. The sound of the waves breaking was soothing, and the wind tugged at my hair and my dress. It wasn’t cold. Jacob walked close enough to me that I could feel his body heat radiate off him despite the wind, and we were silent for a while.
“I’ve forgotten how great it is to be out here,” he said after a while. “You carry on with life, and you don’t pay too much attention to it, but to be back … it’s really great.”
I nodded. I couldn’t imagine living somewhere far away from the ocean. I loved water, and I loved living somewhere I could be close to it every day.
We stopped walking. Trees grew along this side of the beach, blocking us from view of the houses on the other side of the walkways. Jacob sat down, and I sat down next to him. The wind wasn’t as strong there, so the sand wouldn’t kick up into our faces. The moon was somewhere behind us, and we sat in the dark shadows of the trees.
I was aware of how close Jacob was, of how warm his skin had been when he’d touched me at the restaurant and when I’d held onto his arm. Everything about him was strong and masculine. He screamed alpha male, and what woman didn’t fawn over that?
I turned my head toward him. His face was shrouded in darkness so I could only trace the outlines of his features, but it was as if he was a magnet and I was drawn to him. I had the sudden urge to kiss him. I tried to fight it—I had to.
Jacob must have been thinking the same thing and decided not to fight it the way that I was. He leaned into me and pressed his lips against mine without ceremony. Electricity leaped between us. My lips parted, allowing him to slip his tongue into my mouth. I turned a little more toward him, flung my arms around his neck. Our kissing was intense almost immediately.
He pulled me against him. I was aware how strong he was, his muscles rippling beneath his shirt. My body responding to him, to his body. He leaned back onto the sand, propping himself up on one elbow.
“Here,” I said and I shrugged out of my jacket.
It was a little chilly without it, but I would survive. I bunched it up and put it behind his head like a pillow so that he could lie back without getting sand in his hair and his ears. When he was on his back, I rolled onto him. My body was pressed against his. I could feel his erection pressing against my crotch, and I knew he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
This was wrong, a little voice screamed at the back of my mind, but the wind and the wave were loud, Jacob’s scent of cologne and something manly drowned it out until it was just the two of us and this incredible feeling of attraction I just couldn’t shake.
His hand moved onto my breast. He was careful as if he wasn’t sure, but I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to take me. I didn’t often do things like this. I didn’t have time for a relationship, but casual sex wasn’t my game either. This was different, though. I wanted him inside me.
I encouraged him by grinding my hips against his. I felt his erection again, and I shuddered. He didn’t make me tell him twice.
His other hand moved to my other breast, and he kneaded and massaged them through the dress I was wearing. He pushed his hands into the V-neckline and found the soft skin of my breasts. He squeezed me, pushing his fingers into my bra. He lightly pinched my nipple and I gasped into his mouth.
“I couldn’t wait to be with you again,” he said.
I couldn’t wait either, but for some reason it was hard to tell him that now, so I said nothing. Last time we were together, I had completely let myself go, since I thought I’d never see him ag
ain. This time, it was harder to let my guard down, even though part of me wanted to.
I was wet. I could feel it in my panties. Something about Jacob made me not want to stop. We were in public. I’d probably had too much wine. But I wanted to do this, to go all the way with him again.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” he said, lightly striking my ass through my dress, with his bare hand.
Yes.
That was what I needed, without even knowing it. Just like last time. Maybe I hadn’t said anything because I knew he would punish me. A thrill ran through me at the excitement of it. I hadn’t ever had anyone spank me before he did, and I loved it.
“I wanted this again too,” I told him, my words pouring out of my mouth now like my juices were flowing out of my pussy for him. I didn’t seem capable of holding back when I was with him. “I couldn’t wait to feel your cock in me.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jacob said. “That’s a good girl.”
He stroked my ass cheeks now through my dress, rubbing them, squeezing them. I wished we could be naked together.
I sat up, straddling his hips. He is eyes were deep and dark when he looked up at me, and I guess that if it were light, his eyes would be the same color as the ocean. But we were wrapped in darkness, hidden from reality.
I fiddled with his buckle, undoing his pants. I reached in and pulled his thick flesh out. He was hard and smooth, all at the same time. Silk over steel. I wrapped my fingers around him and pumped my hand up and down a few times.
Jacob gasped. His hands were on my ass, moving down, finding the hem of my dress. I lifted myself up and his fingers found their way under my skirt. He touched my pussy, and I gasped.
“You’re so wet,” he said in a hoarse whisper, probing at my clit through the damp material. I nodded and kissed him, my hand still on his cock, slowly stroking him. He kept a tight hold on my clit, grabbing it, squeezing it, as if it belonged to him. And it dripped for him, wanting to belong to him. Even if my mind said wait, my body seemed to have other plans in mind, and its ways of showing it were outside of my control.
He pulled my panties to the side and pushed a finger into me. I gasped, and he groaned, all at the same time. We didn’t have time for foreplay, and I didn’t have the patience. He did put on a condom, while I waited as patiently as possible.
I lowered myself onto him, his cock pushing into me, and I moaned. I let go of him, he moved his hand away from his panties, and then, he was buried inside me. I moved around a little, getting used to the feel of him. I didn’t usually do this, any of this. I didn’t fuck guys in bathroom stalls or outside.
But it was different with him. Everything was different. It felt … right.
He stopped thinking and moved my hips. I started riding him. We were perfectly hidden in the shadows on the beach, my dress hiding whatever we were doing, and the waves drowned out the sounds of our gasping and groaning as I rocked him back and forth inside me, stroking him with my walls, sliding up and down his cock.
I rode him harder and harder. My clit rubbed against his pubic bone through the material of my panties. An orgasm built quicker than I’d ever had before. My body went numb, my moans became louder, and I pressed my mouth against his shoulder to muffle the sound, lipstick to hell.
Jacob’s hands were on my hips, and he helped me by rocking me back and forth harder and faster. I orgasmed, crying out once before I stopped breathing and my muscles contracted, clamping down on him.
A moment later, I was breathing hard. I was still curled around Jacob’s body. He held onto my hips and shoved himself deep inside me, releasing his own load. He came, jerking and spasming, breathing just as hard and erratic in my ear.
It had barely been ten minutes, but in that very short time, I’d had what had to be the best sex of my life.
My phone started ringing.
“Oh, God,” I said.
I slowly lifted and Jacob slid out of me. I swallowed hard and reached under my skirt, pulling my panties back into place. I clambered off Jacob and found my handbag with my phone, while he took off the condom.
“It’s Kyle,” I said, finding the phone. “Yes?” I answered.
“I’m being evicted,” he said without saying hello. I closed my eyes and dropped my head into my hand.
“Kyle, what the hell?”
“Just help me?” he asked, and he sounded like a lost little boy, the way he used to sound when he came to me to chase away the nightmares instead of our mother.
I sighed. “I’m coming.”
“What was that?” Jacob asked when I hung up.
He had fixed his pants and aside from the delicious echo of our sex between my legs, there was no evidence that we’d done anything.
“He’s being evicted,” I said.
Jacob raised his eyebrows. “He needs you.” A statement, not a question. “Let me come with you. I can help.”
I thought about it for a second before shaking my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Jacob nodded. “You’re probably right.”
After all, Jacob was the reason Kyle was in such a state in the first place.
What the hell was I doing fucking my twin brother’s enemy?
Was it some sort of resentment I was acting out, to get back at him? No, I didn’t think so. It was the undeniable attraction and raw lust that pulled me towards Jacob these last two times, and which will probably keep pulling me towards him again, no matter what I try to tell myself.
Chapter 11 – Jacob
The following Thursday, I played the first preseason game of the year. It wasn’t with the team I’d been training with but rather with second and third stringers, but this was where I was supposed to prove myself. I was aware of the pressures.
I was fitter than I thought I would be after my break from the game. Football is a lot of short bursts of running followed by a lot of standing around, and I made it through without barely even getting winded.
Sure, my lungs burned the way they did in training, and I had a feeling I needed to put in a lot more time on the treadmill, but I was getting there. I was a fucking beast compared to some of the more seasoned men on the team who took their status for granted and eased off on their training.
I was different, always working out in the gym with Brian and Hanson and others who were diehard athletes. It was great to know my hard work was paying off, at least.
The other great thing was that the rest of the guys I played with were all just as eager to prove themselves as I was. They had no reason to do me in, in any way, and I could play without worrying that any of them would want to make me look bad. There was comfort in knowing I could prove myself without any of the extras.
Coach Rudi and the whole damn Sharks first stringers were watching. I had a lot to prove.
By the end of the game, I felt like I had done exactly that. I had played this game, left my heart out on that field. Not only had we won, but I had proven to myself that I still had what it took. And that was a great thing to know.
After the game, I walked to the locker room to shower and get dressed. I was pulling on my tracksuit pants and shirt when the rest of the team came into the locker room to talk to everyone who’d played.
There was a lot of congratulating going around, with some of the other team members talking to the second and thirds I’d been playing with.
A few of my own teammates stood off to one corner, bitching like little girls.
“There’s not much to prove when Lawson is playing with the second and third stringers,” Markus said. “How do we know he’s good enough? Keeping up with them is child’s play.”
“The system is rigged,” another player said. Markus had followers, and it made him arrogant, encouraging him to be an ass.
“I’m telling you, this is bullshit. Before you know it, we’ll have to play with guys straight out of school.”
The high of the game started wearing off, replaced by a horrible sinking feel
ing in my gut. It didn’t matter how well I played, did it? These guys would never accept me. I’d given it my all today, and it had meant nothing. Those fuckers were going to be against me no matter what.
I glanced at the other players. Coach Rudi was chatting to them, and I wondered for a moment if I would be replaced. But I shook it off.
They traded someone for me for a reason, I told myself. We had a contract. Kina wouldn’t have been assigned as my PR manager if they didn’t plan on using me for the Sharks. If my image mattered to them, I mattered to them.
“Football is nothing more than politics and entertainment these days,” Markus said. “If you can create drama, you get publicity.”
He looked at me as he said it. Was he talking about the assault? If he thought that had been all about drama, he knew nothing about me and nothing about the case.
God, I wanted to hit this asshole square in the face. He was one of those guys who deserved a good beating just so that he would stop running his mouth.
Of course, that would just get me right back where I’d started. There was a reason they’d wanted me to sign a clause about violence. Maybe Coach had known Markus would rub me the wrong way, and he’d planned to stop bloodshed from happening.
“You shouldn’t listen to him, you know,” Brian said, coming to stand next to me. It seemed like he was looking out for me. Big of him. “He’s just being a dick. He tries to get into everyone’s heads.”
“Is that how it works in this team?” I asked.
Brian shook his head. “No, but there will always be people who try to get you down. Surely, you know this by now.”
I nodded. I did know that. Once upon a time, it had been Kyle, my former best friend, who had started making me believe I was doing the wrong thing for going after my dream because he never got a shot at his own. That’s when he had become my former best friend. There had been people trying to get in my way for a long time.
This time, it was rubbing me up the wrong way because I had so much of a history to begin with. And because I hated that I was thinking about Kyle. I had left that in the past, until his twin sister showed up to remind me of his existence. I was already in a bad place, and I didn’t need things to get worse for me.
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