“How was the game?” Kina asked, and I was glad about the change in subject. I explained to her about the game, how well we’d all played.
“Jacob was great,” Brian said. “He really played like a true Shark today.”
“Thanks, man,” I said to Brian.
“Yeah, great effort,” Hanson said. “Markus is full of shit, doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“What do you mean?” Kina asked Hanson.
I rolled my eyes. “Markus and some of the other players were going on about how my first preseason game hadn’t proved my worth because it was with a team of third stringers.” I shrugged. That was long gone. Markus hadn’t even played with the team tonight, and I’d been on the field all the way through. And we’d won. He could suck it.
“What is his problem?” Kina asked, looking at Hanson and Brian.
The two guys looked at each other and shrugged.
“There are rumors of a transfer,” Brian said. “He’s sour about that, but he’s just a bit of dick in general.”
“Yeah, we’ve never gotten along with him,” Hanson added.
Kina nodded and looked at me. “Well, whatever he does next, I’m sure we can handle it.”
Hanson grinned. “You never know which charity will help you out next.” He winked at me.
I shook my head, laughing. Hanson knew that I’d slept with Kina. I wasn’t sure if he’d told Brian—I hadn’t asked him not to—but I knew he would keep it a secret from everyone else. He also knew I hadn’t been talking about charities that night, that the only thing we’d been going over was each other.
Kina blushed. She knew that the boys knew, I guess assuming men always talked to each other about things like this. She didn’t seem to mind too much if they did know. When she glanced at me, her eyes were hungry. I knew what she was thinking. I wanted it, too. I was thinking the same thing.
That dress was beautiful on her, but it would look so much better on the floor of my hotel room.
Chapter 23 – Kina
I had too much wine. I wasn’t very good with alcohol as a rule. I was classified as a cheap date because it took almost no effort to get me drunk. Apart from the very occasional nights out that I had with Lacey, I barely touched alcohol.
Which meant that after my third glass of wine at Edge, I was feeling very well lubricated. I felt like my veins were filled with bubbles, my head was light and airy, and Jacob was attractive to me in every way. And I had forgotten why it was a bad idea to be with him. That should have been enough to let me know I’d had too much.
Jacob kept touching me at dinner. Whether he touched my arm because he was laughing at a joke, touching my shoulder to draw attention, or sneaking touches underneath the tablecloth, Jacob was very aware of my body and how close I sat to him.
And I was aware of it, too. He’d put on cologne, a new scent I hadn’t smelled on him before, and it was more intoxicating than the wine in my system. It made me want him. I was aware of my body, the thin material of the dress like a second skin against my body, how low my neckline dipped, how high the slit ran.
I wanted Jacob, and I wanted him, now.
When dinner was finally over, Jacob held his arm for me. I was grateful. My balance was questionable on my heels with the alcohol in my system, and I wanted the excuse to touch him. We hugged the others, saying our goodbyes before the four of them went out. They wanted to party.
“Can I walk you to your room?” Jacob asked.
I nodded. “Such a gentleman,” I said.
“A lady like you deserves an escort.”
I smiled, and we walked to the elevator. My room was on the fifth floor. We were alone in the elevator, and the atmosphere was charged. I wanted to get Jacob out of his clothes. I wanted him to touch me. The skin on my breasts, between my legs, ached for touch. I wanted him to put his hands on me, to kiss me everywhere.
The door slid open on the fifth floor, and I held onto Jacob again. We walked to my door.
“I’m so glad you came,” Jacob said.
I smiled. “Like I said, I had to keep you out of trouble.”
Jacob smiled. “Or get me in trouble.” His eyes trailed to my lips, and it made me look at his lips, too.
I was the one who closed the distance between us, kissing him. I fiddled with the door, getting it open, and I pulled Jacob inside with me. I wasn’t usually this forward, but I’d had wine, and I wanted him. I couldn’t help it.
Jacob didn’t fight me on it, either. He went with me, pushing me up against the door as soon as it swung shut. He pinned me with his body, and I could feel his erection, how eager he was to have me. He felt the same as I did, apparently.
“You’re so hot,” Jacob mumbled between kisses. “Your dress is fantastic.”
As he said it, he tugged at it, trying to get it off me. I reached for the zipper at the side and pulled it down, helping Jacob. Men never understood clothing. There was a reason they resorted to ripping. I didn’t have the patience tonight to wait for Jacob to figure it out.
With my dress half open, he could do the rest, and he helped me out of my dress. He dropped it on the floor to the side, and I stood in front of him in white lace underwear, a bra and panties to match. Jacob stopped kissing me and leaned back a little to take in the sight of me.
“Fuck, Kina,” he said.
I smiled at him. His hands went to my breasts like they were magnets, and he squeezed them, rubbing his thumbs over my nipples. I gasped and reached behind me to undo my bra.
It joined my dress on the floor. Jacob dipped his head and took my nipple into his mouth. He sucked on me, licking, nibbling. I ran my fingers through his short, blond hair, his head moving under my hands. One of his hands moved down between my legs, and he rubbed my pussy through the material. The friction of the material, rougher than his fingertips on my clit, had me gasping and moaning.
Jacob kissed me again. I peeled the blazer from his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. I unbuttoned his shirt while he groped my body and undid his buckle. He unzipped his pants himself and pulled them down, kicking off his shoes.
His cock was hard in his jocks, straining against the material toward me.
When he pushed up against me again, the thin material of his underwear and the lace of mine were the only things keeping us from each other.
Jacob led me to my bed. He laid me down on my back and pulled down his own jocks before he pulled down my panties. We were naked together. I was wet, eager to have him inside of me, and he didn’t waste time with more foreplay. We didn’t need it.
Jacob crawled over me onto the bed, and my thighs fell open for him. He put on a condom and then pushed his dick into me, and it was thick and smooth, splitting me open until my body accommodated him.
When he was inside of me, he looked me in the eyes and shivered. I wrapped my legs around his thighs, and he started moving back and forth, rocking against me. His cock pushed deep inside of me, pushing in all the right places. The wine had loosened me up, brought me to a place where I could let go of all control.
“That’s it,” Jacob said, as he pulled me into a doggy style position on the bed. “That’s how I want you to be.”
I enjoyed how he dominated me, making it so that his wish was my command. He entered me from behind with his huge cock, while spanking my ass where he could see it nice and up close.
“You’re so bad, yet you’re so good to me,” he said, squeezing and spanking me as I groaned.
Jacob fucked me harder and harder, pumping into me, and in no time at all, I orgasmed. I knew he could hold out. He would fuck me for a long time, changing positions, doing me from every angle, making me orgasm a few more times before he finally let go himself.
By the time we were done, it was in the early hours of the morning.
“Stay?” I asked.
Jacob shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, with the paparazzi and all.”
I nodded. He was making sense. I watched h
im as he looked for his clothes, getting dressed again.
“I’ll talk to you soon, sweetheart,” he said.
I nodded. He slipped out of the door, closing it quietly behind him.
I cuddled back onto the pillows, my body spent, the feeling from Jacob between my legs throbbing with a delicious ache, a reminder that what we’d done would last a while. What was I doing?
I pushed the question away. I could worry about that tomorrow. Right now, sleep sounded more than enticing, and I closed my eyes, letting the darkness drag me under.
I woke up to my phone ringing with a shrill sound that bore into my temples. I groaned and reached for it on the nightstand. When I couldn’t find it, groping the smooth surface for a moment, I realized it was on the floor close to the bathroom door.
When I got out of bed my head ached dully and I cursed under my breath. A hangover? I couldn’t remember when I’d had enough to drink for one of those.
I pressed the talk button to silence the damn thing and held the phone against my ear.
“You might want to check the tabloids,” Lacey said in a serious voice.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“You.”
I didn’t know what she was saying.
“Let me get back to you,” I said and hung up.
What the hell was she talking about? When I looked at the screen, the notifications for the tabloids I’d followed were on the screen. I hadn’t heard them while I’d been asleep. I opened the first one, and my heart stopped.
They were photos of me and Jacob kissing in front of my door. There was another of him sneaking out of my room, his shirt still undone shoes in hand. Dammit, there were cameras in these corridors, and someone had leaked it to the press.
Which meant that the whole world knew now that Jacob and I were fucking. And I’d been so damned proud of him for coming up with a strategy to stop the world from finding out.
Shit.
I’d messed it all up, now.
I dialed Jacob’s number. He answered on the first ring.
“I saw,” he said grimly. “This is bullshit. Fuck fame.”
“Calm down,” I said. “I’m sure we can work this out.” But not even I believed the words I spoke. We were in trouble now. And Jacob knew it. I knew it. We couldn’t exactly paint this in a different light. Not with us sucking face in front of my door and not with his shirt unbuttoned and his shoes off. What were we going to say? That we were discussing strategies? Yeah, strategies about how to get him into my panties would be the only answer.
I sat down on the bed and dropped my head into my hand.
“Can we meet?” Jacob asked. “In private, because now they’ll all be jumping to conclusions if they see us together.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “Where?”
“I’ll find somewhere and send you a location.
He hung up. I walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. When I looked in the mirror, last night’s makeup was smudged around my eyes and my hair was a mess. Great.
When I arrived at the place Jacob had sent me the location for, it was a diner that looked like it had survived from the sixties. Neon lighting above the entrance told me I was at the Moonlight Diner, and when I walked in, blue stools at a retro counter with black and white checkered floors looked like something straight out of Back to the Future.
Jacob sat in a corner, wearing a hood. He was easily noticeable because he looked so damn suspicious. I walked to him and sat down.
“How are you?” I asked.
Jacob shook his head. “I should be asking you the same question. My reputation was already questionable, but yours … it’s all down the drain now.”
I sighed. “I’m trying not to think about it too much. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob said. “Whatever it is, though, we have to do it soon. It’s both our careers. The only plus point is that it’s got nothing to do with aggression or violence, so looking at it that way, it’s not as bad as it could have been for me. But it’s still bad.”
I nodded. It wasn’t good at all. And he was caught sleeping with his PR manager. It brought everything I did into question, everything I had done so far to help his image. If it was that easy to get into my pants, everyone would believe that I did what I did as a sexual favor and not because it was my job or because I believed in my client.
Dammit, why was sex so complicated? I’d slept with Jacob because I liked it, because he was a nice person and he made me feel good about myself. Now, the world would add all sorts of meanings to it that had nothing to do with anything, and no one would ask me what I was really about.
But that was the point, wasn’t it? It was why my job existed in the first place. And now? I needed a PR manager to sort myself out, too. And I was fresh out of options.
Chapter 24 – Jacob
It was time to go home. After all the shit with the press and what had surfaced with me and Kina, I’d had another game. The game had gone just as well as the one on Friday. Even though there were rumors about me doing the rounds, something I was getting used to with all the so-called scandal in my life, the team was still on my side a lot more than I’d expected.
Brian and Hanson were sympathetic about what had happened because they’d both been there. The team hadn’t pushed me away.
I was glad to go home, though. The rumors and stories wouldn’t disappear, of course, but being in the comfort in my own home when everything was up in the air seemed so much easier than being in the hotel.
On Monday, I made my way to Nova Southeastern University where the Florida Sharks trained. I parked in a parking bay and walked inside, getting a mineral water from the cafeteria before heading to the gym.
In the gym, I got onto the treadmill and started running. I had a lot of frustration to run away from, and I needed the outlet. With my career being all about the shape I was in, I couldn’t exactly drink myself into a stupor to forget about my problems.
So, I pushed the treadmill hard, my legs eating up the virtual distance. I kept going until my thighs screamed at me, and I could barely breathe around the burn in my lungs.
When I finally stopped running, the tension wasn’t exactly gone, but I couldn’t do more.
“That’s impressive,” someone said behind me, and I turned to see my coach leaning against the wall next to the door. “I knew your fitness was back on par, but that was a long ass haul.”
I got off the treadmill, downed the bottle of water and found a towel to mop up the sweat on my face and neck. Coach Rudi walked toward me.
“You’re doing well, son,” he said. “I was impressed by your games this weekend. The Stallions played hard, but you guys played harder, and I saw how much you added to the team.”
“Thanks, Coach,” I said. I had braced myself for a lecture and here he was, paying me compliments.
“You keep up the good work, and I foresee a great season ahead for the Sharks.”
I nodded. Coach clapped me on the back before he turned to walk away. He stopped halfway to the door and looked over his shoulder.
“It would be nice if you could get your scandals under control, though. I swear, I have the team with the most drama in this damn league.” He shook his head. “And evidently the good looking men in all of professional football, because, I’ll be damned, it’s always about my players and women.” He looked at me. “Try to contain it.”
I nodded, feeling like an idiot. “Yes, Coach.”
He nodded once at me and turned around, walking away. If I hadn’t been in the middle of a scandal of my own, I would have chuckled at what the coach had said. It was true, there were always rumors about one of the Sharks’ players and a woman. Maybe he was right. Maybe we were all smoking hot. Or we were just idiots.
The jury was still out on that one.
I showered and got dressed before I tried to phone Kina. I wanted to talk to her, see if she was doing okay. I had no idea what the repercuss
ions were for her, if she was coping with the backlash at all. Her reputation was a whole different story than mine.
When the call rolled over to her voicemail, I tried again. The second time, I gave up. I was starting to worry about her. I doubted she would just stop talking to me. We were in this together after all, but it was at the back of my mind. I was overreacting, I told myself, but she wasn’t taking my calls.
Or maybe she was just busy, I told myself.
My phone rang and I grabbed it, answering straight away.
“Kina?”
“Yeah, I know that’s what you’re all about,” a male voice said in a bitter tone.
“What? Who is this?” I asked. I hadn’t recognized the number.
“It’s Kyle.”
My stomach turned. I had no reason to have a reaction when he phoned me, but there it was. I hadn’t expected a call from him, and I felt unprepared.
Holy shit.
It was time to talk to my ex best friend.
Chapter 25 – Jacob
“How are you doing?” I asked.
If all else fails, make polite conversation, I figured.
“My sister is fucking the guy who stole my hopes and dreams, and the whole world knows about it. You tell me.”
I shook my head. “Look, Kyle, I get that this looks wrong. It’s not like we planned for it to come out the way it did.”
“Of course not, but it did,” he said. He sounded pissed off.
“And what Kina and I do isn’t any of your business.”
“Well, it’s my business, now. It’s everyone’s business now that you’re on national news. But that’s your style, isn’t it? The whole world knows it whenever you’re doing something. This isn’t the first time you’re in the news, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last.”
I sighed. I hated it when people referred to the fight and the assault charge that resulted from it.
“So, you’re going to leave Kina alone, now.”
I was getting angry. If Kyle wanted to nail me with my past, that was one thing. But he wasn’t going to tell me what to do.
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