by Jamie Knight
Sometime in between my glances on the way down and then back up her body, she must have finally decided to look in my direction.
“Elias!” she says, sounding shocked.
She clears her throat, as if trying to indicate that she’s busy.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you just yet.”
Clearly, I want to say.
That was supposed to be the whole point. And I can’t help but feel a bit insulted. She’s the one who wanted to question me, and I told her I’d give her the first opportunity and yet now she doesn’t want me around?
But I decide not to be deterred.
“What can I help you with?” she asks me.
“With this,” I say, pulling her close to me and giving her a kiss on the lips.
Luckily, she kisses me back, just a bit, at first, and then a bit harder, giving into my tongue in between her lips and even sucking back a little, but with enough push and pull to let me know she’s conflicted.
She doesn’t think we should be doing this, but she likes it, I conclude.
I can work with that.
In fact, I feel pretty much the exact same way.
Suddenly, though, she pulls away, and looks like she wants to slap me, but thinks better of it.
“Elias. That’s not acceptable.”
“But it’s fun, right?” I tease.
“Hey. Seriously,” she insists.
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it, or at least meaning it for right now.
If she had let the kiss linger longer, I wouldn’t be sorry for it at all. In fact, I have every intention of trying again. I’ve never had a woman occupy my brain, my heart, my cock to this extent.
Even though we only had our first encounter yesterday, and even though it was under less than ideal circumstances, to say the least, I’m determined to keep pursuing her.
Until I make her mine.
Chapter 6
Elias
“That’s okay,” Stacy says, quickly accepting my apology.
“I forgot you were just… traumatized by that asshole,” I tell her, suddenly feeling actually very sorry as I realize that it might be kind of scary for her to have a guy walk into her space after what happened to her yesterday.
“You think that’s the only reason I wouldn’t want to kiss you?” she asks, her pretty, dark brown eyebrows scrunching together in annoyance.
“No, I didn’t mean that,” I quickly tell her, even though I guess I did.
I just don’t know how to win with her. And I’m used to winning in everything I do. To me, though, it just means I need to keep trying.
“Look, you and I… this could never work out,” she says.
“Don’t be so sure about that,” I tell her. “Stranger things have happened. Look at Marvin and Olivia. At Bryan and Scout. At Jameson and Jenny.”
I’m rattling off all the same names she bought up yesterday as being overblown scandals, and also the names of their significant others that were involved in those alleged scandals with them, and all of whom are still happily together to this day, to get her to see that even when the whole world thinks you won’t work out, sometimes, you just do.
I’d say I’m doing a pretty good job of making an argument that could impress anyone. I might as well sign myself up for law school right now.
But she doesn’t seem to appreciate it.
She crinkles her nose together and shakes her head.
“Look, we’re not them,” she says. “I’m happy for them, and I’m glad it all worked out, but that kind of life isn’t for me. You might be want to be in the middle of all of this drama I’m always having to report about, but I just want…”
“A nice, calm, happy life?” I guess. I think of what the guys on the team say about her upbringing, her super clean-cut parents. “A white picket fence? A house, a dog, and 2.5 kids? I could make that happen.”
Fuck, look at me pulling out the big guns, I think.
This isn’t like me at all. I’m usually the one shying away from commitment, if not outright running from it while some woman tries her best to drag me into it. And here I am pitching every woman’s fantasy to this woman I’ve only just now kissed for our very first time. That’s how much I need to get into her pants. And, if I’m being honest with myself about exactly how honest I’m being with her right now, into her life.
“No,” she says, making a face that only be described as pure “cringe.” “I was going to say that I just want to be able to prepare for this interview and go out there and do my job without being distracted.”
Fuck.
I try to think fast on my feet, but I’m not used to being shot down like this.
“Of course,” I tell her. “But maybe afterwards you’ll be up for a celebration of your first big press conference interview?”
“I’m sorry,” she says, frowning as if she really is sorry that she’s stomping on my heart right in front of my face, while I have to stand here and pretend it doesn’t really bother me, because cocky sports athletes aren’t bothered by such things. “I’m just not interested. Not now, and not ever.”
This woman really knows how to break a man’s heart. I’m starting to see why they say she can be so stuck up. But somehow, it’s only just making me want her more.
Why the fuck does my cock want something my head knows it shouldn’t?
Is it possibly because my heart wants it, too?
Get out of here with those sappy thoughts, I tell myself.
“What was it that you wanted?” Stacy asks, walking over to the door and opening it again, as if to show me the way out.
Of course, I already know the way out. But the whole point behind it is just to add insult to injury, I suppose.
“Just that,” I tell her, shrugging and smirking and do my best to get in the last word. I make sure I’m all the way out of the room before I add the next part, because I know what’s coming next. “I just wanted to steal that kiss from you. And I’m happy to see you gave it to me so readily.”
Sure enough, she slams the door hard, and I barely have time to yank my hand off the door frame before it shuts.
Damn.
They say you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, to borrow from a different sport’s analogy. I tried to shoot that one out of the park, and but it was definitely more of a swing and a miss than a homerun.
Still, I thought, to cheer myself up and shoo away the barrage of bad sports metaphors that were clamoring around inside my head, at least I went out swinging.
I tried to think of the positives.
She had kissed me back.
She had said she didn’t want to be distracted, which implied that I had had an effect on her.
She had said she wasn’t interested, I reminded myself, which definitely took some wind out of my sails.
She had said that, I argued back, mentally.
But I don’t believe her.
She was lying.
She is interested, but she’s just trying to force herself not to be.
And I’m going to show her that there’s no use in trying to resist fate.
I’m going to claim her, and she’s going to be mine.
And that’s just the way it will be, as soon as she decides to accept it.
Chapter 7
Stacy
The whole time I’m pacing around the room trying to prepare for my interview and telling myself to calm down, focus, and relax, I’m still seething inside.
What a pompous asshole that Elias Turner is!
How dare he come to my prepping room and kiss me right when I’m trying to concentrate on something so vital to my career.
Doesn’t he know how much I’ve been wanting him to do that, and telling myself that I don’t really want him to do that?
How did he even know to find me here? I wonder.
Is he some kind of a stalker?
Dark possibilities flood through my mind.
Did he somehow stage the whole inci
dent in the locker room?
Was he my savior, or part of a plot to destroy me?
But to what end?
It would make no sense.
Just so that he could play the role of knight in shining armor, rescuing me from the bad guy?
I tell myself not to think that way. I know he wouldn’t really do that. He has a good reputation on the team, and is one of the few who are scandal-free. He’s just a nice guy who did a nice thing and now he wants to fuck me.
Is that such a bad thing? I ask myself.
I start to realize that maybe my mind has concocted these scenarios just to try to convince itself not to think of him in the way I have been ever since yesterday. The best adjectives I could use to sum up those thoughts are “yummy,” “delicious,” and “scrumptious.”
And now, he just did what I wanted him to do – he kissed me – and I had to go and get all bitchy towards him. All because I’m trying to focus on what I think I should focus on, rather than what I really want to.
I hate how my mom conditioned me to be this way.
But then again, I really should be focused on my job right now, instead of on that sexy, pompous asshole.
“Stacy, darling, how’s it coming along?”
My thoughts are interrupted when Monica pushes open the door and barges right in, in her no-nonsense style. Some people say my boss is a huge bitch, but I usually admire her forthrightness, how she grabs life by the horns and goes after what she wants.
Usually.
Right now, she’s not really the person I wanted to see. I haven’t told her that Elias said he’d answer my question first during the press conference. I wasn’t sure how to break that news to her without divulging how exactly it came to be.
In fact, I didn’t really want anyone to know the origin of how I had met Elias. When Elias had mentioned calling the cops, I hadn’t said no only because I had wanted to protect the Leviathans’ reputation and keep drama away from the team in the weeks leading up to the Superbowl. I had also wanted to protect my own reputation.
I feel naïve to have let what almost happened almost happen, but I also feel as if news of it getting out would make me look like an idiot and hurt my career.
What kind of reporter doesn’t know the team members?
It became quite obvious to me that he hadn’t been in the locker room with the rest of the team members. He had waited until they all left and then he came from somewhere else, only trying to make it look like he was in the locker room, which he couldn’t have been, or else the Leviathans would have recognized him as an intruder.
Unless maybe he had been hiding in a shower or something, I reasoned.
Still, none of it made any sense. He had had a key to the locker room, and a locker. He must be a friend or relative of someone on the team.
But then that would mean someone on the inside helped him get in, I think. And maybe we should tell Coach K so that he’s prepared, in case it happens again…
Stop it, I tell myself. Elias said he’d look into it and you agreed. No point in second guessing yourself now.
I’m still pretty shook up about the whole thing that happened, and I’m hoping that somehow Elias can find out who did it. Still, I don’t really want to announce it to the world.
For some reason, on top of this hang-up I have about feeling like it could ruin my career by exposing me as an idiot who didn’t know the team members I’m supposed to be covering, I feel a bit embarrassed about it. I know it wasn’t my fault, but I feel vulnerable since I was all alone and helpless, and had it not been for Elias…
Gee, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened. I don’t know what exactly that guy was there to do, but he obviously had nefarious purposes in mind.
“It’s coming along pretty well,” I tell Monica, reminding myself to snap back to reality.
“Pretty well” is one way to put it – mostly, a very dishonest way – but I have to seem as if everything is normal.
I always act like I’m going to get to ask a lot of questions, even though I usually don’t. So at least tonight is no different in that respect. In that sense, I’m just faking it ‘till I make it, like usual. There’s nothing to give away the fact that anything will happen out of the ordinary.
“Good, good,” she says, nodding her approval. “Because, you know, Kirsten Donnelly is here, and she’s been going around saying that she’s going to ask the first question that will be answered.”
“Is that so?”
Hmmm.
Kirsten is my archrival, who works at a different news outlet. I would like to be on friendly, professionally terms with her, but the feeling is not mutual.
She makes it quite obvious that she hates my guts. In fact, she would probably like to rip every, little, tiny, last one of them out of me and shred them all to pieces before stomping on them and burning them up.
You might think I’m being over-dramatic.
But that just shows that you haven’t met Kirsten.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” I tell Monica. “Because I have a feeling that that honor is going to belong to me.”
I know I sound just like her right now. Or at least I hope to, because her confident nature is one I try to project at all times. I grew up in a culture of shame and blame, so I didn’t learn much about self-esteem or how to assert myself.
In fact, pretty much everything I’ve learned has come from watching and imitating Monica. I just wish I could really feel the way I try to be.
I guess it’s something that just comes with time, little by little, because I do feel myself getting stronger for real, not just fake. But at other times, kind of like now, I have no other choice than to go with what I feel, which is a mixture of winging it and believing in it.
She arches her highbrows at me, in what I assume is a mixture of respect and doubt.
“You aim high, Stacy,” she says, with that note of approval in her voice that I’ve come to crave. “I like your goals.”
“Thanks, Monica,” I tell her, taking a deep breath.
Then, I know it’s time to face my fate.
“I think I’m ready to go out there now and show the world that I’m the sports reporter they never thought I could be.”
“Who never thought you could be that?” Monica asks, sounding genuinely confused.
Oops. Good point.
I guess, when I really think about it, it’s only been me who has thought that. Sure, my mother always said not to trust men but just to marry rich so that I could be a stay at home mom to kids, which, as she always liked to remind me, are the purpose of life. She probably didn’t aspire for me to be single at this age, let alone a sports reporter.
But I’ve always told myself not to listen to her, because her worldview is just kind of bonkers, if you ask me. It’s why I went to school to become a reporter and why I always tell myself to believe that I can do it. Yet here I am doubting myself, all this time later.
“Kirsten,” I quickly tell Monica, since I obviously don’t want to go into some poor-me diatribe about how hard it was to grow up privileged with helicopter parents who didn’t let me experience the real world. “Kirsten doesn’t think I can be a better reporter than she can. Or any kind of good reporter at all, I don’t think.”
“Well, you go out there and prove her wrong,” she says, smiling happily at me. “And do our news outlet proud.”
“I’ll do that, Monica,” I tell her, trying to swallow down the lump of nervousness that has appeared, to my annoyance, right in the middle of my throat, at the worst time possible.
If you only knew how well I’m about to do that. Or, at least that I hope I can do that.
Chapter 8
Stacy
It’s time.
The press conference has started and now’s my moment.
Elias is up on the platform and cameras are flashing everywhere. People are all around – including Kirsten, who is right beside me, shouting out questions and flailing her
arms all about so much that they’re hitting me in the face, no doubt on purpose – but I’m keeping my cool, and Elias is looking right at me from where he’s standing on the podium.
“Elias! Elias!” Kirsten is screeching.
She’s looking over at Monica, who is standing on the other side of me, and smiling smugly, as if she’s got this in the bag and she wants Monica to know it. She’s always been trying to compete with me and take my job away; she wants to work for Monica instead of at her low-level sports rag.
She’s an attractive woman and her boobs are bouncing around as she jumps up and down and I can tell she thinks she’s going to get Elias’ attention that way, and be the first to ask a question.
“You. Yes, you, right there,” Elias says, pointing in our direction.
“Me?” Kirsten nearly yells, batting her eyelashes and putting her hand on her chest as if she’s so surprised and flattered, even though it’s so obvious it’s all fake, since she clearly thought she was going to be chosen all along.
“No,” Elias answers, looking annoyed. “You.”
He’s pointing right at me.
Me.
I knew it was going to happen, but I still feel shocked. Monica grabs my lower arm and squeezes it. It’s the most physical gesture I’ve ever received from her; she is not the hugging or touchy feely type.
I think it was based on pure instinct and shock, because she quickly retracts her hand and stands up straight beside me, looking ahead at Elias instead of how she had been, which was a bit slack-jawed while she stared at me in amazement and happiness, as if she hadn’t just touched me, or as if I’m supposed to forget that she had.
That will be easy to do, since my focus lies entirely on Elias.
“Ms. Allen, I believe your name is?”
He says it questionably, but with almost a half-wink, and I’m afraid our entire short but crazy history is going to be revealed by that one small gesture. But I know I’m just being paranoid.
“Yes, Mr. Turner,” I tell him, wanting to clear my throat but thinking that now is not the time. “I do have a question for you.”