King of the Court

by Melanie Munton

  “Wow,” he said breathlessly. “That was…”

  “Intense.” That was the best word for it.

  “Insanely intense,” he corrected. “I’ve never… It’s never been that way for me before. And I swear I’m not just saying that.”

  I believed him. I ran my fingers through his hair. “I know. Same for me.”

  “I should probably get off before I crush your tiny body.” He carefully pulled out and rolled off me.

  I looked at him, flabbergasted. “I am not tiny. Have you seen my ass?”

  As if to make a point, he pushed me over slightly and smacked me on the butt. “Sweetheart, your ass is one of your best features. And yes, you are tiny. Small bone structure, thin wrists, angled hipbones. I love that you’re this tiny, yet aren’t afraid to take on guys more than double your size. That mouth of yours was one of the things that first attracted me to you.”

  Masking how deeply that affected me, I smiled and ran my hand down his egg carton abs. “Eh, not going to lie. Mine was the six-pack.”

  He let out a mock sigh. “I knew it. You were just after my cock the whole time. I should have seen this coming.”

  After he disposed of the condom he climbed back into bed and spooned against me. I glanced at my phone and saw that it was six forty-five, so we had a little time to kill before we both had to get up and around for our morning classes. We’d see each other again at the afternoon practice, but that already seemed so far away.

  I reversed my position so our fronts were pressed together. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yes, you can keep the shrine up,” he quipped. “You might need something to look at when you’re getting yourself off to the memory of what we just did here.”

  I punched his side, making him belt out a laugh. “No, you idiot. Although that tool you’re packing does deserve special recognition.”

  His brow rose as if to say I told you so. “That’s what I’ve been saying for years.”

  I propped my head in my hand. “No, I wanted to ask you about your beef with Trey.” His body stilled, the smile disappearing from his face. “What happened between you two?”

  He seemed reluctant but he eventually gave in. “I guess it’s only fair for me to tell you since you opened up last night, which I know wasn’t easy for you.” My confession from last night must have echoed in his mind because he spat, “That prick.”

  I waited as he rolled onto his back, adjusting the pillows behind his head.

  “It started with our fathers, I guess,” he began. “This was when we all lived up in Rockwood.” I knew Cam wasn’t originally from here. Rockwood was a town about seventy miles north of Calhoun. “Kent Warren was my dad’s investment banker for years, and they ended up becoming good friends. Trey and I have known each other since we were in diapers, and we were best friends for a long time. Inseparable. We did everything together, including playing basketball. Our families were as close as could be for a while there.”

  I was finding it difficult to wrap my mind around that. “So, what happened?”

  His face hardened, his blue eyes swimming with memories. “According to my dad, Kent started making bad business decisions, and everything went downhill from there. Made some bad investments, lost a lot of money, even some of my parents’. My dad tried to help him by loaning him some money, but he wouldn’t learn from his mistakes and ended up losing that, too. Kent was always kind of a hard ass, but he got even worse once his money problems started. He started drinking a lot, bought shit he couldn’t afford, and even cheated on his wife.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  He nodded while his finger absently ran circles on my stomach. “Yeah, he was a bastard. After Trey’s mom divorced his dad and didn’t take Trey with her when she left, Trey started to change, too. I think he just gave up hope on things ever going back to normal. He was mad all the time and started hanging out with kids who were bad news. Of course, I tried to pull him out of his spiral but he only resented me more for it. He started saying stuff like, I had ‘the perfect family’, and what would I know about what he was going through?

  “He got worse and for a while I took his angry jabs on the chin, figuring he just needed to work through things. I thought he’d eventually come to his senses and we’d be best friends again.” He laughed bitterly. “I was so naïve back then. When my dad found out how deep Kent’s problems ran and that he was essentially committing fraud, he severed his business relationship with him, along with their friendship. Kent eventually went bankrupt, and they had to sell their house and move somewhere where his reputation didn’t follow him.”

  “Blue Lake.” Where I grew up.

  “Blue Lake,” he repeated. “I tried staying in touch with Trey for a while, but he’d become a completely different person. The first time our schools met when we both got on the basketball teams, it felt like I never really knew him at all. We’d always competed against each other when we were growing up, but it was in a friendly way, you know? Like, we made each other better by trying to one-up each other. But he’d taken that competition to a whole other level by that point. It didn’t help that Kent had always been hard on him, pushing him to always be better, convincing him he’d never be as good as me.”

  Disgust made my lip curl. “I’ll never understand parents like that.”

  His expression was almost sad now. “Me either. You could tell after his mom left, Trey was really getting the full force of his dad’s ire. I tried not to hold any of that against him… But then my dad was diagnosed with cancer.” He blew out a heavy breath. “Now, my family was going through something terrible and I never even thought of Trey never contacting me. I just assumed that after everything we’d been through, he would at least have had the decency to be there for me like I’d tried to be for him.”

  “And he wasn’t?”

  He shook his head. “We went through months and months of rounds of chemo and multiple hospital stays, and he never once even called me. And when my dad died, neither Trey nor Kent came to the funeral. That’s when I knew I’d really lost my friend. I decided at that point that if he wanted to hate me, well, then I’d hate him, too. Even when we saw each other after that, he never said anything about my dad. He was just a prick to me from then on. He even stole my girlfriend when I was in high school.”

  The spike of jealousy that surged through me at the mention of his ex was so irrational and absurd, I wanted to laugh at myself.

  “I mean, it wasn’t serious and I wasn’t in love with her or anything. But the fact that he only did it to try and hurt me just solidified our rivalry. We started having words in public when we played one another and pretty soon, everyone knew about how we detested each other. When we both became two of the top-ranked high school players in the country, the media picked up on the rivalry and it only evolved from there. I’ve never talked about how far back our family history goes and neither has Trey. We let people think what they want because frankly, I don’t care.”

  I rubbed his chest in an effort to comfort him. His muscles had tensed, his body no longer relaxed. “I’m so sorry, about all of it. I can’t imagine losing your best friend and your father all at the same time.”

  “You know the messed up part?” he asked, though I knew it was rhetorical. “I never did anything to him. He developed this hatred for me, but I never once wronged him. I assume Kent was filling his head with a lot of bullshit about my dad and that eventually transferred to me. I guess it’s pointless to think about how everything happened now. It’s just… I don’t know. It is what it is.”

  But it still hurts. I knew him well enough to know that part of the little boy inside him sometimes missed his old friend and probably thought about what if things had been different.

  “I’m sorry that I’ve made this worse for you.”

  His finger stilled on my stomach, and he slowly turned his head to me. “Made what worse for me?”

  “Everything with Trey. Me being in the picture has only m
ade things more complicated, and it’s distracting you. I mean, you almost got into a fight at the BelV game, and—”

  He put his fingers to my lips, hushing me. “Reese, stop. You haven’t made anything more complicated. The BelV game was me being a dumbass and not controlling my reactions. This is just another example of Trey being an asshole, but none of it is in any way your fault.”

  I tucked my face into the crook of his neck. “Still. I’m sorry for it.”

  He wrapped his arms around me. “Stop, sweetheart. There’s nothing to be sorry for, I promise. I’m sure as hell not sorry you joined this team. It’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

  My head shot up, revealing precisely how shocked I was to hear that admission. “Really?”

  He rolled his eyes. “If you think I’m like this with every girl I’ve ever been photographed with, you really do have a low opinion of me.”

  I poked his rib cage, drawing a chuckle from him. “I just like hearing it, that’s all.”

  “And what about you?”

  I glanced up at him, pursing my lips, as if I was considering my answer. “I guess you’re okay. You know, if you like that whole tall, blonde, and handsome thing.”

  With a growl, he rolled on top of me and pinned my arms to the mattress. It was a struggle to bite back my laughter.

  “And do you?” he grated out.

  I lifted my hips, making my intentions obvious. “Oh, yes, Your Highness. I worship at the king’s feet.”

  I expected to see a smile, not a frown. “You know, every king needs a queen.”

  My pulse jumped. “Is that so?”

  He tilted his head. “You want to be my queen, sweetheart?”

  That was his round-about way of asking me to be his girlfriend. Holy hell. My instinctual reaction was to scream out “yes!”, but then I remembered we’d still have to keep this a secret. Whether or not he called me his girlfriend in private, the rest of the world wouldn’t know about it.

  That didn’t diminish my excitement. I wouldn’t let it. I wasn’t going to make it too easy on him, though.

  “A lot of kings have mistresses,” I said pointedly.

  He understood what I was getting at. “Not this king, baby. Only one woman is allowed to ride the royal scepter, and that woman is you.”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Well, in that case, let’s continue with my coronation ceremony.”

  His grin was the last thing I saw before he lowered his head and drowned me in kisses. If we could have stayed there in that bed together forever, luxuriating in nothing but each other, I would have been blissfully happy. If only we could have stayed locked away.

  It was when the outside world got involved that things got messy.

  Because everyone else sucked.

  32

  Cam

  Reese: How’s class?

  I knew before I even looked at my phone who was texting me. And I had a huge ass grin on my face.

  Me: Professor Valium is at it again. I’m about to fall asleep here. You?

  Reese: I’m watching an elbow getting sliced open. So, overall, a good day. :)

  I smiled as I wrote down a few more notes in my Sports Law and Ethics class. Only Reese could get that reaction out of me while I was in this class. The professor’s voice really was like a tranquilizer to the face.

  Me: You’re sick. You wearing the sweater I told you to wear today?

  Reese: It’s your lucky day. I’m wearing that AND your favorite bra.

  I had to hold back my groan as an image of her in both items smacked me in the face. The sweater was this sexy V-cut number that showed off her fantastic cleavage and was nice and fitted everywhere else. And the bra she was talking about must have been the red push-up one that was covered with satin and lace and made her look like sin personified.

  Put both of those together?

  I was already popping a boner just thinking about it.

  Me: Are you TRYING to kill me, woman?

  Reese: I just like seeing you all worked up when I finally get you alone. ;)

  Oh, two could play at this game.

  Me: I’m not wearing any underwear.

  She’d revealed how hot she thought men going commando was—or more specifically, me going commando—and I’d been taking ruthless advantage of that little tidbit.

  Reese: Damn you.

  I chuckled under my breath. It’d been eight days since our first night together in her bedroom. Although the constant teasing and flirting over the phone hadn’t stopped since then, actually finding alone time together had been decidedly harder to accomplish. If it wasn’t classes or homework getting in the way, it was dinners with our parents or plans with friends. And we’d certainly tried for brief moments at practices and games, but there were always too many people milling around and interfering.

  Needless to say, I was horny as hell.

  But not for just any girl. For Reese.

  I was used to needing sex for a release. I had years of experience under my belt—ahem, pun intended—of relieving tension with a warm female body. But my need for Reese was not even in the same realm as what I’d taken from other girls in the past. I needed to feel the way she kissed me. I needed to feel her touch on my body, needed to hear her voice whisper in my ear. And by God, I needed to be inside her body because nothing in this world felt as good or as right as having her wrapped around me.

  It was like all of my sexual needs and desires had become totally centered on this one girl. This was completely new territory for me, and I was still learning how to navigate it. I didn’t want to concentrate too much on what the future held for us. I just wanted to enjoy what we were doing now and focus on finishing out the season. Figuring out things with Reese would happen in time.

  All I really knew was that I wanted her every damn second of the day.

  I wanted her now.

  ***

  Unfortunately, wanting her now wasn’t as easy as snapping my fingers and having Reese magically appear in front of me.

  We had a home game tonight, so the whole team had been quarantined in the gym for hours. Sneaking out to see Reese hadn’t been a simple task since everything we’d been doing, we’d been doing as a team. It would have been a little obvious if I’d been the only one missing for a suspicious twenty or so minutes.

  Hours after our sexty flirting, my body was beginning to itch.

  Have I mentioned it’d been over a week since we’d last had sex?

  A week of separation from her was like clamping my balls in a vice. Pure torture.

  Sure, we wouldn’t speak for days, even weeks at a time in the past. But everything was different now. I knew what it was like to be with her. What she tasted like, sounded like, felt like. The longer I went without being reminded of what it was like to hold her in my arms and know that she was mine made the vice squeeze tighter.

  At some point, without even realizing it, I’d forgotten all my worries about getting involved with her. My concern about not having enough time to devote to a relationship was now a mere after-thought. The fear of becoming too serious with someone didn’t seem to apply to Reese. As crazy as it sounded, I think I was more afraid of not becoming too serious with her.

  How’s that for a mind fuck?

  And the whole issue of Coach’s warning to stay away from her? Well, the threat of being benched didn’t mean jack shit. It was more about other people getting involved in our situation and complicating the hell out of it that had me stepping cautiously.

  We’d reached the point in the evening when we were about to take the court and start our pre-game warmup drills. Everyone was putting on their jerseys, stretching, listening to their own individual tunes, and getting taped up. We were all paying attention to our own routines, while the coaches went over things in Bradley’s office.

  I could finally sneak out. About damn time.

  I stood up and muttered to Jesse, “Going to get taped up,” and then walked out the main locke
r room, hoping no one would question why I wasn’t using the adjoining training room door. I stutter-stepped in the hallway when I about ran headlong into Gus.

  “Donovan,” he greeted me with his usual friendly smile. “Forgot your brace again?”

  Don’t act like you’re doing anything wrong.

  “Uh, yeah. And I thought it’d be a good idea to get taped up, too. It felt a little better last time when I did.”

  He narrowed his eyes. Only slightly, but it was a noticeable what the hell are you up to? kind of look. “You want me to tape it?”

  Somehow, I felt like the question was a test and he was studying my reaction. Not knowing what to avoid saying or doing, I simply replied, “No, it’s fine. Reese did it last time, so I’m sure she can handle it.”

  He considered me another moment and eventually nodded. “All right, son. Good luck out there tonight.”

  I breathed a deep sigh of relief when he walked off. I couldn’t handle it anymore. No more interruptions. I stomped over to the training room door and whipped it open. Reese whirled around, her eyes wide, and took in my expression. Hers darkened in response.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be leading the team onto the court in a few minutes?” she asked, leaning against the cabinets, arms crossed over her chest.

  “Exactly.” I closed the door behind me, making sure to lock it. Then I walked over to the adjoining door and secured the lock there, too. “We have a whole few minutes.”

  “To do what?”

  I grinned. As if she didn’t know. Crowding her against the cabinets, I pushed our bodies together until I felt her chest rising and falling against mine.

  “What do you think?”

  I reached around and lifted her up by her ass, eliciting a dick-twitching moan from her.

  “We can’t do that here,” she whispered, flicking her eyes over my shoulder to the locker room door. “Everyone, including my dad, is on the other side of that door. They could hear us.”

  I leaned down and sucked at the skin on her neck. “Not if we’re really quiet.”

  “This is too dangerous,” she said unconvincingly. “I thought you said you didn’t want anyone to find out.”