Throttle: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

by Teagan Kade

  “A genuine New Yorker, you say?”

  “Brooklyn, born and raised.”

  He approaches me, my heart beating faster (betraying little bastard), the hairs on the back of my neck pricking to attention. Is it a thing to hate someone after knowing them for five minutes and still want to bang their brains out?

  He stands until we’re practically chest to chest. Keeping my eyes from falling down to those diamond-cut corrugations called abs becomes an impossible task. “You’ve done your research on me, I assume?”

  “I have.”

  “Good, so you know I loathe America and its fat, capitalist culture, or lack thereof—a country crammed to the hilt with gun-loving rednecks and blanket ignorance.”

  “Can’t say Britain’s been much of a beachside holiday either, what with its constant drizzle, hopped-up lager lads and lack of humor. You’re just the icing on the cake. You do eat cake, don’t you? Or is that too low-brow—only spotted dick and truffles for brunch?”

  “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to, Gale.”

  “Grace.”

  “Whatever.”

  This fucker. I’m raging, furious, and now I understand why I’m here, if for nothing else than to expose this guy for the all-encompassing ass he is. Forget the puff piece. I’m going into full Diane Sawyer mode. “It’s in your best interests we get along.”

  He motions back to the bed. “So, take off that silly suit jacket and let’s see what you’ve got, cowboy.”

  Oh no, he didn’t. I actually step forward and poke him in the chest, almost breaking my finger in the process given the granite slab that is his body. “You can fucking forget it, Your Highness.”

  I take a broad, sweeping curtsy and pocket my phone, spinning to storm off.

  “Wait,” comes his voice again, a hand, hot, around my arm.

  I turn back, still burning but seeing someone entirely different standing before me. He knows he’s gone too far.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot.”

  You don’t say.

  “Can you ever forgive me?”

  I smile, relieved there’s some sense in this guy after all. “Sure. Can we please get down to business now?”

  “Splendid idea.” He drops his pants, holding his dick, smiling like the cat who got all the cream. “How about we start with a quick blowjob?”

  For a moment I’m so shocked I simply stand there with my mouth gaping. To make the gesture even worse he shakes it at me, humps forward laughing. “Go on, Ben doesn’t bite.”

  I snap out of it, walking away before I do something stupid like, I don’t know, make a nice coin purse out of his balls. If he thinks…

  He’s laughing at my back. “Cheerio now. Nice arse, by the way.”

  I slam the door closed behind me much to the amusement of the assembled bodyguards.

  My cheeks are flushed, I’m sweating, and the next person who crosses me is going to get their head kicked in.

  “How did you go, Miss Everett?” one of them inquires, knowing full well I was just reamed.

  “Swimmingly,” I mutter, continuing to stomp down the hall. On the way a student leaps out of my path, as clearly I’m not in a mood to be fucked with. Not after that circus.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SPENCER

  Grace fucking Everett—I must say, she’s far more attractive than I was expecting. Smattering of freckles, flame-tip eyes, the kind of rear you want to grab and hold all day long. But more than that, she has attitude. So different from my usual diet of ‘I’ll do anything to please you, Prince Spencer!’ plastic Playboy bunnies.

  God, the way her face scrunched up in anger, the cute way she wiggled her nose in irritation when I inquired about fellatio. Every time she came at me, guns blazing, it only made me harder.

  Forget it, my friend. She ain’t going there after that display. A little OTT, wouldn’t you say?

  Perhaps, but what element of my life isn’t completely outrageous? Everything I do is captured, disseminated. I sit in class and every eye is upon me, the unbearable pressure of position weighing on my shoulders. Sometimes I do wish I was a laborer’s son from Brighton, a tailor, firemen, hobbit… Hell, anything but a fucking royal.

  Grace Everett.

  I pull my laptop over and punch her name into Google.

  She does indeed work for the Times. A rather glorious picture of her in the staff section of the Times website that will certainly find its way into my spank bank.

  I manage to find her Facebook profile, but her public posts are limited. There’s a shot of her with a girl outside a service station. Couldn’t be more American. She looks happy, wearing Daisy Dukes and oversized sunglasses.

  I run through her page likes: Tarantino, Von Tier, Tame Impala, Choc On This, Bard Medicine—girl has taste. I don’t even know why I’m doing this, why I’m so suddenly obsessed. I never do this weak bullshit, looking her up like a forlorn fifteen-year-old. What next? Send her a poem professing my love?

  Not. Fucking. Likely.

  My phone buzzes under my left buttock. I pull it out, warm in my hand. “Hello.”

  It’s William. “Spenny, old chum. Outside in five. The night is young.”

  He hangs up before I even get an excuse out, the cock.

  I grab a jacket, surprised at how fucking freezing it is outside, the kind of inclement weather packed full of frostbite.

  William’s Aston is idling away on the road. The door pops open and there is his smiling mug. “Get the fuck in, you hobo.”

  I slide into the passenger’s seat. William burns away before I’ve even closed the door, the speed quickly climbing as we hurtle out of campus grounds. Anyone else would be terrified, but I’m used to William’s driving—if that’s what you want to call it.

  We fly through a roundabout sideways, William struggling with the wheel and forced to raise his voice over the gurgle of the exhaust. “How goes it, my man?”

  “Where are we going, Willy?”

  He swerves to avoid a double-decker that pulls out in front of us, tires struggling for adhesion on the wet streets. “Short country jaunt. Nothing dramatic.”

  I lean back. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Speaking of drama, how did it go with the reporter?”

  “Journalist, and what makes you think there was any drama?”

  He grins. “Writer type, bossy, persistent… Of course she got your back up,” before I point his attention back to the road, a detour forcing us full lock into a hard right.

  “She was younger than I expected.”

  William turns to me again. He knows. “And cracking hot, it would seem.”

  “I won’t lie. She was attractive.”

  William shakes his head. “When’s the last time you banged a Septic Tank, Spenny? There was that girl from Pennsylvania, the senator’s daughter, what-was-her-name?”

  I get sick of Willy’s riddle talk sometimes. “I’m sorry?”

  “The Times, you mug, sending over a keen slut for you to drool and dribble over, confess your deepest and darkest secrets to. I mean, you can’t actually believe what they’re saying, that this piece she’s putting together will be positive, restore your image and all that. It’s complete shite.”

  I try to pinpoint it. “I don’t know. She’s not the typical kind of girl I go for. She’s… interesting.”

  William looks dead at me. “She’s smart, you mean?”

  “Fuck off.”

  William kicks us down a gear, houses blurring past. I look over at the speedo. We’re doing one-seventy.

  “Does she have tits, a pussy?” he continues.

  “I would hope so.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Pull out that river snake of yours and go to work.”

  “That is the problem.”

  “You pulled it out too soon, didn’t you?” William doesn’t look surprised. “Jesus, Spenny, can you ever keep it in your pants? You know Fifty-Five doesn’t work on the i
ntellectual types.”

  I shrug. “I thought it was worth a shot.”

  William refers back to the Club playbook. “You should have gone with Fourteen, ‘The Hammer and Pin’—a classic move. I’d be a horny and lost man without it.”

  “I didn’t have a kitten on hand.”

  “Shame. So, what did she do?”

  “Flee.”

  William laughs, tapping his head against the top of the steering wheel. “She’s got you good, hasn’t she?”

  “No woman ‘has’ me, my friend.”

  “I can practically see her gripping your balls right now.”

  “You’re a real tosser, you know.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  We fly across two lanes of the motorway, engine revving high, the blast of horns fading.

  “Say,” I question, “do you still have the contact for that private investigator?”

  “Daddy’s contact?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “That’s a Club contact, Spenny.”

  The Chaos Club. I never should have joined. Half of the stuff that has shown up in the papers is all because of the fucking Chaos Club. “Come on now. Have you already forgotten how I took the fall for Gloucester?”

  His eyes shift back to the road. “We haven’t, Spenny, none of us have, but you made it very clear you didn’t want to be part of our little gathering any more, not that one simply leaves the Chaos Club.”

  “Just give me the damn contact.”

  “As you wish. Is it for her?”

  “Of course it’s for her.”

  “Be careful, my boy. These American girls… especially with a mind of their own. It’s dangerous territory.”

  “You let me deal with that.”

  Spenny punches the accelerator, but he’s watching me again rather than the road and I just know he’s scheming. Everything to him is a game.

  He hits the horn once, hard. “Tell you what, Spenny. You said she fled, never wanted to see you or your giant cock again, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “What are the chances you’ll actually bed her?”

  “Slim. Queen-caught-with-a-joint slim.”

  “Five thousand pounds then, if you fuck her within a week.”

  I keep quiet knowing it’s driving him mad.

  He gives in. “Ten thousand pounds, but I want proof, you hear?”

  “You’ll get it.” Really, I couldn’t care less about the bet, but I’m competitive. William knows it, uses it against me. What’s the harm? Maybe this is what I need, to remind myself she’s simply another lay. Besides, I’ve never failed to get a girl into bed. I don’t need the Club’s playbook, though it has given me an idea…

  “Bollocks!” shouts a new voice from behind us.

  I almost leap through the windscreen in shock.

  Grayson jumps up from the back seat between us. Must have been hiding there the whole time, the prick.

  They’re both having a grand old laugh. Grayson’s plastered, swigging from a bottle of Moet. “Sorry, Spenny. I couldn’t resist.”

  I try to relax. “You scared the shit out of me. Have you been listening this whole time?”

  He shrugs. “All I got was ‘tits’ and ‘pussy’?”

  William looks over. “All that matters.”

  Another half-hour of William proclaiming his latest conquests and we pull up at a dingy pub in the middle of nowhere.

  I squint to read the sign. “’The Royal’, really?”

  I recognize some of the other cars in the parking lot, bringing my attention back to William. “You fucker. They’re all here, aren’t they?”

  “Wouldn’t be the same without you.” He reaches to the backseat beside Grayson and hands over a suit bag. It reads Ravenwood and Finch, the famous court tailors. I don’t need to unzip it to know there’s a tailcoat inside in navy blue, ivory lapel revers, brass monogrammed buttons, maroon waistcoat and that bloody bow-tie. Damn thing cost upwards of four-thousand pounds, not that money is an issue for any of the Club members.

  William pouts. “Come on. We drove all this way.”

  “We’re actually eating here?”

  William takes the bottle from Grayson. “What use is a dining club without dining?”

  “If the press…” I warn.

  “We’re taking this one easy, Spenny. I promise.”

  “I can’t afford any more bad publicity.”

  “Fuck the press,” cries Grayson, breath rancid. “What was it they called us? ‘Arrogant, toffish twits?’ Fuck them all and their mediocre lives. We know how to seize the day, really take it by the balls. What do you say?”

  My hand hovers over the door latch. “I say we’re all bloody fools.”

  But he knows he’s got me. Deep down I know this is a terrible fucking idea, but I’m powerless around these idiots. We’ve grown up together, seen it all. No one understands me quite like they do.

  William slaps me on the back, the one light in the carpark making his hair look particularly ginger tonight. “Carpe diem, Spenny. Carpe diem. And our bet, the girl?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Do her, you mean?”

  “Let’s not fuss over semantics, shall we? I have a plan.”

  “Twenty-Two?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Nine, actually.”

  William scoffs. “She’ll never go for that.”

  I smile, place my hand on his shoulder. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  GRACE

  I take a sip of tea, struggling to get it down. My partner in crime from Harvard, Zoe, seems to have assimilated perfectly to London in little more than a year, trading coffee for this flavored hot water the British seem so enamored with.

  I poke my tongue out. “Gah, what did you say this was?”

  “Earl Grey.”

  Tastes like bath water. “It ain’t no Grande.”

  “The English have a rather more refined palate, Grace.”

  I hold up the floral teacup. “You call this refined?” I look around the café, lowering my voice, “And the guys drink it, too. That wouldn’t fly back home.”

  Zoe places her cup down. “Speaking of Pommy wankers, how’s the article going? Did you meet him?”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “He was a prick, precisely as expected. Propositioned me, actually.”

  Zoe’s wearing a buttery jacket that could well double for the sun itself around here. Everything about her projects positivity. “Do you know I ran into him once?”

  “Really?”

  She sits up a little straighter, clearly excited she has someone to share this gossip with. “At this crazy bourbon bar in Tottenham, Tailors. You actually have to walk through a tailors shop to get there, secret knocks and all that. Very James Bond.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “Body shots off a leggy blonde, if I recall.”

  I roll my eyes. “Figures.”

  “Like you wouldn’t want to be in her position.”

  I spit my tea out, coughing. “Not in a million years. Besides, he’d split me in half with that thing.”

  If she was excited before, she’s hyper now. “You saw it, in the flesh, Big Ben?”

  “He practically waved it in my face.”

  “Don’t consider yourself lucky. Half of London’s seen it.”

  “It’s hard to miss.”

  “Or just hard, perhaps?”

  We both laugh at this, and it’s nice to be in familiar territory, to see a friendly face on the other side of the world.

  “So,” Zoe continues, “are you going to sleep with him?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “Oh, you said it. I saw your lips moving, but this,” she gestures to my body in full, “it says otherwise. You’re gagging for him, aren’t you?”

  I fall right into it again. “Am not.”

  “Am too. Admit it
.”

  “Fine. If you could sew his mouth shut, sure, I wouldn’t say no.”

  “Cherry-Popped By Prince Uncharming—I can see it working as a headline. Has a nice ring to it.”

  “I’m not a—”

  Zoe laughs. “You so are.”

  “How did you—”

  “It’s so obvious it may as well be stamped into your forehead, girl. Don’t think Spencer Huge Dick didn’t notice. Probably why he’s texting you like mad, another notch in the belt.”

  As if to confirm her suspicions, my phone beeps again.

  “See.”

  The door to the café opens, a blustery breeze following. “You’re supposed to be supportive.”

  “I am, Grace. You need to get laid, and what better way to punch your ticket than doing it with royalty?”

  “He’s the most obnoxious, misogynistic, dick-headed hunk of muscle I’ve ever met.”

  Zoe beams. “Which is precisely why he’s perfect for the task at hand.”

  “I don’t need to be ‘broken in’, Zoe. I’m not a mustang roaming the Wild West.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “You sure?”

  *

  The one thing the paper got right during this whole damned disaster was putting me up in the Savoy complete with white façade and room overlooking the Thames.

  It’s been hours since I left Cambridge, but the Hulk rage hasn’t dissipated a single drop. The gall, the arrogance… A blowjob? He’s lucky I didn’t kneel down and bite it clean off.

  It would be quite the meal.

  Fuck off, Head. No guy who speaks like that is getting within fifty yards of my N-zone no matter how good their accent or mack game. And ‘nice arse’? What the hell was that?

  You did swear at a future king.

  Fifth in line, after his brother and kids, the pious and perfect Prince Alexander. So what? He deserved it.

  I pick up the room phone and dial my editor, Amanda, back in New York.

  She answers with an air of suspicion. “Yessss.” Thinks she’s fucking Anna Wintour.

  I come straight out with it. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

  “Can’t what, Grace. Can’t live a life of luxury for two weeks?”

  “I can’t stand him. ‘American Journalist Murders Bad Boy Prince’ isn’t the headline you want. He told me I had a nice ass, for Christ’s sake.”