False Start: A Football Romance

by Saylor Bliss

  The first gentle touch of his tongue has sparks shooting through my entire body. He flicks it again, and this time he follows it with a wet kiss.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  He slowly licks up the crease of my vagina until he reaches my sweet nub, kissing it again, sucking it into his mouth and flicking it. I'm about to come undone. I can feel the sparks traveling through my body as they puddle in the center of my core. He releases my nub and flicks his tongue over me, hard and precise. Once, twice, ten times? I don't know.

  The pressure is building at a frantic rate, and I know I'm almost there. He stops again, and my body deflates. Then he sucks me into his mouth again, and my world shatters in around me. I can't see anything in front of me, and it takes me a minute to realize it’s probably because my eyes are squeezed shut. I open them and look down at his smug, satisfied grin.

  “Fuck,” I say, because I can't think of anything else. I can't form a complete sentence to save my life.

  He kisses my thigh again and slowly makes his way back up my body to my mouth. I taste myself on him, and it drives me wild. Our kisses are passionate, full of want and longing. He pulls me up, lifting my upper body off the couch as he tries to get my dress the rest of the way off. I chuckle, low and breathy, holding onto him to steady myself.

  My gaze wanders over his shoulder for just a moment to the fireplace in the middle of the room, and I freeze in his arms. Every single muscle in my body tightens. I can't help it. On the mantle just behind him is a photo—a photo of Kiptyn and another man with a sweet older lady in between them. My breath catches and my body freezes. The man in the photo with Kip is none other than Amryn.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kiptyn

  Skila’s whole body goes rigid. My mind races to try to figure out what the hell I did. Nothing. I didn't do anything.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. She doesn't reply. I feel her heart racing under my hand.

  “Skila, what is it?” Hearing her name seems to break the spell holding her immobile.

  She shoves at me, pushing me off the top of her. “Is this some kind of sick fucking joke?”

  Her voice rises with each word. I've got no fucking clue what the hell she’s talking about. My mind jumps back to the last time she ran hot then cold. Maybe she’s fucking crazy. That figures. I find a chick that holds my attention for more than one night, and she ends up being bi-polar.

  She leaps off the couch, scrambling to adjust her dress. I sit, hunched back on my heels, and wonder what the hell is going on. I don't realize I’ve spoken out loud until she answers me.

  “You tell me, Kiptyn. How the hell do you know Amryn, and why” —her voice breaks— “Why do you have a picture of him on your mantle?”

  “What?”

  “Amryn. How do you know him?”

  I glance at the picture behind me, the picture of me and my brother. It was taken about six months ago, just before . . .

  “Do you mean Camryn?”

  I snatch the photo off the mantle and point at my brother. I see the shock run through her. She didn't know his name was Camryn. Figures. Cam always used a different name when he started talking to a girl. He said he didn't want them to only want him because his brother was famous. He wanted to make sure it was genuine before he brought them around the family.

  “Camryn?” she asks, sitting back down on the couch, deflated.

  “Yeah, he was my brother. How do you know him?” I ask.

  “Was? What do you mean was?” she asks, answering my question with another question.

  I let it slide. I'll get my answers later. It’s obvious she knew him somehow. Maybe he was important to her in some way. It's even clearer that she doesn't know that he’s . . .

  “He’s dead.” I sit next to her, taking her hand in mine. She lets it go without a thought. Her head jerks to the side, her eyes widening dramatically. Her free hand flies to her mouth, covering it before the silent “no” escapes.

  “It was a VBIED. He was deployed a few months ago. It was very sudden. I mean, we all knew he was scheduled to go on another tour, but then something happened over there and they needed all available troops as soon as possible. He was supposed to have another week before they sent them out. He was coming home to see us before leaving, but they upped the date.”

  The striking blush in her cheeks disappears, replaced by a sallow, pale hue. She looks like she might be sick any minute.

  “He wasn't there twelve hours before the bomber attacked. I'm not even sure how they got to them, but we were told that the bomb struck from the bottom of the Humvee and exploded upward. There were no survivors. He was killed instantly.”

  “No. I had no idea. I was so mad at him,” she mumbles to herself, but I hear her, and now shock runs its course through me. She raises her head, and tears line her eyes. “I was supposed to come with him that weekend. I waited for him all day Friday, but he didn't show.”

  I can’t believe what I'm hearing. She was the woman Cam was bringing home. She was the ‘One’. I'm disgusted with myself. I almost fucked my brother’s girl. He was fucking in love with her, and I almost fucked her.

  I can tell she realizes the same thing. “I need to go home,” she says, standing.

  “I'll take you,” I say, although I'm not ready for her to go yet. I can't think of a reason to make her stay. It's been such a shock to both of us tonight that I understand her need for solitude. I pull my pants back up, buttoning them as soon as I have them on my hips.

  “NO. I—I can take a cab. I—I think that's better,” she stutters.

  I want to pull her to me and tell her it's not her fault. She had no idea who I was any more than I did her. I want to calm her and hold her and tell her it's going to be okay, but my brother’s voice is echoing through my mind, the last time I spoke to him replaying over and over. “I think I love her, Kip,” he said, and as I sit there watching her jaw quiver, with my heart splintering into a dozen different pieces, I wonder if maybe he isn’t the only one.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Skila

  Amryn . . . Camryn . . . was Kiptyn’s brother. How is that even possible? Camryn lived in Atlanta, two thousand miles away. Didn’t he? I didn’t really know. I didn’t know a damn thing about him. That was startlingly obvious, considering I didn’t even know his real name. Why? Why lie? I don’t get it.

  Kiptyn tosses the cab driver a hundred dollars and waits for me to tell him my address. It rolls off my tongue as the tears roll off my cheeks. My heart hurts. I want to scream and yell and shout and cry. My emotions are all over the place. A piece of me is torn to bits knowing he was gone . . . like really gone, not just some dick who decided he’d had enough of fucking me, but really gone, dead, and then, following up on the tail end of that pain is . . . relief.

  I can’t explain it, but knowing he hadn’t just vanished, that there was a reason he didn’t show up and didn’t call, made me feel good. Obviously, I didn’t want him dead. I’d never wish that on anyone. Kiptyn stands rooted to the same spot. The look on his face tears at my resolve. I want to jump from the cab and run back up his drive, throw my arms around him, and make all his pain go away, but I can’t. He was Camryn's brother. Whatever could have been between us is over. Gone.

  My heart shatters. I rub the heel of my palm against my chest to push the pain away, but it doesn’t work. My breath catches in the base of my throat. I push it out, and a pain-filled cry echoes the interior of the cab. The driver glances back at me, pity clear in the hard lines of his face. No doubt, he thinks we had a spat. Or worse, maybe he’s a regular at Kiptyn’s and thinks I’m another of his discarded women. The answer to my unspoken question comes a second later.

  “Don’t cry, miss. He ain't worth it. Plenty more in the sea . . . maybe not so rich, but still.” His choppy English does nothing to soften the blow his words deal. I want to tell him to mind his own fucking business. I want to scream at him and tell him to go to fucking hell and leave me alone, that it isn’t l
ike that, but the words won’t come. Pulling my legs up on the seat, I curl in around myself, letting the pain of his loss crash over me.

  It isn’t until I’m sitting on the couch, going over everything with Lisa, that I realize that the loss I cried over wasn’t for Camryn. I'd miss him, of course, and I hate to think that he will never get the chance to live his life, to fall in love and have a family.

  No, the loss I feel is for Kiptyn. I’ve known him less than a week—if you don’t count the run-in at the club—and already my heart has betrayed me, falling hard and fast for him. It has nothing to do with his money or fame. It’s so much more. The sweetness he carries inside of himself, the fact that he still looks out for people from his past and helps strangers in bars, the way he held me and touched me. The list goes on and on.

  “It's going to be okay, Sky.” Lisa tries to calm me, but she can't. I’m not upset. I’m devastated.

  “How, Lisa? How is it going to be ok? The man is dead.” My words are louder than I intend, but I need her to explain to me how she thinks it's going to be ok.

  “I know that, but you had already let him go. You’ve already moved on. I don’t get why you’re so upset. Did you love him?” she asks, and now I understand. She thinks I’m hurting over Amryn . . . Camryn.

  “It's not him, Lisa. No, I didn’t love him.” I let out a harsh laugh. “I didn’t even know him.”

  “Then what’s wrong, babe?”

  “It’s Kiptyn. I . . . I can't explain it. My heart hurts for him. It was his brother, Lisa. I can't imagine. What if I lost Devan or Jax? I’d die, right then and there.”

  “Are you falling in love with him?”

  The knowing look on her face mocks me. She’s always looking for love in someone’s actions. The poor girl sits around reading romance novels by the truckload, hoping one of the imaginary book boyfriends will magically come to life and sweep her off her feet.

  Normally, I pity her. Normally, I laugh and joke back with her, telling her she reads too much or that true love doesn’t exist. Not today. Today, I sit silently on the couch a foot away from her, my head tucked into the crease of my elbow against the side arm, trying and failing to choke my sobs back down. I don’t have to say a word today, because she already knows.

  I’m crazy about a man that I can't have. Even if I was willing to try to date the brother of my deceased ex . . . boyfriend? There is no way he would. I saw it in the look he gave me when he realized who I was. He would never touch me again. It’s over.

  My stomach rolls with nausea. Clamping a hand over my mouth, I race to the bathroom, puking up everything I have inside of me. How on earth has my life become this? Maybe it’s time for me to admit defeat and move back to Atlanta.

  No, screw that. I can do this. I'll find a way to make it work here in LA. First thing tomorrow, I'll start looking for a new job. There’s no way Mr. Ames is going to let me keep mine, especially if I didn’t produce that exclusive interview I had promised him, but I’m one hell of a reporter and I can land another job. It probably won’t be with a paper as large as the Los Angeles Daily Home, but as long as it pays the bills, I’m happy.

  With some semblance of a game plan, I crawl in between the silky soft sheets covering my bed and beg the Sandman to come visit me soon. I need all the help I can get to forget tonight. If only his magical sand could make me forget Kiptyn Price, then I'd be in heaven.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kiptyn

  I should have never let her leave. I should have demanded she sit there on the couch and talk all this shit out. Fuck. Now what do I do? I’m on edge. My whole body is swarming with nerves. How it is possible that the one fucking woman I want is already taken by my fucking dead brother? Fate is playing some fucked up joke on me. It has to be. I picture him, her, them—what the fuck ever—rolling in the floor, laughing their ass off at me right now. Well, I’ve got news for you, bastard.

  I.

  Don’t.

  Lose.

  I’ll play your sick, twisted game, and I'll kick your ass at it.

  Running my hands through my hair, I stomp up the drive. I need a fucking drink and a cold shower. I had her in my fucking arms, my lips on her delicate chocolate skin, and I fucking let her get away. Well, technically, she ran away. Again.

  When I pass my slick, blue Audi R8, I hear a ringing noise. I stop, listening. There is definitely something ringing inside my car. Opening the driver’s door, I spot Skila’s heels and handbag. I smile. She’ll have to see me now. Her phone is ringing again. I open her handbag and pull it out. Lisa is calling. Swiping left on the screen, I answer.

  “Hello,” she says.

  “Hey. Sky left her bag here.”

  I don’t say anything else. I don’t know what to say. I wait to see what her best friend has to say, knowing that will tell me more than anything else whether I still have a chance.

  “Oh,” she pauses, thinking. I hear a door shut and imagine her walking outside so she can let loose on me without Skila hearing. “I’ll tell her I found her phone . . . when you bring it over tomorrow. Bring coffee,” she says and hangs up.

  I want to fist bump whatever god is on my side tonight, but I hold it back, not wanting to rub my small victory in the face of the fates. At least now, I know there is still a chance, no matter how small. I’ll win her back if it's the last thing I do. It’s funny how much my life has changed over the course of the last three weeks. I don’t even remember the last time I went out or the last bitch I brought home. None of the countless women across the country matter to me anymore. Only one.

  My Midnight Sky.

  Walking back inside, I feel lighter, happier. I have hope for a brighter future. I toss Skila’s handbag on the counter next to her heels and head to the refrigerator to grab a beer, but I don’t make it. A strange voice fills my kitchen, startling me. I whip back around, wondering who the hell is here, before I realize its coming from Skila’s phone. I must have bumped someone’s number when I set it down. Picking it up, I glance down to see who I accidentally called, but its connected to voicemail. About that time, the words coming across the line register and I’m stuck standing there, dumbfounded.

  “Miss Parker. This is Rachael with Dr. Banks. I’ve got your blood results in, and I’m happy to inform you that you do not have the flu. You’re pregnant. Congratulations. Call the office as soon as possible to set up a prenatal appointment.”

  I press replay three times, and I can't fucking believe it.

  She’s pregnant.

  I have no doubt exactly whose baby it is. If Camryn were here, I'd punch his fucking lights out for making her go through this shit alone. She deserves better, but no, he had to go off and get himself fucking killed, the bastard. I can't imagine how she’s going to feel when she hears the news. Her world already came crashing in around her tonight. This is just the fucking icing on the cake. I hate the idea of her hurt, afraid and alone. I don’t understand it, but over the last few weeks, this woman has completely invaded me. She has conquered my restless soul and made me feel, for once, that there is more to life than playing ball and fucking bitches.

  I'll be there for her. I'll be there for her and her unborn child. It's the least I can do. Hell, it’s all I want to do. Now that I know she’s pregnant, no other thought has room in my mind. Clouds overhead part, letting the moon shine down on me, and I imagine it’s Camryn offering me his blessing from his place high in the heavens. I’ve got this. I can do this. How hard will it be to raise a kid? Shit, I make enough money that I can pay someone to do it for me—not that I would. My brother’s baby deserves better than that. Skila deserves more than that. I’ll be the best fucking daddy in the world.

  Walking back in my front door, another thought suddenly hits me. So out of the blue, I almost double over with the pain the thought alone causes me. What if she decides to abort? What if she doesn’t want kids, or what if she just doesn’t want Camryn's kid? I can’t blame her if she doesn’t. The father is dead. As far
as she knows, she’ll be going at it all alone.

  No. I won’t let her.

  I don’t care what it takes. I refuse to let her abort the baby. I'll do and say whatever it fucking takes to make sure she follows through with the pregnancy. I’ll let her know that I want it. I’ll make a great fucking daddy. I know it's going to be hard, but I’ve got a plan. We're family, whether she likes it or not, and I’m going to be there, no matter what.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Skila

  Someone is knocking on my front door. I cover my head with my pillow and try to shut out the incessant banging. Go the fuck away. Tap, tap, tap. I swear on all that’s holy that if someone isn’t dying, they're about to be. I've got two more hours that I can sleep before I've got to get up and get ready for my walk of shame into the office. I wasn’t going to go in at all today, but I didn’t see any point in delaying the inevitable any longer. I plan to march in Ames’s office and let him know the article was a bust. I'm already prepared for his disappointed look and the sad news that he can’t keep me.

  Snatching the door open, I don’t know who I’m expecting, but it isn’t Kiptyn, standing there with a Venti Starbucks held out in front of him like he’s scared for his life before I've had my first sip. I take it from his hand, greedy for the hot ecstasy. He chuckles low, and all the parts of my body that the caffeine has missed awaken instantly. I look over the top of the cup at him. He looks like hell. His hair is a mess, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s still in the jeans from last night.