Since that first night, he seemed to be better about not moving immediately towards peeling off my clothes - but I could always sense that the man hungered for more. Whenever I sat atop him, straddling him as our lips met, I could feel him between my thighs, hard and pushing against me even through his jeans.
A little part of me couldn't seem to stop fantasizing about him, about how amazing it would be to just lose my inhibitions and let him do whatever he wanted with my body. And although I blocked out that voice in my head, it kept on growing stronger with each night that we saw each other. Each time I kissed him goodnight and stepped out of his hotel room, I found it a little harder to leave.
Chase clearly felt that growing attraction building, as well. "When am I going to convince you to stay over?" he whispered into my ear one night, in between taking little nibbles on my earlobe.
I giggled at the warm touch of his lips. "How about after you win the Superbowl?" I joked back to him, trying not to squirm too much in his arms. "Ooh, that tickles!"
"Come on," he pressed. "I don't know why I put up with this teasing from you - you realize that I could go out and get laid in a second, don't you? My legion of whores are probably confused about where I've been for all this time! I feel like I'm going to explode down there!"
"You can always fix that by hand," I fired back. I sat up and narrowed my eyes down at him. "And if you think that telling me how many other women are lining up to fuck you is the best way to get in my pants, you should probably go read one of those idiot's guides to dating."
Chase smirked at me, and I couldn't keep up my glare. "You're killing me, Katy," he groaned through his smile. "I seriously keep on fumbling the ball because my hard-on gets in the way."
"Poor baby," I purred back to him, pulling his head up against my chest and stroking his hair. "So hard, having a girlfriend for the first time in his life."
That was another fact that I'd uncovered during my nightly talks with Chase. The man had gone from being unpopular in high school, to an absolute stud in his college and post-college NFL years, without ever passing through the intermediate stage of actually dating a girl, taking her out and considering her his girlfriend!
As soon as I learned this fact, I gleefully held it over his head, teasing him about it whenever I saw the opportunity. Chase bore it with quietly injured dignity, sometimes trying to tease me back about my own dry streak. I didn't let those retorts bother me, and he'd given in to just putting up with my mocking remarks.
"Is that what you are to me, then?" he asked, not lifting his head up from my chest. I could feel his breath soaking in through my top, hot against my breasts. "You're my girlfriend, then? Seems weird. Am I supposed to buy you roses each week, now?"
"Most definitely - and chocolate, too," I replied promptly. "Maybe some sparkly jewelry whenever you put your foot in your mouth."
He didn't look up at me, but I swear that I could feel the man smirk gleefully! "I could put something else into my mouth right now," he murmured up to me. "A little cold in here, or are you just thinking about joining me in bed?"
He kissed my chest, and I felt his lips bump against one of my nipples, hard and poking out against the fabric of my bra. I started to bring my hand around to slap him, just gently, but then he bit down a little, and a moan slipped out from between my open lips.
"Ooh, someone likes that, do they?" Chase murmured, and he rose up, pushing me back to recline onto the couch behind me. He nibbled at me again, and I felt one of his hands slide up along the inside of my thigh. "What else can I do to make you feel good?"
"You could buy me some sparkly jewelry," I gasped out, knowing that I ought to pull his hand away, move out of range of his mouth. I just couldn't do it, and instead sank back into the couch, melting into a puddle of pleasure. "Something really expensive."
"I thought you didn't like hearing about me throwing money at women?" he replied, as his hand reached the intersection between my legs, pressing up against me. I shivered as his fingers rubbed back and forth, sending sensation through the fabric and into my crotch.
On his knees in front of the couch, between my spread legs, Chase next slid his fingers up to the button that held my jeans shut. "Maybe I should get you ought of these tight pants," he suggested, leaning up to whisper the words into my ear as I squeezed my eyes shut in pleasure.
"Such a bad idea," I whispered back - but I lifted my hips up a little as his fingers found the button. It seemed to pop open at just a single touch, my zipper tugging itself down without any intervention.
A moment later, I gasped again as Chase's fingers pressed up against my stomach, sliding down to tase at the elastic hem of my panties. "Oh my god," I whispered hoarsely as he moved those fingertips into very inappropriate areas.
"That's the kind of reaction," he replied, kissing me fiercely on the lips. I pushed back eagerly against his tongue, feeling his fingers toying with me, flicking and spreading me but not entering me all the way.
Even that exterior touch, however, was enough to make me shake and shiver on the couch as he kissed me. It really had been way too long for me! I felt like the swimming pool outside, already overflowing its banks and surging back and forth, ready to spill over at any second.
Chase's other hand slid up my side to my shoulder, played with the strap of my tank top. I dropped my shoulder as he tugged the strap off to one side, letting it slide down to my upper arm. Chase kept on tugging, and I felt inch after inch of my breasts sliding out, exposed to view.
Most of my attention, however, remained on his hand, finally daring to duck slightly inside of me. "Oh, yes, right there," I moaned out as he hit an especially sensitive spot, sending a bright little burst of nearly painful pleasure through me.
Chase worked his fingers back and forth expertly, and even though I knew that he was grinning that self-assured little smirk, I couldn't help but respond to his touch. "Oh god!" I gasped just a minute later, as I felt my entire body shudder! My own fingers, clutching his shoulders, squeezed into claws as they curled up, and I could feel my toes curling similarly in the thick carpet on the floor.
After the wave of pleasure subsided a bit, I reached down and dragged his hand out of my pants. "Holy shit, no more," I told him, still panting heavily as I tried to get my breath back.
"See, now I think that it's only fair for you to return the favor."
"Oh, really?" I asked, running my hands down the man's chest. He rose up from his kneeling spot on the floor, putting his crotch in front of me. I sat up, popping open his jeans and tugging them down.
For a moment, I almost lost my cool. Holy shit, he was huge, even bigger than I'd imagined based on the online pictures! I leaned in, nibbling on the head of his shaft through his tight boxers.
"This is what you want?" I asked him between nibbles.
"Yes," he grunted back, his eyes squeezed closed almost to slits.
I gave him one last, soft little nibble - and then, before he could react, I rolled to the side, hopping up off of the couch and tugging my clothes back into position.
"What the hell?" Chase exclaimed in surprise as I buttoned my pants.
"I guess I'm just tired - and you've got your next game tomorrow, so I shouldn't keep you up!" I retorted back merrily. "So I'll see you tomorrow, after you play! Maybe, if you play especially well, we can go a bit further than tonight!"
He just stared at me, not even bothering to pull up his pants. I almost felt bad for him, knowing how bad he had to be blue-balling - but he'd had everything handed to him, including sex, for all his life! It felt really good to torture him this way.
"See you tomorrow!" I told him, ducking in to kiss him lightly, and then leaving his room.
As the door closed behind me, I heard him let out a groan of pure tortured agony, and I had to cover my mouth to muffle my laughter.
Chapter seventeen
I headed back up to my room, taking a moment to wander through the other floor rented out to the football team, looking a
nd listening for parties. The doors to some of the defense's rooms stood open, and I saw football players drinking with some young women inside, but nothing looked too out of control. They waved to me instead of trying to block my view of any illicit drug usage, which also boded well.
I returned back to my own room, closing the door behind me - and then peeled off my clothing, heading straight for the shower. "Oh my god," I murmured to myself as I tossed my sodden panties into the laundry hamper and climbed, naked, into the shower.
Leaning up against the tiled wall as the hot water poured down over me, I let my own fingers stray south, replaying the events of the evening. Good lord, it was getting so hard for me to hold back! I wanted Chase, more than I could ever have foreseen!
Why was I holding back? I asked myself, as my fingers rubbed back and forth over my clit while I pictured the man's big cock taking me. Clearly, we both wanted each other - and I was definitely succeeding in getting his crazy, wild outings under control! Why shouldn't I give myself what I wanted - a night of wild, animalistic pleasure with the man?
But some puritanical part of me still held back. I didn't know if I wanted to somehow find a way to know the man even better, or if I needed to see some true sign from him, something to convince me that this all wasn't just some sort of elaborate act or deception. Why he would put so much effort into seducing me, when he could have just about any woman he chose, didn't make sense, but the thought still persisted.
In the meantime, in an effort to distract myself when I wasn't hanging out with Chase from thoughts of him, his touch, his body, I decided to throw myself into my work. Already, my efforts with the Hawks' social media were yielding results. I saw increased fan participation and a better ratio of kind to disparaging comments coming in from all directions, but I redoubled my efforts. There were always more fan questions to answer, more comments to reply to and resend out to everyone.
And some of my efforts paid off in unexpected ways.
A couple days after I began putting all of my excess energy into running the social media accounts, I received an email from ESPN, the sports network! The letter came from a member of their editorial team, and the man expressed appreciation for the high quality of my efforts online. He concluded the letter by letting me know that, if I ever had an idea for a harder-hitting sports journalism piece, to let him know!
I turned the idea over in the back of my mind, trying to think of some topic about which I had enough experience to write. I needed something that would interest the fans, but also something from which I could offer a unique perspective, as an insider with the Hawks.
At first, no ideas came to me. But then, one evening after I had returned from an especially sweaty and tempting session with Chase, I suddenly straightened up in the shower, hit by a bolt from the blue.
A couple of weeks ago, I remembered noticing that the footballs in the Hawks' locker room had been curiously soft, as if they weren't fully inflated. I'd mentioned it to Chase, and I now recalled that, for just a moment, his face froze up, and he gave me a curiously robotic reply. I'd brushed it off as nothing, but I now found myself wondering about whether there was something that Chase didn't want to tell me.
I pulled a towel around me as I stepped out of the shower. I wiped my arms and fingers until they were relatively dry, enough so that they wouldn't short out any electronics, and then opened up my laptop.
It didn't take long for me to find the official league rulings on footballs - they were required to be inflated to between twelve and a half to thirteen and a half pounds per square inch, and were checked by league officials, the referees, at each game.
That cleared it up, I thought to myself. Even if the balls had been deflated in the locker room, they wouldn't have been put into play - the officials would have checked the balls before they entered the field, and would have caught the low pressure.
But for some reason, I kept on reading through other articles that my search returned. After all, if the officials would have just caught any deflated balls, why had Chase acted so strange when I asked him about them?
A few pages later, I found a possible answer - one, however, that made me feel intensely uncomfortable.
This answer came from a post on an enthusiasts forum, where a commenter was decrying the very rule about which I'd just been reading, the regulations on proper football inflation. The measurements meant next to nothing, the commenter insisted, because the pressure could be measured at any point, either before or after the game. The referees and officials who recorded the measurements didn't even have to do so in the same conditions as the game itself!
In fact, the commenter went on, the balls could be inflated in a warm location, and then moved to a cooler location, and the pressure would drop inside the footballs as the air inside cooled. Similarly, if they were checked outside, where it was colder, and then brought inside, they would read as abnormally overinflated.
In conclusion, the commenter finished, the whole rule was stupid, and the footballs should be filled with some sort of aerogel or foam, something that wouldn't shift or change due to temperature fluctuations.
The rest of the thread online, naturally, was filled with arguments and disagreements. Many football purists acted as if the original commenter had suggested taking a dump on Joe Montana himself. Others insisted that no other material would respond the same way as an air-filled football, and that no acceptable alternatives existed. Others claimed that officials were already aware of these temperature fluctuations, that the balls were repeatedly checked by members of both teams, the equipment managers, and these errors would be promptly alleviated.
But none of the commenters, as far as I could tell, even considered the point which immediately sprang to mind for me. The idea that the pressure inside the footballs could differ, by as many as 2-3 pounds per square inch, led me to two questions.
Did partially deflated balls feel and respond differently in the hands of a quarterback than fully inflated balls?
And even more chillingly, could knowingly using a partially deflated ball offer up some advantage for a quarterback or for a team?
Another round of Google searches suggested that the answer to both of these questions was, tentatively, yes. A partially deflated ball offered a better grip to the quarterback, as his hands could more easily hold onto the ball tightly. In addition, although the ball didn't spin in quite the same way as a fully inflated ball, the squishiness let the quarterback put more power into a throw, getting greater distance on a long bomb.
But of course, I told myself, this was all hypothetical. No self-respecting football team would actually consider cheating, especially not in big matches like these. There was far too much risk on the line, and multiple people would have to know about the cheating and would be complicit to its occurrence. If the balls were partially inflated, instead of fully inflated, the players would know - but so would the coaches and the equipment managers.
I closed my browser window, pushing my computer aside. It's nothing, I told myself. Just a wild theory, with no evidence behind it.
But as I lay in bed that night, trying to find sleep, I instead kept on thinking about how Chase had frozen for a moment when I asked him about the balls, how he'd brushed the whole issue aside. Something about that interaction still rankled with me a little.
I could always ask him again, of course. Since I saw him just about every night, it would be easy to find a quiet moment to raise the question about the footballs.
Would I get an honest answer, however?
I didn't know if I would, and that scared me. I'd grown so close to Chase, so quickly - I couldn't imagine that he would even think of lying to me.
But if the balls really were deflated, he, as quarterback, had to know about it. And when it came to protecting his own record, maybe even his own career, he might be willing to go to extraordinary lengths to keep his secret quiet.
So I wouldn't ask him, I decided, staring up at the black ceiling above my bed. But
I already knew that I wouldn't be able to let go of the whole issue, either.
I'd have to keep on investigating and digging, on my own time. I'd also need to keep my investigations secret. I couldn't tell anyone else about this; I didn't know who else might be in on the scam, and might report my independent investigation to someone high up.
If this got out, I suspected that I would not only find myself out of a job, but I also wouldn't be likely to get hired anywhere else. My references from the Hawks management would be, I suspected, less than stellar.
Finally, I drifted off to sleep - but the next morning, as I tried to inhale enough coffee to clear the fog of lingering sleep from my head, I still kept on thinking about the question. What would I need to do next?
By the time I finished off my plate of eggs and headed back up to my room, I had an idea.
The Hawks were playing their next game tomorrow, and I suspected that, although I preferred the comfort of the sky box for watching the match, it wouldn't be hard to talk my way down onto the field during the game.
From there, I just had to find some way to get my hands on a football and tell whether it was fully inflated - or deflated.
I liberated a football from practice, telling a bemused equipment manager that I wanted to practice throwing it around to see if I could get into the mindset of the players. It took a little bit of sweet-talking, but I made sure to put on a low-cut top that morning, and after leaning forward and giving the man a full dose of both girls, he agreed to let me take the ball back to my hotel room so that I could "look at it for inspiration while working."
"But I'll need it back at some point, ya hear?" he told me, his eyes lingering as they took in my figure. By this point, about half of the team had worked out that Chase and I appeared to be an item, but this man clearly wasn't letting that little fact get in the way of his daydreaming about what he'd do to me.
"No worries!" I replied, waiting until I was around the corner before I let myself shiver from the feeling of him checking me out.
SACK: A Football Bad Boy Romance Page 10