by Teagan Kade
Mrs. Collins takes his arm, already crying, my own mother no better, sobbing from the front row. Our fathers never showed, but we expected as much. Josh remains MIA. Jensen brushed it off initially, but they’re twins. I know it pains him the way they ended things, but like I told him, not everything can be controlled. Josh has his own life to live, even if it doesn’t involve us.
I’ve barely blinked and Jensen is standing before me smiling precisely like he did when Victory took the Cup. I was there, in the stands as always, cheering and wailing until I lost my voice. The Golden Boot for the Championship’s highest-scoring player remains in Won Ton’s bed. He’s taken a real liking to it. Expensive taste, it seems.
Even Angela’s here. I think I spy the slightest hint of jealousy on her face—and who wouldn’t be?
Won Ton gives a solid yelp from Mom’s lap, everyone laughing. I relax and focus on Jensen, on the man who I’m committed to spending my life with.
The officiant gives me a wink. “Dearly beloved, players and pimps alike…”
TWO YEARS LATER
It’s the wedding all over again. Everyone is here. Jensen’s new coach is standing by the door. He looks especially happy to be here, or maybe it’s the fact Angela Barnet is standing next to him looking rather keen. She’s barely left his side the whole party. She’s certainly redeemed herself. It was an easy decision to make her Jensen’s PR manager this season.
On the other side of the room is a motley collection of Jensen’s teammates from LA Galaxy. It’s been almost three months since we made the move out here to the coast of California, but it’s working out. Jensen’s got a great team, a coach who actually listens to him and doesn’t walk around with a constant scowl on his face. They’re going up against Victory next week, which should result in fireworks, but I’ve never known Jensen to back down from a fight. Once he wants something, he’ll stop at nothing to get it, even if it does take him ten years.
I watch him, my husband, crouching beside our child, now one. I can’t believe how fast time has gone. It seems like only yesterday I was giving birth, the nurses trying to bring Jensen to before the main event. One look between my legs and he hit the deck so hard he almost went through the floor. Naturally, I’ve never let him live it down. Every time he complains of a sore ankle or back I simply point down to my vagina and tilt my head. “Until you push a peach through a pinhole you’ve got nothing to complain about, mister.”
Someone hits the lights, a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ as the cake is brought out—a soccer ball in white and blue, Galaxy’s team colors. Little Arny claps his hands together in glee, his chubby cheeks lit up from the glow of the candles.
I wasn’t exactly for Arnet at first, but it’s grown on me. Now I couldn’t imagine him being anything else. “It means ‘little eagle’,” Jensen enthused to me, as we sat poring through baby name websites. At that stage I was so pregnant I couldn’t have cared less. I just wanted a cheeseburger.
Arny blows, the first candle flickering until Daddy comes to his aid and together they huff them out. I see him in Arny. I see myself too, in his golden hair and almond eyes. The first thing Jensen did when he picked him up in the hospital was inspect his package, much to my horror. “Yep, he’s mine,” he grinned to the nurses, all of whom were suitably star struck. I had to wait for him to sign autographs for over an hour before they started to stitch me up.
I thought sex would suffer after a natural birth, but if anything motherhood has made me hornier than ever, even now.
“You’re an amazing mother,” he told me one night when I was bawling my eyes out by Arny’s door, unable to get him to calm down. There have been tough times, I won’t lie, but he’s been there through it all and we’re stronger for it, stronger and happier having Arny in our lives.
Jensen looks to me, smiles, and then looks blankly into the center of the gathered faces. I know he’s looking for Josh, as silly as that is. We only found out yesterday Josh and Carolina fled New Jersey after a string of drug charges were filed against them. It’s been years since Jensen’s seen him, not a single shred of contact. Sometimes I find Jensen sitting up at night and I know no matter how much he denies it he’s thinking about him, about what he could have done differently.
But the past is the past. We have our own family now.
“Wave to Mommy!”
Jensen shakes Arny’s pincushion hand at me.
Polly lifts her camera up beside me. “Holy shit that is cutest thing I have ever seen.”
When we told her we were moving to LA, she replied, “I’ll come with, find myself a surfer boy,” easy as that. And she has, an ISA World Champion who treats her like a queen and even has Jensen on his toes whenever he’s around… like I’d ever need anything more.
“Go on,” says Polly, pushing at my back. “Get in there.”
“Go!” Mom shouts from the back.
“Fine,” I concede, weaving my way to Jensen and Arny.
A flash goes, a moment frozen in time.
Jensen picks Arny up in one hand and places the other on my belly. He takes it off, looking around. “Whoa, you feel that?” he announces. “Looks like my little girl’s going to be a superstar, too.”
DRILLED
Teagan Kade
* * * * *
Published by Teagan Kade
Edited by Sennah Tate
Copyright © 2016 by Teagan Kade
CHAPTER ONE
SAM
“Got everything you need?”
Apart from a million dollars and a man who isn’t a complete asshole?
“Sure.” I smile back at the high-school football coach cliché that is Morgan Blake, owner and manager of the Wildcats NFL team.
Morgan nods, his weak chin at odds with his muscular frame. “I’ll send Chance Adams in first. Have you heard of him?”
Who hasn’t? My football knowledge may extend about as far as my quantum physics knowledge, but Chance Adams is a household name. The Wildcats quarterback did an eighteen-month tour of Afghanistan before finishing junior college and he was a rising star. One of the few walk-ons to make the team instead of being drafted from college. Chance was a real American hero… And perpetually DTF playboy, or so I’ve heard.
I don’t know much about football, sure, but you can bet your ass I researched the players on this team when I was handed the job—not that it’s required information for the team massage therapist.
Who cares, Sam? It’s going to be a hell of a lot better than your last gig. Hell, anything would be better than that.
“Yes, Mr. Blake,” I reply.
“Morgan, please,” he enthuses, smiling. For a team owner he’s far less intimidating than I expected. He leans out of the doorway connecting the massage room to the locker room and shouts. “Chance! Get your ass in here.”
There’s no reply. My breath hitches, but why? I shouldn’t be nervous. I’ve trained for this. I am a professional.
Yep. Keep telling yourself that, Sammy.
Morgan smiles again. “I’ll leave you to it. If you need anything—equipment, supplies, a giant mallet to fight these dickheads off—just holler.”
“I will.”
Morgan heads out. The door closes and I lean against the wall. The room’s little more than a box, nothing except a massage table, towels, and the grapeseed oil I brought along. I shiver at the thought of the last room I practiced in, with its silky curtains and velvet cushions, boxes of tissues and wet wipes.
The door opens and in steps Chance Adams, classically dark and handsome, six-two and built like a brick wall. His pale-green eyes sweep me from head to foot, an infectious grin widening his face. Clearly, clothes are optional given the seemingly tiny towel wrapped around his waist. I read somewhere that the tattoo of a roulette wheel on his left pectoral covers a shrapnel scar.
A spark of arousal causes my thighs to snap together momentarily, but I push it all aside. You’re a professional. You’re a professional…
I go to introd
uce myself, but Chance simply casts his towel off, his package swinging there like a sledgehammer, that grin only getting bigger.
I swallow, the words stuck in my throat. Oh-kay then…
He swings himself up onto the table and settles into position face down. “I hope you’ve got better hands than the last massage therapist we had. I like it rough, but Bertha was fucking brutal.”
I apply oil to my hands and roll my eyes. So this is how it’s going to be. “I’ll do my best.”
I look down at two pert buttocks. “Would you like a towel to cover your…” I cough. “Mr. Adams?”
He laughs, the sound of it muffled by the table. “Why, you don’t like the view? That would be a first.”
Jesus. It feels like I’m back in a seedy Vegas parlor all over again.
I hold my tongue and take another breath, starting with a light effleurage from his lower back up towards his shoulder blades. I’m surprised how warm his skin is.
“Oh yeah. That’s the shit,” he moans, settling himself deeper into the table, his buttocks twitching below my eyes.
I know I shouldn’t talk, but I need something, anything to break the tension. “You grew up in Reseda, Mr. Adams?”
“Call me Chance,” comes his singsong voice, “and yeah, I can’t recommend the place if you’re looking to buy. It was a shithole then and it’s a shithole now.”
“I wasn’t…”
“How about you? What brings you to this fair city apart from my sexy smile?”
I’m surprised this guy can even walk properly with a head this big.
Tentatively, I work his inner thigh, careful not to head too low and brush the offending appendage that’s hiding down in the shadows. “This job, actually.”
“Wow. Dedication. You a football fan?”
“No, sorry, though I understand you’re having an impressive season?”
Another flicker in my core as my hands glide down his legs. Control yourself, Sam. This guy is a grade-A asshole, a player whose purpose is to party, drink, and score.
“Impressive?” he scoffs. “I’m the fucking king of the field, baby.”
Every time he calls me ‘baby’ I’m transported right back to Vegas and my very first, and last, client, to that whole nightmare I’ve been trying to forget the last six months.
“Harder,” he commands.
No problem. I add more pressure, kneading his glutes a little more forcefully than I should.
He spreads his legs a little, balls and shaft compressed between them. I want to say something, but I hold my tongue. The last thing I need is to be booted from this job on my first day.
“I’m Samantha,” I splutter, throat dry. “Samantha Carter”.
I get a grunt in response.
“You can call me Sam if you like.”
He suddenly rolls over onto his back, hands behind his head. “How about a happy ending, Sam? I won’t tell if you don’t.”
For a second I’m completely frozen, my gaze ping-ponging between his package and his smiling face all smug and satisfied, like this is so easy, like I am this easy.
This is exactly how it went down that first day on the Strip, but that guy didn’t even have the courtesy to ask. ‘You going to stare at it all day, love, or you going to start sucking me off?’ he said, while I looked on astonished. I’d been led to believe it was a professional establishment, but it was nothing more than a front for erotic massage and prostitution owned by the Mob. I looked at that guy with his limp, lifeless dick, his potbelly and saggy skin and got the hell out of there, didn’t tell anyone. I just left. The place was raided the very next day.
I didn’t think much of it. I wanted to forget the experience as soon as possible and move on with my life, but it soon dawned on me how it must have looked—me leaving, the raid. Sure enough one of the other girls tipped me off. The goddamn Don of Las Vegas thought I’d ratted them out, so here I am, two-hundred-and-sixty-nine miles away doing my best to blend in.
I’m waiting for Chance to tell me he’s joking, but he nods down at his dick again.
He’s actually serious. This cannot be happening.
Be professional. Be professional, I chant to myself.
I swallow and focus on those emerald eyes no doubt as much a weapon as his right arm. “Chance,” I begin, “I’m going to need you to lie down, please.” I add a small smile, forcing it onto my face.
He shakes his head. “Your loss, baby,” rolling himself over again and exhaling.
Crisis averted.
Mercifully, he’s quiet as I continue to work into a firm petrissage, the odd grunt or moan to let me know I’m doing my job. But as I press and gather his flesh with my fingers, a feeling wells up inside me that’s become all too familiar over these past few months. It’s frustration—frustration that here I am trying to move on and yet copping the same misogynistic alpha crap I did back in Vegas. But I know it’s more than frustration alone. It takes me a second to work it out, but when I do it flashes in front of my eyes in big bold letters—anger.
“Easy, easy,” he says, squirming below me.
I ease up on the pressure. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be, but between you and me, those soft little hands of yours would be much better served wrapped around my cock.”
That’s it.
I take a step back, hands on my hips, a fiery tempest of dialogue building. Screw the job. If he thinks he can get away with that kind of thing with me, like I’m nothing more than a sex object, he’s got another thing coming and I’m sure as hell going to give it to him.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to go to the team owner if you don’t—”
“Don’t what?” comes his challenging tone.
I gulp, just about to keep at him when a loud knock on the door interrupts my speech.
“Enter,” calls Chance.
The door swings open, another team member looking in. The fact Chance is naked doesn’t seem to concern him in the slightest. He gives me a small nod before addressing Chance. “Going to need you out there, big boy. Coach’s orders.”
Chance lifts himself from the table. “Motherfucker, and just when things were getting interesting.” He grabs his towel on the way past me and throws it over his shoulder, not even bothering to cover himself up as he walks out.
He winks at me. “I’ll see you ’round, Sam.”
The words are lost. I can’t seem to make my lips form an appropriate quip as the door closes and I’m once more left with nothing but my thoughts and the lingering memory of Chance ‘I’m The King Of The Field, Baby’ Adams, public enemy of panties, and the most obnoxious, straight up entitled jerk I think I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.
*
There’s nothing sadder than an empty condo. There are four boxes stacked near the kitchen—all I could grab from my place back in Vegas in my haste to leave.
That’s the thing. I had friends there, a life, but the threat was real. You don’t mess with the Mob and expect to come out unscathed, no matter how innocent you may actually be. Was I naïve taking that job? Probably. I’d just received my certificate. I wanted to help people, truly. I wanted to make a difference. Not… that. The location of the place should have been the first giveaway. Reputable massage parlors don’t have a neon sign out front reading ‘Happy Relax Time, Pleasing You Pleases Us’.
You’re an idiot, Sam. Admit it.
But that’s the old Sam. The new Sam is getting on with her life and moving up in the world. If I have to endure the odd Chance Adams, so be it.
Chance Adams—as much of cardboard cut-out womanizer he is, I can’t help thinking about his body, the sheer marble perfection of it, the feel of his skin under my hands. It’s a body sculpted by hard work, by experience. What do I have to show? I’m twenty six, willowy, tall, and pale. Mom always commented on my bright blue eyes, but when I look into the mirror all I see is B for bland. Even my hair—dark auburn that falls to my waist when loose—is thick and unruly. It’s a bit like
my brain, really.
“But you love me, don’t you, Chuckles?”
My tabby figure-of-eights between my legs as I sit on a milk crate I found in the alleyway behind the apartment building.
I don’t know why, but I take out my phone and pull up a picture of Chance in his on-field get-up, war paint on his cheeks, orange armor glowing bright. Is there more to you than meets the eye, Mr. Adams, or are you another walking penis like the rest of them?
I don’t know what I expect to happen, for Chance to magically leap from the screen and pull me into his arms, tell me I’m loved and safe, that I’m the only girl he has eyes for.
Yeah, right.
It’s been a long day. Thankfully, the rest of the team showed a little more composure in the massage room and certainly not the Chance Adams strip show I was privy to earlier. Clearly, Chance is the most confirmed bachelor of the bunch, but he’s going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than ‘How about a happy ending?’ if he wants within half a mile of my pants.
Chuckles purrs. I show her the screen. “What do you think, Chuckles? Hitter and quitter, or boyfriend material?”
She scrunches up her face.
I laugh. “Yeah, me too, my friend. Me too.”
“Not in a million years,” I tell Digital Chance, simultaneously ignoring the sudden flutter between my thighs.
CHAPTER TWO
CHANCE
“That was so hot, baby.”
Long fingers run through the spattering of hair on my chest, but it’s the fingernails that have my attention—vivid red and gleaming. That’s the problem with these starry-eyed groupies. They’re all the same. It’s like I’m living through a sexual groundhog day.
I don’t want to tell whatever-her-name-is I didn’t come, that I simply faked my orgasm to get her out of here.
I look at her. The extensions are too much, plastic. “Look, baby. I’ve got training tomorrow. I’m really… You know.”
She takes the hint, leaning forward and kissing me on the cheek reeking of CK One and sex. “I totally understand.”