Hearts in Overtime: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (21 page)

Luckily, I managed to control myself.

Ben slid his hands down to caress my ass, and my heart skipped a beat when I felt him touch the bulk down there. I felt terribly self-conscious. No doubt most of the girls in his life had gym toned bodies and asses you could bounce a quarter off of. Was my sizeable derriere really not a turn off for him?

It would seem not to be. His strokes became both slower and deeper, and I could feel his heart pounding against his chest. I moaned softly and reached down to stroke his ass, which was taut and firm. I had an overwhelming urge to cover it with kisses.

“Suz,” he said, softly. “You know, I have a room in the hotel. Would you like to come up?”

“Oh, yeah.”

I could pretty much say that I wanted that more than I’d ever wanted anything else.

“Nice.” With one last deep, passionate kiss, Ben grabbed my hand and led me back to the hotel.

We had to be spry so as not to get caught. A few of our former high school classmates had spilled out of the banquet hall and were milling about in the lobby. Ben and I lowered our heads and hurried through the lobby for the elevator bank without being spotted.

As we waited for the car to descend, I dared a glance at Ben, whose handsome face was tinged with red as he struggled to hold his laughter in. I had to quickly look away so I didn’t start cracking up in the giggles.

It was funny. I had the overwhelming sense that we were acting like a couple of crazy teenagers, but the fact is when we were teenagers, we never acted crazy. Ben and I were studious kids—studying and strategizing while our classmates were having fun. But that was okay. I, for one, planned on making up for lost time that night.

After a swift ride up to the 42
nd
floor, I followed Ben down the corridor, and he opened the door to a spacious suite filled with sleek modern furniture. I only had a second to look around, though, because after Ben took my purse and tossed it on the sofa along with his jacket, he walked back over to me, put a hand on either side of my face and gave me the softest, sweetest, most romantic kiss I had ever experienced.

His lips were strong, yet gentle. His tongue was exploratory, yet playful. I reached up and buried my fingers in his thick, dark hair, and I never wanted to let go.

He pulled back and whispered, “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for fourteen years.”

“Me too,” I breathed. Well, I’d only been dreaming of it for ten years, but still, Ben Forsythe had been the star of my fantasies for over a third of my life. I couldn’t believe this was really happening.

His hands slid down to my shoulders, and in one swift move, he peeled off my black angora shrug and tossed it on the floor. With both hands, he cupped the sides of my tits and started to massage the tender flesh, his fingers moving slowly but purposefully toward my nipples. And when they did reach those hard little nubs at the end of my tits, he circled his thumbs around them using the perfect amount of pressure. Even through the fabric of my dress and the thick, industrial strength nylon of my DDD bra, his touch was like magic. I arched my head back and moaned in ecstasy.

He bent down to kiss the fleshy parts of my tits that weren’t hidden under my dress, and then he reached down to grab my hand. Without a word, he led me into the adjoining bedroom.

“You’re so beautiful, Suz,” he said. “Inside and out, you’re so beautiful,” he said, reaching his arms around me to unzip my dress.

When he slid the straps over my shoulders and the dress fell to the floor, I had a moment of self-consciousness. It wasn’t bright in the bedroom—the light spilling in from the main room gave us enough visibility to move around, but not enough to highlight my physical flaws—but even so, I felt a bit uneasy.

I knew of one sure way to lessen that feeling, and it was to make sure Ben shed a few layers of clothing too. I reached up and unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the most gorgeous sculpted chest I’d ever seen in real life. And since it was only fair (seeing as I was wearing nothing but my panties and bra) I unbuttoned his pants, unzipped, and slid his pants down his strong, powerful legs.

Oh, wow. He had such a gorgeous body. More beautiful than I ever dared to dream of. I could have gazed at him for hours, but I only had a moment to do so before he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. I shut my eyes and fully absorbed the wonderful sensation of our nearly naked bodies being pressed together. It was so perfect. His cock throbbed against my belly, and my pussy swelled with impatience.

Ben leaned down to kiss my neck and started a trail of kisses, leading down to my shoulder, and then to my collarbone, and then to my tits. I gently moved against his cock, eating up the sensation of that rock hard muscle rubbing up against my tummy.

He moaned softly, his hands fumbling with the clasp of my bra, and then with one loud snap, he had it unhooked. Ben moaned again, a little less softly this time as my tits spilled out of my bra and my bra fell to the floor.

Eyes closed, I arched my back, cherishing the waves of pleasure shooting through my body as Ben devoured my tits. Alternately teasing and suckling on the sensitive pink nubs, he was quickly driving me to the oblivion of ecstasy.

Reaching down, I blindly groped until I found the elastic of his boxers and slid them down his legs to free his cock. Oh, god. I wrapped my hands around the pulsating organ. Long, thick, and powerful, it was more perfect than I’d ever dreamed it would be. I wrapped my fingers around the shaft and started stroking.

Without stopping the glorious tongue action he was treating my nipples to, Ben reached down to slide my panties off my hips and down to the floor. He then ran his fingers gently over my pussy lips as I shook with pleasure. I moaned as he increased the pressure and found his way to my clit where his fingers circled the magical pink pebble, causing me to cry out.

And then, all too abruptly, he withdrew his fingers. I couldn’t help but let a meek little cry escape from my lips, but I should have known there was nothing to be upset about. Things were about to get even better.

Ben placed both hands gently on my shoulders and lowered me down to the bed. I scooted back so I was lying down and I reached up for him, but he just smiled, kissed my hand and climbed on from the foot of the bed so that he was kneeling between my thighs.

As he buried his face in my pussy, I leaned back into the pillows, and allowed myself to be pampered. He started with a few sweet licks on the outer lips.

“You taste so good,” he murmured, before diving back in. He took his time, nibbling on the lips and the folds before going for the gold, but when he did…oh my god! As his tongue played with my clit—circling, licking, teasing, pleasing—I rocked my hips slightly, creating a gentle friction between us. The stubble on his cheeks was rough as it rubbed up against my pussy, but only in the best possible way.

I moaned, a loud, primitive sort of cry that lingered in the quiet room. Ben’s tongue circled my clit over, and over, and over and over again, driving me into an erotic frenzy. I looked down. His eyes were closed, his jaw slowly moving up and down as if he were savoring a delicious meal. Those lips, that tongue, that rhythm. Oh, god. My pussy had never before known such pleasure. Oh, god! I bucked my hips and dug my fingers into his scalp, as Ben Forsythe—beautiful, sweet, brilliant Ben Forsythe brought me to the highest level of pleasure I had ever before experienced.

As soon as I had my wits about me again, I sat up and went straight for his cock, desperate to make him feel as wonderful as he had made me feel, but Ben caught me by the shoulder to stop me.

“No, don’t,” he said.

“But, why? I need to taste you, Ben.”

“Later, okay? Right now I need to be inside you.”

I nodded, and he gently lowered me back down on the bed and adjusted his position. Within moments, I felt the hard head of his cock pressed against my pussy, and a moment after that, he slid smoothly in. Reaching up for him, I moaned. It felt so good with him inside me. He was huge, but there wasn’t any pain. What I really felt was a sense of abundance. I’d never been filled up like this before—filled up to absolute capacity and it was a thrilling experience.

Just as he did while he was eating me out, Ben started slowly, sliding gently in and out of me, but he gradually increased his pace and he thrusted deeper and deeper each time until my levels of ecstasy reached a towering height. Faster and faster he pounded, and just as I threw my head back and unleashed an orgasmic cry, Ben arched his back and cried out, the sound of his pleasures mingling in the quiet room with mine. A moment later, I felt the warm sensation of his ejaculation shooting into my body—filling me, completing me.

“Oh, Suz,” he said later, as we lay stretched out on the bed together with my head resting on his chest. “That was every bit as wonderful as I’d dreamed it would be.”

“I’ll say.” I kissed his chest as I tenderly stroked one of his nipples. “I guess that’s what ten years of waiting and wondering will do.”

“True.” He laughed. “But let’s never again be apart for ten
days
, never mind ten years.”

My heart soared when he said those words. I knew then that I loved him. I really loved him and I wasn’t going to let him go ever again.

“It’s a deal,” I said.

I closed my eyes and snuggled closer as he stroked my back.

“Lila!” Pepper’s whiny voice rang out from her office. “I need your help tonight!”

Tonight? I didn’t like the sound of that. Nope. I didn’t like the sound of that at all. Still, I couldn’t just ignore my boss’s desperate plea. I got up from my chair and went into her office. Unlike her, I wasn’t big on having to shout to make myself heard.

“What’s up, Pepper?”

She was leaning against her desk peering at the numbers displayed on her Fitbit, but she looked up when I spoke.

“You know I’m supposed to go to the Cartwright Foundation’s benefit dinner tonight, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, I was totally planning on it, but I just got this text from Ollie Pattersen. He’s back in town and he wants to take me out to dinner tonight. And I reeeeeally want to go,” she said, giving me the sad puppy dog look. “You know how head over heels I am for him.”

“Well, then you should go.” I smiled. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that we really need to put in an appearance at the Cartwright dinner.”

Uh oh. Her use of the word “we” did not escape me.

“Could you pleeeeease go in my place? All I need you to do is shake a few hands, tell people I’m awfully sorry I couldn’t be there but we had a last-minute crisis of some kind. Maybe like something went wrong at the factory in Shanghai and I had to fly out there to oversee things myself.”

Talk about a lame excuse. What did Pepper Warrington know about large-scale clothing factories (in China, no less) and how would she know what to do in a crisis? I could answer those questions myself, and the correct answers were: zilch and zip.

What she really should have done was to suck it up and go to the damn charity dinner. She was right about the importance of putting in an appearance. Her debut clothing line was set to launch in less than two weeks, and the Cartwright dinner was going to be packed with movers and shakers with lots of influence and lots of dough.

After all, she could have told Ollie Pattersen she already had plans, and could have arranged to see him a different time. In fact, it probably would have impressed him more if she hadn’t been so “available”. But then again, what did I know? Thirty-six years old and I was still single and looking.

I really didn’t want to go to the dinner. It had been a hectic day, and I was looking forward to picking up some Vietnamese takeout and streaming a few episodes of
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
after work. Yes, I was aware of how pathetic that sounded, but compared to the thought of hobnobbing with a bunch of snooty, size zero elitists, it sounded like absolute bliss.

“Pleeeeease, Lila? I promise you, it’ll be fun. There will be loads of celebrities there.”

Eh. I wasn’t impressed.

“Marc Batiste is doing the catering…” she said in a singsong voice.

Well, that made it a
little
more appealing. I would have given one of my kidneys for a reservation at hot celebrity chef Marc Batiste’s new restaurant, but I probably still wouldn’t have been able to get a table.

“I’ll write you a bonus check for five hundred dollars right now if you do this for me,” Pepper said.

Yeah, that got my attention.

“Seriously?”

“Yes!” she said, already fishing through her desk drawer for her checkbook. “That’s how much I want to see Ollie, Lila. I really think he might be the one…”

I was pretty sure he wasn’t the one. I’d never met the guy, but the way he had Pepper doing back flips to see him wasn’t a very good sign.

“So, you’ll go?” she asked, her eyes wide and expectant, her pen poised over the checkbook.

I felt bad taking her money, but not that bad. After all, this was a woman who had over $50,000 worth of designer shoes in her closet.

“Okay. I’ll go.”

Kimmy Schmidt
would just have to wait.

“Oh, thank you, Lila! Thank you! Thank you!”

She quickly scrawled out the necessary information, signed the check and tore it from the checkbook before hopping off the desk and throwing her arms around me.

I hugged her back. Pepper might have been crazy, but she had a big heart, which was more than I could say for some of the employers I’d had in the past. And who knew? Maybe the Cartwright dinner would be fun.

* * * *

Yeah, it really wasn’t fun. After seeking out all of Pepper’s jet-setting friends and giving them her regards, I talked up her upcoming lingerie line. Some of the gals were nice (bubbly, smiley little things that reminded me of Pepper) and some of them were…not. I got a few ice-cold stares.

Here’s the thing: I was fat. Not as in, “I need to swear off of simple carbs for the next couple of months so I can drop a dress size or two.” It was more like, “I would have to be on a restrictive diet and work out seven days a week under the watch of a sadistic personal trainer for a whole year with absolutely no cheating if I wanted to drop into the single digit dress sizes.”

So I was fat, and there I was, surrounded by high society waifs who were so fancy, they looked like they hung out with Princess Kate. And I hadn’t even had time to go home and change, so among all those highly conceptual fashions straight from the runways of Milan, there was my business casual outfit straight from the racks of Macy’s Women’s department. That’s code for “plus size,” my slender sisters.

Needless to say, I felt a bit out of place. I’d been hoping that the culinary genius of Marc Batiste would lift my spirits, but no such luck. I almost burst out laughing when the waiter set my dinner plate down in front of me. It contained 1) a radish carved into the shape of a flower and placed on a bed of parsley sprigs 2) three stalks of asparagus, neatly bundled together with the thinnest sliver of a carrot I’d ever seen tied around them 3) a piece of chicken about the size of my business card with some mustard-y sauce (not honey mustard) drizzled over it. And that was it. Plus a thimble-sized cup of dark chocolate mousse for dessert. I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised. All those jet-setting ladies at the Cartwright dinner didn’t get to be 0% body fat by eating normal meals.

Aside from the disappointing food, dinner was actually pretty nice. I really lucked out when it came to dining companions. To my right was a gay couple (a stockbroker and a Broadway producer) who kept me entertained with a running commentary about the various kooky society biddies in attendance at the dinner, and the hijinks they were always getting into. To my left was an older couple, both of whom had a charming Midwestern twang. Dora, the wife, proudly informed me that they were nouveau riche, having only come into their fortune a decade ago when an oil field was discovered under their land.

“It burns the snooty old hags up to have to invite us to these things, but Rod and I are generous—anything for the kids, you know—so they really have no choice but to put up with us and our white trash ways,” Dora said with a mischievous glint in her eye. 

“Dora! Don’t say that! You’re anything but that.” I couldn’t bring myself to say “white trash.”

“Honey, don’t even,” said Arthur, the Broadway producer, leaning across me to speak to Dora. “A lot of these crows aren’t the posh old birds they claim to be. You know Fifi Waterston? I have it on good authority that she’s originally from a town called Festus, Missouri and that she was a secretary for a bail bondsman before she met the dashing and wealthy David Waterston and joined the upper crust.”

“No!” Dora exclaimed, her eyes like saucers. “And here she is, strutting around like she’s Katharine Hepburn’s long lost little sister.” She leaned her head back and hooted.

Her laughter was infectious, and soon the whole table was cracking up. I was so pleased with this turn of events and was actually glad I’d come.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” boomed a voice over the loud speakers. “Could I have your attention, please?”

I looked up to see the dapper older man who had taken his position behind the podium on the stage at the far end of the banquet hall. The crowd swiftly quieted down.

“For those of you don’t know me, I’m Theodore Rockford the third. My lovely wife, Kitty, toiled tirelessly along with the other hardworking ladies of the Cartwright Foundation to put tonight’s event together. Let’s give them a round of applause.”

His wish was granted, and the room was suddenly filled with polite applause.

“And how about a round of applause for Marc Batiste for providing such a delicious meal for us all?”

Applause ensued. Mine wasn’t all that enthusiastic.

“Finally, give yourselves a round of applause. Without you, the Cartwright Foundation wouldn’t be able to do all the good work that it does.”

Applause ensued again, and once it died down, he started yakking about all the plans the foundation had to supplement public school funding in the city, and to help with things like after school programs and more nutritious school lunches. It was nice that all these insanely rich people were using their money to do something positive. And it looked like the foundation had raked in a boatload from the dinner alone. There had to have been at least a hundred or a hundred and fifty people at the dinner, and according to Pepper, the cost to attend was $500 a plate.

“And now for the fun part,” said Theodore Rockford III.

The fun part? I liked the sounds of that. I focused my attention back on what he was saying.

“As you know, we have quite an extensive list of wonderful raffle prizes to give away tonight,” he continued.

Oh, cool. I didn’t know that was on the agenda.

“First we have an all-expenses paid trip to The Bahamas, provided by Luxury Escapes. Four days and three nights, five star accommodation, plus four spa treatments and three gourmet meals a day. Congratulations…Trixie Bollinger!”

I followed his gaze to Trixie, a willowy young woman who looked completely unimpressed. Clearly, winning my ultimate dream vacation was no big deal to her. I was absolutely seething with envy. Anyway…

“Next up is a custom made creation by hot young fashion designer, Mario Luz, whose couture gowns have been seen on the red carpet worn by the world’s most glamorous stars…”

I kind of tuned out as that Theodore went through the list of dreamy prizes, doling them out to people who didn’t seem to care much, one way or the other. Or it seemed like that, anyway. Maybe I was being too judgemental. Posh people are much more reserved than your ordinary, average Joe, right? Who knew? Maybe I was just jealous.

“Next we have a portrait session with renowned artist, Alessandro Lamberti, whose deeply expressive paintings are taking the art world by storm. Congratulations, Lila French!”

Wait, what?

“That’s you, hon!” Dora said, giving me a shoulder squeeze. She raised her arm and started waving it around. “This here is Lila French!”

I was still in shock. I’d read about Alessandro Lamberti. Not that I really kept up with what was going on in the art world or anything, but even I knew that he was a big deal. As in: his collection sold out within minutes after the Christie’s auction commenced and after breaking all sorts of records. As in: kings and queens and shahs and sultans from countries all over the world had his paintings hanging in their private residences. Crazy.

Theodore Rockford III sought me out in the crowd and gave me a kind smile before he moved on to announcing the winner of the next raffle prize.

“Way to bag an excellent prize, Lila,” said Arthur, the Broadway producer, holding up his glass to toast me. “Alessandro Lamberti is the most poignant American artist since Jackson Pollock.”

“Thanks, Arthur.” I smiled and clinked my glass against his.

“Not to mention the fact that the man’s a scorching hottie,” said Arthur’s partner, Jacob. “That face of his is a work of art in itself. And his body? Don’t even get me started. The man is a walking masterpiece.”

“I know, right?” I said with a nervous giggle. I couldn’t believe I was going to be meeting him.

Having a session with him…what would that be like? He was ridiculously sexy, and part of me couldn’t stand the idea of having such a hot guy looking at me for however long it took to paint my portrait. I was feeling uncomfortable already. That same part of me was tempted to re-gift my prize to Arthur and Jacob.

But I didn’t. I wasn’t broke or anything, but I knew if I had in my possession a Alessandro Lamberti original (which I would if I went through with the portrait session) I’d have something I could potentially sell for a hundred thousand dollars or more. If I moved back home to Baltimore, I could buy an entire house with that amount of money! In cash! No way could I pass up the opportunity for such a nice security blanket. Not that I was thinking I’d definitely sell it, but I must admit that it was in the back of my mind.

And so it was the promise of financial security that made me disregard my own insecurities and make up my mind that I would be posing for Alessandro Lamberti.

* * * *

The next day, I got a call from Alessandro’s assistant, Rachel.

“Ms. French, congratulations on winning the portrait session with Alessandro,” she said.