Player: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (48 page)

Me?

I quickly roll my eyes at my own stupid thought and shake my head. No, that’s not a path I can let my mind wander down. Like I said, we’re just two people who found themselves on intersecting lines.

And now it’s time to move on.

I turn to stare out my own window, watching the vapor trails and cloud tails streak across the wing of the plane as we slide through the night back home; back to the confusion and unfinished conversations that will still be there when we get back.

I
’m daydreaming
and letting my thoughts wander when the muffled cheering and jeering of the crowd out by the ring jars me into the present. I blink and grimace at my surroundings. The back room of the nightclub out in Queens that’s serving as a locker room is dimly lit and grimy. The walls are streaked with rusty evidence of old pipe leaks and maybe something worse, and the whole place smells like ammonia and defeat.

What the
fuck
am I doing here.

I used to love this - the thrill and the rush before the fight; the feeling of burning excitement and the euphoric high of the adrenaline. I used to love the smell of sweat and gym locker-rooms; of chalk-dusted workout bags and sweat-stained gloves. The sound of the crowd used to get me higher than any drug and the sheer anticipation of the primal act of
fighting
used to have me bouncing off the walls with excitement.

This place is, and does, none of those things for me.

Some girl in a bikini, who I think is probably one of those sign girls or maybe just some other broken individual there trying to latch onto something is smiling at me as she saunters into the room. I frown as she straddles my lap and starts to run her hands up and down over my bare chest.

“You look all tense, baby.”

There’s absolutely
nothing
tense about the way I’m just slumped in the old rusty metal folding chair, deadened by the weight of even being here.

The girl
is
gorgeous - all sex and desire, pressing her tits against me and letting her hands trail over my biceps. And normally, yeah normally I’d be
very
down for this, even though you're
never
supposed to do this kind of thing right before  a fight; no sex before you swing, they say. You need that pent up testosterone and aggression as fuel.

Of course
now
I’ve got Quinn Archer buried deep under my skin like an itch I can’t reach, and the idea of having
this girl
scratch that is completely turning me off.

“Maybe later,” I mutter, pushing her off of my lap.

She pouts in a way I’m sure she thinks is cute and sexy, but that just looks slutty, and not in a good way; “Well, maybe after you kick that guy’s ass then?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

No.

“Hey there, cabrón!” The man with the dark hair and dark black eyes like those of a shark - the man who’s the singular reason I’m here - steps through the doorway grinning that fucking leering, toothy smile of his; “
Hey
there’s my buddy!”

I’m not his fucking buddy and he damn well knows it. I’m his captive.

“You ready for this?”

I set my jaw as I stand from the chair and take a step towards Javier Toro, my jaw tightening. I’ve got at least six inches on him, and easily forty pounds of muscle, and I would love nothing more than to just pound that fucking shithead’s face in right now. Hell, even just a shove would be nice.

But I don’t, of course. I’m hotheaded, but not dumb, even if Javier’s completely let himself go physically since we knew each other before, back in the jungles of Ghana.

“You hit like a bitch, you know.” Javier spits in the dirt, his arms up and his body flitting side to side like a dancer as he circles me; “You gotta keep em up, like this. You let that guard down, and you’re gonna get smacked upside the head again.” He jabs suddenly, and I swear as his glove connects with my ear.

“See? Just like that, Irish! I should start charging you for these fuckin lessons!”

He hoots as he signals fight over and yanks his gloves off before coming over and clapping me on the back; “You ain’t so bad, you know. You got a fire inside of you that most guys don’t, Irish. I just gotta figure out what gets it burning and then you’re gonna be one mean son of a bitch in a ring.”

We walk over to the old roadside motel that Blackriver has taken over and repurposed into a sort of barracks in the abandoned village we currently occupy. The fact that we’re the only building for fifty miles in any direction with electricity, let alone running water, satellite television, and the internet only makes this whole thing even more surreal. It’s like some sort of tech-savy version of Marlon Brando’s  jungle-fiefdom in “Apocalypse Now”.

If life can get any stranger than playing soldier for hire in a mercenary corporation stuck in the middle of Africa, I’d almost welcome the chance to see it.

Javier pulls two beers out the fridge and hands me one; “My name’s not actually Irish, you know.”

He grins at me; “I figured your mama wasn’t that mean.”

“You’ve clearly never met my mother.”

We both chuckle as we sip on the cold beers, looking out from the porch over the dirt boxing ring and the jungle past it.

“It’s just- you know, I feel like a lotta guys here who signed on with Blackriver come from some pretty hardcore backgrounds.”

“Like you and your two buddies? The drunk and the junkie?”

I grit my teeth at the mention of Hudson and Byrce and shake my head. Hudson’s trying - kind of. But Byrce; shit, Bryce’s addiction is getting worse every day, and the fact that you can literally buy smack for cheaper than a bottle of clean water in this place isn’t exactly helping things.

“Yeah, well, we’ve seen some shit.”

Shit like one too many drone strikes on innocent people; one too many bombs dropped on fucking schools or villages back in Afghanistan. After that last one, where we all almost died, we snapped. I guess we all broke in different ways.

Which is why we’re here, in some God-forsaken part of the world playing soldiers for hire, because there’s just no going back home after you go AWOL from the Marines during active duty.

Javier nods; “Seems like it. I’ve seen some shit too, amigo,” He shakes his head; “But Papi, you got that cold hard cowboy look on your face like I’ve never seen before.”

I force out a laugh and sip the beer; “Well, I guess we all get the shit we carry from wherever we come from.”

“Yeah? And where’s that, Irish?” Javier clinks his beer against mine and peers at me curiously; “Where’d you come from?”

* * *

“
H
ey
, wake up, Irish!” Javier snaps his fingers in my face, startling me from my daydream, and his grin widens as he sees the bottled up hate behind my face. He narrows his eyes as he leans in closer, as if
daring me
to hit him; “Don’t fucking forget, buddy, you get to
win
this one tonight; comprendes?

“Yeah, fuckin
comprendes
.”

His eyes narrow again and he looks quickly at the girl still standing there and jerks his head for her to leave.

“Listen,
Logan
,” He hisses at me after the door closes behind her; “Don’t get all soft on me.”

“I’m not, fuck off.”

Javier nods slowly; it’s the same calculating look I first saw in Ghana, back when he was teaching me to fight. Back when he knew who I was, which consequently means
he
still knows who I am. Not Logan Dempsey, billionaire finance manager at Archer Holdings. Not the man working to rebuild the future from the wrongs of his past, brick by fucking brick. No, he knows who I
really
am, which means he owns me.

And I fucking
hate
feeling owned.

“Don’t go forgetting our arrangement, Logan.”

“I’m aware of it.” I growl out.

He chuckles; “Aww, now don’t get all mad like this is
my
fault, Papi.” He spreads his hands wide; “I’m a
businessman
, and you were just too good a
business
opportunity to let go of!”

Years ago, back in the jungle, he’d mentioned wanting to figure out what made me “burn” inside; what made me snap and made me a demon in the ring.

…I guess neither of us could have predicted that that it’d be
him
.

“Now don’t get all sore about it Irish; get
mad
. Get
mad
, get out there, and you hit that motherfucker.”

* * *

I
can hardly stand afterwards
, and all I’m barely aware of is pushing Javier away and stumbling back to my dirty changing room. The girl is there, of course, and she’s taking her top off, but I’m pushing her out the door too. It’s not just the pain - which is real - either. It’s the fact that through the whole fight, I’ve had one face in the back of my mind, keeping me standing, keeping me sane, and keeping me from fading out. One perfect, beautiful, untouchable face of the last girl on Earth I should be thinking about. I realize suddenly with a sobering thought that there’s only one place I want to go right now.

L
ong
, hot baths are supposed to be relaxing. They’re supposed to
de-
stress you and wash away whatever burdens you’re carrying with you as soon as you step into that glorious sudsy water. And yet somehow, despite the tea-lights, the stupid lavender bath-oil that Chelsea got me for my last birthday, and even the glass of wine in my hands, I’m still tense.

And I’m still
tense
because I can’t stop thinking about Logan fucking Dempsey.

Yikes, ok, I certainly don’t need to use the word
fuck
and his name together in the same thought; nope, not at all.

Whatever that little encounter on the plane was, whether he set that up or if it was just plain happenstance, it doesn’t matter. Either way, I can’t get the lingering thought of it out of my head. Because just that brush of a touch, the heat of his body close to mine in the tightness of that plane, and the way his eyes burned into mine had me thinking about
that
night; that first night full of heat and anonymity. Ok, he’s a rich, entitled, pompous ass, but
God
would I be lying if I tried to tell myself it hadn’t been amazing; like, mind-blowingly amazing.

And then before I know it, I’m letting myself sink down a little further in the heat of the tub and letting my thoughts wander to that illicit, forbidden place where the memory of that night is stored. I’m thinking of the way his hands ran over the curve of my hip and up to my back, teasing the skin there with his fingertips. The way he was so
primal
with his need for me, and yet so teasing in the way he brought me to a damn boiling point before he touched me there.

There,
where I realize my hand has crept beneath the bubbles of the bathwater.

I’m remembering the way his fingers finally delved down between my legs and slipped inside, making me gasp. The way he moved me around like I weighed nothing, and the way he brought me to his mouth, my legs straddling his face as he curled his tongue and his lips around my clit and sent shivering shuddering pleasure through my body.

I’m reaching for the waterproof vibrator sitting on the edge of the tub that I
knew
was a mistake bringing in here with me. It’s mistake because then I’m bringing it back down beneath the water’s bubbly surface and thinking of
him
and the way he felt so damn hard and
so
damn big as he slowly slipped inside of me.

His hands grab my ass as I moan into his mouth, and I gasp as I feel him start to physically pull me up his body.

“What are you- oh GOD-”

His mouth is kissing down my stomach as he drags me up his chest, pulling me closer until I can feel his breath hot against the cleft of my inner thigh. And then his tongue; tasting me, pushing thickly between my folds to tease around my clit and lap at my wetness.

I’m usually so passive and so quiet in bed, but that night, he ignites something inside of me. That night, I’m running my hands into his hair and holding him tightly to me as he licks me. I’m rocking my hips against that tongue of his; riding his face as he makes me come again and again on his tongue.

And I want to tell him that I’m not like this; as if for some reason I need to tell him that this isn’t something I EVER do. But instead I say nothing and just give in to the wild, animalistic fantasy of the single night of passion.

I’m moving down off of his lips, and it’s then that I let my eyes fall to the massive-looking erection curving from his chiseled hips and abs, and I swallow heavily as my eyes go wide at the sight of it. I’ve been with a grand total of three men in my life, and I can honestly say none of them are even in the same league as this man who’s bed I’m in right now.

He’s tearing a packet open and rolling a condom down over his thick length, and I’m both nervous and excited for this. But then I’m straddling his hips, and moaning as I feel him press against me down there, his hands holding my hips tightly as he gently begins to slide me down onto his-

The sudden buzz of my doorbell clanging through the loft apartment has me jolting out of my reverie as my eyes fly open with a gasp. The buzzer sounds again, then twice more.

It’s fucking midnight
I hiss to myself through clenched teeth as I quickly step out of the tub to the sound of the bell going yet
again
. I’m wrapping my bathrobe around my wet body as I storm across the loft space to the front door, briefly wondering if any jury in the world would find me guilty for
murdering
whoever this is, given the circumstances.

I slide open the peephole, and I almost can’t believe it, even though really, of course I can.

Dammit
; not
him
, and
certainly
not after what I was just doing in the bathtub thinking of him! But there’s Logan, standing there with that cocky grin on his face even though he’s holding a bloody-looking towel to his temple, and it’s almost as if he
knows
I’m looking at him at that very moment.

“Little help out here, Doc?”

I can feel the heat bloom in my face in spite of the frustration of having him actually
standing in front of me
instead of just keeping to my bath-time fantasies where I need him to stay; “What do you
want
, Logan?”

He cocks his head to the side and gives me a
look
through the keyhole; “I’m selling fucking girl scout cookies, Archer; what does it look like.”

“You live ten feet up from here, Logan, and I’m sure you’ve got a first-aid kit. Good
night
.”

He rolls his eyes at me; always so fucking self-assured, like he
knows
I’m not
actually
going to let him walk away in that condition.

And of course, he’s right.

“You’re a
Doctor
, Quinn.” He pauses and chuckles; “Unless you prefer ‘Medicine Woman.’”

Gee, never heard that one before; dick.

“Keep it up, Logan.” I mutter through the door.

“
Come on
, I’m a wounded man! Don’t you have an oath or something?”

With a roll of my eyes and an angry huff, I tighten the tie of my robe and slide the big industrial door open; “Let me guess, I should see the other guy?” I say it with sarcasm dripping from my voice as I arch a brow at him and cross my arms over my chest.

He grins, and
dammit
if he doesn’t still look sexy as all hell even with the bruise on his cheek and the cut on his lip bright with blood; “You
really
should, actually; I won.”

“What do you want, Logan?”

He shrugs; “I dunno, a
band-aid
would be nice?”

I roll my eyes again as I step aside and let him come in, sliding the door shut behind him; “I mean what do you want with
me
?” I look at him expectantly, my arms still folded over my chest; “This is
New York
; there are
literally
fifty-four hospitals in this city, not to mention walk-in clinics.”

“Guess I just come here for the lovely bedside manner, babe.” He winks at me through his shiner of a black eye and grins as he pushes past me towards the bathroom.

“Just where do you think you’re going?”

He turns and cracks a smile at me; “The
bathroom
, Quinn. I have to piss.” He stops for a second, and his grin widens at me; “I mean, unless of course you wanna help.”

I can feel my cheeks go hot as I wrinkle my nose at him; “Don’t be crude.”

I’ve pulled my bag of surgical supplies out of the closet by the time he saunters out, and I have to shake my head to physically stop myself from staring at the now shirtless Logan moving towards me in the living area. “Try not to get blood on the damn couch,” I mutter, trying to cover my blushing cheeks as he collapses down into it.

“I’ll buy you a new one.” He stretches out as he sinks back into the couch, his head resting on the back as he stares up at the ceiling and lets out a coughing sigh. Truth be told, despite our banter, I can tell that he
really is
actually hurt. Not hurt like the night I found him, but he’s definitely taken some mean looking punches by the looks of his face and hard-muscled abdomen.

He lifts his head up off the back of the couch; “Do you have any beer?”

I frown; “No? I think I’ve got vodka in the freezer?”

“Yeah that’ll do.”

After a long second of silence, I raise my brows at him; “Um, it’s
in the freezer
, Logan.” What, did he want me to go over and
fetch it
for him? I mean I know the guy is probably used to servants or whatever but give me a fucking break!

“Hey, I just didn’t want to bleed all over your floor or anything, Quinn.”

“So just my couch then?”

He grins at me, and I’m huffing out a sigh as I get up and storm over to the kitchen.

He takes a large swallow from the glass of ice and liquor that I hand him after I walk back over, before he holds it up to his bruised temple with a wincing sigh.

“Why do you do this to yourself?”

He snorts out a kind of bitter laugh at my question; “Yeah, mystery solved, Quinn. I’m actually a deranged lunatic and I do this to
myself
.”

I roll my eyes as I start pulling gauze and peroxide out of my bag; “You know what I mean. Why not do something else that doesn’t get you so messed up all the time?”

He takes another sip from the glass and shrugs as he chews on an ice cube; “It’s not
exactly
that simple.”

“No, I mean, you’re rich; isn’t there plenty of other rich-guy type stuff out there you could do that wouldn’t get your face bashed in?” I shake my head as I start to dab at the cut on his face with the peroxide; “Shouldn’t you be trading in bonds, or funding super-PACs or something?”

“
Trading bonds
, or
funding super-PACs
?” He chuckles; “Well sounds like
you
sure know how to have a good time, Princess.”

I shoot him a look; “I know how to have a
plenty
good time, actually.”

“Oh really?” He’s leaning closer as he grins at me, and I find myself not wanting to pull back even though I know I should; “So you know how to just cut loose and play?”

“
Yep.
” I say with a withering smirk of my own.

“So, kinda like how you were playing with
yourself
thinking about me right before I walked in here?”

I can literally feel the blood drain from my face as my heart just
drops
. I’m frozen and just
staring
at him with my jaw right there on the floor as he leans back into the couch and grins.

“I-” I’m sputtering; “I don’t know
what
you’re-”

With a look of triumph on his face, Logan pulls out
my fucking vibrator
- the one I evidently left out in plain sight in the bathroom - from behind his back where he’s obviously been hiding it since he first sat down.

The blood comes
rushing
back to my face with a burning feeling, and I suddenly just want to collapse into a puddle and just drip through the floorboards.

Logan grins at me with a sort of gleeful look on his face; “I mean, maybe you
weren’t
thinking about me, but I
somehow
doubt it.”

I grit my teeth, feeling angry and mortified as I slowly shake my head at him; “Anyone ever tell you you’re an arrogant
asshole
?”

He laughs; “If I had a dollar for-” He trails off and then chuckles; “Well, I’d be me.”

I stand quickly and storm back towards the front door of the apartment; “Well go be
you
somewhere else, dickhead.”

The actual
genuine
shock on his face is almost worth the price of my dignity and my embarrassment, but not quite; “
Aww
, now Quinn, don’t be-”

“Out.”

“I mean I can
stay
if you think it’ll help you out, back in the bathtub with your little friend here-”

“
OUT.
”

Logan shuts his perfect mouth and nods slowly before he wincingly stands and shuffles towards me and the door I’m holding open.

“You forgot your
shirt
, Rocky.”

He grins as he passes me, leaning in so close to my ear that I feel a shiver at the heat of his breath, hot on my neck; “Keep it, darlin.”

“
Out.
”

“
Fine
.”