Playing Hard: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (12 page)

“Of course, miss. We’ll be there in about thirty seconds,” comes the driver’s voice, and then we’re plunged back into silence.

Riley and I stare at each other across the short distance between us.

“Come on,” Riley says, his voice quiet — and, if I’m not mistaken, a little breathy. “You can’t get out of this car until you’ve shown me your panties.”

“I can do whatever I want,” I say, staring back at him. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Oh, yeah?” Riley leans forward a little. To my horror, I find myself not leaning back. “Lift your skirt. Show me what’s underneath it.”

I press my lips together, looking him in the eye. “I never agreed to that. Why should I?”

“Because I’m telling you to.” Riley’s answer is immediate. “And because you want to.”

“How would you know what I want? We barely even know each other.”

Riley raises an eyebrow in a way I find
unbearably
sexy. “You’re easier to read than you think, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snap, but even I can hear the waver in my voice. “We’re not really dating.”

The limo pulls up, coming to a halt, and the driver’s voice over the intercom tells us that we’ve arrived at my apartment. I barely hear him. The air between Riley and I is so thick I feel like I can barely breathe it.

“So you keep saying,” Riley says.

“We’re not. And don’t forget it,” I tell him. I turn on the seat, opening the car door to get out onto the sidewalk. After I step out, I turn back, facing him. I can see Riley still sitting in the limo, lowering his head a little to look out at me through the doors.

And then I do it.

As I stand there on the sidewalk in the cold winter air, I lift my skirt, giving him the world’s quickest flash, before I slam the car door and run up the front steps of my building.

“You did
what?
” Darcey squeals, sitting up straight on her bed.

We’re both in her room, propped up against the wall beneath the smoldering gaze of Canada’s twenty-third prime minister, watching some Kardashians bullshit and eating leftover Mongolian barbecue from the takeaway we’d gotten the day before. At least, we had been, up until my confession that I’d — intentionally — flashed Riley when I’d gotten out of the car.

I try to be flippant.

“It really wasn’t that big of a deal,” I say, hoping my cheeks aren’t burning and giving me away. “He showed me his first, anyway.”

“No way,” Darcey says, shaking her head. “I know you, and there’s no way this was no big deal for you. You’re so uptight.”

“I’m
not
uptight!” I insist for the second time today. “Why does everyone think that?”

“Uh, maybe because you’re super fucking uptight?” Darcey says, shoving a piece of marinated beef into her mouth. 

“Just because I believe in decorum does
not
make me uptight,” I inform her. “I just think people should be able to control themselves.”

“Obviously not that much. Or else you wouldn’t be flashing your tighty whiteys at anyone who asks.”

“It’s not everyone who asks! It’s just —” Of course, I’m about to say
it’s just Riley
, until my brain catches up with my mouth and I realize how incriminating that would sound. It’s too late, however.

“Ohhhh, so you’re only showing them off to Riley Knox, then,” Darcey says, grinning. “Which I guess I can understand, seeing as you want him to get inside them.”

“That’s not true,” I say feebly.

“Then why’d you do it?” Darcey asks, eyeballing me fiercely.

“Mainly to stop people like you and Riley saying I’m uptight.” It’s hardly the world’s most convincing reason, but it’s all I can come up with on the spur of the moment.

Darcey shrugs. “It’s a good start, I guess.” She puts some more beef in her mouth. “So what’s the next move in Murray’s choreographed dance of luuuurve for you two?”

I sigh. “We’re going on a date to Balotelli’s,” I tell her. “Murray’s arranged it for Wednesday.”

“Balotelli’s doesn’t seem like Riley’s kind of place,” Darcey observes. “He’s not really known for his fine dining habits.”

“I know — the point is everyone has to think he’s changed,” I say. “That he’s changed his ways and is no longer a massive party boy.”

“Ahh, so he met the right woman, and now she’s tamed his wayward wang. Got it. Well, best of luck with that. I guess as long as he can still bang cheerleaders on the downlow, things will be fine.”

I look across at Darcey, feeling my chest tighten. “What?”

I don’t know why I’m surprised by what she said. In fact, I’d just kind of assumed that that’s what Riley would be doing anyway. We don’t have any obligations to each other, after all, except to keep up a reasonably convincing facade, and even that’s helped along with a healthy dose of self-interest on both our parts. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell Riley we’re not really dating. So why should Darcey’s words have any effect on me?

She just shrugs. “I mean, if it’s just fake, right?”

I blink, licking my lips. I mean, she’s right, of course. I can’t argue with that.

“I better go study,” I say. “I have a paper due on Friday, and if I have to go on this stupid date on Wednesday I should get it started now.”

Not looking up, I snap the lid of my takeaway closed, my appetite suddenly gone.

“I thought you said you’d watch this Kardashians marathon with me,” Darcey complains.

I glance up at the screen. It’s filled with huge-boobed, overly made-up, skintight dress-wearing women who all look more or less the same to me — the kind of women Riley undoubtedly prefers, and will probably continue to have sex with while we’re pretending to date.

“Sorry, I’m just not in the mood,” I tell Darcey, before I scooch myself up off her bed, and walk across the hall to my room.

CHAPTER TWELVE

RILEY

Little white cotton panties.

With a little bow on the waistband.

Fuck me.

I’m so preoccupied with the half-second flash I got of Ava’s little white panties that I’m nowhere near ready when the ball comes sailing toward me. I fumble and drop it, a moment before Reid’s massive body comes slamming into me.

“Get your head in the game, Knox!” one of the assistant coaches, Coach Thompson, bellows at me from the sideline.

He’s right. My head hasn’t been anywhere near the game all morning. It’s been lodged firmly between Ava Westwood’s perfect, pale thighs. On the tiny flash of the triangle of white fabric that, for one moment, was the only thing between me and her virgin pussy.

“You’re slowing things up, Knox,” Coach Thompson shouts at me. “Get off the field and go take a shower. I don’t want to see you back here until you’re ready to practice.”

Whatever
.

I heave myself up off the ground, tossing the ball I dropped to Reid. He jogs up to me.

“Everything okay, man?”

I just nod. How can I explain? I got a text from Murray yesterday saying he’d made the booking at the shit-hot Italian restaurant Ava had picked out, and a bunch of bullshit about ‘sticking to the official narrative’, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. Whatever the case, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include Ava flashing me in broad daylight.

Anyway, after our date tonight I’m pretty sure word will start to get around that we’re ‘seeing each other’, and maybe then I won’t have to lie right to my friend’s face about it. Or at least, it won’t be as direct a lie. I never thought about that. Coach Jackson hasn’t told me who I’m allowed to tell and who I’m not. Reid can be trusted, but I still don’t feel great about it.

I walk off the field, grabbing my equipment bag as I go. I make my way back into the athletics center and hit the showers. The other guys are still out training, and will be for at least another half hour yet. I’m pissed Thompson sent me off so early, but he’s right: I’m not with it today. It’s making it hard for the other guys to practice when I’m fucking up all the time. 

It’s like I’m being haunted, though: haunted by the ghost of Ava Westwood’s panties. By the smooth skin of her thighs. The way she pulled her skirt up for just a second, before slamming the car door in my face.

Hell, it’s like
I’m
the drooling virgin here. Like I’ve never seen a naked woman before.

If anything,
she
should be the one chasing
me
around begging for a taste. I’ve never once had to chase a woman in my life — at least, not in the last couple of years, since I started playing at Blaketon. And even before that, it’s not like it was so hard. Even at my shitty high school, I was good-looking and athletic. And the girls there weren’t exactly known for keeping their legs together. The whole school was like one big episode of those shows where they follow underage moms around.

I never needed to watch things like that — I already know how that story goes. I lived it every day. My mom got pregnant with me at sixteen, dropped out, and it was the same story with most of the girls I grew up with.

That’s why I swore I’d get out. I’m going pro, no matter what it takes. Hell if I know where my mom is now, seeing as she took off with some new man as soon as I got my scholarship, but I like to think that, wherever she is, she’s proud of me. She may not have left me any address when she left town, but I know she did her best for me when I was at home. At least I always had new shoes once a year, and she encouraged me playing sports. Can’t have been easy to raise a kid when you’re basically still a kid yourself, and watching her as I grew up made me extra careful now. Yeah, I might whore around, but I’m always careful to wrap it. I’m not leaving a trail of fatherless kids behind me.

Ordinarily, I’d have a shower now, but I feel riled up, full of unspent energy. I think about hitting the gym, but the last thing I want is to be cooped up inside.

Screw it. I’ll jog home. It’s been a while since I went for a long run by myself, and it helps clear my head.

Stowing my equipment, I change out of my practice gear into a clean pair of sweats and a t-shirt, and then head out.

The air is cold and clear, and as I get into a rhythm my frustration at my shitty training session slips away from me. The only thing I’m thinking about is Ava. About how crazy she makes me, for no reason that I can figure out.

I have a thousand girls who’ll willingly throw themselves at me. I don’t need one who’ll give me attitude and play hard to get.

It’s only a fifteen-minute run from the athletics center to the house I share with Reid and a couple of our other teammates, Cole and Omar. I go as hard as I can, trying to push all thoughts of my hot little virgin not-girlfriend out of my head. I have to see her tonight, after all, and it would be better if I wasn’t fixating on what’s between her legs when I do.

It’s crazy that a tiny little flash of a cotton triangle could have me this worked up.

I crash into the house, going upstairs and throwing myself down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling while my lungs heave.

Despite training and then the hard run, I can feel the blood stirring in my dick, and I look down to see a healthy boner growing in my sweats. I groan. If I don’t either get Ava out of my head or into bed soon, I’m going to lose my mind.

Pulling down my sweats, I take myself in my hand, stroking my hard dick and thinking about Ava.

I imagine she’d be wild in bed, once she drops her inhibitions and just goes for it. She’d have that combination of innocence and wildness about her that makes my knees weak and my cock hard. I’ve never had any girl give me so much mouth before — at least, not
this
kind of mouth, where she seems somehow immune to all the things that make girls get on their backs for me faster than I can ask them to.

That’s the thing, though: she’s
not
immune to it. I’ve seen the way she looks at me. If there one thing I know, it’s lust, and that’s how she looks at me. Like I’m a piece of meat and she’s a hungry lioness. She just hasn’t given in to it.

Yet.

I squeeze my cock in my hand, imagining it’s Ava’s mouth, warm and wet, sucking me down her throat.

“Is that good?”

I imagine I can hear her voice now, see her dark blue eyes as she looks up at me. It’s her hand gripping the base of my cock instead of mine.

“Fuck, it’s so good,” I growl at her, wanting more than anything else to feel her mouth back around me.

Reaching over to my bedside table, I grab the lube I keep there in case of situations just like this, or for when I luck out and a girl’s up for anal. I squirt it into my hand, before putting it back around my dick, picking up the pace.

I imagine it’s Ava’s mouth, sucking more confidently now that I’ve reassured her about how good it is, about how much I want her.

Her mouth is hotter than hell as she slides me inside it. She takes me in slowly, and I can feel her tongue all along the underside of my cock. Her fist is curled tightly around the base as she takes me in as far as she can, until I feel the head of my dick pressing on the back of her throat.

She stops, moaning a little, but she doesn’t pull back. I throw my head back, wanting her to move, wanting her to do
something
, but I force myself to wait, let her take her time with it.

When she does finally slide her lips all the way back up along my length, I growl out her name, unable to help myself.

I look down to see my cock glistening with her saliva, and the same big blue eyes looking up at me for approval, her pink lips swollen, my pre-come smeared across them.

Fuck, I’ve never seen anything hotter in my entire life.

I thrust my hips, pushing my dick against her lips, and she opens them again willingly, taking me back in.

Her lips are tight around me, and her mouth is wet and hot. She’s sucking me greedily now, like she can’t get enough of me, her head bobbing up and down.

Shit. For a virgin, she’s way too fucking good at this. It’s like she already knows me inside out, like she already knows just what to do to drive me out of my mind.

I can already feel my balls drawing up tight, feel my climax gathering at the base of my spine.

Everything is deep, dark heat, and I feel like my life is being sucked out of me through my dick.

“Shit, fuck, Christ,” I swear, not even able to stop the babble of words leaving my mouth as Ava draws all the way back again, wrapping her tongue around the head of my cock, swirling over it and licking up the pre-come that’s leaking out.

Then she plunges her lips back over me, taking me in as far as she can, until I can feel the hot walls of her throat fluttering around me.

That’s it. That’s all I can take.

I come hard enough that I’m left breathless and winded, pouring myself straight down her throat. She swallows willingly, not pulling back until I’m almost finished, and then she pulls off, letting the last few drops of my hot seed spurt over the perfect pink cupid’s bow of her lips.

I suck in a breath. I might be coming in my head, but I’m not quite ready to in real life. I squeeze the base of my dick, slowing it down, before starting again, stroking myself slowly.

Lust burns in my veins as I look down at her, the tip of her tongue lapping at the come I shot onto her face.

“Fuck me, you look….”

But I don’t have the words to describe how fucking hot she looks. She looks hot enough to destroy worlds. She’s definitely hot enough to destroy
me
, in any case. I’ve never wanted any girl more than I’ve wanted her.

“Was that good?” she asks, as if she doesn’t have the evidence of just how fucking mind-blowingly good it was all over her face. And a little on the front of her shirt.

In answer, I pull her up to me, crushing our lips together in a kiss. I can taste myself in her mouth, but I don’t even care. All I want to do is kiss her. And then make her come. And then come again. And again. And again.

“Come here,” I say, picking her up by planting both my palms under her ass and carrying her across the room. I throw her down on her back on the bed, and I’m on top of her in a second, my dick hard again already, pushing up between her legs. She moans, writhing underneath me as the tip presses against her soaking wet pussy lips. The knowledge that it’s sucking me off that has made her this wet sends a shudder through me.

“Do you want it?” I ask her, trying to keep my voice steady. I’m ready to come again already just from this, though — just from feeling the lightest touch of her against me.

She doesn’t answer me. She just squirms, putting her arms and legs around me, trying to pull me into her.

“Not until you tell me what you want,” I growl, moving back. It’s making me crazy, but I need to hear her say it.

“Please,” she whispers, her lips glistening, eyes half-lidded with need.

“Please what?”

She closes her eyes. “Please, please fuck me….”

That’s it. That’s what my cock was apparently waiting to hear, and I explode over my own hand, rubbing myself up and down until I’m completely finished, the echo of Ava’s voice begging me to fuck her still in my head.

Fuck me
.

I blow out a long breath, before looking down at my hand covered in my own come. I grab a tissue and start wiping myself off.

There’s nothing I feel like doing more than just leaning back now and maybe dozing for a few minutes, but all at once I remember I have to get to our fake date at that Italian place — Blatoletti or whatever it’s called. I need a shower, a shave, and I need to get into the one suit I actually own, which I’ve only ever worn to sports award nights before.

And she’ll be there.

Wearing her little cotton panties and some sensible but incredibly expensive dress, no doubt.

I force myself up off the bed, heading toward the shower.

I tell the cab driver to let me off around the corner from the restaurant. Murray texted me the address along with the time of the reservation he’d made. This looks like one of those swank places that has a waiting list of a month or something, so fuck knows how he got it, but I suppose that’s one of the benefits of being connected to the rich and famous.

I pay the driver and step out onto the sidewalk, straightening my jacket. I may not have the money and privileged background of the people I’ve been rubbing elbows with since coming to Blaketon, but I’ll be fucked if I let that make me feel uncomfortable or anything less than what I am.

I’m already turning heads as I round the corner and make my way up the sidewalk toward the restaurant. There’s a small group of photographers there. I have no idea whether it’s Murray’s doing or just the usual swarm of paps who hang around anywhere there’s likely to be celebrities, and I care even less. I see a couple of women who’re out with their husbands or boyfriends turn to watch me out of the corner of their eyes as I walk by them. Why wouldn’t they? I’m young, I’m good looking. I’m a football god. They probably don’t know who I am — these people don’t strike me as the kind to follow college football, unless they own an NFL team or something — but that doesn’t matter. I look fucking great.