Playing Hard: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (28 page)

She isn’t talking anymore, even to say my name — she’s just panting and gasping, her eyes looking like they’re rolled back in her head. I can feel my balls drawing up, ready to explode inside her.

I slide my finger over her clit once more, and then I feel her convulsing around me, a cry on her lips as she comes, gushing wetness around my cock, her pussy like a vise. I follow straight away after, unable to hold back, groaning as I empty myself. I can feel my cock pulsing inside her, spilling into her, filling her up with my come until it’s dripping out around me. Her pussy squeezes around me again and I cry out. She’s milking me until I’m spent of every drop.

When I’m finally all done, I pull my fingers gently out of the tight little rosebud of her ass, and lean myself down over her back, panting.

Fuck
me.

I’ve made game-winning runs before, and trained until I dropped. Coaches have made me lap the field until I’m virtually crawling. But never before in my life have I ever felt so exhausted, so drained of all my energy.

This is Ava’s doing. It’s like she’s sucking the life out of me through my dick.

And I don’t care. If I die buried in her pussy like this, I’ll die a very happy man.

Eventually, I pull out of her and collapse onto the bed beside her, still feeling breathless and sweaty. Ava immediately rolls over and curls into my side, her arm over my chest.

I drop a kiss onto her forehead, and then close my eyes, sleep welling up and claiming me before I can have another thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

AVA

“Hey, Ava, wait up.”

I turn, half in irritation, half in amazement at the sound of the voice behind me.

I’m walking back from lab with two of the guys from my course, Lawrence and Harry, heading toward the courtyard to get some lunch. Bryce Lennox is literally the last person I want to see — or hear — right now.

He might have been in the year below me at prep school, but tales of his assholish behavior were everywhere then, and still are now. I know about the betting games he had set up about which guys could get which girls into bed — girls which included me. I’ve heard all about his frat parties and the roofies he’s tried to slip girls, and God knows what else he’s done. I never gave him the satisfaction of getting to me when we were at school together, and I’m damned if I’m going to give him it now.

“Do you know that guy?” Lawrence asks as I turn away and keep walking.

“Unfortunately,” I say sourly. “I don’t want to talk to him. Let’s just go.”

“Jealous ex?” Harry teases.

I laugh bitterly. “Don’t even joke about it. I wouldn’t poke him with a ten-foot pole.”

We walk together a way, but Bryce apparently won’t be put off. I feel a heavy hand coming down on my shoulder, and I jump. When I turn and see who it is, I make a face, and slide my shoulder away from him.

“What the hell?” I ask him, barely able to keep a lid on my anger.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Bryce says, as if that excuses him touching me without my permission. I really can’t handle handsy guys. Or, more to the point, handsy guys I happen to know are aspiring date rapists.

“That’s funny, I was just thinking the opposite,” I snap back at him. I don’t know why he’s trying to be so personable — we’ve never been friends. And maybe being around Riley has rubbed off on me. Suddenly I have no desire to observe the social niceties that up until about a month ago I thought were absolutely necessary. Right now, I don’t care if I offend Bryce or make him angry. He’s not a good person. He’s a terrible human being, and having money only gives him more opportunities to flaunt it. If he were anyone else, he would have been punched in the face by one of the people he’s tormented, or he’d be in jail.

“Hey, why so bitchy?” Bryce says, laughing. “I just want to have a talk. Isn’t that allowed with you modern gals?”

He makes air quotes around ‘modern gals’. I think that if I don’t get away from him soon,
I’m
going to be the one who punches him.

“Hey, uh, we might take off, if that’s all right with you,” Lawrence says awkwardly. “You can catch up with us later — we’re just going to get pizza.”

I nod. “Yeah, sure. I’ll see you in a minute.”

Harry and Lawrence head hurriedly away, and I can’t blame them. They’re not exactly the heroic types — more standard nerds. Seeing a huge jock-looking guy like Bryce throwing his weight around probably brings back unpleasant memories of high school.

“What do you want?” I ask Bryce, grimacing. “Make it quick.”

“Okay, okay.” Bryce holds up his hands, as if in defense. “I really didn’t think it was a big deal. I just wanted to stop and say congratulations.”

I look at him suspiciously. “For what?”

Bryce laughs, but it’s flat and cruel. “On finally cashing in your v-card. You had no idea how much money I had riding on that back in school. I never did collect.”

I stare at him, my mouth dropping slightly open in shock and disgust.

“
What?
”

“Oh c’mon, don’t be like that,” he says, sneering. “It’s just a little joke. I just wanted to give you my sincere congratulations.”

I say nothing. I
know
what Bryce is doing. He just can’t stand that I’m with Riley — someone he considers his social inferior. That’s been clear since the charity dinner. He’s just trying to humiliate me now, exert some kind of power over me.

Well, it won’t work.

“Is that all?” I ask him acidly. I won’t give him the satisfaction of rising to his bait. Bryce just smirks.

“Yeah — I just wanted to say I was sorry.”

I know I shouldn’t ask, and yet — “For what?”

Bryce laughs. “I know your dad hired Murray Wilson for his campaign. My dad’s friendly with him, and he says you only hire Murray if you want to spin a story. I really thought he only set you and Riley up for the publicity — I didn’t think a girl like you could possibly actually like some peasant like him. But after seeing you two sneak off before dinner, and then the photo I took at the gallery the other night, I guess I was wrong. You two really are an item.”

I stare at him.
The photo he took at the gallery? What the fuck?
I feel like I’ve swallowed a stone.

“What photo?” I ask him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You didn’t know?” Bryce laughs again. I’m
really
getting sick of the sound of his laugh. “It’s all over the
Blaketon Eye.
They were offering a $200 bounty for any pictures of you together, so I figured I’d take a shot.”

I feel sick. My head spins as I try to flick back through everything Riley and I did at the gallery together. We were
there
as a couple, of course, but if Murray sees any photos of us… doing something, he’s going to know something’s up. I can always tell him we were just playing the part, but….

“Bryce, what the fuck do you mean?” I ask him, trying to keep my voice level.

“Here, look — here’s my bounty-winning pic,” Bryce says, pulling his phone out of his pocket before shoving it in front of my face.

I look down. And swallow. Hard.

It’s clearly Riley and me — we’re standing in a doorway where one of the gallery rooms opens onto another, and we’re clearly intimate. Riley’s hand is brushing over the small of my back, while I’m leaning into him, eyes closed, as if drawn by magnetism. Riley’s nose is just above my hair, as if he’s inhaling my scent. Which I know he was, because about two seconds after the moment captured in the picture, he’d told me how much he loved the way I smelled — how it made him want to throw me over his shoulder and take me home right now.

It’s the kind of moment that can’t be faked. It’s clearly candid — clearly something we weren’t doing as a fake couple putting on a show. It’s too… obviously intimate to be faked.

And I know my dad will know it right away.

My breath feels short in my throat.

I feel
sick.

“What the fuck, Bryce,” I say, looking up at him. I can hear the tremble in my voice. “Is this how you get off?
Gross.
Get the hell away from me.”

I throw his phone on the ground. I hope it breaks, but I don’t stop to look.

“Hey!” I hear Bryce’s shout from behind me, but I don’t turn around.

I have afternoon classes, and I know I told Harry and Lawrence I’d meet them for pizza, but I just can’t face any of that right now.

I feel like someone’s ripped my stomach out through my throat. I just want to go home and bury myself under about five layers of blankets, and pretend the world doesn’t exist.

As I hurry across campus, I find every cuss word I know running through my head.

I’m an idiot. A stupid fucking idiot
.

That’s what I finally land on. And it’s true.

Why did I ever agree to this? And why did I think I’d be okay with the whole world watching me, and the fake relationship I was having with Riley? I’ve always been a private person. I know I did it to help my dad, but….

… But now I just feel stupid and humiliated. I didn’t even know the
Blaketon Eye
was that interested in us.

When it’s just me and Riley together, it’s so easy to forget everything else. It’s like we get wrapped up in our own little bubble, and nothing else matters.

But that’s not the way things are at all.

Outside, we still have lives and responsibilities and everything else.

And I know I’m an idiot for not calling this off when I had the chance. My dad gave me a get out of jail free card right before the charity dinner, and I refused.

But I’d known even then how much trouble I was in when it came to Riley — how close I was to — to —

To falling for him.

My mind supplies the end of the sentence.

The thing I’ve been too afraid to admit to myself until now.

I know it’s true, though.

I’ve fallen for him.

I’ve fallen for Riley Knox.

When I get home, Darcey is in her usual place in the lounge, books spread out around her.

“Have you seen this?” I ask, taking my phone out of my purse and waving it in front of her face.

“Well, I kind of have to know what
this
is, first,” she says, grabbing my hand and taking my phone out of it. She looks down to where I have the front page of the
Blaketon Eye
open. “Ah. Well, I guess I do now.” She raises an eyebrow. “This is… this is pretty incriminating, Ava.”

I throw myself down on the couch, covering my face with my hands.

“Believe me, I
know
. It was just a moment — I didn’t know anyone was watching, let alone taking a photo.”

“Who took it?”

“Bryce fucking Lennox, of all people!” I yell, suddenly filled with anger. “Did you know the
Eye
was offering a $200 bounty for the best photo of me and Riley together?”

Darcey looks a little guilty. “I did know that, yeah. I didn’t want to tell you though, I thought you’d just get upset.”

“
Upset?
” I stare at Darcey, furious. “You didn’t think I might want to know that we had to be extra careful not to do anything that… that….”

“That makes you look like you’re
actually
fucking?” Darcey says pointedly. “I mean, because you’re definitely not doing that. You’re just pretending. Yep. That’s fake all the way. Riley’s just been hanging around here like a bad smell because you’re totally not fucking. Ever.”

I lie back on the couch, staring at the wall. I realize I’m being a total hypocrite, but Darcey just doesn’t understand. Her parents would be over the moon if she were dating someone like Riley.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” I say eventually. “It’s not your fault. And I know I’m being dishonest, but… I mean, even if my dad
wouldn’t
hit the roof no matter how I tell him, this
can’t
be the way he finds out. He’ll never agree to it if it is. I was hoping… I mean, if I told him… that I’d be able to….”

Darcey shakes her head.

“I get it. But seriously, think of it this way: it’s like ripping off a Band-Aid. I know you, and I know that if you had to tell your dad yourself, you’d overthink it, you’d put it off for weeks, you’d have this elaborate script in your head when all you really ought to do is just
tell him
.”

“I can’t
do
that,” I argue. “You don’t know my dad. He’d… he’d be
so
disappointed in me. He trusts me, and I promised this wouldn’t happen. Maybe if I could just have more time, and tell him later — say we weren’t together then, but we’ve thought about it and we’d like to be now….”

Darcey just looks at me. I can tell what she’s thinking: that I’m a liar, a coward and a hypocrite.

Because that’s what I am.

Everyone’s been saying that Riley isn’t good enough for me, when what they really ought to be saying is that
I’m
not good enough for
him
. He at least has been honest, and when he hasn’t, it’s because I and Murray and his coach have asked him not to be.

And now I’ve fallen for him.

“I need to think,” I mutter, grabbing my phone and running up the stairs to my room.