Playing with Fire - A Sports Romance (13 page)

I grunt in response, then wince as I settle the pack on my face.

“Did she tell you what happened?” Mitch asks.

“She said what she thinks happened,” I mumble as I sit up and glare at him. “What you told her happened. Doesn’t explain why you’re dripping wet and half-naked in my girl’s room.”

He smiles and shakes his head, like it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. “She threw up all over me. I brought her up here and made sure she was okay. I stayed up half the night, sitting with her, waiting for her to wake up. My shirt’s still drying,” he says, pointing to the black t-shirt hanging over the back of the chair by the window. There’s a wet stain on the carpet beneath it. On the other side of the bed, I notice the white comforter peeking out as Mitch says, “I fell asleep on the floor. I made sure Frankie was okay when I woke up, then took a shower to get the smell of vomit off my skin. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding when you got here, but I swear on my life, I would never do anything to hurt her or take advantage of her. I know you love her, Corey. And I know she loves you. I knew it before either of you would admit it.”

“How?” Frankie asks. Her voice is so quiet she sounds like she’s a frightened little girl.

Mitch smiles and drops his eyes to the floor. “Sometimes you just know. People come into your life and all the pieces fall into place. No words need to be spoken, just a single look exchanged.” Frankie and I stare at him. When he looks back up at us, he shrugs. “I knew that first night, when you met downstairs, something special was going to happen to you two. And when Frankie told me you worked together, I knew it was only a matter of time before you two fell. You are the two missing pieces that make your puzzle whole.”

Frankie snuggles closer to me and I wrap my arm around her, holding her tight. I kiss her forehead, then she turns her head up to mine and touches her lips to mine. I want more than this kiss. The last few days away from her have been hell. And this endless night, being called to come home to her and not knowing what happened… I couldn't be more relieved that everything is okay, that nothing happened, and that she’s still mine.

“I should get going,” Mitch says. He grabs his shirt from the chair and slips it on, then turns back to us.

I drop the ice pack to the bed and extend my hand to him. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

“Any time. She means a great deal to me, too. You ever need anything, you let me know, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Frankie stands and gives Mitch a big hug. A surge of jealousy hits as he nuzzles his face into her neck and kisses her throat, but I let it go when Frankie sits back on the bed beside me and loops her arm around mine. We watch as he tosses a keycard on the dresser and then walks out of the room. When the door shuts, Frankie throws her arms around my neck and pushes me back onto the bed.

“I missed you so much, Corey. I was so scared without you here.”

“Mitch is a good friend,” I say.

Frankie pulls her head back and looks at me. “Mitch is a great friend. But you…” She climbs onto my lap, straddling me. “You, I love.”

I groan as she grinds down on top of me, and it eggs her on. Her fingers go for the buttons on my shirt, but I put my hands over hers to stop her.

“Frankie, you’ve been through a lot.”

She pulls her hands away from mine and leans over me, grinding down on me once again. “Yes, baby. I have. But the last thing I remember was being pissed at you for not telling me about Matt and Ellen. And then I had to put up with that,” she tosses her hand back towards the door, “traipsing around in here, getting me more frustrated than I already was. I want you in me, Corey. But first, I'm going to punish you for not telling me about a certain proposal on top of the Empire State Building.”

“Mmm,” I hum as she goes to work on my buttons again. “I’d say I'm sorry, but I don't think I am. I think I need to be punished.”

“You do,” she assures me. With my shirt open, she begins licking my chest, circling my nipples with her tongue and sucking them hard between her beautiful lips. I grab at my pants to unbutton them, but Frankie swats me away. “Oh no you don't.”

I pull my hands up in surrender.

She repositions herself so she’s right on top of me, and every movement she makes is sweet torture. “Tell me why you wanted me to go to New York with you, Corey.”

I have to work hard to concentrate on forming words when she returns her mouth to my nipples and grinds herself on top of me. “Matt…told me his plans. And I… Oh, Frankie!”

“You what, baby,” she coaxes.

“I wanted that with you.” I gasp as Frankie reaches down my pants and grips my cock. She strokes me as she undoes my button and zipper with the other hand, and I raise my hips to help her relieve me of my pants.

“What did you want, baby?” She looks up at me, her lips mere inches from my tip, her hand gripping tight and pumping me nice and slow. I watch, my breath stuck in my throat, as she licks the rim, circling me with her perfect pink tongue.

“I wanted the romance.” I breathe out a heavy breath. She glides her mouth down my shaft, her eyes glued to mine. “I wanted you, in my life. Oh! I wanted you to know…I can't stop thinking about you, doll. I don't want…to live without you.”

She sets a rhythm, her hand, her mouth, her tongue. It feels so good, I can't remember what she was trying to get me to say. I can feel the pressure building up, my balls tightening, and I'm about to explode.

Frankie stops what she’s doing with her hand and mouth and crawls back up my body, settling herself on top of me once again. She doesn't move, just sits there, putting pressure on my swollen dick.

“Why didn't you tell me about Matt?” she asks, right before she swirls her hips once in a circle, causing my aching member to throb.

“I didn't… Oh, God, Frankie!”

“Tell me.” She swirls her hips again, and I swear I'm going to come against her shorts.

“I didn't want you to be disappointed.”

She raises her hips, relieving all of the weight but none of the pressure. “Why would I be disappointed?”

I grab her cheeks and pull her head down to mine, pressing a firm kiss on her lips. “Because I didn't give you a ring. Because I didn't know if you would want that. If you’d want me. I love you, Frankie, and so help me, if that’s what you want, I'll give it to you. I'll give you everything. Just tell me you love me.”

“I love you, Corey,” she says against my lips. She slides her tongue into my mouth and we dance a slow dance together. She reaches into the bedside table without breaking our kiss, and seconds later her hands are back on my cock. She whips her shirt off, and her breasts bounce free, tempting me. “Kiss me, baby.”

I don't need more of an invitation. I lean up and take one nipple into my mouth as I pinch the other between my fingers. My cock twitches when she moans in pleasure. I want to hear her moan again. I want her screaming my name as she comes. But before I can do anything, she pushes the fabric of her shorts aside and slides herself down on top of me.

I groan into her breasts as she slides all the way down. She stops, then parts her legs further to the side, causing me to go even deeper. Oh, she’s so tight, feels so good around me. She can't ride me like she always does from this position, not with her legs spread like that. I grab her ass and roll her over. She’s spread eagle below me, her knees near her ears. My legs are hanging off the end of the bed, and I'm not sure it’s possible to get any deeper.

I pump into her, slow and unrelenting, paying her back for the torture she just gave me. Her fingernails rake my back as she begs me with her moans to go faster. But I don't. I can't. I want to see her writhing beneath me. I want to see the red flush on her breasts as she gets close to climax. I want to see her need in her eyes as I fill her, again and again.

When I can't hold back any longer, when that blush creeps across her breasts and her insides tightening around me, I give her what she's been begging for. I drill into her, driving deep, burying myself to the hilt. Faster. Faster, until she’s screaming my name.
My
name
.

“I love you, Corey!” she yells out before she explodes into a million pieces. I watch her sweet agony, then spill myself deep inside of her.

“I love you, Frankie.” I breathe her in as she milks every last bit of me. “I’ll always love you, forever.”

F
rankie

C
orey tried
to make me forget about being drugged in the bar that night, but I can never forget. It’s important to hold on to that memory, even if nothing happened. It all could have ended up a lot worse. I can’t forget, because I don’t want there to be a next time. Next time, Mitch might not be there to protect me. And next time, Corey might not be there to pick up the pieces and put me back together.

We’re together. That's what matters. With the day he got home from St. Louis off and a long string of home games, we tried to create a routine. We were together all night, we worked during the day, and life was grand.

“Frankie, my dear, it's been too long.” I look up from the water glass on the table I've been toying with since the waiter filled it and see my cousin, stunning as ever, standing in front of me. She stands out amongst the other customers here at our favorite restaurant, a little café with patio seating where we can soak up the summer sun.

“Hey, Viv,” I say as I accept a brief hug and a kiss on each cheek.

“You look lost in thought,” she says, beaming her beautiful smile at me. “Tell me, what's on your mind?”

There's no way I can tell her what I was thinking about. That while running my finger along the rim of my glass, I was thinking of running my finger over Corey’s tiger tattoo on his shoulder. This morning I asked him about it, and I was surprised by the story.

“When Jen was learning to talk, my Little League team was the Tigers,” Corey told me. He had this smile on his face he only ever gets when he is telling me stories of their childhood together. “Mom brought her to all the games, and she’d try to get her to yell ‘Go Tigers!’ with the crowd. Tiger was one of her first words, but she thought
I
was Tiger. She didn't understand it was the team. And she’s called me Tiger ever since.”

“And you got a tattoo of a tiger because…”

Corey laughed as he looked down to the bed, his cheeks flushing a light pink under his early summer tan. “Because when I went off to college, I missed my little sister. Oh, Frankie, you should have seen the smile on her face when she first saw it. I'm pretty sure she cried!”

“Hello? Earth to Frankie!” Vivian’s voice brings me back to the present as a warm breeze sweeps away my daydream. I look up and smile, feeling a rash of warmth spread across my face. “Spill it, girl. What’s got you a million miles away?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing, really. You look nice,” I say to change the subject. But it’s true, as usual. Vivian’s wearing a cream-colored strapless dress that dangles a few inches above her knees. Her hair is perfect, her makeup is perfect, everything about her is perfect. Seeing her look like this used to make me feel so inferior. The eyes of nearly every man on the patio are glued to her. It’s always like this. And in her presence, I am nothing. But today, I don’t care. Because I have something she doesn’t, and I don’t need the looks of adoring men. “Is that a new dress?”

“You like it? I can get you one. It’s coming out next week.”

“Are there any other colors? You know that color washes me out.”

She smiles her killer smile. “Of course. I'll have them send one of each to the house. You’ll come over, right?”

I grimace. Vivian is a designer. In fact, when I was traveling with her last year, we went all over the world shopping fabrics and colors, visiting Milan, Paris, Berlin. Everything was high fashion all the time. It was a much needed break from reality before coming back to work for my uncle.

My uncle. Whom I haven’t seen since I ran out of his house back in March.

“Come on, Frankie, you can’t keep ignoring him forever. You work for him, for God’s sake.”

I was ignoring him. I declined meetings with him at work. I’d been traveling with the team to escape the times I knew he’d be in the office. Not only was I pissed at him for treating me like I was a child who couldn’t handle as much as a friendship with someone of the same sex, I was also hiding from him.

“Do you think he’ll ever change, Viv?” I ask. I run the pad of my thumb over the empty skin of my left hand ring finger. This morning, over breakfast, Corey brought up our conversation from the night I was drugged. He’d slipped the twisty-tie from a bag of bread over my finger and promised me, if I wanted, whenever I was ready, he’d replace it with a ring that would show the world how he felt for me. As much as I desperately want that, want him, forever, I don’t know if our secret love can ever become public. Not as long as Marco is alive.

Vivian lets out a deep sigh. “I don’t know. But there’s only one way to find out. You need to talk to him.” She grabs my hand, squeezing hard, and the phantom feeling of that twisty-tie ring aches through my finger. “I’ll come with you. I’ll stand up for you, tell him he’s being ridiculous.”

“I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t want to put people in danger.”

“Are you talking about Mitch?” Vivian grins and she fans her hand in front of her face. “Are you with him yet?”

“Friends. We’re only friends.”

“My God, I don’t know how you can stand being around him without doing something.”

I smile and look at my glass of water. I can stand it because I have Corey. For some reason I don't understand, I blurt out, “I know how far down his tattoo goes.”

Vivian stares at me, her mouth agape, as I slap my hand over my mouth.

“Friends, huh?” Vivian smiles a wicked smile.

“Oh, God,” I mutter into my palm.

“I want details.”

“We’re only friends.” I force out the shaky words as my stomach starts to churn.

“Sure you are. And how is it you know about his tattoo again?”

I take a sip of my water and nearly spill it everywhere when my hand starts to shake. I’m having trouble breathing, and the look on her face tells me Vivian understands something is wrong.

“I'm not going to tell Daddy, Frankie. I promise.”

“You can't say a word, Viv. Oh my God, he’ll kill him!” My voice is so quiet and shaky, it's amazing she can hear me at all. She may think I'm talking about Mitch, but it’s Corey I'm worried about. She grabs my hand and squeezes, and I know, I know she’ll keep quiet. She knows what Marco has put me through.

“What happened?”

I’d forgotten Vivian knows me better than anyone. Until recently, I told her everything. She knows this isn’t just fear for Mitch’s safety.

“Someone drugged my drink a couple nights ago,” I tell her. I can't make my voice more than a whisper, but by the complete shock on her face, I know she heard. “I don't know what happened. I don't remember any of it. Mitch found me right before I passed out, and he took care of me.”

“Why didn't he take you to the hospital?” I glare at her, and that’s all it takes for her to understand. “You’re right, you’re right. Daddy would never let you out of the house. God, Frankie.”

“I know. Mitch was on break when it happened, but he talked to his boss and she doesn't remember seeing anyone near me who looked suspicious. They don't have surveillance cameras covering the bar, but after what happened, she’s going to get management to put them in. It could deter people from doing it to someone else. And if it does happen to someone, at least they can see who did it.”

Our waitress comes to take our order. When she leaves, there’s a few moments of uncomfortable silence before Vivian speaks again.

“So, the tattoo.”

“Friends, Viv.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Where does it end? How did you find out? What does it look like? Seriously, you can't drop a bomb like that and not explain yourself. I need details. That man is sexy as hell!”

I laugh at my cousin. “Ankles. I threw up on him before I passed out and he took a shower in my room. Sexy as hell.”

“Ankles? Oh, dear God! Did you touch it?”

“Friends, Viv,” I repeat, shaking my head at her.

It feels good to laugh with my cousin again. Beyond a few nights out with Ramon, Matt, and Corey, when Vivian and Vinny showed up with Jen in tow, I haven't spoken with her much since I came back from Europe. I've missed this. And yet, I can't be as free as I have in the past. We can joke about Mitch. We can talk about the guys on the team and their girlfriends. But I can't tell her I've fallen in love. I can't tell her about the most important thing in my life.

“You need to come out with me tonight,” Vivian says after handing her black card to the waitress. “It’s been too long since it was just the two of us.”

“I don't know, Viv. I’m…” I try to come up with an excuse, something that will appease her so she’ll leave me alone. Before I can, my phone buzzes with a text. I grab it off the table beside me.

Luke: The guys insist on going out tonight. No women. They won't take no for an answer.

My shoulders drop. I guess it was meant to be.

Me: Go. Have fun, but not too much. Viv’s taking me out. See you at home.

Luke: I miss you, doll.

Me: You too, baby.

I look up from my phone to find Vivian peering over my shoulder. Her eyes are wide as she sits back in her chair. I shove my phone in my purse and grab my water glass, taking a swig.

“Who's Luke?”

“Huh? Oh, no one.” I throw my purse over my shoulder and look back at her. “You ready to go?”

“‘See you at home’? ‘I miss you’? That doesn’t sound like no one to me.”

“Leave it alone, Viv.”

“No way. I knew you were holding back on me. You found yourself a guy, huh?” She’s smiling at me, but it’s not her usual smile. It’s like she's proud of me or something. “What’s he look like? Can I meet him?”

I stand and start moving toward the door. Vivian rushes after me and grabs my elbow, sliding her arm through mine.

“You know I won’t tell anyone,” she says near my ear.

“There’s nothing to tell,” I bite out.

She looks at me like I’ve slapped her. When her Town Car pulls up to the curb in front of us, she grabs the handle without waiting for the driver to get out and open the door for her. She ushers me in, then slides in beside me without a word. We’re halfway down the block before she speaks again.

“You don't have to tell me now, but you will tell me.”

And with that, I know it's going to be a really long night.

Corey

T
he guys insisted
I go out with them. Not just Matt and Ramon. Curt, Jackson, Alex, Jerad, and Will were right there with them. I tried to say I couldn't. I tried to back out before we left the stadium. But they insisted. I hit the game-winning home run, for God’s sake.

Did I have fun? Yes. Would I rather have been at home with Frankie? Damn straight. Would I do it again? Not if she couldn't be there with me. The ‘No Girls’ rule was bullshit. By the time I left, every last one of them was playing kissy-face with their wives or girlfriends or random chicks they’d picked up at the bar.

I had to escape. I needed to see Frankie. I lied and told Ramon I was tired and needed to rest for tomorrow's game. He didn't throw up any objections, although it would have been hard with his tongue halfway down Emily’s throat.

I’d hitched a ride with the guys to the bar, so I had to catch a cab to get home. Traffic is light, even for this time of night, until we get close to my apartment. The lights of dozens of emergency vehicles are flashing in the street. It’s not until the cabbie tells me he can't get any closer, and I get out and start walking, that I realize it’s my building the police cars, ambulances, and fire engines are gathered around. Flames shoot out of the upper windows and the roof as firemen spray their hoses at the fire.

I run towards the building, but I can't get past the police barricades at the end of the block. I grab my phone and check the time. One o’clock. It’s still early, right? Vivian looks like she knows how to have a good time. Surely she’s kept her cousin out late. I pace back and forth along the street as I wait for Frankie’s voice on the other end of the line. After the first five calls go to voicemail, I call Riverside and ask for Mitch. He doesn't know where Frankie is but offers to call Vivian.

I can't breathe while I wait for Mitch to call me back. When he does, I have the phone against my ear before the first ring has completed.

“Frankie left early. Viv said she was pissy and wouldn't stay. Left around eleven to go home.”

“Fuck.” Home. She calls my place home. “I gotta go.”

I don't wait for a response. I flag down the nearest officer and have to sneak under the barricade to get him to hurry his fat ass up.

“I think my girlfriend is in there,” I say as he tries to push me back behind the line. “Apartment 6E. Name is Frankie Sarcone. I can't get ahold of her and her cousin says she came here.”

The guy holds his chubby little finger up in front of my face as he speaks into his radio. Even turns his back to me like it's some damn secret what he’s doing, pushing the button down to talk and listening to the response. Before long, he turns back to me.

“No one by that name has come out yet. What’s she look like?”

“Blonde hair, hazel eyes, about five foot six.” Face like an angel. Body of a goddess. My God, Frankie.

The cop relays her description over his radio. He says something about 6E. But his next words are the ones that make my stomach drop.

“They cleared the sixth floor. No one answered at 6E.”

“Break the fucking door down!” I point at the building as I yell at him. “She’s in there!”

Another officer runs over and pulls me away while the guy turns back to his radio. He’s barking orders as he rushes through the street towards the fire engines. I'm forced towards the ambulances where the medics push me down onto the curb and take my blood pressure. I can't catch my breath and somehow I find a blanket draped around my shoulders. The medics are hovering over me and I want to scream at them to leave me alone and go help Frankie, but I'm too dizzy to speak.

All at once, the medics turn away from me. At first I think they’ve read my mind, because I don’t remember telling them to leave me alone. But then it becomes clear they’re leaving me because they have another patient to take care of.