Playing with Fire - A Sports Romance (15 page)

“I found out after I graduated that Marco borrowed from his inheritance. So I ended up with more than half of the estate, and I continued to use my grandmother’s people to invest in the markets. I make enough working for Marco to cover my living expenses, so the money just keeps growing. I could live off the interest from my trust fund alone, in much more comfort than I have now.”

He’s silent, staring up at the ceiling with his fingers intertwined in mine. It’s a while before he speaks again.

“I don't get it.”

“Get what?” I ask.

“You don't act like a trust fund bitch.”

I laugh and squeeze his hand. “Well, thank you. That’s good to know.”

“Do that again.”

“Do what?”

Corey leans up on his elbow and looks at me. “Laugh like that again. I love to hear you laugh, Frankie. You’re so beautiful.”

“I love you.”

His smile could light up New York. “I love you, doll.” He pulls me down beside him and I press my body against his. “Is there anything else you’re keeping from me?”

I tense beside him, even though it’s nothing too concerning. Not anymore, not since I fell in love with him.

“What is it?” he asks.

“You know the night we met, I was looking for a one-night stand, right?”

He chuckles, low and quiet. “Best one-night stand ever.”

I smile, but it doesn't reach my eyes. “It’s not the first time.”

“You don't have to apologize. So what, you’ve had a couple one-night stands.”

“It’s not just a couple,” I say. I speed on before he can stop me, before I lose my nerve. “What I told you in New York is the truth. My mother was a whore. And with how Marco acted when I was growing up, blocking even the most basic of friendships, that was all I had. I've lost count of the number of no-name men I’ve been with. I became my mother.”

“No. You’re not your mother, Frankie.”

“You’re right, I'm not. I learned from her mistakes. I’ve had an IUD since I was twelve. I’ve never had sex without a condom, but I still get tested for STDs every three months. I'm religious about it. I don't ever want to end up like her.”

“You won't,” Corey assures me. He grips my face in his hands and pulls me to him. His lips are gentle, soothing. When he releases me, he pulls me close and wraps me in his arms. I want to stay here forever.

Corey's breathing beside me calms my fears. He knows my darkest secret, and he’s still here. But still, there’s one thing I'm dying to know.

“Are you clean?” I ask, peeking up and putting my chin on his shoulder.

He moves his hand to my cheek and kisses my lips. “Of course. I never have sex without a condom, either. But after what you told me, I got tested when we came home from New York. I never want you to have to live with that fear.”

I hug him tight and he kisses my forehead. “You’re everything to me, Corey.”

“You too, doll.”

I claim his lips with mine once again. The slow, gentle kisses turn hungry, and the desire that began building before Mitch and Vivian showed up is there again. Corey slides my tank top off and begins mouthing my chest, breathing hot breaths against wet skin. I reach down and slip a hand into my shorts, and I laugh at the moan Corey makes when he sees me touching myself.

“My turn,” he growls as he peels my shorts from my body. He slides his tongue between my folds and licks furiously, flicking against my sweet spot, plunging deep inside. His fingers join the battle, and I explode again and again.

When his assault stops, mine begins. I push him down onto the bed and tug his jeans off, hungry to have him between my lips. His moans, his writhing body beneath me, they’re building me up without as much as a caress against my skin. When he’s ready to come, he tries to pull my face to his. But I want to taste him, I want to see the pleasure on his face as he shoots inside my mouth. I work him with my tongue, my teeth, my hand. I hold him as his balls tighten and squeeze as he explodes deep in my throat.

I climb up on top of him and lay my naked body on his. Our tastes intermingle as our tongues dance together. This should be it. This should be all Corey gives me tonight. It’s all I've gotten since the fire. But his hands continue to caress my body and I begin to think he might be ready for more. He grabs my hips and pulls me higher. His hands slide down to my ass and he kneads both cheeks with his palms. His fingers go lower, reaching around behind me and sliding deep inside of me. His cock is growing against my thigh as he fingers me, teasing my sensitive skin.

He releases me with one hand and reaches for the drawer beside the bed. I grab his hand, stopping him.

“No, baby.”

“I want you, Frankie.” He tries again to reach the drawer and again I stop him. His frustration is clear, but I’m quick to wipe it away.

I take his cock in my hand and slide his tip between my folds. “I want you, Corey. Skin to skin. Just you and me.”

“Forever, doll. You and me forever.”

We both moan as I sink down on top of him. I watch his face, watch the sheer pleasure explode across the surface, as I move against him. I want to come, but I can't get enough of the ecstasy written in his eyes. I swirl my hips and my insides throb when he growls my name. I swirl again and he grabs my hips and forces himself deeper inside of me. We meet there together, sharing our love, sharing our bodies. There is nothing on earth better than this.

My chest spasms, and I'm wracked with a coughing fit. Corey stills, then sits up, holding me and rubbing my back, trying to soothe me. When I can't stop coughing, he helps me down on the bed beside him and reaches for my glass of water. Before I can take a drink, a siren blares out in the hall.

“Shit!” Corey scrambles out of the bed and we both look at the door. There’s smoke seeping through the cracks. “Shit! Frankie get dressed.”

Corey tosses me a pair of jeans and a t-shirt I left on the floor by the bathroom before he grabs his own clothes and begins throwing them on. He’s dressed before I am since I can't stop coughing. He helps me into my clothes and pulls me to the door.

“Careful!” I tell him between coughs before he can grab the door handle. That’s how I burned my hand when I was trying to find a way out of Corey’s apartment.

Corey taps the door handle with his hand. “It’s hot. Shit!” He runs to the bathroom and drenches a couple towels with water before returning to me. “Hold this over your mouth. We might need to run.”

“I don't know if I can!” I'm wheezing, my lungs are burning.

Corey glances from me to the door. He grabs the handle and throws it open. Flames have engulfed the hallway. The carpet has swirls of fire in an odd pattern, and the walls are black where they’re not orange with flame. He sticks his head out the door before pulling back and looking at me.

“It’s like someone lit the hall on fire right in front of this room.” His voice is loud over the roar of the blaze, but he’s strangely calm. “We’re going to make a run for it, doll. There’s about twenty feet of fire before it stops. I can see the stairs and they’re clear. Come here.”

Corey pulls me into a hug, then sweeps my legs out from under me and cradles me in his arms. “Hold the towels over our noses and mouths. I'm going to get us out of here.”

The second I have the towels in place, Corey rushes out into the hall and runs for the stairs. The flames lick our skin until we reach five feet in front of the stairs, where the fire stops. We burst into the stairwell, and the blaring siren gets louder as it echoes against the cement walls and linoleum treads. There’s no fire here, no smoke, just noise.

Like Superman saving Lois Lane, Corey carries me down the ten flights of stairs and outside into the warm summer night. The streets are littered with people standing around under the lights shining down from the street lamps above, staring at the Savory. The fire alarms are quieter here, and there’s no smoke or fire on the outside of the grey brick building. Sirens blare as police cars pull up. Policemen start pushing the crowds back, trying to make way for the fire trucks.

Corey sets me down on the curb. “Stay right here, baby.” He rushes away from me before I can speak, yelling, “Officer Linden!”

An overweight policeman turns from what he’s doing and frowns at Corey as he approaches. Corey points at me, at the building we escaped from. The officer pulls out his radio and starts talking into it. He points back towards me and Corey’s gaze follows. Corey nods, then runs back to my side.

“Hold on, doll,” Corey says as he sweeps me up into his arms again.

“What are we doing?”

“Moving over here. It’ll be more comfortable.” Corey carries me over to one of the nearby blue-striped, white police cars and sets me down on the hood. With the moist air blowing in off the lake, my lungs feel better, but they still ache. When I start coughing again, Corey sits down next to me and puts his arms around me. He holds me like that as we watch the spectacle in front of us.

C
orey

W
hen Frankie's
coughing quiets down, I text Mitch to let him know what happened. Thankfully, I’d grabbed my phone as I got dressed. Frankie’s, along with all our other belongings, are still upstairs, possibly being consumed by fire.

Mitch texts back less than a minute later. As it turns out, he didn't make it past Riverside, so he was evacuated along with everyone else when the fire alarms went off.

“Frankie!” It’s not the voice I expect. Vivian comes running at us as fast as her four-inch heels can carry her. Her chest is trying desperately to escape her blue and green dress at the same time as her endless legs grow a few inches under her shrinking skirt. Behind her, Mitch is somehow not tripping over his own two feet as he follows. His eyes aren’t on Vivian’s ass, like most men’s would be, but on my girl.

“Hi Viv,” Frankie wheezes out. She slips off the hood of the car and falls into Vivian’s arms.

“What the hell happened?” Vivian asks as she holds her cousin at arm's length.

Frankie shrugs and defers to me as she reaches for Mitch. That same surge of jealousy hits me as he nuzzles into her neck again, his arms tight around her, his hands splayed against her back. He mumbles something I don’t catch. All I see is Frankie’s nod before she steps back. It’s not until she’s firmly by my side again, her arms around me, one hand shoved in my back pocket, the other hooked in my front pocket, that I push my jealousy aside.

“A fire broke out in the hallway,” I say. I have concerns about what really happened, but neither Frankie nor Vivian challenges what I’ve said, so I continue. “We ran through some of the flames to get out, but neither of us were hurt. I think the smoke bothered her lungs a bit, even with our wet towels.”

Frankie turns her face into my chest and her body starts to sag against me.

“Come here, doll.” I help Frankie over to Officer Linden’s car and open the passenger side door. I help settle her into the dark front seat and kiss her forehead. “Vivian, can you stay here with her for a minute? I need to speak with Mitch.”

“Sure.”

I leave the girls alone and pull Mitch off to the side. I’m not sure how to put what I’m about to say, so I blurt out, “What are you doing the next couple weeks?”

“Excuse me?” Mitch asks.

“Look,” I glance back over my shoulder at Frankie before turning back to Mitch, “I get a bad feeling someone’s after Frankie. The fires. The spiked drink. The Porsche. It’s—”

“Whoa, wait. What Porsche?”

“She didn’t tell you? Shit.” I glance at Frankie again. “Up in New York, she rented a car. I took it out for a quick spin, stopped at a store for less than ten minutes. I get back out and it’s all jacked up. This isn’t Marco. If Marco were doing this shit, it’d be you and me in the hospital, not Frankie. It’d be my Corvette in pieces, not a fucking rental.”

“She rented a Porsche?”

I nod. “Frankie and I were talking after you and Vivian left. She doesn’t feel safe, and after tonight, I don’t blame her. I gotta get back in the game or I’ll be running into trouble. Frankie would feel safer with you around when I’m not there. We got home games through Sunday, then a week and a half on the road. We’ll take care of your room and board, replace your salary, whatever it takes.”

“Wait, you want me to travel with you?”

“She does.”

“And she wants me to drop everything and hop on a plane?”

“I do. Look, that fire upstairs wasn’t a random fire. It looks like someone poured gas or something on the carpet and walls outside her room. The fire extended about twenty feet on either side of the door, but the rest of the hall was clear.”

Mitch looks up at the hotel as if he can see for himself what I’m talking about from down here in the street. “I’ve got a spare room. It’s yours as long as you need it.”

That’s not what I’m expecting. “Is that a yes?”

“Replace my salary and cover the travel, and I can get the rest. You want more than me?”

“Yes. No. Wait, what?”

“My roommate is ex-Marines. You make him the same offer, I guarantee he’ll take it.”

“Mitch, I…” Before I can continue, Officer Linden steps up beside me.

“I’m afraid you might be right, Mr. Lucas.” He heaves out a breath that smells of stale coffee and cigarettes. “The fire was contained to the tenth floor hallway. We’re going to need you and Ms. Sarcone to come down to the station to make a statement.”

“Of course,” I say.

Linden looks over my shoulder and raises a thick eyebrow. “She okay?”

He starts walking over to her as I say, “She inhaled a bunch more smoke before we made it out. You think we can stop by the hospital before we go downtown?”

Linden stoops in front of Frankie and takes her hand. She looks so tiny next to his considerable girth. He asks a few questions, she gives a few answers I can’t hear, and he starts talking into his radio. By the time he’s able to get himself off the ground again, a couple medics are rushing over to us with a stretcher between them.

The medics wheel Frankie over to one of the ambulances sitting on the side of the street out in front of the Savory. They check her vitals and place an oxygen mask over her face while they ask her a bunch of questions. Vivian is pacing back and forth while Mitch stands off at the front of the ambulance with his phone stuck to his ear. I feel so helpless. My girl is hurting, and all I can do is stand here and watch.

Once Frankie is cleared by the medics, Officer Linden takes his leave, telling us to meet him at the station in a half hour. Frankie starts heading towards the parking garage, to her car, when Mitch stops her.

“Leave your cars. We can take mine,” he says.

Frankie gives me a look when I start following Mitch and Vivian down the street, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she loops her arm around my waist and shoves her hands in my pockets again.  

* * *

W
e’ve just finished giving
our statements when the door to the interview room flies open. Officer Linden stepped out seconds before, so I expect to see him coming back for the full cup of coffee he left on the long metal table. All at once, though, Vivian, Frankie, and Mitch are out of their seats as Marco storms in. I’m frozen in place as he comes straight at me, pointing his finger like he’s picking me out of a lineup.

“I hope you’re fucking happy.” His face is all screwed up and bright red, like he’s been holding his breath. “Another day with you and she’ll be dead.”

Without warning, Frankie is flying towards Marco before Mitch can even make a move to stop her. She slams her hands into Marco’s chest and he’s forced back a couple feet.

“Don’t you dare talk to him like that!” Frankie says, pushing up on her tiptoes and yelling into his face. “If there’s a threat on my life, it’s because of you, you bastard!”

Marco looks hurt by her words, but he shakes it off. He’s smooth and calculating when he continues. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Tesoro. Twice now you’ve been hurt because of him. I’ve done nothing but protect you your whole life.”

“You’ve done nothing but ruin my life,” Frankie tells him. Her volume is so low it’s menacing. “You have taken away everything that meant anything to me. Every time I made a friend, you’d scare them away. Every time, Marco. No one wants to know me or be around me because of you. I’ve had enough. You will
not
take the only man I have ever loved away from me. Do you understand?”

Marco narrows his eyes at Frankie and takes a step forward. “What do you know of love, Frankie?”

She takes a step towards him, and there are only inches between them. I have to strain to hear what she says. “I have learned more about love in the three months I’ve known Corey than in my entire life with you. I have learned that I am important. That what
I
want matters. That I don’t have to end up a whore like your sister, because it is possible for someone to love me for me. I have learned that that man is more important to me than anything in the world, and if you can’t accept that, then you don’t belong in my life.”

I desperately want to hear Marco’s response, but he’s dumbstruck. Before he can speak, the door swings open and Officer Linden sticks his head inside.

“Is everything okay in here?”

F
rankie

O
fficer Linden’s
sudden appearance is a much-needed distraction. I swear, if Marco would have said one more thing, we would have come to blows. But now, with an officer of the law present, Marco is all prim and proper, introducing himself as my loving uncle who cares only for my safety. That is, until the partially open door swings open and a beast of a man steps into the room.

Now, I’m not exactly tall. At six four, Corey’s got nearly a foot on me. But this man’s got another half a foot on top of that. Not only that, but his solid, rock wall of a chest is wider than Officer Linden’s gut. The close-cropped copper hair on his head also cradles his cheeks and chin. Switch out his black t-shirt for a plaid button-up and you’ve got a redheaded poster child for the next paper towel commercial. Even his eyes look menacing as they sparkle like emeralds in the harsh fluorescent lights.

“Who the fuck is this?” Marco becomes a bulldog, even though this man could crush him under his little finger.

“The other half of Frankie’s new security team,” Mitch says, pushing forward and placing himself between me and Marco. Corey steps up behind me, and it’s like I’m the inside of a testosterone sandwich.

“My what?” Of course, my voice chooses this moment to fail me, and I squeak. Corey pulls me back into his chest, and while I’m thankful for his embrace, I hate feeling so helpless. It’s bad enough my lungs and voice are failing me. I hate showing this much weakness in front of anyone.

“Mitch is going to stick around for a while, like you said,” Corey tells me. He’s quiet, but then again, so is everyone else.

“It’s okay, darlin’,” Mitch says without glancing away from Marco. “Lee and I will make sure nothing happens to you and Corey. You’ll stay with us until we fly out next week.”

“Like hell!” Marco says, his volume creeping up. “She’s not going anywhere with you.” He tries to be intimidating, puffing out his chest and standing up as tall as he can. But now he reminds me of a little chihuahua, trying to play with the big boys, even though he’s the shortest man in the room.

“Mr. Leonetti,” Officer Linden interjects, “Even after all that’s happened, I believe Mr. Lucas and Ms. Sarcone will be well protected with these two.”

Marco the smooth businessman all but disappears. He shoves his finger in Corey’s direction and starts yelling. “He’s the reason she’s in danger in the first place! If it weren’t for him, none of this would have happened!”

The beast, Lee, grabs Marco around the waist, lifting him off the ground so my uncle is flailing like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. The eyes of the officers in the squad room are peering in the windows that separate us from them. This is exactly the kind of scene my uncle tries so hard to avoid. Corey tightens his grip around my waist as Mitch and Officer Linden both push closer to Marco, their hands raised in front of them to calm Marco down.

“Mr. Leonetti, I assure you, while we believe there is a threat, Mr. Lucas isn’t the cause.”

“What?” Marco stops struggling and looks at Officer Linden like he’s seen a ghost. “What threat?”

“Sir, if you’d calm down and have a seat,” Mitch says, motioning to the table, “we can explain what’s been going on. Perhaps you can even help.”

I don’t think Marco was expecting Mitch’s calm, respectful demeanor. Not after the manly display, placing himself between me and my uncle. He goes limp in Lee’s arms and walks slumped over to the table to sit by Vivian when he’s released.

Mitch and Corey walk through everything that has happened the past few weeks. The fires. The Porsche. Even my drink being spiked. Up until tonight, I’ve never put it all together, and that shaky sense of security I was feeling back in my hotel room before the fire alarms went off all but disappears. Marco and Vivian are a display in stoicism, both blank slates until Marco asks for clarification on this or that.

The sun is peeking over the horizon by the time we walk out of the police station. Marco takes off in his Town Car, leaving the rest of us behind. I want to crawl back into bed with Corey and fall asleep, but we’re in the parking lot by the time I remember there is no bed to crawl into. Mitch’s beat-up pickup truck sits there like an ugly reminder of all I've lost.

“Vivian, Lee can take you wherever you need to go,” Mitch says, walking backwards in front of us with his keys jangling in his hand. “Frankie, Corey, you’re with me.”

“Can't I come with you?” Vivian asks. “I'd rather stay with Frankie right now.”

I look hard at my cousin. She left my hotel room with Mitch. And she showed up with him after Corey texted him. I imagine she’s more interested in staying close to Mitch right now than to me. But at this point, I'm too tired to care.