Dream Girl Drama (Big Shots #3)

Chapter Eight

Whenever Sig graced her apartment with his presence, Chloe had to refrain from doing an embarrassing little dance. Sometimes she gave into the urge and let her excitement at being around him show. Oher times, like tonight, when they’d already pushed their limits a little too far, she held back out of necessity.

Still... having Sig over was the best. THE BEST.

He sauntered around like a cranky tiger, straightening picture frames and folding up throw blankets. Frowning at all the crumpled-up Sephora bags in the trash can. Grumbling. Checking her cabinets to make sure she had enough food.

Chloe really did her best not to stare as he completed these rituals, but not staring at Sig Gauthier was like going to the beach and ignoring a brilliant pink-and-orange sunset.

In his sweatpants, Bearcats hoodie, and wet, freshly showered hair, he was the sun itself, as far as Chloe was concerned. The meaning of the name Sig meant “a victory that brings peace and protection” and that definition couldn’t be more accurate. He was thoughtful and encouraging and, oh yeah, superprotective. Most important, however, Sig believed in her. In a way she’d never experienced from someone she loved.

Sure, she knew her mother believed in her musical abilities, but Sofia never took an active interest beyond bragging about them or scheduling her an audience where Sofia could bask in the accolades afterward. Similar to Chloe’s estranged father, So fia used these performances as a social tool. A magic trick to pull out of the bag at parties or a way to meet interesting people abroad. Since coming to Boston Chloe had started to ponder the possibility that her mother had never pushed her to take bigger chances with her music because she wanted to keep Chloe at home, under her thumb. Meanwhile, Sig asked Chloe what she wanted. She never had to worry about an ulterior motive with him. With Sig, there was nothing but safety.

Emotionally, at least.

She was eons away from being satisfied physically. Sig had lit a fuse six months ago in Connecticut and she was getting dangerously close to the end of it.

Trying to ignore the way her pulse thumped, Chloe leaned a hip against her kitchen table, watching him do his rounds a few yards away in the kitchen. “I don’t think I even congratulated you on winning tonight.”

“That’s okay. I know you’re pumped when we win.” He took an empty Pop-Tarts box out of the cabinet, showing her the lack of contents with a frown, before tossing it onto the counter. Instead of continuing his search as usual, he braced his hands on the counter, staying silent for a few beats, before looking over at Chloe again. “Burgess is officially retiring after this season. He told me tonight before the game.”

Goose bumps raced down Chloe’s arms.

Burgess “Sir Savage” Abraham was an institution. A Bearcats legend and one of the most beloved figures in Boston. Sig’s idol turned close friend. Tallulah’s future husband. Hearing that he would no longer be part of the team Chloe had grown to love with her whole heart over the last six months was... expected, yes, since he’d recently faced a back injury and he was approaching his late thirties. But the news was still like a blast from two shocker paddles.

“Oh my gosh.” She pushed off the table and entered the kitchen, approaching Sig slowly. “How do you feel about that?”

“I don’t know.” A muscle hopped in his jaw. “Mostly sad, I guess.”

“Of course.”

“I’m nervous about the changes that’ll need to be made.”

“Like... you taking over as captain?”

Sig grunted. Hesitated before nodding.

As much as she hated how unsettled Sig was clearly feeling, she couldn’t help but soak in the fact that he was confiding in her. No one had ever chosen her to be the keeper of their worries and concerns and fears. It was just another reason she treasured this person above all others. How could she not? He’d worked his way up to the highest level of his profession. He wasn’t just born with a heap of talent, like her. No, he’d honed it with his blood, sweat, and tears, day after day. And while she crowed to anyone who would listen that Sig was the best player on the ice, he never said it himself. He just... showed it. Showed up.

Sig Gauthier always showed up.

Chloe thought carefully before speaking. Thought about what he’d said to her in the car. Wanted to say the exact best thing, like he always did. “Burgess is ready. And you’re ready. You’re each ready for different things and you’re both well prepared for them.”

He cut her a sideways look. Swallowed. “They’re not going to love me the way they love him.”

I’ll love you enough for this whole city.

She firmed her chin. “Oh yes, they will. They love players who sacrifice everything for the W, so they’ll love you most of all.” Throat aching, she inched closer, close enough that she could lift onto her tiptoes and press her lips against his shoulder through the padding of his sweatshirt. “Give them a chance. More importantly, give yourself a chance.”

His throat worked for several seconds, before he rasped a chuckle. “When did you start saying shit like, ‘sacrifice everything for the W’?” Amusement lightened his eyes. “Didn’t I find you at a freaking country club?”

A genuine smile exploded across her face. “I’ve evolved!”

He straightened from his lean against the counter and faced Chloe, taking her by the wrists and walking her backward through the kitchen, then into the dining area, his heat already making contact with her skin, straight through their clothes. “Next you’re going to be spouting off my stats for the season and quoting Gretzky.”

“You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

“Oh my God.” Sig threw his head back and laughed. “ I didn’t even know he was the one who coined that phrase. How did you know?”

“It’s common knowledge!” They were in the hallway now. The one that led to her bedroom and Chloe’s heart rate was bouncing like a rubber ball in her veins. “Also, it’s written on the beer koozie of the man who sits behind me at the games.” She gave a solemn nod. “He has season tickets, so I see that beer koozie a lot .”

Sig slowed them to a stop, right on the threshold of her bedroom, searching her face with an expression she couldn’t name. Somehow like... bewilderment? “What the hell am I going to do about you being so cute? Huh?”

Words spoken earlier that night came back to her in a wave.

The connection between you two is... blatant, for lack of a better term. It’s palpable, like, at all times. And I guess I’m wondering if you two could get it out of your systems now. Before it is technically wrong to sleep together.

You know, just to avoid a lifetime of wondering.

A lifetime? Of never knowing what if felt like to be consumed by this man?

Was she delusional to ever have thought such a thing was possible?

“Maybe you should listen to Gretzky...” With her conversation with Tallulah ringing in her ears, Chloe went up on her toes and whispered against Sig’s chin, “And take a shot.”

Strained surprise rippled at the corners of his mouth, his thumbs digging into the pulses of her inner wrists. “ Chloe. ”

She gave him several beats to accept the invitation, but his restraint only seemed to intensify. Hiding her disappointment with a blithe smile, Chloe extricated her wrists from his hands, though it took him a few seconds to release her—and even then, she could feel him struggling not to snatch them back. That struggle allowed her to hope.

Hope for what, though?

What are you doing?

Unclear. She only knew the phrase get it out of your systems had continued to circle her thoughts until it unleashed a sort of... permission. A dangerous sort of bravery.

“So, I’m a little bummed...” Chloe said, turning and opening the door of her walk-in closet.

Seconds ticked by. “Why?”

“Because I have a specific top I like to wear for good luck, but I forgot to pack it last time I was in Connecticut,” she said, entering the space. Hesitating. Taking a deep breath. Then stripping off her pink Gauthier jersey, slowly, so slowly, savoring the fact that Sig was watching her disrobe from the entrance of the closet, probably shocked, but unable to look away. Heard his hands smack and brace on the sides of the frame. The creak of wood as the pink material dropped to the floor. His hitched groan. “It’s a black-and-white pattern, has long sleeves and this high, ruffled neck. Silk.” She looked back at him over her shoulder, her knees turning to jelly at his expression—the embodiment of pure hun ger. Yearning. The same kind she felt, without cease. “I’ve always played the harp best when I’m naked. And that blouse makes me feel like I’m wearing nothing at all.”

His chest rose and plummeted, his words tangling up in one another. “When and... where did you play the harp naked?”

“All the time.” Hanging on to her courage, she removed a forest-green button-down from her rack of clothes, examined it, and hung it back up. “When I used to have one in my bedroom.”

“The harp is in the parlor at your other house,” he grated.

“We have three harps.”

He scrutinized her, jaw grinding, very visibly trying to keep his thoughts on track. “Do you miss having access to one at all times, the way you did when you lived with Sofia?”

Chloe had just taken a pair of cigarette pants off their hanger with the use of unsteady fingers, but she paused to breathe in and out, consider the question. “Yes, I miss having a harp with me at all times. But I like my freedom in Boston more.”

The trench between his brows remained. “Glad to hear it.”

Sometimes she could tell that Sig was recording and cataloging things inside of his head, but she never knew when, where, or how he would unearth them for future use. For instance, a month ago she’d tripped on an uneven floorboard in the hallway outside of her apartment. Sig had wordlessly caught her by the back of her sweater before she could fall down, setting her back upright and going about his business carrying groceries inside. But a couple of days later, she’d left for barre class and found him on his hands and knees fixing the floorboard, while the shamefaced super stood nearby.

She breathed her way through the seemingly endless round of warm shivers, the delight of having his eyes on her nearly bare back. “What do you think I should wear, since I don’t have my lucky blouse?”

“You look amazing in everything, Chloe.”

“You don’t have to sound so irritated about it.”

He made a sharp sound. “Irritated doesn’t begin to cover it.”

“Explain what you mean.”

“The fact that other men get to see you look so beautiful...”

She tried to hold her breath, but couldn’t. “Keep going.”

His explanation came out in a gruff rush. “I don’t think it would piss me off half as much if I was the one who knew what you looked like without clothes on.”

Chloe closed her eyes and let the rush of exhilaration travel from the crown of her head, down to her curled toes. She wasn’t supposed to enjoy Sig’s jealousy, right? How many articles and cautionary Reddit tales had she consumed about male behaviors that constituted red flags?

So many.

When she stopped to think about how involved Sig was in every aspect of her life, she knew the boundaries were blurred enough to be nonexistent. Yet she loved him crossing those lines. His possessiveness turned her on. In fact, she craved those too-brief glimpses of it, because she could never feel caged or crowded by Sig. Not the man who’d shown her how to spread her wings. How to navigate the city, buy food for herself, make online payments (when she remembered).

As much as he guarded her like the crown jewels, he supported her independence.

It was only occasionally she wanted to be pinned down and told she belonged to him.

Okay, fine. She wanted that constantly.

Obviously he wanted that, too, so why couldn’t they give in? Just once.

“Should I keep stripping so you can find out?”

His breath rasped in and out. “Yes. God help me.”

Chloe held up the garment in question, even though her arm was shaking. “I’ll probably wear these with a simple white button-down. Since I’m going for professional.”

Sig nodded. She turned briefly to watch a line snap in his cheek. “Try it all on.”

The small muscles of Chloe’s sex drew in tight on themselves. “Okay,” she murmured, undoing the front snap of her black bra. Exposing her breasts to the cool air of her closet, watching excitement turn her nipples to hard pearls as she drew the straps down her arms. Off.

She didn’t turn around. She was too afraid his intensity would cause her to combust.

Already she was on the verge, just having his gaze lick her back like a flame.

And when she reached for the closest white button-down shirt hanging on the rack, she knew Sig caught the full profile of her left breast. Knew it for sure by the low sound of hunger he emitted, the splintering sound the wood doorframe made in his grip.

“You’ll wear a bra with that tomorrow, right?” Sig asked, noticeably struggling to keep his voice even. Stopping to breathe in and out between the fifth and sixth word.

“Yes,” she answered, pulling the shirt on over hypersensitive skin, fastening the buttons with shaking fingers. “I just don’t feel like hunting up my nude one right now.”

“Good.”

The silence between them stretched, but it was far from quiet inside their bodies. Minds. Chloe knew on instinct she wasn’t alone in that. Her heart was loud, knocking into her ribs, and intuition told her Sig was in the same state. They were a messy pair. Everything about what they were doing was messy but stopping seemed impossible.

Chloe bit down on her bottom lip until she felt pain, needing to distract from the hunger yawning in her belly. How it reared its head when she bent forward slowly, pushing her leggings down to her knees. Then, lower, to her ankles. She needed him to look at her mostly bare backside, the way he was doing now. She needed him to see the minuscule black thong she’d worn after touching herself to fantasies about him that morning, the tight fit against her sex making her think of him inappropriately all day.

Every time she sat down or stood up.

Sig was openly panting behind her. Not hiding his lust. Not for the moment.

That’s why she couldn’t turn around. If she saw it and couldn’t slake it, she’d die.

“Christ, you are so goddamn gorgeous.” She heard him swallow a jagged groan. “I want to wrestle you down and fuck you so bad, I’m shaking. Are you happy?”

Sound rushed in her ears.

It might have been her, though. Gasping for air. She couldn’t be sure. “No. Yes.”

“Give me the next best thing. Pick up that jersey and drag it up between your beautiful legs.”

Chloe’s knees dipped, the erotic command sending every ounce of blood in her body rushing south. Had she initiated this? Yes. But the need tightening its grip around her was more intense than she could have imagined. Would it kill her to only experience this once and then stop? Possibly. Maybe she’d been shortsighted to even try. “Sig...”

“Tell me you don’t want more of this, too.”

“I do. I do so bad.” She started to tremble, her nipples so tight they felt like they were being pinched in between two powerful fingers. Lust took the driver’s seat, then, propelled there by the raw desperation in his tone. Closing her eyes, she bent forward another inch and picked up the jersey, pressing the cool mesh to her inner ankle and slowly, slowly trailing it up the curve of her calves, the insides of her knee, whimpering when she reached the sensitive inner portion of her thighs.

“Good girl. If I can’t be between your thighs, let me enjoy having my name there.” After a moment of heaving breathing, his voice dropped another octave. “Press it where we both wish I could put my cock, Chloe.”

A sob wrenched from her throat and she was forced to stabilize herself by slapping the flat of her left hand onto the wall while her right one pulled the jersey upward another two inches and pressed. Hard to her core. Hard enough to make her breath escape in a shudder.

“Goddamn,” he rasped. “Does it feel good?”

Chloe could barely see the closet wall in front of her. Everything in her world was a blur of shapes and colors, the waves of need growing larger, more powerful. “Not as good as you would feel.”

“ Fuck. ”

She dropped the jersey out of necessity, bracing both hands on the closet wall now, using all her strength to squeeze her thighs together, even if that only made the ache intensify.

“Sig, I can’t have you anymore, without having you. I can’t do it anymore.”

A few seconds passed in silence. “I’d rather torture myself with you than be with anyone else.” He cursed under his breath and she sensed, rather than saw him take a step in her direction, his fingertips just barely grazing her spine. “Come here.”

She turned and barreled straight into his chest, knowing he wouldn’t budge an inch, sighing with equal parts frustration and relief as he wrapped her in his arms, holding her like letting go was an unthinkable concept, his hands stroking her hair, up and down her spine.

“We’ll stop,” he said against her temple, before rubbing his cheek on the spot. Hauling her closer, higher until her toes were barely brushing the ground. “I let it go too far and now I’m hurting you. We’ll stop.”

“It’s still going to hurt tomorrow.”

And the day after and the day after that.

“Don’t say that, Chloe. I’d rather die than hurt you.”

His words did nothing to diminish the hopeless feeling inside of her. For the last six months, she’d had this secret belief that Sig would find a way for them to be together. That everything in her life would work itself out, like it always had. However, along with her new and expanding awareness that life outside of Darien wasn’t designed for her enjoyment came the realization that... life didn’t always work itself out.

She was in love with Sig.

And they might not end up together.

That was reality.

Every day, she fell deeper, too. Maybe... maybe she needed to find a way to put the brakes on before she went careening over the side of a cliff.

Maybe it was time to start thinking about dating?

Why did the very idea make her stomach shrink to the size of a pea?

Holding on to the last thread of her courage, Chloe pressed her tongue to his neck and licked up that thick cord of muscle that caused her so many sleepless nights. “We could give in just once,” she whispered. “No one would know.”

Sig pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, letting her see the agony, the regret, the lust. All of it. “Feel me, dream girl.” He jerked her right leg up around his hips and tilted his lower body, grinding upward and lifting her higher, to the very tip of her big toe, until her vision went totally black. “You think I could stop at once ? I’d never be able to stop. I’d be hiking up your skirt at their wedding reception. I’m already an addict and I’ve never even gotten a hit.”

“Taste me.” Liquid heat pooled between her thighs. Preparing. Every underused muscle below her belly button cinched up and twisted. “Everyone already suspects us.”

“Yeah, but I know I’m doing right by you, Chloe.” He dropped his mouth over hers, his frustrated breath heating her lips. “I’m not giving in unless it’s right. Unless I know that I’m not dragging you into something wrong. Something that could hurt you. Your future.”

“Drag me. Please. ”

He interlocked their lips and moaned.

Chloe’s heart went wild. She held her breath. This was it. This was it. Damn the consequences. They would burn alive now and figure out a plan tomorrow. Sig would know what to do. He’d know how to turn what they were into something socially acceptable, so it wouldn’t bring shame to her family name or hurt any possible advances in their careers. So they wouldn’t have to be judged by everyone in their lives and everyone they ever met in the future. How could something that inspired this much love inside of her be so bad?

“Sig, please. Just take me to bed.”

“Jesus Christ. Don’t you think I want to? Feels like I’ve spent my whole life wanting to get inside you. I fucking belong there.” Avoiding her eyes, he set her down and backed off, raking five unsteady fingers through his hair. Pacing out of the closet and into her bedroom. Stopping. “I have to go before I let us do something we can’t take back, Chloe.”

With that, he took one final agonized look at her, his gaze blazing a path down to her naked thighs, before he turned on a booted heel and strode for the door.

Still stunned, she stared at the space he’d occupied, the sound of the front door opening finally forcing her into motion. Leaving? He was just going to leave after she’d made herself completely vulnerable? “When I said I can’t do this anymore, I meant it,” she called, speed walking after him. Stop talking. You’re keyed up. You’re going to say something you’ll regret. But the voice of reason was a lot quieter than her sexual frustration at that very moment. “Having you and not having you at the same time... I can’t live like this anymore. It’s torture.”

Just outside the apartment door now, he spun around, regarding her with guarded shock. Dawning panic. “ Chloe —”

“I think we should both start dating other people,” she blurted, watching his left eyebrow hoist very slowly, and very dramatically. “Not that we were ever dating, but you know what I mean. Maybe it’ll be easier to be best friends if we have separate, healthy romantic lives, you know?” A scalding hot iron branded the insides of her throat. “There won’t be so much... of an expectation for us to be everything to each other when we simply can’t be everything to each other. We can’t keep pretending the way we are is normal.”

He stared back at her like he couldn’t comprehend anything coming out of her mouth.

“You know, you made the list of Boston’s Most Eligible Bachelors.” The words scraped the walls of her throat like hot sandpaper. “It’s perfect timing.”

More confusion lit his eyes. “I... what? How do you know that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What a coincidence. Neither does some ridiculous list.” He tunneled frustrated fingers through his hair. “I’m coming back in so we can straighten this out.”

He started forward, but she shook her head adamantly. “There is nothing to discuss and... listen, I just want to be alone. Good night, Sig.”

Closing the door on his stricken expression was one of the hardest things she’d ever done in her life. But despite the tears burning in her eyes and the hormonal wreckage that was her overwrought body, Chloe couldn’t help but feel proud of herself. At least she’d tried. At least she’d been brave in calling out the problem by name, in detail, even if the effort didn’t pay off.

It was comforting to know she’d gotten stronger.

If only she could stop being weak for a man who obviously wasn’t meant for her.