Dream Girl Drama (Big Shots #3)

Chapter Fourteen

Fact: Chloe had the cutest dog in the whole park. Not up for debate.

Sure, he’d been sitting in the same spot for the last thirty minutes, but he was just preparing to make his move! That spoke volumes about his personality. Check out the scene, decide which dogs were best to avoid, and then slide into the group fashionably late. The cool new guy. Yes, Chloe could see exactly what he was doing.

“G’boy, Pierre,” she called, making a kissing sound at the bulldog.

Pierre sort of melted sideways into the grass, yawning the whole way down.

“He had a big breakfast,” she explained to the group of pet owners, which consisted of Omar, a senior citizen who had marched his pug into the park ten minutes ago and immediately hidden behind the sports section of the newspaper. And Elton, a cute baseball player with an impeccably groomed bichon frise.

Maybe giving Elton her phone number might have been a little premature, but it was nice to make friends based on something other than her last name. Growing up in Connecticut, her last name was always the first thing someone asked of her. Chloe...? They would trail off leaving her name dangling in the air like a fishhook. Wait for her to complete the moniker that would determine her relevance. As soon as she said Clifford , the tension in their face fled.

Ah, it’s fine, she’s one of us.

Chloe was a little embarrassed to admit she’d taken comfort in that at one time.

Acceptance based on wealth she’d done nothing to earn or deserve.

She’d had a lot of friends in Connecticut, but never anyone she would tell her deep, dark secrets to. They were friends who got together at parties or at the club and gossiped about one another. Dropped risqué details about their sex lives for clout. Complained about wanting to get out of Darien, but not really wanting to leave, just to go on their next vacation.

Chloe had fit in as best she could, mainly to please her mother. However, she’d learned early that giving in to her mischievous impulses earned her points with the group. That was who she’d become. Chloe, the thief. Chloe, the charming con, able to talk her way out of trouble while everyone giggled nearby. Once, her friends had driven onto the golf course and parked in a circle facing one another with their headlights on, music blasting, a flash mob dance party, of sorts.

When the police arrived, they’d shoved Chloe in their direction as their spokesperson, and she’d tearfully explained to them they’d all gotten lost. And thank goodness the cops were there to lead them back to the road. It had worked. But it hadn’t really worked, had it? The truth was, she’d never actually been in danger of getting into trouble. Her little bubble wasn’t designed for anything but a scot-free existence.

Not anymore, though. Not after last night.

Her blinders had well and truly been ripped off.

“How long have you been in Boston?” asked Elton, distracting her.

“Six months,” Chloe responded, pinkie waving at Pierre. Was he asleep or dead? “I’m from Connecticut, but I gratefully consider this home now.”

Elton looked around, squinting. “You like Boston that much, huh?”

“Yes. I never want to leave. I could explore one street every day for the rest of my life and still never see it all.” She thought of the arena, Grace’s penthouse, the discovery of the dog park right down the street from her house. She had to have walked past it before and never noticed it until today. “It’s a town that gets familiar fast, but remains kind of a mystery, too.”

A grin was spreading across his face. “I... guess I never thought of it that way.”

She smiled. “Well, now we both can.”

Elton was seriously cute. Lanky. Six foot one, maybe? Sandy brown hair. Crow’s-feet that extended from the corners of his wraparound sunglasses. But she’d meant what she’d said—Elton wasn’t her type. What was her type, though?

Chloe envisioned a lineup of men, each one a various archetype. A cowboy. A preppy. A biker, even. But they were all just Sig dressed in different outfits.

Oh dear.

Who besides Sig could make her want to cry and cheer and laugh just by existing?

Would anyone else ever be able to make her knees feel like gelatin or her throat strain with the effort of keeping three words locked up inside? Make her hot, bothered, and wet with a smirk? Perhaps there was nobody in the world who could do that, except for Sig Gauthier. But she needed to try. She needed to separate her romantic life from her eventual stepbrother.

“So have you been playing baseball your whole life?” she asked, hoping to distract herself from the fact that her belly was trapped in a free fall.

“Since I was ten,” Elton answered. “My dad coached my Little League team—”

“Fascinating story, man,” came a voice from behind Elton. One Chloe recognized, but couldn’t quite place...

At least not until she turned around and found four fearsome Bearcats starters walking into the dog park the same way they skated onto the ice. Like they owned it.

Sig was leading the pack, but he wasn’t the one who’d spoken. No, it had been one of the Orgasm Donors, as Sig liked to call them.

Sig.

Happiness went off like a confetti bomb inside of her. There was no use pretending otherwise. He was there. With her. That would forever and always make her happy.

Too happy, though?

From this high of a height, she could only plummet. And always did.

“Hey, Chlo,” Sig drawled.

“Hi,” she breathed, unable to modulate her voice or her heart. She couldn’t look anywhere but right at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Just out for a walk.”

“Oh.” He’d moved his shoulder funny. “Are you sure?”

Sig moved in close and wrapped his right arm behind her back, pulling Chloe up onto her toes for a hug that arched her spine and made her feel weightless. “All right, fine,” he said gruffly in her ear. “I wanted to see you.”

“You just saw me this morning.”

Ever so briefly, he squeezed her tighter. “It’s never enough.”

“Who are you guys?” Elton asked.

Oh yeah. Elton.

Chloe forced herself to wiggle out of Sig’s perfect arms and observe the scene in front of her, which was straight out of a hockey horror flick. Sir Savage was leaning against a tree—which he almost matched for size—looking bored, but observant. Mailer and Corrigan were twinning as usual with matching expressions of blatant disrespect, pure and simple. They were focused on Elton, who looked nothing short of stunned at the arrival of four jacked professional athletes, all of whom looked like they needed a shower and some sleep, frankly.

“Who are we?” Mailer traded a booming laugh with Corrigan. “You don’t watch hockey, bro?”

“That’s Sir Savage, my guy,” Corrigan blustered, indicating the legendary center behind him. “Show some goddamn respect.”

Elton rolled a shoulder. “Might have heard of him. In passing.”

“In pass—” Mailer was having a ministroke. “Okay, fine. I guess you have an excuse since baseball games last fourteen hours. You don’t have time for anything else.”

“It’s America’s game,” Elton shot back.

“At best,” Mailer drew out, “it’s background noise during a nap.”

“Wow.” Still smarting from that insult, Elton turned his attention to Sig who was now standing in front of Chloe, all but blocking her view of the proceedings. Without seeing his face, she somehow knew he had his gametime expression locked in place. Forbidding. Murderous. Totally out of place in a peaceful dog park. “And who are you?”

“That’s her...” Corrigan trailed off, scratching a red eyebrow. “It’s complicated.”

“Yeah,” Mailer echoed. “It’s complicated. More complicated than baseball, that’s for fucking sure.”

“Bottom line, she’s a hockey girl. She’s our hockey girl.”

“Don’t get carried away, Corrigan,” Sig said.

Chloe poked him in the shoulder. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

He turned and winked at her. “Did you do your hair different this morning? God, you look beautiful.”

Giddy pleasure shot straight down to her toes. “I used a beach waver...” You’re being had. “Hey, you’re just trying to distract me from the fact that you’re ambushing this poor guy.”

“Poor guy, Chloe?” Sig snorted. “That’s a bichon frise.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” half shouted Elton. “Whatever. You think baseball is so easy, why don’t we have a little matchup?” Elton stepped toe-to-toe with Corrigan. “Your team versus mine.”

Mailer and Corrigan fist-bumped. “Done, son. Name the place and time.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Chloe burst out, throwing up her hands. “This is exactly like the Sandlot , except you’re full-grown men, so it’s not a rite of passage, it’s just toxic behavior.” She shook her head at the man in front of her. “And in front of Pierre, too, Sig. You’re setting a bad example.”

Elton craned his neck to smile at Chloe. “You like the Sand lot ?”

“You’re finished speaking to her,” Sig growled, sidestepping again to block Elton’s view. “Consider yourself lucky you were allowed to do it once.”

“Allowed?” Chloe sputtered.

“Yeah,” Corrigan piped up. “We didn’t even get one shot.”

“Okay, I think I’m done here. Pierre!” She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled, but the bulldog only sunk deeper into the grass, forcing Chloe to march over to the grassy patch near the water fountain and hook the leash to Pierre’s collar. “Seriously, Pierre? You barfed this morning when a pigeon landed on the fire escape, but you managed to keep your breakfast down around all this male posturing? That’s called selective barfing.”

She snapped the leash into place and the sound must have rattled something to life inside of the bulldog, because he rolled to his feet and snarfed, apparently as ready to go home as Chloe. She sent the group of men one final, disappointed look, then let herself out of the rear gate so she wouldn’t have to wade through all their egos by leaving through the front.

They’d only made it about a block when she sensed Sig trailing behind her.

“Chloe.”

She made sure he heard her gasp. “Don’t say my name.”

“Ah, come on. It’s my favorite word.” Silence fell as she walked faster, shocked when Pierre matched her speed. “I hate when you’re mad at me.”

“Good.”

“ Chloe. ”

“No.”

“What are you saying ‘no’ to?”

“Your presumed ownership over me. If I want to give a man my number, I’m allowed to do that. We agreed to see other people—”

“No, we didn’t.”

“—because our relationship is complicated and that’s all it will ever be.” Chloe’s building was only a block away now and she couldn’t wait to get inside, slam the door, and scream at the ceiling. On behalf of her confused heart, battered hormones, and womankind for having to exist in the same universe as hockey players. Who she actually really loved, but God. What gave them the right to swoop in like that and treat her like a piece of property? “I don’t want to talk to you anymore, Sig!” she shouted over her shoulder.

Pierre yipped and she gave him a grateful look for being the goodest boy/hype man.

“ What? You don’t want to talk to me ever again?” Sig shouted back. “I just saved you from a baseball player.”

“I don’t need saving. And I didn’t say I never wanted to talk to you again forever . I just meant, I don’t know... until next week, at least.”

He caught up with her at the door of the building, pressing his hand to the glass and nuzzling his mouth against her neck. “No. A week without you will feel like forever, Chlo.”

Need slipped down the sides of her belly like hot oil. “What are we doing here, Sig? What are we doing ?”

Several heavy seconds passed while he acknowledged the meaning behind her words. They were trapped in this crazy cycle of not being together, while also being totally committed—but not having him in all ways was not a sustainable place to be.

Couldn’t he feel that?

Instead of answering Chloe’s question— what are we doing? —Sig let them into the vestibule, taking his own set of keys out of the pocket of his sweatpants and unlocking the main building. He appeared to be chewing on leather as he escorted her up the stairs, Pierre clicking happily in front of them, probably hoping there would be food provided once they were inside.

Somehow, though, Chloe knew something else was going to happen.

Maybe it was the rough set of Sig’s jaw.

Or the uneven sound of his breathing.

Whatever tipped her off, she still was not expecting to be pressed up against the door as soon as they were inside the apartment, pinned there by Sig’s body. She couldn’t explain what happened inside of her at that sudden, hard press of tense muscle and the blast of intention from the man who usually held back so stubbornly. But her nervous system started to clamor, her pulse rocketing to a thousand miles an hour, the world’s most telling moan sailing out of her mouth. Her fingers shook and snatched for an anchor, finding one in the thighs of his sweatpants, fisting in the soft material and pulling him closer.

“Is this what you want?” he asked, raggedly.

“Yes.”

“Good. Take what I’m not supposed to give you.” He vibrated with caged aggression, his need on a leash, but he was letting her have some of it and his erection elongating against her belly was like a feast after a famine. He raked his mouth up the side of her face, into her hair, and she almost dropped to the ground, it felt so divine. “Just don’t be angry with me,” he rasped. “I can’t stand it.”

Wait. She was angry with him?

Oh yeah.

She was angry with him.

“You aren’t in charge of my love life.”

“I am your love life, Chloe.”

A two-handed shove didn’t budge him an inch. “You’re not,” she said, frustration evident in her tone. “I want you to be, but you’re not. You can’t .” Saying these things out loud caused her throat to ache, but they had to be said out loud at some point, right? “Eventually we have to admit this relationship is unhealthy and just... just let it change.”

His head had been shaking the whole time. “No.”

“Yes.”

“You think we could feel like this with anyone else?”

“No,” she whispered, still drawing him closer, her neck lacking its usual strength and all because that part of him, so heavy and thick, was sandwiched between them. “But I want things you won’t give me.”

His head lifted, eyes burning into hers. God, she’d never seen him this way. No, he’d never let her see him this way. So intense she was having trouble holding on to her thoughts. “Like what?”

Detailing the way she longed for physical contact felt wrong, because she’d only wanted that contact from him since the night they’d met. Saying that out loud wasn’t going to support her point, though, was it? Only hurt her argument that their obsessive relationship wasn’t serving either of them. “I want to be taken to dinner and kissed on my stoop afterward,” she blurted. “I want to be told I’m pretty and feel your—a man’s weight on top of me.”

Slowly, his brows knit together, as if she’d spoken in a completely different language. “You want to be told you’re pretty ?” He repinned her so hard against the door, the hinges rattled and she sobbed, not even bothering to try and get free, because she didn’t want to. His body against hers felt like being home for the first time in six months. “A man who calls you pretty, Chloe, is a fucking fool. You aren’t pretty, you’re brutally goddamn beautiful. You glow with life. You’re crazy. You have heart. You have love pouring out of you. You’re brilliant and creative. So gorgeous I’ve lost thousands of hours of sleep.” His mouth melded to hers in a messy rub of lips. “You have a body that demands someone spoil it often and fuck it twice as often. Pretty?” He shook his head. “I’d spit on a man for calling you pretty. You’re extraordinary. The first and last of your kind.”

“Sig.” Her throat felt heavy enough to drop into her stomach at any moment. Oh my God. Oh my God. Where had those words been hiding? Maybe their power is what she felt in her bones every time he looked at her. “How... I’m...”

“How many numbers do you have in your phone? For men.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“Too bad. How many?”

“I’m going to kick you—”

He dipped his head and sucked the side of her throat, long and hard, while she gasped, his hands scrubbing up the outsides of her thighs, all the way to her rib cage, then higher into her hair, his fingers spearing in deep and holding her head while she tried to get her breath. “F-friends, too?”

“No.” He stared hard at her mouth. “Men who are smart enough to be interested in you romantically. Past and present. Men who might show up and try to rekindle shit. Men who might lie about your dogs hanging out to get into your panties. How many of those you got?”

“I don’t know. Seven?”

“ Seven? Jesus fucking—”

“How many women do you have like that?” she half shouted.

“One. You.” Leaving his left hand tangled in her hair, he dropped his right one and yanked her phone out of her purse, holding it up. “I’ll kiss you once for every one of those seven contacts you delete, starting with the baseball player.”

“He has a name.”

“Not to you, he doesn’t.”

“You’re pushing it, Sig. You’re really pushing it.”

“I know. You can be pissed as hell—just kiss me at the same time.”

Fuses blew in her brain. Pew. Pew.

Because oh lord, he was even more magnetic up close, every inch of him sealed to every inch of her, the power inside of him on the verge of erupting. Lust and affection were joining forces in the depths of his eyes to turn her breathless and oh, oh, he very slightly dragged his sex an inch to the left against her belly and they both shuddered. “You only want to kiss me when you’re jealous. Is that right?”

“I want to kiss you even when I’m asleep, Chlo.” His open mouth feathered over hers and a melting sensation crept into her thighs, the muscles between them pulling taut, so taut she just barely caught a whimper. “I’m like this day and night.”

“You don’t always show me.”

He tilted his head to the right, teased her lips open with a lick. “I’ll show you now.”

Who was she kidding trying to resist this?

The heartbeat between her thighs was pounding just as swiftly as the one in her chest. She was always starving for this man, but right now, she’d crawl on her hands and knees through the desert for another minute of being grinded into the door by his huge hockey body, for more time with his breath on her face, his fingers in her hair. And he must have read that truth in her eyes, because he shook the phone slightly. “Baseball guy first.”

“Do I delete it n-now?”

“No, you’ll do it later.” He tucked the phone back into her purse, then removed the purse completely, letting it drop to the floor. “You’re not going to be able to focus on anything else once I get started.”

“You either.”

“Facts.”

They looked into each other’s eyes for several seconds and it was like going to the top floor of a skyscraper in a glass elevator at a hundred miles an hour. She left her stomach on the ground, toppled into the bottomless well of feeling he had inside of him and flew, flew to the top, their lips locking and twisting, bodies pressing roughly on a mutual groan, the first kiss a precursor to madness—because that’s exactly what ensued.

Their first kiss since the night they met was an implosion .

A whimper. A guttural groan. A damp slant of lips. Two bodies shaking.

Breath being denied. A refusal to give up the blessed suction. Texture. Friction.

“Miss me, dream girl?” he panted.

“Yes,” she gasped, being drawn into round two. The ferociousness of it. How he opened their mouths wider than most people would consider appropriate, feeding her his tongue in an intimate lick that turned her fingernails to claws that she sunk into his buns—and to be clear, she had no idea when she’d grabbed his butt, only that his was firm and male and he was openly fucking her mouth now. No kiss count was being kept, even as they occasionally came up for breaths, loud gasps of air, before their mouths were attached once again, licking and suctioning and growing hungrier with every rasp of his stubble on her smooth chin.

“You’re going to feel my weight on top of you, Chloe.” His lips moved to her neck for a hard suck, followed by a cherishing lick. “You’ll feel it behind you. Beneath you. You’re going to feel the weight of me, of us, everywhere.”

“I already do.”

“I know, baby. God, me too.” Another diving kiss, more frantic this time, his hands wedging between the door and her backside, gripping tight through her yoga pants, a shudder going through his big body when she rubbed her cheeks in those huge hands, savoring his touch there. “You’re going to trust me to find a way for us, even though it’s getting harder. You delete everyone else, but you don’t ever delete me. Ever. ”

“I won’t,” she whimpered, writhing now between him and the door. “I won’t.”

“Good girl. My fucking girl.”

“Yes.”

“When I walk out of here,” he said hoarsely against her mouth, his erection so full now, so close it felt like a part of her, “those contacts are gone. You don’t know them anymore.”

She was already nodding, wrapping her right leg around his waist, tilting her hips, begging without words for another kiss and he granted it, because he had no choice, neither one of them did and she could see that so easily. Feel it. The riotous pull that had anchored itself that first night at the country club and only grown heavier, unable to be pulled back up into the ship.

“If you do that for me, if you agree to knock this bullshit off about dating other people...” Unexpectedly, he rammed her into the door with his hips, pinning and grinding, mouth dropping open on a guttural sound. “I’ll come back here tonight after practice and fuck you until your thighs melt. How does that sound?”

Huh. What.

Her blood turned to molten metal.

She couldn’t respond. Couldn’t speak or reason. She was too busy reeling. Trying to convince herself she’d heard him wrong. Had she? Or was he really, finally , giving in? “Really?” she whispered, holding her breath.

“I’m done being noble. I’m not losing you to another man. I’ll die first. Do you understand me?” He pinned her roughly to the door, rolled his lower body. “It’s going to feel so fucking good. I bet you’re going to bite.”

“Sig. Please. ”

“You’re not getting under anyone but me,” he growled, lips moving against her ear, down her neck messily and back up. “I’d never waste my time with someone else. Neither will you. And, Chloe, listen to me good.” He reached down and yanked both her knees up to his hips, sliding her up the door slowly, slowly, slowly like a prolonged thrust, all while watching her beneath his hooded eyelids, sweat forming on his upper lip. “My dick is well worth the wait. You feel that, don’t you? You know I’m not lying.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God. “You’re not lying.”

He crushed their chests together, hips moving in a slow rotation while he looked her right in the eye. “I wanted to wait until I was positive that I could make you my wife—and that is still the plan. That will always be the plan. If a single possibility exists that puts my ring on your finger, I’ll find it. But I can see I’m losing you. I can see you need me inside you and that’s what you’re going to get. My dream girl gets her way with me every time.”

Wife.

Had he said the word... “wife”?

Why was every corner of her heart lighting up like the Fourth of July?

Was that the outcome she’d wanted all along? Was it inevitable?

No. It wasn’t inevitable.

That’s what he was trying to tell her, wasn’t it? If a single possibility exists...

“Delete those contacts the second I’m gone.” He kissed her hard. Once, twice, three times. Lingering, while slowly letting her legs drop, her feet finding the floor. “And don’t give your number to any more baseball players unless you’d like to see me in prison. Do we have a deal, Chloe?”

Perhaps threatening murder wasn’t romantic, but her heart didn’t seem to understand that, evidenced by its position lodged in her jugular. “I shouldn’t make that deal.”

“Make it, baby. I’ll come back later and reward you with ride after ride on this dick.”

“Deal,” she whimpered. “I’m yours. You know I am.”

A gruff, emotional sound left him. “I’m going while I still can,” he slurred, rubbing his mouth on her cheek, against her temple.

And then, after a hard kiss of her forehead and a whispered thank you , he was gone.