Shameless Game (Shameless Sport #1)

Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“You want to lick both sides of the stamp so bad, your tongue is drooling for it.”

BEAU

It must be love because I smile while I mop my golden joke off our bathroom floor, even though it was Blair’s fault.

Okay, fine.

Technically, it’s mine.

I tortured her with Clingwrap on the toilet in college, so here I am, thirty, and pissing my flip-flops over her.

The rest of the afternoon, she hides from me and the sun, sitting with her laptop on her bed. So, I get to work, too.

Even though Colt and I are like sandpaper, rubbing each other raw and not in a good way, we’re pros, too.

Colt packed a ball. I did, too, but we use his for drills.

He goes long, running down the wooden dock. It’s only twenty or so yards, but it’ll do. I throw, and he goes for the catch, practicing his half-turn, snatching the ball with his long fingers before securing the tuck, making it a true vacation by splashing into the Caribbean as our end zone.

Silently, we practice for over an hour. Silently, I worry he’ll slip and crack his skull on the edge of the dock or get a splinter in his foot. Silently, I’ve always worried about Colt.

I had privileges and parents with money, and he didn’t. I miss his mom, too. Celeste was sweet. As a single mom, she sacrificed everything for her son because Colt’s dad had been long gone since he was a baby.

So, of course, Colt’s family became mine and mine his.

I think that’s another reason we hit our stride these past few years. I felt his grief, too. I was there for him. When it’s your mom dying, teammates give hugs, back slaps, and arm locks around the neck. So I could be there for Colt. I could hold him with no judgment because it was legit. Everyone in the locker room understood, and no one judged.

But I couldn’t stop the inevitable.

And I can’t stop studying him now.

Colt’s intricate ink gleams sweaty in the sun. I know his stunning new pec art of lotuses is for his mom. But I wonder about the older minimalist designs in his sleeves, particularly the birds, and what they mean. I have suspicions, but it’ll be too hard if I know the truth.

But this is easy. My timing. His speed. My placement. His catch. There’s no pressure on us, and for the first time in months, I see the real Colt—the one I fell in love with.

With Amber gone, he’s relaxed. He’s smiling while he runs. He’s fucking laughing when he splashes into the ocean. He could go til sunset, but my shoulder can’t.

“Hey, man,” I call out, “I gotta stop.”

He jogs my way with the ball tucked naturally into his side, like a damn baby, while he worries, “You alright?”

“Yeah,” I start my crossover arm stretches, “just a bit tight.”

“I’ll get you some ice.”

“I don’t need it.”

“I didn’t ask,” he scoffs. “Sit down and take the damn ice.”

He times me, giving me twenty minutes on a pool lounger with ice on my right shoulder while the afternoon gives way to dusk.

“Fuck, I’m starving.” He glances back at the open living room with the kitchen beyond.

The smell of Blair making dinner for us makes my stomach growl. “Me too,” I answer.

“I can’t believe it. She makes us come for her, and now she’s cooking for us?” He nods toward Blair, bending over, sliding a large glass pan into the oven. It looks like she’s setting the timer while Colt admires, “You lucky shit, I’ve never met a woman like her. The ones I meet are either too shy, too selfish, or too uptight.”

“Oh,” I chuckle, admiring how cute she looks in her green sundress, “Blair’s not uptight. She has a religion against shame. She works at a swanky adult store. You wouldn’t believe that place,” I pause, remembering what I’ve already shared with Blair in so little time. “You wouldn’t believe what she can make you feel, too.”

Colt huffs. He does believe me as I realize we’re talking more today than we have in months, and it’s all because of Blair.

“Tell me again,” he asks, looking over his shoulder, watching her put dishes away, “how she’d be a distraction and not the one who can finally make you win?”

Suddenly, I can’t answer.

I never thought of it that way.

All I’ve ever heard from coaches, my parents, or some other players is how love is a distraction and how I should wait until I retire in a few years.

But what if Colt’s right, and they’re wrong?

“Damn,” he fills my silence, “did she really write that alien book about y’all, too?” He reaches, dragging the towel off my dripping shoulder. The ice has melted. “I started it today and got all kinds of feels and a hard-on by chapter three.”

“Yeah,” I answer. “You should read her other books about us. Your dick will thank you.”

“Speaking of thanking dicks.” He pats his knees, rising to his feet. “It’s shower time.”

The image of Colt, wet and nude and jerking off in the shower, does something to me. Damn, I want to join him. I want to hold him again. I want to fist our soapy cocks together while I claim his kiss and suck his tongue.

But this feels too precarious.

We’re finally talking like normal again. We’re finally throwing like yin and yang. We’re finally relaxed and not pissed off.

So, he leaves, and I lay the wet towel to dry over my chair before I wander into my shower alone, letting the hot water soothe my sore shoulder, too.

The one thing I confess to no one—not Colt, not Blair, not Coach—is I’m not sure about my shoulder. On paper, the surgery was a success, and I do my daily physical therapy like a devout monk. But still, after today, I’m sore, and I worry.

“I gotta pee.”

Blair’s sweet voice lifts my gaze from the white shower tiles. She’s doing a funny dance in the threshold.

“Then pee,” I tell her.

“But you’re right here.”

“But I won’t see you. The little half wall is blocking the john.”

“Yeah, but you’ll hear me.”

I laugh. “So we can mutually masturbate and watch each other come, but I can’t hear your golden shower hit the porcelain bowl?” She dances some more. “What are you, Irish? Is that your gotta-pee-jig?”

“Shut up,” she whines, and it’s adorable. “Come on. Hurry up and finish.”

I stand naked in the shower. There’s no curtain or glass wall. Belize is too hot to hold in the steam, and the open shower is deep enough that water doesn’t get on the bathroom floor, so I hold my ground.

“I’m standing right here, Blair, while you pee.”

“Don’t make me go in the ocean!”

“Please don’t.” I shampoo my hair. “I hear jellyfish come out at night.”

“That’s not true!” She hops up and down faster, panic twisting her face. “Is it?”

“Don’t find out. Just pee.”

“Beeeaaaauuu!” She turns my name into five syllables.

“Blaaaaiiiirrrr!” I rinse my hair, laughing.

“Goddammit.” She huffs by me, hiking up her sundress. “You’re dead if there’s Clingwrap on this. I mean it. I’ll choke you on a starfish.”

I finish rinsing while I hear her soft moan of release. “Damn, baby,” I admire. “You make it sound sexual. You sure you’re not hiding a golden kink?”

“Quit listening!”

“What do you want me to do? Sing the national anthem?”

“Yes!” The toilet roll rumbles.

“No can do.” I turn the shower head off, stepping naked onto the bathmat. “Now let me hear you flush.”

“Over my dead, squatting pussy.” She holds position, all her sexy bits covered by her pretty, flowy dress while I drip naked in front of her.

“I got all night, baby.”

“No, you don’t.” She smirks. “Your stomach will growl, and your dick will get cold.”

Damn, she knows me well. She’s half right.

“Fine.” I grab a white towel and use it to dry my hair. In this heat, my body will dry in minutes. “Flush and join me for dinner.”

“Are you asking me on a date while I sit on the toilet?”

My god, she stops my heart.

Blair looks cute as hell. She stares up at me with her dark hair twisted high off her neck. It falls like a pom-pom from the top of her head while her black glasses perch on the tip of her button nose.

“Yes, Professor Piss, it’s a date. I’m taking you out for dinner fifty feet away.”

“But I cooked.”

“Thank you. So I’ll do the dishes.” I hang my towel on a hook. “What’d you make?”

“Lasagna,” she answers. “Is Colt coming, too?”

I smirk, naked and amused. “Do you want Colt to come again with us?”

But I’m playing the GOAT of kink. She smiles at my semi and gets the point. “Bronson, it’s obvious what you want. You want to lick both sides of the stamp so bad, your tongue is drooling for it.” I raise a brow, confused. “A switch-hitter. A gate-swinger.” She explains, “You want a threesome, but too bad for you, I’m swinging with dildos only.”

With that, she proudly stands from her throne and flushes. I chuckle, listening to her wash her hands while I throw on clean shorts. Fuck a shirt. It’s too hot.

Minutes later, we’re gathered around the marble kitchen island.

“Dig in,” Blair instructs with a proud smile, so I do the honors, spearing the bubbling lasagna with a spatula.

I load up my plate. Colt loads up his. But we’re gentlemen, so I spoon some onto a plate for Blair, and he carries it for her outside to the table she set.

Wine would make this dinner even more romantic, but the sunset works in my favor. Something about this night feels perfect between us as I sit beside Blair, across from Colt.

We silently dip our forks into the cheesy Italian goodness, taking ravenous bites. We chew. And chew. And chew. And chew.

“Wow,” Colt mumbles with his mouth full. “It’s authentico. Very al dente.”

I can’t speak.

I’m busy choking on raw pasta.

“What the… ?” But Blair spits her mouthful into her linen napkin. “The noodles aren’t cooked!”

I don’t have the heart to tell her we’re eating Italian rubber bands. I just try to swallow them with a smile.

“But,” Blair stares at the dish, “I made it just like I do at home.”

“Did you uh… ” Colt’s trying not to offend her either. “Did you boil the noodles first?”

“No,” she answers. “You don’t need to boil them.”

I can’t help it. Her cute factor is way too high. “Babe,” I answer after I swallow a doughy glob, nearly avoiding choking to death, “yeah, you do.”

After all the years of helping my mom cook, even I know that.

“No, you don’t.” But Blair is stubborn and embarrassed while she marches inside to the kitchen, and we follow, watching her dig the empty pasta box out of the garbage. “It says… ” she starts reading…

“To boil the noodles?” Fuck, this is too funny.

She’s still reading the instructions like it’s Russian while Colt starts laughing, too. “You’re a best-selling author who didn’t read the instructions.”

She stomps her foot, frustrated. “At home, they’re no-boil noodles.”

“But Kitten, home is a thousand miles away and a pot full of boiling water from here.” I piss her off, winning an empty pasta box thrown at my laughing face.

“Y’all!” But then her pretty cheeks flush. “I ruined dinner, and now you’ll starve to death.”

“We won’t starve.” Colt flicks her button nose. “There’s an ocean full of dinner. We just have to boil it first.”

“Oh my god.” She covers her face with her hands. “I’ll never live this down.”

So, I whip her around, wrapping my arms around her waist. “Hell, no, you won’t. This is going in the Blair Blunders Hall of Fame.”

“Uh!” She knocks her forehead against my bare pecs. “Kill me now.”

I kiss her silky pom-pom. “Should we boil you alive?”

“Beau!” She huffs into my chest, shaking with laughter. “Now Colton thinks I’m an idiot, too.”

“He doesn’t think that, baby.” I wink at Colt, smiling over her shoulder. “Now he knows you’re an idiot.”

Her shoulders start to shake with laughter, too, and Colt can’t resist her either. He cups her arm, his giant hand making her seem even more petite between us.

“Raven, when you’re this damn cute being dumb”—he leans over, pecking her bare shoulder—“you’re worth starving for.”

Something about his tender kiss and my embrace makes Blair melt in my arms, trapped by his heat and mine.

I feel it, too.

So does he.

We’re the ones boiling now. With our three bodies melding together, Colt starts barely kissing her neck and Blair moans. So my lips find the shell of her ear, coaxing, “Baby, let us eat your pussy instead.”

“Oh god.” Blair grabs my shoulders, sighing against my cheek. Colt must be grinding hard against her backside while she can feel my growing appetite, too, but then she squirms, pushing out of our trap.

“I’m winning this bet, Bronson,” she stammers.

“What bet?” Colt staggers back from our heat.

But I glance at Blair, my eyes begging her not to share. Colt’s not ready. Neither am I. We’re just now barely getting along. We can’t force this. We may never truly kiss and make up.

This may be as good as it gets.

Blair reads my eyes, covering my ass by answering Colt, “I bet I could resist him for ten days while he bet he could seduce me in five.”

My chest falls, relieved, though my dick isn’t.

“So here.” Blair grabs two bags of tortilla chips from a cabinet, tossing them on the island. “Make us nachos for dinner, and I’ll be right back.”

In a mad swish, she turns for her bedroom.

“Are you going to fuck your devoted plastic boyfriends again?”

“You two can make me want to fuck you all you want,” she answers me over her shoulder. “But I’m winning our bet, Bronson.”

Colt grabs the chips, ripping the bag open, lowly growling at me, “You’re a fucking idiot.”

Her bedroom door closes while I grab cheese from the refrigerator. “Finally,” I answer him, “we agree.”

When Blair returns fifteen minutes later, looking flushed and freshly fucked by a lucky sex toy, we enjoy a successful nacho dinner outside.

Once the dishes are drying on the rack, we turn off the kitchen lights and settle on the sofa in front of the flat screen. But instead of an awkward counseling session, we start a vacation tradition.

It’s Colt’s idea.

We each write three of our favorite movies, ones we can recite word-for-word, on pieces of paper, and each night, we’ll draw from a bowl.

Tonight, Blair tells Colt to go first since it was his idea.

“Hell, yes,” he woofs at his selection. “Sixteen Candles. It was my mom’s favorite.”

“I love that movie!” Blair sounds as excited, but I confess, “I’ve never seen it.”

“What?” Blair whips her gaze to me. She sits between us while Colt clicks the remote, getting ready to stream it. “How did you miss this romcom classic?”

Colt answers for me, “Because he watched plays, not movies, growing up.”

“Is that true?” Blair asks.

I shrug. “Sorta. Once I outgrew Finding Nemo, I was finding football.”

“Ahhhh.” She surprises me, taking her hair clip out and tossing it on the coffee table before lying down, nestling her head in my lap. “That’s so sad, Bronson. Were you ever a carefree teenager?”

I can’t answer because I’m entranced once Blair’s black silk spills over my lap. Her soft cheek rests on my hard thigh. She’s so close to where I’m dying for her; in the first hour of the movie, I will my frustrated dick down while my fingers have other plans.

They lace through her hair, letting it glide like ebony satin through my grasp and her contended sighs fucking kill me. That and how her feet somehow manage to rest in Colt’s lap, too.

I’m playing with her hair, and he’s rubbing her feet. They’re watching the movie, and I know I’m supposed to take another chance at tempting her, at winning our kinky bet. I could start playing with her spaghetti strap, lingering my touch down, over the swell of her breasts. I know how to tease her nipples to get her wet, and maybe she wants me to, but this feels too special.

I’m overwhelmed. I’m seeing years like this. Of a future I can only dream about.

If I weren’t the face of a football franchise, this would be the ultimate win—a life with her and him.

A life of us.

I can’t fucking believe how natural this feels, how it melts my heart, how quickly Blair and Colt have bonded, too.

But why should it surprise me?

I’ve loved them for years, and now they’re discovering everything I love about them in each other, and I’m not mad about it.

Real love wants the other person to be happy. The best love is when you both are. Or… all three are.

Colt keeps mindlessly rubbing her feet, his eyes glued to the flatscreen, while I keep worshiping Blair in my lap, feeling her body relax like it belongs forever with mine.

By the time the movie ends with the iconic scene of Jake waiting for Samantha outside the church, stealing her away from her sister’s wedding reception so they can celebrate her birthday alone, I’m a mess of emotions I hide.

“Make a wish,” Jake gently tells Samantha over her cake, glowing with sixteen candles.

“It already came true,” Samantha answers him, and I glance at Colt.

He senses me and glances back. But we don’t say it. We don’t need to. We’ve known our wish since we were sixteen, too. We may never come true, but he smiles and nods toward Blair.

This wish can come true.

Blair’s an angel, asleep in my lap, my hand caressing her hair, and yes, I’m a fucking idiot not to at least make this happen for us.

“Come on, babe.” So I scoop her up, and she mumbles, barely waking.

I remember this about her, too. Blair sleeps like the dead.

That’s how I pulled off so many pranks while I watched from the twin bed across from her. Reese was usually passed out by my side while I could rarely sleep. Not when I secretly wanted Blair so bad, so I’d devise the most wicked pranks to keep her attention.

Like putting liquid soap on Blair’s toes and watching, entertained for hours while she cursed and kicked her slick feet in her sleep. A few times, I tucked water balloons around her, waiting for her to roll over and pop one finally. She’d jolt up, thinking she pissed herself, and I’d die laughing.

But my favorite was putting her in a white T-shirt that read “I have pubic lice” with a smiley face.

Yeah, I had it specially made for her.

And yes, I almost pissed myself laughing while I took pics of Blair sleeping with the shirt on.

But what I really loved was touching her soft skin, admiring her cute bralette with little mountain peaks on it while I carefully tugged the shirt on her. She was a breathtaking rag doll in my grasp. I’d never hurt her. It was a safe prank and I tried not to perv about it.

She was so beautiful then, asleep in my arms, and she’s gorgeous now, barely mumbling while I carry her into her bedroom.

“Isn’t she sleeping with you?” Colt follows us, asking at her doorway. He’s going to bed, too.

“She said she won’t sleep with me again.” Why the fuck lie now? Amber’s gone, and so is the pretense. So I tell Colt, “She said she won’t fuck me again either. That’s the real reason for our bet because it’ll hurt too much when we have to say goodbye at the end of this.”

Colt just chuckles. I watch as he yanks his hair free from its knot. It spills over his broad, inked shoulders.

I hold my world in my arms and stare.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” he mumbles his new mantra while he disappears into his bedroom. “You’re the only one who thinks we have to say goodbye.”