Chapter Twenty-Two
KENNA: OUR FATHERS are fighting again
Kieran: I thought they weren’t even speaking?
Kenna: dad tried. showed up at the house again, wouldn’t leave until grant came to the door. he’s a belligerent fuck, you know this
Kieran: And it didn’t go well?
Kenna: he says your dad came in hot, hollering about not wanting to see him, get off his property, all that good stuff
Kenna: might want to check on your mom though, she was there
Kieran: Fuck.
Kieran: Yeah, okay, I will. Thanks for letting me know.
Kenna: you sign your contract yet?
Kieran: Not yet.
Kenna: gonna?
Kieran: I want to.
Kieran: Don’t think I can bring myself to do it until I tell them.
Kenna: that’ll be fun for you
Kenna: let me know if i can help. i can stand there and look menacing if you want
Kieran: Isn’t that what you always look like?
Kenna: ha ha so funny
Kenna: i rescind my offer, you’re on your own bud
Kieran: Let me know if anything else happens between our two paternal morons
Kenna: will do
“Everything okay?”
Sammie dropped her bag next to Kieran’s bed, running a hand through her hair, tugging at a few tangles. Kieran bit back a sigh.
“Just got off the phone with mom.” It hadn’t been a good call. The weight of his mother’s tears still pressed down on him, unwieldy and smothering. “The usual family is drama getting stirred up again.”
Sammie’s eyes were steady on him, even as Kieran moved around the room, picking up the few things he’d left lying about.
He’d meant to have the place cleaned up, spotless, ready for when she arrived.
The fact that it wasn’t, that he’d run out of time because of a phone call gone long, was already throwing him off.
He didn’t enjoy his plans being interrupted, changes to the schedule he was already expecting.
It always left him feeling uneasy, like he would fall behind and never be able to catch back up.
“I’m sorry.” Sammie seated herself on the end of his bed, ankles crossed, hands placed carefully in her lap. “I wish they weren’t putting so much pressure on you.”
Pressure. Kieran almost laughed. Pressure was an understatement.
His mother crying into the phone, asking him to come home the day before the last game of the season, that wasn’t the pressure he’d been feeling all summer.
That was a volcano finally waking from its slumber.
An imminent eruption, one that Kieran feared was finally going to catch him.
Trap him.
“I’ll work it out.” Not that he knew how. Kieran was just as clueless as he’d been weeks earlier. The only change was that time had passed, and he still didn’t have a solution ready.
“Is this one good?” Sammie picked up the book he’d left lying on his bed earlier that day. He’d needed something to distract him, from the messages Kenna had sent, from tomorrow’s game. From the circles he’d been running in his head, a fruitless endeavor.
“Yeah.” Kieran sat down next to Sammie, the mattress dipping under their combined weight. “Only a few chapters left. You should borrow it when I’m done.”
Sammie flipped the book over, examining the back cover. “I do like werewolves.”
Kieran watched her as she continued to read. Her bottom lip was pulled between her teeth, a sweet look of concentration stilling her features as her storm cloud eyes squinted to scan the words in the low lighting. A few locks of her dark hair fell forward, tickling against her cheek.
Before he thought better of it, Kieran reached out, tucking the hair back behind her ear.
Sammie stilled under his touch, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a mistake.
The urge to overthink, to dissect her every look, every movement, every word, it had been welling up in Kieran since they’d kissed in the brewery two nights before.
Sammie had kissed him. And no, they hadn’t broken her rule, but that felt pedantic to Kieran. A loophole that they’d eagerly exploited together.
Kieran loved rules, and even though they technically hadn’t broken any of theirs, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d missed something.
The kiss had replayed in his mind a thousand times since.
The way Sammie had tasted, like spiced beer and minty gum.
The way she had felt against him, melting under his touch.
The way she had looked when she’d pulled back, eyes hooded, cheeks flushed, lips wet.
She’d seen past his defenses then, even if she didn’t realize it.
Past a wall that Kieran hadn’t known was there.
And he couldn’t stop thinking about it. What had started out as nothing more than a business arrangement, a collaboration that would benefit them both, had turned into something more. Something that Kieran didn’t understand, something he didn’t recognize and couldn’t put a name to.
Sammie got up, placing the book on his small bookcase. “It’s late,” she finally said, turning back to face him. She looked good. A fitted pink crop top paired with baggy, torn jeans that let her tattoo peak through. “We should probably get started, you’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
The game. Everything hinged on their final game of the regular season. Kieran felt the weight of it more acutely with every second that ticked by.
“We can get started now, if you want.”
They’d agreed to meet up one more time this week, after they cleaned themselves up in the brewery.
Sammie had confided in him that what they’d earned so far was almost enough for not only the window that needed to be replaced in her old home, but enough to cover the cost to have a new air conditioning unit installed as well.
Maybe this would be good. A chance for Kieran to let go, to do something he knew he would enjoy. Maybe it would get him out of his head, a few moments of bliss before the big game and everything that came with it.
The calm before the storm.
But as Sammie approached him, shimmying out of her jeans until all she wore was that damned, skin-tight crop top and a simple black thong, the storms behind her gaze setting off a spark of heat low in his gut, Kieran realized calm wasn’t what he needed.
“Sammie.” Her name was a prayer on his lips as she knelt before him, pushing at his knees until they were spread enough for her to get between them.
“The camera’s on, right?”
Kieran nodded as she gathered her hair in one hand at the nape of her neck. She looked the part of a goddess, every line of her on display. Her curves, the strength beneath them. Her breasts hung heavy in the shirt, nipples peaked, waiting for attention that Kieran was desperate to give.
“Hold my hair,” she finally said. “And follow my lead.” He nodded again, tugging his ball cap low over his eyes before doing as she asked. Unceremoniously, she unbuttoned his pants, freeing his dick from his briefs.
“Do you want to grab a condom?”
He could feel her every breath on his dick, warm and wet, more enticing than he could have imagined. But the rule. His rule.
Sammie was looking up at him, waiting for an answer, leaving the ball in his court. He could feel it arcing down toward him, waiting for a decision on which play to make.
Kieran finally shook his head, even as his rule-following mind screamed at him in warning. “Not for this.” A pause as he forced his breaths to even out. “If you’re okay with it.”
The smallest grin curved Sammie’s lips, almost as though she were trying to hide it, though Kieran couldn’t think of why she would want to hide her smiles from him now after giving them so freely over the last several weeks.
The thought was a thorn poking at his mind, but the moment her lips closed around the head of his cock every other thought in his head faded to the background.
Kieran’s fingers tightened in Sammie’s hair as she sank down on him, taking half of his length into her mouth in one go.
The heat in his gut flared as she hollowed her cheeks.
He knew he should play it up for the camera, let a few grunts slip out, maybe tug on her hair a bit.
But it was taking everything in Kieran just to remember to breathe.
Bobbing her head up and down, Sammie hummed around his dick as he bucked his hips.
He hadn’t meant to, his body reacting too strongly to her mouth wrapped around him.
But the fingers of one hand dug into the meat of his thigh as Sammie’s other hand came up to wrap around the base of his dick, working him as she pulled back, her tongue teasing the head.
Kieran was going to come, and they were hardly two minutes in.
“Sammie, wait.” He gasped between the words, his hand falling to squeeze her shoulder. She popped off him immediately, her eyes meeting his, searching. Kieran huffed out a sharp laugh. “You gotta stop or this is going to end really soon.”
Pride sparked in her expression, more of the Sammie he’d started growing used to shining through.
Her hands came up to his chest, pushing him back as she rose from her knees.
Kieran soon found himself flat on his back, Sammie crawling up the bed over him.
A goddess once more, and Kieran lay prone before her, ready to follow wherever she was willing to take him.
“Still okay?”
It was so conflicting, the clinical way she was going about this all, a stark contrast to the care in her voice as she continued to check in on him. Something had changed, something that Kieran couldn’t catch, eluding him at every turn.
“I’m okay.”
Sammie nodded, tugging off her underwear before reaching over him to finally grab a condom off the nightstand. Their faces pressed close, and for a moment she hesitated, her lips mere inches from his own.
The moment was frozen, a lifetime wrapped into a breath, and for the span of a heartbeat, Kieran thought she would kiss him again. That he would taste himself on her tongue, feel her enveloping him so entirely, just as she had done before.