Chapter 29 #2
“What happens when I trade you at the end of the season?” he asks coolly.
“No matter the outcome of the surgery, I was getting rid of you anyway. You’re worth a lot for a trade and Leo can easily be the future of this team.
Not you. What happens then? You think she’ll move with you?
” He makes a tsking noise as he shakes his head.
“Her career is far more important to her than you will ever be. I know your kind, Reyes. I was you. And while I might not have done right by my daughter in the past, I won’t allow her to make the same mistakes her mother did. ”
He just confirmed what I had already suspected. I’ll never play for the Boston Rebels again. The pain that comes with that discovery is nothing short of a slice through the heart. My team, my town, my family. They’re all here.
“By mistake you mean marrying a lying, cheating, child-abandoning asshole?” I take a step this time, getting right up in his face and using my height and size to my advantage.
“You think you know me? Why? Because I was a rock star for a while and now, I play professional football? Because I fucked around a bit before I met Wynter?” I glare down at him.
“You’re a fool. You know nothing about me, and nothing about Wynter.
You think intentionally trying to tear her family apart will help you win her favor?
It won’t. I know exactly what you’re attempting to do with her and let me save you the time.
She’s not interested in having anything to do with you.
Wynter, unlike you, is loyal. She is loving.
She wants what’s best for our son. She is my fucking north star, and I will always find my way home to her and our son. Always .”
I shoulder past him, making sure I bump him as I go. At this point, it doesn’t matter. I’m gone from the team in his eyes, and he’s the coach with the power to make it happen. I’m simply the ball player. One with limited options if I want to continue to play.
“Nice to know you’re so worried about my son that you didn’t even ask if he’s okay or why I’m purchasing fever medicine for him. Asshole.”
I walk up to the register, pay for the medicine, and then walk home to my family, fuming and burning with a rage so deep I’m positive there is no end to it. I’m not an angry man. It’s not who I am. Until you fuck with me. Until you fuck with my people.
Then I’m ruthless.
Joe Cardone might mistake my easy smiles and quick laughs for being stupid. For being a pushover. For not being all that serious. But he’s got another think coming his way.
I pull up Lenox’s number the second the elevator doors close behind me because there is no way I’d dare text him this. He picks up on the second ring with a grunt.
“I need intel on Cardone. Get me everything you can.”
I can practically hear him smiling when he says, “I was wondering when you’d ask. You sure you want to go down this road, and how deep are we talking?”
I start to pace around the small metal box as it climbs floors. “As deep as you can go. He’s fighting dirty, and I plan to fight even dirtier.”
“I’m on it.”
“Good. Thanks, man, I owe you.”
“Give your big man a fist-pound for me and we’re even.” He disconnects the call, but I can’t even muster a grin at that. Lenox will get me any skeletons Joe is trying to keep hidden in his closet. Something tells me I’m going to need them.
Whatever they are.
But as I’m riding up, I’m hit with what Joe said.
Truly hit by it. I can’t idly sit around and allow Joe to control my life.
My career. My future. With a heaviness in my chest that resembles something like grief, I text Hunter.
I’m under contract through next season, which is why Joe has the power to trade me anytime he likes.
But being a player, I have some options if I’m proactive.
I can position myself in a way that’s advantageous to where I’m willing to end up—even if it’s not in Boston.
I’m not sure I have any other choice but to put out feelers and see what catches.
A few minutes later, I enter the apartment and go searching for Wynter and Mason, only to find them in his room in the rocking chair. The lights are off, and his nightlight is on. Mason’s head is against her chest, his little butt on her lap. She holds him as she gently rocks him in the chair.
I raise the brown bag up like a triumphant warrior returning from battle, and she gives me a soft, approving smile. “Thank you. Is he asleep? I’m afraid to move to check.”
“Looks to be that way.” I walk in and crouch down beside them, running my hand along the back of his soft head. “How’s he doing? He feels cool.”
“Poor baby threw up all over himself, and I had to give him a quick bath. That broke his fever along with the ibuprofen, though I wonder how much of the ibuprofen he vomited. Every time I try to put him down, he cries though.”
“Let me try?”
She worries her lip with her teeth but then gives me a nod. I slip my hands around his little body and then carefully shift him to my good shoulder. He comes easily, hardly stirring, even as I stand and walk him over to his crib. I plant a gentle kiss on the top of his head and then set him down.
Wynter stands, both of us holding our breath, waiting for him to wake up, and when he doesn’t, we creep out of the room, shutting the door behind us as quietly as we can.
“I think I might sleep in my old room tonight so I’m close to him,” she whispers, looking tired already even though it’s not even eight.
I take her hand and walk her toward the kitchen, where I direct her onto a bar stool, and then go about fixing us up a couple of chicken burritos because I have the stuff for them in the fridge.
“That’s fine. Can I sleep in there with you?” I ask.
She laughs as if my question is ridiculous. “I already assumed you would since I know you’d never want to sleep across the apartment from us.”
Something in the way she says that, in the way she knows how I feel about her and how I feel about Mason, has me rounding the island and taking her face in my hands. I kiss her. Urgently. Desperately. Like a man who feels as though he’s only holding onto things by a thin thread.
Her hand cups my jaw, running along my smooth cheek before she pushes her finger into my chin dimple playfully. “What was that for?”
I need to tell her that Joe knows I’m Mason’s father, and I will. But if I tell her I’m being traded and there is no plan in place for it, she’ll freak out. I know she will. I have to figure that part out so I can better reassure her that everything can still work with us.
But right now, I need her. I need to touch her and hear her moan my name. I need to know that this thing between us is real and lasting. No matter what.
So instead of answering her, I lift her out of her seat and drop her on the stone counter.
She eyes me curiously, likely because I’m not smiling or flirting the way I always do.
I’m dead-ass serious right now, truly afraid for the first time in my life because for the first time in my life, I have something I’m unwilling to lose.
I tear her shirt off, throwing it somewhere behind me, and then my mouth dives in, kissing my favorite spot on her neck and inhaling her sweet fragrance.
Her hands get lost in my hair, her body swaying backward on the counter, and I grab her thigh, dragging her closer to me until my body is cradled in the V of her thighs.
She’s not going anywhere.
“Asher?” She moans, but there’s a question on the back end of it.
I shake my head, silently telling her not now, as I suck on her neck and begin to trail open-mouthed kisses down to her chest. My hand comes up, cupping and lifting one breast until the soft swell meets my lips.
In a flash, I rip down the cup, and then capture her nipple in my mouth, sucking roughly on it.
Wynter lets out a low whimper as I eagerly devour her nipple, swirling my tongue around the stiff peak, and then immediately sucking it back into my mouth.
Reaching around her back, I unclasp her bra, and toss it in the same direction her shirt went.
And with her completely bare to me from the waist up, I take full advantage, my mouth shifting over to her other full tit.
My teeth scrape along her pert nipple while my fingers pinch and twist her other.
My hand returns to her thigh, dragging up her leggings until I reach her warm, wet center.
She rocks into my touch as I start to rub her there, needing more contact than I can give her with the barrier of cotton between us.
Abandoning her nipple, I use both hands to grasp the seam of her leggings at the crotch, and then in one swift motion, tear it apart, shredding the fabric and making her gasp in surprise.
I continue to feast on her tits while I pull her thong to the side and start rubbing her clit. She hums in pleasure, her nails scraping down the fabric of my shirt before she balls it up in her fists and rips it up and over my head.
“Asher, I need you.”
I smile against her skin as I trail up to her mouth. “How much?” I ask, staring into her dark, green eyes just as I shove two fingers inside her.
“Ah!” she cries, her eyelids flickering, fighting the urge to close. I slide my fingers in and out of her dripping wet pussy while my thumb plays with her clit.
“So much,” she pants, her nails digging into my good shoulder.
She’s a volcano, already so close to erupting, always so fucking responsive to everything I do.
I’ll never tire of her. I’ll always want— need —more of her.
And with that, I need her so irrevocably lost in me that nothing else matters but us and this.
My free hand cups her jaw, forcing her to see the storm in my eyes, how wound tight I am, the way I’m trembling for her. “I love you.”
And then I kiss her, my tongue swirling with hers, my mouth stealing every available breath from her I can. My fingers pick up their pace, matching the speed and motion of my tongue in her mouth.
“My tongue or my fingers?” I ask, sucking her plump bottom lip into my mouth and then releasing it with a slow drag of my teeth. I want to fuck her sweaty and fast until she’s gasping my name, but I also want my queen to come once before she comes again on my cock.
“That,” she moans, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wild with desire. “Keep doing that. I’m already so close.”
“How’s this? I’m going to fuck you like this…” I pump faster and press harder on her clit until she gasps, her eyes closing and her head flying back, no longer able to fight it. “And the second you start to come, I’m going to slam inside you.”
“Oh, God. Yes. Please, yes.”
Shoving down the waist of my track pants, my heavy, hard cock springs free and I give it a lazy jerk.
I slip my fingers from her pussy and move them up to her clit, focusing on that as I use the fat tip of my dick to rub her entrance.
Her chin drops, her greedy eyes matching my own as we both stare shamelessly at the erotic display before us.
“Oh, fuck,” she whimpers. “Oh, fuck.”
I’m right there with her, having to bite my lip and tighten my body so I don’t come this instant. “I love watching your pussy come,” I manage, my voice strained, the brutal need to drive into her overwhelming, but this visual… this fucking visual is so goddamn hot, I don’t want it to end either.
Only, in her next breath, she starts to come. Her back arches and her arms give out, and then her face plants against my chest as she shudders and shakes, moaning and groaning. And that’s when I thrust all the way inside her as deep as my cock can go.
A scream wrenches the air and my lips slam down on hers, kissing her through her orgasm as I begin to fuck her into another one.
I push her down onto the counter of the island, my forearms on either side of her, and I use my hips as weapons to piston me in and out of her.
Her legs are wrapped around my waist, and her arms are snaked around my neck as she holds me to her, chest to chest.
Sweat shivers across my back, and my heart flutters out a crazy rhythm as I stare into her eyes.
Our foreheads meet, and then I take her hands, intertwining our fingers and setting our joined hands just above her head.
I continue driving in deep, swirling my hips and pressing down so my pubic bone rubs her clit with every thrust.
I take her like this until fire burns in her eyes.
Until neither of us can hold off another second. Until flashes of light dance behind my eyes and she chants my name, moaning and quivering beneath me. Then I come inside of her, throbbing, and pulsing, and giving her every piece of me I have.
“I love you,” I breathe against her lips.
She smiles, her eyes clear and bright even as we’re both still winded. “Love you.”
“Forever,” I promise. Because that’s the only truth that will get me through this right now.