Chapter 36
Harper
Tobias’s place is gorgeous.Apparently, he has an apartment downtown close to the stadium, and then this house on the outskirts where he can have a retreat of sorts. Alex has given me a mini tour and introduced me to what feels like dozens of people.
I can’t remember people’s names on a good day. Faces, maybe what they’re wearing or something they said, but not names. Even one or two is usually hard unless I force myself to repeat them five times after they first introduce themselves. Remembering this many people? There is no way, so I hope he’s not expecting it.
The party’s catered and the food is insanely good, with pretty much any and everything on the menu—tacos, BBQ, wings, and desserts. The liquor is also flowing freely and the later it gets, the faster it flows. Waylon, Mackenzie, Ben, and Violet all stick around for the early celebrations, but as people start to get drunker and wilder, both couples say their goodbyes, and I’m left with no group to float around the party with.
Alex is winding up a conversation with one of his teammates and I’m just sipping my drink and people watching off to the side. After a few more minutes he turns to me, kissing me and running a hand down my side.
“Wanna go get in the hot tub for a bit?”
“Um.” I peek out the window where there are a dozen bodies in and around the hot tub by the heated pool as we speak. “It seems a little crowded.”
“There’s another one up on a private deck. He doesn’t let anyone go out there usually because it’s his, but he won’t care if it’s me. We can sneak off for a bit.”
“Sure.” I smile because more time alone with Alex tonight is honestly all I want.
He takes my hand and I follow him up the stairs and down a hall.
“Here, you can change in here.” He pops the door open to a bathroom just outside the deck door.
“Okay.”
I slip inside with my purse and turn on the light. Changing quickly I put my hair up in a messy tie to keep it from getting in the water. Then I turn in front of the mirror and smile. I don’t know if it’s the divorce or Alex, or some combination of the two but I definitely feel better than I have in a long time. Sexier. More confident. I could get used to this new version of myself.
When I leave the bathroom, Alex is leaning against the wall in a set of swim trunks smiling as his eyes run over me.
“Oh, I need to do this with you way more often.”
“Agreed,” I say as I look him over before meeting his eyes again. He closes the distance between us and kisses me.
“I am so fucking lucky,” he mutters, kissing the side of my jaw before he looks at me again.
“Me too,” I whisper. “We’re going to freeze though, aren’t we?”
It was a cool night despite the fact the day had still been relatively warm for this time of year.
“Not once we’re in the water. Just have to hurry.” He smiles and I kiss him again. Something I’m not sure I’ll ever get enough of. He makes me feel so giddy, I almost feel silly for how much.
“Here, you can put your clothes and purse in here.” He opens a door across the hallway, and I set them on a chair in what looks like a guest bedroom before I follow him back out.
When we get out to the hot tub though, someone else has already beat us to it—Gabe. He grins when he sees us. His eyes fall over me slowly and then slide back up my body until he meets my eyes.
“Well if it isn’t my favorite teammate and—Harper, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Gabe, right?” I pretend like I didn’t notice the way he just looked at me, and step down slowly into the other side of the hot tub alongside Alex.
“Yes, it’s Gabe. Gabe who better watch where his eyes are if he wants to still be my teammate,” Alex mutters as he sits down in the water.
Just as I go to sit, he grabs me and pulls me into his lap, wrapping an arm around my stomach. I want to grumble at him, but I love the feel of him around me.
“Never cared where my eyes went before,” Gabe taunts him.
“I care now,” he grits back.
I frown, studying Gabe across from me. His arms stretch across the wall above the hot tub as he watches us both.
“Care to fill me in?” I ask bluntly because I don’t like feeling like I’m the outsider in this conversation.
“Oh, she doesn’t know?” Gabe smirks, his eyes dancing with a threat.
“McGregor…” Alex warns but it does nothing to deter his amusement and his eyes return to me.
“Know what?” I look back over my shoulder to Alex and his brow furrows, eyes less bright than they were before. I’d almost say he looks nervous if I thought he was capable of the emotion.
“Nothing,” he mumbles.
“Oh, I don’t know if it’s fair not to let her in on that secret.”
“Secret?” I ask, a flicker of apprehension runs up my spine because I don’t like the idea that there’s some insider information about Alex that everyone else has that I’m not privy to.
“What are you doing up here anyway? Tobias know you’re here?”
“Yeah. He knows. Said he’d be up here later. Unless that’s what you’re waiting for.” He grins wider and I feel Alex’s grip on me tighten.
“Someone should fill me in,” I say, letting the frustration edge into my tone.
“It’s nothing worth talking about right now.”
“Fuck that. It’s definitely worth talking about,” Gabe counters.
“I’m gonna go back inside,” I say abruptly, starting to move but Alex’s grip around me tightens.
“Just fuckin’ tell her. She’ll find out anyway.” Gabe shakes his head. “At least I hope she does because it’s a show I definitely want to see.”
Gabe’s eyes are on me again, drifting over me.
“So you can see what you’ll never fucking touch?” Alex’s tone is lethal.
“She already mentioned she worked at the museum when we talked. I assumed it was a look don’t touch situation.”
It suddenly hits me. What I should have realized way before now. He and Tobias aren’t that different. It’s why he didn’t flinch in the car when Tobias’s date was basically fucking him in front of us. Why Danica was all over him on my couch at a party. Why Gabe is making the comments he is now. I look back at Alex.
“Tobias not the only one that likes to be watched?”
“I’m not nearly as bad as Tobias.”
“It’s true, sweetheart. Tobias will fuck anywhere. Your boy here’s a fan of more private gatherings. VIP shows if you will.”
“McGregor, remind me why I shouldn’t kill you?”
“We won the game on a field goal after the two-minute warning?” Gabe looks very amused with himself.
I’m busy processing the information though.
“Is that why you brought me up here?” I ask softly.
“Fuck no,” Alex practically growls the words. “I didn’t know anyone was up here. No way would I let these fuckers see you.”
“So I’m not good enough for that kind of fun?” I question.
“Walked right into that one.” Gabe lets out a choked laugh.
“Saint…” Alex wraps his other arm around my waist and lowers his lips to my ear. “You’re better than enough.”
“So then I don’t see what the problem is.” I shrug, acting a lot braver than I feel because if I was going to keep pushing the boundaries of what it meant to be Alexander Xavier’s fake girlfriend—be the woman on his arm, go to VIP parties, kiss him, fuck him—then I want to be her, not a poor imitation.
“I told you. They don’t get to see you.” Alex’s hand digs into my hip like he’s worried but I can feel him going hard despite what he’s saying.
“He can’t see through the water with all these bubbles.” I give Alex a devious little grin. “Can you?” I look up at Gabe and he gives me a sly grin in return.
“Nope.” Gabe shakes his head.
“See?” I say to Alex, grabbing his hand through the water and sliding it between my legs as I spread them.
“Fuck… Saint. After tonight, I’m too fucking weak for this,” he grumbles against my shoulder, kissing me softly but letting his fingers brush over me through the fabric.
I lean back against his chest, brushing my lips over his neck and rocking my hips just enough so his cock is cradled against me. He’s so hard and his breathing is already getting heavier just talking about it. I can tell he wants this, wants me like this.
“Touch me. Show him how easily you can make me come,” I whisper against his skin.
“Christ, you’re fucking evil,” he practically growls the words, but his fingers slip beneath the fabric, spreading me and swiping over my clit.
I’m already so turned on that I close my eyes and let out a ghost of an involuntary whimper just from that contact alone. Him touching me like this in front of one of his teammates, knowing he’s watching, feels illicit. Like I get to be someone else for a while. One of the women Alex might actually have picked up and taken home because she was wild enough for him.
He’s rough at first with his strokes, punishing me I’d guess for tempting him into this, but then he slows like he wants to draw it out for me.
I feel his lips and tongue against my throat, and I writhe as he teases my clit with the tips of his fingers, giving me pressure and then taking it away. It feels so fucking good I would probably consider letting him fuck me like this, right here in front of Gabe, but for my sanity, I need to take baby steps. There’s only so much of this I can take at once.
“Should open your eyes, Saint. Watch him watching you. See how fucking jealous he is that I get to touch you and he can’t.”
I open my eyes halfway, too nervous to look him in the eye I just let them flick over his chest. But I can feel Gabe’s on me, watching me, and Alex gives me more teasing pressure, dragging another needy whimper from me.
“Fuck…” I whisper, taking a deep breath while I can.
“You like that? The way he looks at you?”
“I like the way you touch me,” I breathe because what’s turning me on more than Gabe watching me is Alex touching me like this, focused on me regardless of who’s here. Wanting me badly enough that he doesn’t care. Letting me play the part even though his jealousy is almost as bad as mine.
“I know, Saint.” He kisses his way up my throat until his mouth brushes over the shell of my ear. “You’re such a fucking good girl. You gonna show him how you come for me? How perfect you are?”
“Yes,” I say softly, nodding as he picks up the pressure and the pace of his fingers over my clit, taking me to the edge so fast I barely have time to think before he pushes me over it. I come hard, gasping and whimpering while he massages me through the last wave of pleasure. I lean back against his chest, trying to catch my breath as he holds me close.
“Fuck me…” I hear Gabe grunt, and I suddenly remember he’s still here, my eyes opening. Gabe’s looking over me, his eyes darkening. If it wasn’t for how much I want Alex, how stupidly single-minded I’ve become over him, I might be tempted by the way Gabe’s eyes travel over me.
I smile, a stupid happy sated smile that I managed to play this game with Alex when he stands abruptly. He grabs a couple of towels from the shelf near the edge of the hot tub, throwing one around him and then reaches for me, pulling me out of the water. He wraps me in one and when I go to look at him, his eyes meet mine and my breath catches in my throat. He looks predatory, half anger, half lust and if I didn’t trust him with my life, I might be worried right now.
He hauls me into his arms, and carries me back into the house, pushing open one of the doors and laying me down on a bed before he goes back to the door, shutting and locking it then stalking over to me again. He tosses the towel and his shorts before he pulls the towel back from my body and his eyes meet mine again.
A moment later we hear the door to the deck open and shut again, then the bathroom door after it. Alex smirks, his eyes traveling over my body before he climbs onto the bed with me.
“You know he’s going in there to jack off thinking about you. Wishing he could touch you the way I do.”
“I don’t care about him.”
“But you liked him watching you?” His tone is dark but curious like he’s probing my reaction to what we’ve done despite the fact it’s pricked his jealousy.
“I guess so. I like that you want me so badly you don’t care who watches.”
“Oh, I fucking care. I wouldn’t have let anyone watch. But I trust Gabe to keep his mouth shut. I want him to understand he doesn’t have a chance in fucking hell with you because I can tell he’d jump if he thought I was out of the picture.”
“I doubt that.”
“I don’t. He wants you, and I know you like him.”
“In another lifetime maybe. Where you don’t exist… But in this one…”
“Learned your lesson about picking the wrong guy then?” He smirks at me.
“Yes. I think so.” My eyes are drifting over him because I can seriously never get enough of seeing him. It feels like a dream or like I’ve won the lotto. Too lucky for my own good. I look up to meet his eyes again and smile, but his are two deep pools of thought.
“Good because I’m tired of pretending.”
“I like pretending with you,” I say softly, sliding my hands over his shoulders. “Sometimes… like out there, it makes me feel like I could be a Danica or a Celeste. You know? A wilder version of me.” I give him a playful smile.
“You want more of that?”
“I don’t know yet. But I liked trying it. I like that you make me feel brave enough and comfortable enough to try it.”
“Yeah?” He raises his brow like he’s surprised but happy to hear it.