Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Chase
I toyed with my phone for a while before I put it down on the kitchen counter. I'd read Ashley's text a few times. Why did she need to see me so urgently?
I mean, I was me. That might be reason enough.
Yeah, right.
I smirked at my reflection in the glass sliding door before I tugged it open and stepped outside. The view across the bay was stunning.
For once, I hardly noticed. My mind was doing a flash mob routine, without the music. Thoughts tumbled over each other. Brandi, Ashley, work. Even pranks took up a part of my thoughts, but not too much. Everything else was more important right now than those. Bam would be ashamed of me.
I turned back toward the kitchen, and my phone. Should I have told Ashley I was busy? I should be working out, watching replays, or going over the weekly menu with Bernice.
The last was virtually pointless. She knew how much I needed to eat and of what.
She had the balance down to a fine art. All I needed to do was turn up and eat it.
And avoid eating too many burgers at Waves.
She factored those in too. Who needed a dietician when I had Bernice? I should pay her more.
I drummed my fingers on the screen door.
Was it too late to tell Ashley not to come? The thought of her in my house complicated things even more.
I stepped back inside and tripped on the threshold. At the last moment, I grabbed the door to keep from falling.
By the time Bernice stuck her head out of the corridor that led to the laundry, I'd straightened up as though nothing happened.
King of playing it cool, that was me.
"A car just pulled up out the front." Bernice gave me a suspicious look, then jerked her head toward the front door. "Want me to get it?"
The doorbell sounded.
"No, I'll get it, thanks." I closed the sliding door behind me and headed inside. "Are you finished for the day?"
"Yeah, your dinner is in the fridge." She disappeared without another word.
I groaned. Cold dinner usually meant salad. Anything hot, she left in the oven until I was ready to pull it out and eat it. Sometimes I forgot and it burned. She didn't need to know that.
I glanced at the security screen. The display showed the front of the house, just outside the door.
Ashley stood on the doorstep, bag over her shoulder, slightly distorted by the camera angle. She looked up at the camera and smiled nervously.
The flash mob in my head moved down to my chest and stomach. Whatever dance they did, it involved a lot of stomping and throwing of arms. And a missed beat or two. Not to mention a shot of extra blood in approximately the region of my dick.
I unlocked the door and pulled it open. Tall, thick and heavy—the door, not me—it opened on well oiled hinges, with little effort on my part.
"Hey," I greeted eloquently.
"Hey," she replied.
At least we communicated on the same sophisticated level.
"Come in." I stepped back, even though the doorway was wide enough for three or four people walking side by side.
I closed and locked the door behind her, but not before I glanced outside for paparazzi. Either they hid behind the hedge again, or they weren't out there.
"Is everything okay?" I led her down to the sitting area and waved her toward the couch. "Please, sit."
"Hmmm? Oh, thanks." Her eyes were wide. She looked around her, taking everything in.
Oh yeah, my house is huge and decorated like a lifestyle show. The after version, not the before. You wouldn't find mould, dry rot or mildew in this place. Sometimes I forget how fancy it is. It's just the place I live. Once in a while, like now, I saw it through the eyes of someone else.
Every time, I was amazed I could afford a place like this. Hard work, a bit of luck and a whole lot more hard work, paid off. At least, for me it had.
"This is…nice." She settled down on the couch and placed her bag at her feet.
"Yeah, it's comfortable." I shrugged. "You didn't answer my question. Is everything okay?"
"Uh." She hesitated. "I don't think so."
I sat beside her and listened as she told me what that slimeball, Harvey Danbury, said.
"Shit," I said under my breath. "You think Brandi told him everything?" So much for me being nice to her so she didn't go and pull bullshit like this.
"I'm not sure what she said," Ashley admitted. "He implied that he knew a lot, but that's what people like him do. They trap others into thinking they know more than they do, so they'll spill the details. For all I know, he only knows her name."
"That would be enough for an asshole like him," I growled. "He'd say anything for a story, true or not."
I wasn't sure if I should get out my phone and look, or stay the hell away from the internet until the end of time. If this got ugly, the publicist for the Humpbacks was going to be pissed. They hated picking up the pieces after a 'news' story like this broke.
I sucked in a breath and snorted it out my nose. "I'm sorry you got drawn into my mess. I should have realised when we started all of this what might happen."
Truthfully, until now I managed to avoid the worst of what the press had to offer. Where my personal life was involved anyway. My life on the field, that was fair game for everyone, sports journalists or armchair experts. If I had a bad game, I'd hear about it, loud and clear.
Why anyone was interested in my love life anyway, I didn't know, but I was happy to keep it off the front page.
Ashley shrugged. "I'm sorry too. If we hadn't hatched our plan, Harvey wouldn’t have noticed you. The fashion parade didn't help either."
She looked so regretful I couldn't stop myself reaching out and covering her hand with mine.
"That was for charity. It's not your fault that slimebag turned it into something else. And the plan— I was happy to help. I'm a big boy, I make my own choices."
"I…yeah." She looked me right in the eyes.
My heart stopped completely. I could drown in those soft, warm, hazel eyes.
Her mouth… How would she taste?
I couldn't go a moment longer without knowing for myself. Before I could stop and think, I leaned in and kissed her.
Her lips were warm and soft, and she tasted like coffee. By some miracle, she wasn't pushing me away. She kissed me back.
I should have pulled away, but instead I deepened the kiss. My hand went around to the back of her head and drew her closer.
I needed to touch her, to feel her. I wanted her whole body pressed against the whole of mine.
I broke off from her mouth and kissed the side of her neck. She smelled like tropical flowers and sunshine, or something like that. I didn't know, women's shower products are a mystery to me.
She moaned softly.
Now that wasn't such a mystery. It meant she liked what I was doing to her. Hell yes!
I found my hand on her hip. Then a bit higher up, on her side.
Should I stop now? I probably should, before we went too far.
"Ashley," I said, my lips a hair away from her skin.
She started to undo the buttons on my shirt.
Well, okay then. I helped her to slide my shirt off my shoulders before she dropped it to the floor.
"Oh, my…" She breathed. She sat back a bit and eyed my chest and flat stomach. She reached out a trembling hand and touched me, like she couldn't believe I was real.
I couldn't blame her. Some days I wasn't sure I was real. When I was hungover, I wished I wasn't.
"You're so…" She shook her head.
"That sentence is usually finished with 'annoying' or something similar," I joked.
She looked up at my face; a smile flashed across her lips.
"I was going to say hot," she said.
"That's better than annoying," I said.
She laughed, low and throaty. "You're overdressed too."
"I've never been accused of that before," I admitted. "I could say the same about you."
I hoped she was getting the same vibes I was. I mean, kissing and removing my shirt could mean a variety of things. Okay, a couple of things, but that didn't mean I should make assumptions.
She looked me right in the eyes, calm and steady, then pulled her blouse off over her head.
"Better?" she asked.
"You're getting there." I admired the soft pink of her lacy bra. I could almost see through it.
Almost.
And then it wasn't there. She'd reached back to unhook it and let it slide down her arms. Her breasts were perfection. Full and soft, crowned with perfect, dusky nipples.
My breath hitched in my throat. "There you go," I said in a squeak. She was a woman who knew what she wanted, but didn't feel the need to be pushy about it.
Then my mouth was on hers again. I ran my hands up and down her sides, over her smooth, warm skin. I cupped one of her breasts and rubbed the pad of her thumb over her nipple, making it harden for me.
She pushed me, gently but firmly, until I was on my back, lying the full length of the couch. Luckily it could fit about ten people. And had in the past.
All I cared about right now were the two people on it, and the way she gripped the top of my sweatpants and pulled them down.
"Oh." She sounded surprised.
Crap. I stared up at the ceiling. Which underpants had I put on last? Please not the ones with the holes in the side. Or the ones with Homer Simpson on them.
I lifted up my head.
Oh good, just blue ones. Then why did she look so— Oh.
"I didn't realise you were so big." Her face was flushed.
I grinned and shrugged. "What can I say? I'm multitalented."
She looked at me as if she couldn't believe I said that. Truthfully, I couldn't either, but she didn't get up and run away.
Yet.
Instead, she lay down beside me and kissed me while my hands explored her body. Her breasts were firm, responsive to my touch. Her ass was also firm. When I squeezed her cheeks, she gave it a cute little wiggle.
Damn, this woman was full of surprises.
She kissed my mouth, then slowly moved down to kiss my chest and my abs.
Did I imagine that she licked them? I was distracted by the way she hooked her fingers into the waistband of my boxers and slid them down my legs.
She lightly caressed my erect cock with her hands, then her mouth. She swirled her tongue around my head, teasing me, making me harder than ever. She ran the tip of her finger up and down the vein on the underside of my dick before she slid her mouth all the way onto me.
I dropped my head back and swallowed hard to keep from losing my load down her throat right now.
"Fuck, woman, that feels so good," I breathed. I glanced down to see her smile around me.
So fucking hot.
She sucked a few more times before sliding her mouth off with a soft, wet pop.
I barely had time to get my head around her talented mouth, when she pulled off her skirt and pale pink g-string and straddled my body.
Was she really only wearing heels right now?
Damn to the one thousandth degree, this woman was so hot I was lucky she didn't burn me down, and the house with it.
And yet, when she locked her gaze on mine, there was no hidden agenda there. No pretence. There was honesty and need. She laid herself bare in front of me, not just physically. Her emotions were on display, just for me.
She closed her eyes and lowered herself onto me. My coherent thoughts flew out the window.
All I knew was heat, sweat, rhythm. Her pussy sliding up and down, off my cock and back down again. Two bodies connected. She drove me to the edge of coming and held me there
I slipped a hand between us and found her seam. My eyes locked on hers, I massaged her swollen clit.
She made the best little sounds in the back of her throat as I brought her close to the edge with me.
"Come for me," I whispered. "I want to feel you come around my cock."
Her eyes got darker. "Chase." When she spoke my name, it was a whimper. She was close. So close.
She moaned, the sound almost making me come. I managed to hold on while she shattered around me, muscles clenching, milking me while she ground her clit against my fingers, drawing her orgasm out.
In the middle of her coming, I couldn't stop myself any longer. I thrust up into her, my hands gripping her hips as I bucked and lost myself in her delicious heat. My head dropped back and I cried out as I came. I saw stars in another universe when my balls exploded my release into her.
Right now, there was nothing left in the world but me and her. No holding back, no guessing, just warm, sweet, generous orgasms before we collapsed in a damp heap in each other's arms.