Chapter 9
9
I n the eighth inning, Brynn feigned a headache and took a ride share back to the apartment. She did it the coward’s way, saying she was going to the bathroom and then not texting Jude she was leaving until she was already in the car. Then she silenced her phone.
“Because I’m a coward,” she muttered.
“Sorry?” her driver asked, eyeing her anxiously in the rearview mirror. She couldn’t blame him. If someone were in the back of her car talking to themselves, she’d eye them anxiously, too.
“Nothing, never mind,” she said and gave him an overly generous tip to make up for the anxiety.
Up in the apartment, an annoyed Tilly was dancing at the door, ready for a walk, so she grabbed the leash and her earbuds and hurried down the block just in case Jude was already on his way back.
Once she’d turned the corner, she slipped in her earbuds and called Amy.
She picked up on the first ring. “Professor Hill, thank you for calling me back.”
Brynn paused to let Tilly sniff at a weed growing out of the sidewalk. “Amy, it’s me. Are you still sleep-deprived?”
“No, that’s not an issue. One second, let me get to a quiet spot where I can talk.” There was a muffled scramble, then the sound of footsteps.
“Where are you?”
“At your parents’ house,” Amy replied in a hissing whisper. “Your mom picked me up and brought me home for lunch.”
Tilly tugged on the leash, so Brynn started walking again. “I thought she might. Why are you pretending I’m your thesis advisor?”
“Because if they know it’s you they’ll wonder why I’m leaving the room to talk to you, and I figured you wouldn’t want me to ask you why you’re playing kissy face with your boss on national television in front of Rachel and Joe.”
Brynn stumbled to a halt, which brought Tilly to a halt. Brynn ignored her annoyed yelp. “What?”
“Your dad has the game on,” Amy said, still talking quietly but no longer whispering. “The kiss cam thing made the broadcast.”
“Oh, no.” Brynn wished the city had placed benches along this street—she really needed to sit down. “Did they see?”
“No. Your dad was in the bathroom, and your mom was doing a crossword and wasn’t paying attention.”
Brynn breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, good.”
“But they used Jude’s name. Like, a lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they were all, ‘That’s Detroit Cougars defenseman Jude Bessonette, who threw out the first pitch today, enjoying the sunshine,’” Amy said in the rounded tones of a TV broadcaster. “‘Enjoying something else, too, isn’t he, Bob?’ ‘Sure looks like it, Dave, heh heh heh’.”
“Oh, God.”
“It was pretty gross,” Amy agreed.
“Did they say my name?”
“I don’t think they knew it, or they would have. They sure speculated about who you are, though.”
“Great.”
“Are you still at the game?”
“No, I left early. I’m walking Tilly right now.”
“So? Are you going to tell me, or are you going make me guess?”
Brynn didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “It was good.”
“How good?”
“I don’t remember anything that happened in the entire seventh inning.”
“Yeah, it looked like a thought-clearer. What happened after?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
Tilly had left her a little present on the sidewalk, so Brynn pulled a doggy doody bag out of her pocket. “I mean, he asked if I was okay, I said ‘not really’, he said ‘me neither’, then we went back to watching the game.”
There was silence on the line while Brynn busied herself playing chambermaid to the dog. She was tying off the bag when Amy said, “What a couple of dummies.”
“Hey. Watch the ableist language.”
“Sorry, I forgot. I’ll rephrase. What a couple of not smarties.”
Brynn walked the bag to the bin on the corner and tossed it in. “Well, as long as I’m racking up—what’s the opposite of gold stars?”
“I don’t know. Shit bombs?”
That sounded about right. “I might as well tell you I kissed him earlier.”
“Earlier when? Earlier than he kissed you?”
“Before the game,” Brynn confirmed, starting the walk back to the apartment with Tilly trotting happily beside her. “But his friends stopped by and that kind of ended that.”
“So you got cock blocked by his friends and then by thirty thousand baseball fans.”
“Pretty much.”
“So, how horny are you right now?”
“I left the baseball game early so I wouldn’t get arrested for indecent exposure.”
“Right. What are you going to do now?”
“He’ll be back soon,” she said, slowing as she approached the building. “I guess we’ll talk.”
“Fifty bucks says you fuck first.”
“Stop betting on my sex life, dammit.”
“I’m only betting with you,” Amy pointed out. “You’re going to go for it, right?”
“I don’t think I have a choice. That didn’t sound right,” Brynn amended, pushing into the building. The lobby was cool and dim and to her relief, empty. “Obviously I have a choice, it’s just that…”
“You’ve crossed the point of no return,” Amy supplied, “and you can’t go back to the way things were before.”
“Yeah.” On the elevator, Tilly scratched behind one ear while Brynn tried to calm her racing heart. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“You still planning to ‘carpe the goddamn diem’?”
“You would throw that in my face,” Amy muttered, then sighed. “I think I have to. I can’t keep doing…whatever it is I’ve been doing.”
“No, you can’t,” Brynn agreed, stepping off the elevator when the doors slid silently open. She crossed to the door and punched in the code. “Scared?”
“Terrified,” Amy admitted.
“That makes two of us,” Brynn muttered as the door swung open and Jude stood in the middle of the living room, a scowl on his handsome face and fire in his eyes. “Okay, I gotta go.”
“I take it the moment of reconning arrived?”
“Yeah.” Tilly trotted over to Jude, tail wagging in greeting. He crouched to pet her, but his eyes never left her face. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
“You better,” Amy said. “Love you.”
“Love you,” Brynn murmured and disconnected the call. “Hi.”
He straightened and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Hi. How’s your head?”
“Better,” she said and told herself it wasn’t technically a lie.
“Right,” he said, and she could tell he didn’t buy it.
She took her earbuds out and slipped them into her pocket with her phone, then started to slip her sunglasses off until she remembered she wouldn’t be able to see him clearly without them.
“Take them off,” he said.
“What?”
“The sunglasses. It’s frustrating as hell not being able to see your eyes.”
“Oh.” She slid them off to squint at the blur of him. “It’s just…I can’t really see without them, and my glasses are in my room.”
“Okay.” He walked forward, halving the distance between them. “Can you see me now?”
He was about five feet away, so the outline of him was clear, but his features were still fuzzy and indistinct. “Um…”
He took another three steps. “What about now?”
He was all but standing on her toes, so close she could feel his breath on her skin. And his face was 4k, high-def, crystal clear. Hoo boy . “I can see you,” she managed.
“Good. What are we going to do about this?”
She’d been hoping for some time to prepare for this conversation, but he was jumping right into it, and her thighs were sweating again. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want me?” he asked bluntly.
Oh, God . Instinct told her to look away, to hide, but she was done being a coward. Carpe the goddamn diem. “Yes.”
“But?” he prompted.
“It’s complicated.”
“Because I’m your boss.”
“Yes. Though strictly speaking, I work for the agency,” she continued, staring at his mustache. Staring at his mouth made her want to bite it and staring into his eyes was making her brain short-circuit, and the mustache felt like a semi-safe alternative.
“What?” he asked.
“The agency,” she repeated. “That’s who I work for. Tremblay Sports Management.”
“You don’t work for me?”
“Well, you don’t sign my paychecks or administer my health insurance, so technically, no. I think I’m assigned to you? Technically. So it’s more like you’re my supervisor.”
“Still a boss.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t care.”
Hope bloomed in her chest. “You don’t?”
His eyes were hooded, his nostrils flaring with every breath. It should not have been hot, but it was. It really was. “I really don’t,” he said. “If it was just sex…but it’s not.”
Oh, God . She swallowed. “It’s not?”
He shook his head, his eyes still pinning hers like sexy little blue lasers that could see right through her.
“Um.” She was going to tell him something. What was it? Oh, right. “You should probably know. The kiss-cam thing made the television broadcast.”
“Oh.” He paused for a second, then shook his head. “I still don’t care.”
Oh god, oh god, oh god . “Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure of a damn thing,” he said, “except one.”
Her breath didn’t seem to want to move out of her chest. “What’s that?”
“I want you more than I want to win the Stanley Cup.”
Her breath whooshed out. “Wow. That’s a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well.” She shifted her feet, rubbing her thighs together. “I’ve never wanted to win a Stanley Cup, but I want you more than I want to see the Tigers win the World Series.”
His mustache twitched. “That’ll do.”
“Okay,” she said and started to leap into his arms before she remembered. “Wait!”
He froze, arms outstretched. “What?”
She looked around, frantic, until she saw the bottle of hand sanitizer sitting on the counter. She dashed over, shot three quick pumps into her palm, and hurried back, briskly rubbing her hands together. “Tilly pooped. I had to pick it up.”
He stared. “Barehanded?”
She laughed, so damn happy she felt like she could just float right up to the ceiling. “No, with the bag, but you know. Just in case.”
“Got it. Can I touch you now?”
“God, yes.”
The words were barely out when he grabbed her, snatching her up and jerking her against him so hard she would’ve bounced right back off if he wasn’t holding her so tightly. Sensations came at her like fastballs, one after the other—the firmness of his chest and thighs, the dig of his fingers into the soft skin of her waist, the scent of salt and sweat on his skin. And the glorious, thrilling press of his erection against her belly.
Instinct had her legs parting and rising, hooking over his hips to anchor herself, and when she settled into place right over that jut of flesh her happy purr mixed with a guttural groan that sounded like it had been ripped from his very soul.
“Fuck,” he ground out, lust making his blue eyes glitter, and his hands shifted from her waist to her ass. They dug in, flirting with the line between pleasure and pain, and spurred by the heat and the want and the need, she kissed him.
She banged him in the forehead with the brim of her hat, knocking it to the floor, but she barely noticed. There was no foreplay this time, no subtle nibbles or teasing strokes. Desire was a desperate, greedy thing, clawing at her like a wild animal, and she gave into it without hesitation or shame. She kissed him until she couldn’t breathe, then with her head light from lack of air, broke free to attack his ear.
“Jesus, Brynn,” he rasped.
“What?” she mumbled, breathlessly gnawing on his earlobe.
“Are you always like this?”
She dipped her tongue into his ear, reveling in his full-body shudder. “Like what?”
“Like a feral wolverine,” he said, jostling her, and she realized they were moving.
“That’s oddly specific.” Panting, she unclenched her hands from his hair to work them between their bodies. “Are we going somewhere?”
“Bed.” He grunted when she shoved her hands under his t-shirt. “Any objections?”
“No.” She wanted to undo his shorts, but her body was in the way. “You’re moving kinda slow for a professional athlete.”
“I’d be moving faster if I could see.”
She scrunched down to lap at the hollow of his throat. “Better?”
“Not really,” he choked out, rapping solidly into the door frame. “Shit.”
“Hmmm,” she hummed. That jolt had shoved his dick solidly against her, and the pressure was delicious. “Do that again.”
“No,” he said and stumbled into the bedroom.
Just for fun, she scraped her teeth across his collarbone. “Spoilsport.”
They bumped into something—the bed—then they were tipping sideways and falling, landing on the mattress with twin oofs .
She scrambled up to nudge him back, swinging a leg over to straddle him, and whipped her dress over her head.
“God,” he breathed.
She hadn’t worn a bra. The dress had one built in, and she was so small she seldom bothered anyway, so her breasts were bare, her nipples poking out like little pencil erasers in the air conditioning, and even though his face was a little bit fuzzy because she wasn’t wearing her glasses, she could clearly see the wonder on his face when he reached for her.
Her breasts were small and sensitive and his hands were big and hot and he looked so enraptured as he stroked them, like her little boobs were the most fascinating, arousing thing in the world, and it made her want to fuck his brains out even more than she already did.
“Please tell me you have condoms.”
“Bathroom.” Eyes avid, he plucked at her nipples. “Second drawer.”
She scrambled off him and dashed across the room the bath. “Hey,” he called. “I was playing with those.”
“You can play with them again in a minute,” she called back, digging through the drawer. There was a small first aid kit, a Costco pack of toothpaste for sensitive teeth, and three different kinds of floss, but no condoms. “I can’t find them!”
“Other second drawer,” he said, and she jerked open the drawer on the other side of the double sink.
“Thank God.” She grabbed the box—unopened, but huge, he probably bought it at Costco, too—and dashing through the bathroom door, pitched it at the bed.
It hit him in the chest. “Ow.”
“Why are you still dressed?” she asked and started to peel her shorts down.
“I’m working on it,” he said and tossed his shirt aside. “Why are you wearing shorts?”
She thought about taking the time to explain thigh sweat and chafing and panty flashing, then discarded it. She didn’t have the brain cells. “Never mind. Hurry up.”
“I’m hurrying,” he promised, but he was watching her boobs jiggle as she worked the shorts off, and his hands weren’t moving fast enough. “God, you’re beautiful.”
“That’s sweet,” she said, kicking the shorts aside. “Do you need help?”
“I can take my pants off,” he said, amused.
She shucked her panties off. “Are you sure? I’m happy to help.”
“Is there a reason you’re rushing me?” he asked, finally getting his belt undone.
She climbed onto the bed. “I just really want to fuck. You know, if that’s okay with you.”
“Yeah, I’m good with that,” he said, looking on with baffled delight when she grabbed the bottoms of his shorts and yanked. They went flying across the room, followed closely by his boxers. “But I was thinking maybe we could slow down. You know, savor it a little?”
“We’ll savor it next time,” she promised, staring. His dick was sticking straight up in the air, ruddy and thick, the tip shiny. It made her mouth water and her pussy gush, and without looking away she fumbled for the box of condoms.
“I’ve got it,” he said, taking it from her. She heard cardboard rip, then the tearing of foil, and then he was rolling it on and though one part of her mourned the disruption of the prime view the rest of her cheered because she really wanted him inside her.
She grabbed his penis by the base as soon as he was done and impaled herself on it.
“Oh,” she breathed and closed her eyes to better concentrate on how good it was.
He was thick enough to stretch her, though that might be because she hadn’t been stretched by anything but the occasional dildo for literal years, and it felt amazing . Dildos were great, and thank God for them, but they couldn’t hold a candle to flesh and blood, and oh, she’d missed this. Missed the stretch and the pulse and how when she clenched her pussy there was an answering throb from his penis, urging her to do it again.
“You ever hear of foreplay?” Jude choked out, and she opened her eyes.
“I like foreplay,” she breathed, shifting her hips in an experimental circle. It felt good, so she did it again. “Do you want some?”
“I did,” he said, his hands coming up to circle her rib cage. He shifted, scooting them higher up the mattress, which drove him deeper inside her and bumped his pubic bone against her clit and momentarily robbed her of the ability to form words. “I had plans.”
“I’m sorry,” she gasped when she could speak again. He’d bumped up against something inside her with that move, something that had made her toes curl and her tailbone sweat. “I didn’t mean to…wreck your plans.”
“It’s okay.” He moved again, hitting that same spot. “I’ll save them for later.”
“Oh, good,” she breathed and began to ride.
“Yeah,” he muttered, shifting his hands to cup her breasts, urging her up. “Ride me.”
Oh, I’ll ride you, she wanted to say. I’ll ride you like I stole you. I’ll ride you hard and put you away wet. I’ll ride you like a hurricane. What came out of her mouth was, “Glarg.”
He didn’t seem to care. He stroked her breasts, played with her sensitive nipples until she squirmed on his penis, the tugs and pulls and flicks arrowing straight down to her clit so it pulsed and burned and yearned, and she ground herself against him in search of more friction, more depth, more more .
She wanted to ask for it, wanted to order him to give it. But she couldn’t make her voice work, so she grabbed his hand to drag it from her breast, down her belly, slick with sweat, to the matted curls between her thighs.
“What do you need?” he grunted, though by the way his hand moved unerringly to her clit he already knew. “Jesus, you’re soaked.”
I know, she thought, her hips jerking when he made contact with her clit.
“Your clit is so hard,” he muttered, stroking it with his thumb. It slipped off, away, and she frantically dragged his hand back. He laughed, but she didn’t care.
“Right there,” she managed. “Don’t move.”
“Take it,” he urged, rubbing harder, twisting his hand to capture it between two fingers. “Do it, make yourself come.”
Her eyes were open now, burning, staring into his. Her hips pumped, grinding forward and back in short, tight strokes so his dick hit that spot inside just right and his hand stayed firm on her clit and the coil of need inside her tightened, tightened. Her skin tingled and her breath came short, and for a second, she was at the top of the roller coaster again, Lake Erie shining blue below, and then she was flying free, screaming, the tension shattering in a thousand glittering, gleaming pieces.
His big body jerked when he came, his penis pulsing and throbbing and hitting that spot so she came again, almost harder than the first time, and when the jittering and shaking stopped, she slumped over onto his chest, sweaty and spent and happy.