Chapter Twenty-Six
~AUGUST~
The game was amazing. The team played well together, and we came out with a win. Best outcome ever.
I can hear the team celebrating in the visitor’s locker room. Mac’s lone goal was enough for us to win. The look on Hendrix’s face when she headed into the locker room was the best part of my night.
Her two saves were great. They weren’t anything special because they didn’t fire the power at her that some players normally do.
I had to laugh when she dove and then stood up.
The woman had the audacity to look bored.
Like this wasn’t really worth her time. I could tell that she was toying with the forward from the other team and that they were trash-talking on each other.
But I could see that she was focused each time. Helped us get that win.
The team didn’t go out tonight. Coach Watts had called them all back to the hotel with a pizza party. Based on how loud the locker room was, I would have thought they would have loved to go out and celebrate on the town.
But Coach said no.
And that was that. I wasn’t entirely disappointed.
The announcement of the new team that my father is planning has kept me up at night. Hendrix has been staying at her own place because she was training for this big game. I know better than to mess with an athlete or their mojo before a game.
We haven’t spoken much about it since. I feel like she is just biding her time and waiting to see what is going to happen.
Is this, in fact, a repeat of the college years or have I really changed?
And can my father really still screw us?
I know the answer to the first question, but the latter is keeping me up at night. More than I’d like to admit.
My phone buzzes from the nightstand.
Hendrix: What room are you in?
I grin.
August: The one that the hotel assigned me.
I’m playing with her and I know she knows it. But I don’t care.
Hendrix: Good for you, me too. But I’d rather be with you. Not in my room alone.
August: Yeah, I would rather be in a room with you. Can you get away quietly?
Hendrix: Wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t have a way to do it.
August: I’m in 1223. I hope to see you soon because it’s lonely up in here.
I don’t have to wait long before I hear a light knocking on my door. Without checking the peephole, I quickly open the door, and I’m rewarded with Hendrix.
“Hi there,” I grab her arm and yank her into the room. She squeals as I close the door. “No one can see you out there,” I remind her.
“Oh, I know,” she says, looking around my room.
“What?”
She grins at me, “You’re room looks just like our rooms. I just assumed that because you chose something on the twelfth floor of the hotel, you would have had a penthouse or something fancy like that.”
I shake my head. “No, Hendrix, I can sleep in the same type of room that you can. I don’t need a fancy room for one night. I’m not as picky as you make me out to be.”
“Picky is not the word that I would use.” Her eyes are dancing with amusement. “I would say entitled, swanky, bougee…” Her voice trails off and she laughs. “Those are the things that I think of when I think of you.”
“Well, I’m so sorry to disappoint you, if you came up here for a nicer room. I don’t have anything like that up here. Just the same old room that you are sleeping in.”
“Yeah, you do. But that’s okay because this room has you in it.”
“And it’s up so high because l like to make sure I’m separate from the rest of the team,” I say.
“Because of me?”
“Well, that’s a good reason now to make sure that I’m separate from the rest of them so no one would really hear us. But I like to make sure that no one is near my room so there’s no funny business,” I tell her, my tone stern, attempting to make a joke out of it. But failing.
“Has anyone ever tried to get into your room?” I hear the trepidation in her voice.
I shake my head. “No, but I remove any type of chances from it. The same way I make sure to put the coaches away from everyone else too. No access and no one can bother them about playing time or game performance when all they want to do is sleep. It’s just a good rule of thumb that my dad taught me,” I admit.
She nods. “Good rule. I like it.”
“Me too,” I tell her.
She’s been too far away since she got into this room. My hands itch to be touching her. I reach out and pull her close to me so that our chests are almost touching.
“I was so proud of you today. You were amazing,” My lips hover as I move closer to her, longing to crash right into hers and swallow her whole. But I don’t.
“I had a couple of easy saves. They were good but, honestly, I think their defense gave our offense a bigger run for their money than their offense did,” she says with a shrug.
“You got to play with them a bit, Nate was telling me.” I grin at her, remembering how he said she was trash-talking them, getting in their heads so that they were so frustrated, they couldn’t shoot right.
“I was. But their shooter was just a pain in the ass who thought she was all that. She needed to be taken down a peg or two. And it was weird; she was the only one who got close to me. The others stayed back. They were non-issues. I just had to show her what’s up.”
I laugh. “Well, you did well. I’m proud of you.” My lips hover over hers as I watch her grinning back at me.
“Are you going to kiss me or what?” she whispers in the quiet of the hotel room.
My lips crash down onto hers. I don’t bother with tentative and sweet.
Instead, I take over her mouth. She’s slow to catch up with me, letting me drive the kiss and hungrily attack her.
Our teeth clank together once or twice while she fights to keep up with me.
My tongue enters her mouth and dances with hers.
She holds onto my forearms like she’s trying to draw my flesh against her.
But I keep some distance. I do it on purpose so that I can slowly guide her to the bed.
Her knees hit the back of it, and I pull back to watch her eyes widen.
“Lie down for me,” I command her.
She opens her mouth to protest but I give her a gentle push, and she sits and crawls backwards to the head of the bed. Her arms come up and lay behind her head as she casually watches me, like it’s her turn to play with me.
“You look so beautiful lying there like that,” I tell her. A small flush creeps up her cheeks. I wonder if she’s flushed or warm anywhere else. “I like having you here like this all to myself.”
“Yeah, but now that I’m here, what are you planning on doing with me?” she challenges.
“Do I look like a man who doesn’t have a plan?” I ask her. I climb onto the bed and kneel in front of her. Her small navy blue sleep shorts are giving me a peekaboo of her ass cheeks. If I pull on her shorts even the slightest, I think they will come right down. I decide to test my theory.
Soon, enough, she’s lying there bare for me. No underwear beneath them, just the thin scrap of shorts that are now in my hands.
“You came up here prepared,” I tease her.
I love that she doesn’t even look shy or bashful. She’s owning that she came up here with one thing on her mind. The same thing that has been on my mind since I watched her play earlier tonight.
“I love it,” I finally say when she just smiles boldly at me.
I push her legs apart slightly and begin placing small kisses up the inside of her legs as I make my way up them. The smell of sex fills my senses the farther I go up her body. When I reach her core, I push her legs farther apart.
“May I have a taste?” I ask her.
I watch her eyes darken with desire. “Yes, August, please touch me.” Her voices comes out all breathy.
“I love how turned on you are right now, and I’ve barely even touched you yet.”
“Well, you and I haven’t had a lot of alone time together lately,” she reminds me.
“Oh, so you missed me?” I ask her, a grin spreading widely across my face.
“Look how pleased that makes you,” she giggles. “I’m glad that you are not as affected by me as I am by you.”
“Oh, Henny, I am most definitely affected by you, and I love the fact that you came in here wearing only these thin sleep shorts so that I could easily strip you out of them and eat this beautiful pussy,” I say, lowering my mouth so that I’m right there at her core.
She nods slightly and I dive in. Taking my tongue, I lick up her slit and feel her start to squirm.
“I’m going to need you to hold still for this,” I say, smirking at her.
“I’ll do my best,” she says, shooting me a teasing grin.
I lick her up and down slowly before spreading her lips and diving into her folds. Taking her clit in my mouth, I suck on it lightly before giving it a gentle nibble with my teeth.
“Oh fuck, August. That feels incredible,” she moans as I continue to work her. Inserting one finger and then two as she continues to wiggle beneath me.
“Come on, Hendrix, just let go for me.”
My hand travels up her body and beneath her shirts so that I can cup her bare breasts.
I squeeze a nipple once and then twice. That is all it takes for her to begin shuddering and writhing beneath me.
I lap up all the juices before sitting up and ripping my shirt off.
My pants soon follow as I grab ahold of Hendrix and roll her beneath me.
“Are you ready for me?” I ask her.
She giggles, “Oh, I am so ready for you.”
I push inside swiftly and we both moan at the feeling of being joined.
“You feel so fucking amazing, Hendrix,” I tell her before capturing her lips with mine, letting her taste herself on my lips. She doesn’t shrink back and she kisses me with as much vigor as I kiss her with.
I pick up the pace, pushing into her faster and gripping onto her hips to keep her still beneath me.
I grab the pillow from the top of the bed and use it to elevate her hips a bit.
I want to be so deep inside of this woman right now.
The angle that I’m taking her at feels like heaven.
I can already feel her tightening around me as I keep pounding in and out harder and harder.
The only sounds in the room are the slapping of skin and moans coming from both of us.
I finish inside of her quickly and hold her so tightly that I never want to let go. We lie there side by side and I play with her hair while she is curled against me.
“This is the perfect ending to the perfect day,” she says, grinning up at me.
“I would agree with that,” I say, leaning over and kissing the top of her head. “Just think if you wouldn’t have been so angry with me, we could have been doing things like this after every away game. Hell, even all of the home games.” I give her a squeeze. “So much wasted time.”
She looks over at me and shakes her head. “No, it’s not about wasted time. So much trust that needed to be rebuilt before we could come back to this moment.”
I nod. “You’re right, there was. I’m just glad that I have you here with me now.”
“Me too.”
I stare at her for a moment. “I really do think that we can make this work, Hendrix. I’m going to find to a way to not leave the Blaze and still be with you. We’ll figure this out. That much I can promise you.”
She sighs heavily. “I don’t want to talk about that tonight, okay? I want to stay here with you in this little bubble.”
I nod. “I can do that. But I do have a question to ask you.”
She stiffens. “What?”
“Will you accompany me to this charity thing that I have to go to with my family? It’s like a silent auction type of event.
No sit-down dinner so you won’t have to be at the same table with my father.
Just in the same room. But we can avoid him.
Trust me, I’m not the son he likes to hang out with during these events.
I’ll protect you from him and keep you safe,” I promise her.
“Would I have to wear a dress?”
I chuckle. “You would. It’s a gala.”
“Oh, so this is super fancy?” she asks me.
“It is. I’ll be in a tux.”
She rolls onto her stomach so that she can look me in the eyes. “I think I like the sound of seeing you in a tux. I might just have to go for that reason alone.”
I reach down and pinch her ass. “Do you need a dress or is that something that you would have?” I ask her, not wanting to assume anything.
“I have something that I can wear. It’s from a formal event I had to attend in college,” she explains. “It’s a red dress that I think you might like. It’s long, though, is that okay? Or should it be more cocktail?”
“No, long would be good,” I tell her. “So, for this college formal thing that you had to go to, did you have a date or anything?” I ask her.
She giggles. “Are you jealous?”
“If anyone who got to see you all dressed up like that? Yes, Hen, I am jealous of anyone who would get to see you like that. I remember when we were in college, I tried to take you our freshman year, but you refused to go with me. Something about not wanting to be all dressed up, even though I knew that you would look so beautiful,” I tell her, staring at her with a lazy smile crossing my face.
She nods. “I remember. But I only went back in college because the soccer team made the formal mandatory, so I had to go. And I went with the rest of the team. I had no date, August.”
I nod. “Did you ever date anyone in college?”
She giggles. “Do you really want to know?”
I swallow. “I think so.”
“I think it doesn’t matter. I went on a few dates, with no one who really mattered, August. You forget that I saw all the times you took so many women home from the bar. But I’m not asking you any of these questions.”
“You’re right, you’re not. I was just curious.
” I say, pulling her up to me so that her head is resting on my chest. “I was just curious what your life was like without me in it, I guess. And no, it’s not fair that I took all those women home in front of you.
That wasn’t fair. But in my defense, I was pretty sure that you hated me and that I would never be here like this with you. ”
“I didn’t think so either,” she admits with a shrug.
“But if you’re asking me how affected I was when you left college, I would imagine that it was the same type of hell or half-life you were living in, August.” She wraps her arm around me.
“We were both hurting for the other and somehow we both managed to find our way here. And I’m grateful for that. ”
I nod and lean in, capturing her lips with mine. I’m done talking to her about this tonight. I’d rather show her just how much I missed her and how happy I am that she’s lying here in this bed with me.