Chapter 15
Gabe
The locker room is abuzz with good vibes after the game. A win is always a good thing, but it feels especially nice coming off a loss last week, a late game on the west coast, so we didn’t get home until past midnight. Tonight, we get to celebrate our win all night.
Blaise slaps my ass as he strolls by in nothing but his shorts, but that’s typical for Blaise after a win. He’s gotta preen. We’d expect nothing less from him. “You and Jossy-girl planning yourselves a hot, sweaty bible study tonight, big guy?” he laughs.
I respond by shouldering him hard enough he stumbles into his neighboring locker, but he’s a fool. His shit-eating grin splits wider at my manhandling.
“I’m about over that joke. You do not need to know or talk about our sex life.”
When Joss first insisted on keeping quiet, I was bummed but went along with it. But now that I’ve had a month of curling up with her, rocking into her for what seems like hours, tormenting her by bringing her to the edge over and over again, sharing her space, her breaths, her every soft inch, pumping her pussy full of cum and keeping her plugged with my cock until I’m hard enough to add another load, letting it soak into her for hours, slowly spilling into her womb—
It’s fucking hot. Just thinking about it has me glad my equipment buddy hasn’t come by to help me out of my jersey yet, so I’m still fully suited up.
“I like her,” Blaise says unexpectedly. The two of them do get along well. She gets along with everyone in the house except Merrick, and that’s entirely on Merrick. She’s unfailingly friendly and doesn’t take offense when he gives her the cold shoulder.
I know Blaise likes her. But Blaise is also big on bro code. He hated my girlfriend in college even before she cheated on me, and he usually gets pissed whenever any of his friends get girls. Pulls the whole ball-and-chain nonsense. Even though he clearly likes Joss, I didn’t expect him to admit it.
And because he’s admitting it, I feel the need to return the favor, mumbling under my breath, “I want her to be the one,” so no one else will hear.
But I don’t have a quiet voice. That was made abundantly clear at breakfast the first night Joss stayed over and Blaise asked me — right in front of her — if I’d whacked off while she was in the bathroom or if I needed lessons on how to make my girl come. Apparently, Joss’s attempt to come quietly was way more effective than mine was.
Joss’s face went beet-red, but she held her own with a casual “Nah, I just couldn’t scream when I was face down, ass up like that.”
Her words, so casually spoken as she licked her spoon clean of yogurt — Merrick’s stupidly expensive imported yogurt that I gave her because he called her my ‘slut’ when I mentioned she’d be staying the night — was enough to make Blaise’s jaw drop and earn a nod of respect out of him.
So I don’t have a quiet voice, and when a locker slams hard across the bench from us, I know it’s in response to my words. I glance over my shoulder quickly enough that I catch Allore’s glare before he has a chance to hurry off.
He tries it anyway and gets pegged with a water bottle by Blaise. The only thing that prevents warfare is the fact it was empty and bounced off Evan’s shoulder. If Blaise had truly meant it, it would have been the full water bottle that was right there in his locker, and it would have smashed Evan in the back of his head.
“Sup, bro?” Blaise says as he takes a step toward Evan, who’s inadvertently cornered himself by moving toward the showers as well as Merrick’s locker. “You two are besties, right? Remember when he blew off my party for your stupid shit?”
The ‘stupid shit’ was the birth of Evan’s daughter, Shelby, almost exactly a year ago, but Blaise doesn’t have a concrete concept of time.
Evan’s got that deer-in-the-headlights look on his face. He glances around nervously, but Merrick’s on one side, Vedder on the other. Vedder gets puppy dog eyes when he sees Joss ever since she sewed a button back onto his jacket. Which was silly, even I could have done that, but it made him happy. It’s fine.
“You gonna congratulate him on getting himself a girl?” Merrick asks smugly, like he suddenly does want Joss around, but that’s what Merrick does. He probably likes Joss, too, but he refuses to show the slightest human emotion. “That’s what you wanted, yeah? When you were introducing him to all Keira’s friends, forcing them on him so he was the absolute goofiest fucker he could be, ruining his chances with any of them? You mad he found a girl on his own?”
Evan deflates at Merrick’s words. Just shrivels up there before us as he looks sadly at me. “I wanted to help. You know that right? Me and Keira, we just wanted you to be happy.”
I straighten up. Not to intimidate Allore. He’s terrifying on the field. The distance between us? If he wanted to attack me, he’s got the room to build the momentum to demolish me. I straighten up to show him that I’m not bothered by what any of them is saying about me. None of the girls Keira set me up with would have given me the time of day if she hadn’t asked them to. “Well, now I have it,” I say with a slam of my own locker as I head out to hunt down my equipment buddy.
“Shelby’s first birthday is next Saturday,” Evan yells after me. “She misses you.”
She’s a baby. I miss her way more than she misses me. But Keira’s already sent me a text inviting me while making it clear I can’t bring a plus one, and I’m not playing that game.
While Cora strips down to her underclothes to get in the hot tub with several of the guys and the girls who live across the street, Joss is happy to curl up with me by the firepit. I grab a blanket for us before lifting her up easily, causing her to erupt in giggles, and settling her on my lap. We have a quiet moment, just the two of us staring at the fire, before others filter in around us.
“Wasn’t expecting to see you here,” I murmur to Drew as he and Mel take the seat across from us. They’re good for the occasional barbecue, but they also have a couple of kids. Usually they go straight home after games.
Joss stiffens at that. “I invited them,” she says. “Was that okay?”
Beneath the blanket, I ruck up her skirt to squeeze her thigh reassuringly. The moment I touch that firm, warm expanse of skin, I’m wondering what I’ll be able to get away with here. “Absolutely. You can invite anyone you want.”
Eagle-eared Blaise yells from the hot tub, “Fuck Lin, though,” reminding me that although he was ready to throw down with Allore today, he’ll probably always hate Lin.
I shake my head. Lin’s not a bad guy. He’s stuffy. He’s arrogant. He’s pretentious. But he’s not a bad guy. “You could invite him, but he won’t come.”
Joss frowns, her fingers swirling in tight circles at my sternum. Since she’s distressed, I figure it’s only reasonable to grab her from beneath her knee while my other hand rubs her arm briskly. “I really like Wren,” she says. “It’d be nice to see her more.”
“She had her baby on Wednesday,” Mel points out. “It’s going to be rough for her to do anything for a while.”
Joss nods. “Yeah, I get that. I have a friend who’s pregnant. No father, though, not one in the picture. We’re trying to help however we can, but we’re worried about what she’ll need once she has the baby.”
“If she needs a dick, I dig pregnant chicks,” Blaise chimes in from the hot tub.
I snag an empty beer can and crush it with my fist before launching it over my shoulder at Blaise, pinging him right in the forehead. He might be the one known for his precision, but I’m the one who has to be precise when throwing the football to him from between my legs. “Don’t be gross.”
“Dude, I’m being respectful. Pregnant women are awesome, and if they have needs not getting satisfied, I will happily satisfy them. What’s gross about that?”
I sink into my chair — and slide my hand to Joss’s thigh — with a huff. She only chuckles and says, “Trust me, Tilly wants none of that. She needs new mom friends, not man whores.”
“I wear that badge proudly,” Blaise says before, even more horrifyingly, he says to Cora, “It’s not just pregnant chicks I’m into, in case you were concerned.”
“You’re never going to want to bring your friends over again, are you?” I whisper.
Joss pats my chest. “Cora’s a big girl. She’ll take what she wants, trust me.”
I take the moment to steal a kiss from Joss. Her lips are soft and yielding, and although I don’t want to do anything that’s going to embarrass her — like sticking my tongue in her mouth — I take the time to savor the contact. The rest of the group circled around the fire pit can put in the effort to ignore what we’re doing if we can keep it from getting too inappropriate. That’s fair.
Drew grabs a fire poker to stir up the embers while Kai throws some small logs into the pit, distracting everyone. I draw the kiss out with soft pecks and a tug on her bottom lip, loving the way she melts into me as her small, delicate hand wraps around the back of my neck to support her and keep her close. Her breath is heavy on my cheek.
I take her thigh in one of my hands and dig into it. A shiver races through her, and our lips part long enough for her to say, “Gabe,” faintly. The tone is questioning but breathless, and her eyes glance over to the others sitting nearby. She wants me, but not publicly.
We’re not excusing ourselves now. We’re celebrating a victory, and she’s gotten Drew and Mel to come over. Her friend’s in the hot tub, and maybe she can hold her own, but I still feel like we shouldn’t run off.
I lift Joss’s thigh up, pushing it to her torso, which has her foot settling on my knee.
“How are your kids doing?” I casually ask Drew and Mel. No funny business visible here — because the blanket is now tented on Joss’s knee. “I haven’t seen them all season.”
“Well, David has hit that ‘too cool to hang out with his parents’ phase,” Mel says with a laugh, “and has boldly declared he wants nothing to do with football. He then demanded we put him in hockey.”
“Hockey’s great,” I tell her. “Probably cooler than football.”
Drew groans. “Please don’t tell him that. Then he’ll think it’s as uncool as football and will try to get into archery or something.”
“Archery’s cool, too.” I don’t know, I’ve spent my entire life playing football, and I don’t regret it, but there was so long that I was in school too or working full time that football took up every other second of my life. And it still demands more than a regular job would, I’m still at the training facility six days a week and spending an hour of my day off in the weight room here, but I have actual downtime now. I don’t know what to do with it other than watching TV or playing video games, the same shit I do when we’re traveling and there’s not much else I can do.
Hobbies are cool. Archery is cool. Quilting is cool. They’re skills I don’t think I could ever do, not the least because my hands are so big that I don’t think I could handle anything that delicate.
“Come back to me when you’ve got a kid that decides the only good target for his nerf darts is your butt,” Drew chuckles.
“They sting more than you’d think,” Mel tacks on.
They say that like they don’t think we have an entire barrel of them inside. We have a cleaning lady that comes in weekly, and I swear half her job is collecting them. With the exception of Blaise, we’re all tidy enough, nothing is terrible for her, but those darts get everywhere.
“Just tell him quilting is infinitely uncool,” Joss laughs, “And I can force hexies on him until he realizes how uncool uncool things can really be.”
“What’s a hexie?” Mel asks, ignoring the jab Joss made at herself. It turns out Mel has a thing for sewing. The rest of us sit back and enjoy the cool evening, the warm fire, and the feminine chatter that’s all but a foreign language but still soothing to the ear.
It also gives me the opportunity to focus on working my hand between Joss’s thighs. Her eyes widen when I reach her panties and skim my thumb over the damp cotton. She shoots me a concerned look when I push the fabric away, but she doesn’t stop me. Even when she sees the glimmer of mischief in my eye, she just takes a deep breath.
And then squeaks when I push my middle finger into her warm, inviting pussy. She’s twisted some to face Mel, and at that, she grabs hold of my shirt and mangles it in her hand. She covers her squeak with a cough like there’s something in her throat, so I hand her my drink.
As she sips at it, I slide my finger in deeper and then drag it out, going slowly and carefully, savoring her slick warmth. I want her hot and limp and dopey, sex-drunk, melted fully into me. I’m going to make her come, that’s a definite, but I’m going to take my time, let her have this conversation. I’m scared of losing her to someone else, someone better, but I need her fully integrated into the group. Sure, she has her own friends, and she’ll keep them — ideally, I can find a way to bring at least Cora into the group, as well — but I need my world to be Joss’s so she can’t leave.
“You should bring Tilly to the next game,” I blurt out over the conversation she’s having with Mel, which has shifted to fall soup recipes. “Introduce her to Wren.”
I slide my ring finger in as I say that, and her toes are already curling at those two fingers.
“Umm, yeah,” she murmurs, her eyelids drooping. I’m careful tonotcurl my fingers inside her. I don’t want to trigger anything. I can’t have her a complete mess too soon. I scissor my fingers nice and slow, wishing I could lick my hand clean as her silk begins to pool in my palm. “That would . . . that would be good.”
Yeah, it would. If Tilly and Wren hit it off, that’ll be a new mom circle. They’ll have playdates. Since Tilly’s single, I’m wondering if Wren has some guy friends to hook her up with. Or, like, all the guys on the team who are single, but I’m definitely not going to hook her up with Blaise. I need a guy for her who’s going to be around for the long haul. If Tilly gets something going with one of my teammates and then they break up, that could be really bad.
Oh no.
I twist to look over at the hot tub. Tilly isn’t the problem; it’s Cora. The hot tub is at capacity, an even mix of people in there, some couples, some other single girls, everything looks casual and friendly. But Blaise is next to Cora, and the way she’s looking at him makes me think she has every intention of fucking him tonight. Everyone seems on board with it, especially Blaise, who has at least one hand on her. It’s doing that draped behind her shoulders like he’s stretching but totally touching her move, and I don’t like it. Especially when I don’t know what his other hand is doing.
His other hand could be doing what mine is doing, which is playing at Joss’s rim to stretch it for later. Her brow crinkles, so I place a gentle kiss there, which is enough to get her to sink down into me as she murmurs, “I bet Wren will have some . . . some good ideas for things Tilly needs. And Mel? Would you be able to help her? Tilly doesn’t have much for family, so she’s flying blind.”
“Sure thing,” Mel says happily. “I gave you my number, right?”
“Yep. I’ll get something organized.”
“That sounds great.” She yawns and pats Drew’s chest. “You about ready to go, big guy?”
Drew nods and finishes off his beer before they say their farewells. It’s enough to get some others to leave as well, leaving just Joss and me at the fire.
I add a third finger, and Joss clenches down on me. I don’t think she means for her body to move, but her hips begin to rock, taking from me as I hold my hand steady. I kiss my way up to her ear — we’re just making out a little, nothing too excessive — and whisper, “Do you need this now?”
She bites down on her bottom lip and nods against my cheek.
“Can you be still, or do we need to go inside?”
“I can be still,” she whispers on a heavy breath, and my dick is already rock hard enough that her heavy, smoky voice leaves a damp spot on my sweatpants.
“That’s good,” I grunt, finally curling my fingers to dig into the sensitive patch inside her that has her digging her forehead into my neck.
Her entire body goes taut in my lap, her forehead pushing hard against me and her nails digging into my chest and thigh, her back straining against my arm and her thigh rippling in my hand. She’s at the very brink.
“Are you fucking serious right now?” Cora shrieks.
Oh fuck.
But when I glance back, I see she’s not yelling at us.
It wasn’t intentional, but her outburst covers for Joss, who lets out a soft whimper as she jolts under the blanket, her pussy fluttering rapidly around my fingers as more of her cum gathers in my palm.
“Is, um,” Joss starts, but she’s still panting as quietly as possible. “Is she . . . is . . .?”
I ease my fingers out of her so I can cradle her head. “She’s fine.”
I’m not sure if that’s true, but I give Joss my undivided attention for another few seconds until her eyes droop.
It was Merrick who Cora was screaming at — and still is as she pulls her bra together in the front. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Merrick must have unhooked the front clasp, exposing her to everyone in the hot tub.
He couldn’t have been out here more than a couple minutes; after the game, he went for a drive. It’s not unusual for him to dodge parties, even quiet ones. He must have just gotten home, so I have no idea what possessed him to harass Joss’s friend.
Cora hoists herself out of the tub, shoves Merrick with all the might she has, and announces she’s leaving. She’s rushing about, collecting her stuff and hurrying into the house, and Merrick is stalking after her.
It’s like a horror movie scene. She’s running all over the place, but Merrick walks in slow, measured paces, no doubt catching up to her inside, where I hear her screaming at him again.
Not scared. Not crying for help. She’s spitting teeth.
Jesus. I know where this is going. Nowhere good unless Cora likes being a notch on an extremely well-notched headboard.
I push Joss’s bangs back to kiss her forehead. “So listen, we should probably go to your place tonight.” She hasn’t offered it and I haven’t pushed. I’m guessing something about her place embarrasses her, but I don’t care what it is.
“Mmm, why?” she murmurs.
“Because Merrick’s about to fuck your friend in every room in the house.”
She straightens up so quickly she chokes on a breath. “No!”
From the hot tub, Blaise calls, “Looks like he’s already bent her over the island.”
As Joss groans and sinks back down in my lap, we hear Cora’s shrieks of pleasure only partially muffled through the glass doors.