CHAPTER 50 Millie Monroe
It’s Home
We spend the morning together holed up in my hotel room talking. Yes, actually talking. We order in breakfast.
He fills me in on what it’ll be like to be the girlfriend of a pro baseball player, and he tells me about some of the other players’ girlfriends and wives.
We talk about what life might look like here in Vegas for me. He puts in some calls to some different people to get me set up to take on his foundation. There’s a lot of work to be done, but he has people in place who will be available to help me.
He has to be at the stadium by two o’clock for tonight’s game, and it’s a little after ten when I emerge from the shower dressed for the day.
“I need to go home and shower. Want to come with me so I can give you the tour of your new home?” he asks.
My eyes light up. “Seriously?” I gasp.
He chuckles and tosses his arm around my shoulder. “Seriously.”
“Let’s go!”
We head down to the valet station where he retrieves his car, and I’m already seeing the differences in our lifestyles. He’s not just a pro baseball player, he’s also from a billionaire family, whereas I’m barely making ends meet.
But this morning we discussed compensation as the executive director of The ARCH Initiative, and it’s looking like I’ll no longer be struggling financially.
In fact, it’s a better deal than I was going to get from the partnership with Berkshire.
It’s unnecessary, which I told him, especially since there will be a fair bit of onboarding and training, but he said he did some research, and the amount he offered me was the amount he was going to offer whoever he eventually put in this position.
He also made it clear that I won’t be paying rent if I’m living with him, and he has a personal chef who brings meals several times a week. It sounds like I’ll be eating good and living a brand-new lifestyle.
It’s a freaking dream, and somehow…it’s my new reality.
He doesn’t live terribly far from the Strip, and fifteen minutes after we slide into some fancy black Mercedes that’s apparently his, we’re pulling up to a gated community before I’ve barely had the chance to sink into the sumptuous leather seats.
He clicks a button, and the gates swing open for us.
He drives through the neighborhood filled with mansions and pulls up a long, long, very long driveway toward the garage hiding in the back of the house. My jaw drops open as I look at the house that I’ll get to call mine.
It’s a freaking mansion. Seriously. Even the landscaping looks luxurious with the palm trees and succulents and fake grass that’s green all the damn time.
“How big is this place?” I ask, wonder not hidden in any way from my tone.
“Just under forty-five hundred square feet. Four bedrooms, five bathrooms.”
I literally choke at his words. My apartment is six hundred square feet. “Four bedrooms?” I repeat. “But you’re just one guy!”
He chuckles. “There’s my bedroom, two rooms that are used as offices, and one converted to a training room.” He shrugs. “Any of which can be easily changed into whatever you want. Or we could move. Find our own place together. Make it ours.”
My eyes are wide, and my mouth is hanging open. I need to pull myself together. It’s not like I’ve never seen a nice house before.
We head inside, and it’s equally astonishing and luxurious as the outside.
The entire home is decorated in warm minimalist neutrals, a mix of light woods, light-gray stones, white accents, and clean lines.
It’s simple and warm…sort of like its owner, I think, though most people don’t know that about him because he doesn’t allow anyone to.
“This is gorgeous,” I breathe.
“It’s home.” He says it so nonchalantly, like it’s not impressive when it absolutely is.
“I bought it when I first signed with the Heat. I wanted something simple and modern, and it felt like the right place to settle. It came like this—furnished and everything. So props to whoever picked it all out. It was a model home, and I said I’d take it as is so I didn’t have to do any of the planning. It was move-in ready.”
“Smart.” And I suppose that means it doesn’t necessarily have Tatum’s touches. Even if it did, knowing Archer how I do…I imagine he would’ve cleared any of those memories out by now. I feel confident that he’s fully moved on from her and that he’s ready to embark on this journey with me now.
The primary bedroom is an actual dream, and it has enough space that there’s a couch and a coffee table along one wall. It’s perfect for reading, relaxing, or…you know, whatever sexually explicit activities we dream up.
Then there’s the shower.
“Why does one shower need eight different showerheads?” I ask.
He wiggles his eyebrows. “Oh, you’ll see.”
I giggle, but then he takes me into the closet, and I legitimately fall onto one of the soft cushioned bench seats in the middle of the room. My knees just seem to give out. This closet is as big as my entire apartment back in Illinois.
“Are you okay?” he asks, sinking down beside me.
I stare at the rows of his clothes that take up one little corner of this huge closet. It’s mostly Vegas Heat gear, a few suits that I’d love to see him in, a handful of hoodies, and enough shoes to open a sporting goods store, but surprisingly, I don’t see any jerseys.
“Why don’t you have a jersey in here?” I ask.
“We get a few team-issued jerseys for events, but our actual game jerseys are at the stadium. The clubhouse staff washes them, and they’re waiting in our lockers when we arrive for the game, fresh and clean.”
I raise my brows. “Wow. Top-tier service.”
“We play a lot of games, but they’re team property.”
I nod to cubbies filled with shoes. “I take it your shoes are personal property?”
He smirks a little as he glances at his shoe collection. “So I like shoes.”
“Do you have a favorite pair?” I ask.
“Of course I do.”
“Which ones?”
“Well, my black Pradas are pretty incredible,” he says, and he pulls a pair out to show me.
They’re gorgeous. And they look expensive as fuck.
He slides them back into their cubby and pulls out another pair.
“But for an athletic sneaker, I’d have to go with the Nike Metcon Ten, the custom ones that are matte black with metallic accents and have my number on them. ”
“Those are pretty sweet.”
“I can get you a pair. I know people,” he teases, and I laugh. “Now about that shower…”
He doesn’t have to ask twice. He starts undressing, shirt first—after all, we did come here so he could shower and get ready for his game, but I thought that excluded me. Apparently I was wrong.
He nods to me. “Your turn.”
“My shirt?” I ask, glancing down at it.
He nods. “It would look better on the floor, and if we’re doing the full tour, I need to show you how the eight showerheads work.”
I grin as I rise to my feet and rustle out of my shirt in record time. “I’m ready to learn.”
It’s a race to see who can get naked first. He wins, but we’re really both winners in this game.
He shows me where he keeps the towels, and he grabs one for me.
He sets it on a hook near the shower so it’s in grabbing reach when I exit, and then he shows me where to turn on the two main overhead rain showerheads.
There’s a handheld showerhead connected to each of those along with four additional wall-mounted heads.
“I don’t usually have all eight going at once, but this one here,” he says, pointing to one, “is the best for lower back pain.” He moves me into position and turns a nozzle, and holy hell, he’s absolutely right.
The spray is a little above my lower back, but it’s adjustable, and it’s pure heaven. Like getting a massage in the shower.
He leaves that one in place, and of the very few times I’ve showered with another person, I’ve always found that one of us has to be cold at some points during a shared shower since only one of us has access to a main showerhead at a time.
That’s not true in this shower, a sexy luxury I didn’t know existed.
“Have you ever had a showerhead giving you a back massage while getting fucked at the same time?” he asks, his eyes hot on mine.
I bite my bottom lip as I shake my head.
“Well, in about thirty seconds, you won’t be able to say that anymore.”
My brows rise. “You’re allowed to…do that before game time?”
“I have seven hours to recover. If anything, thinking about you being here will motivate me to play my best.”
My cheeks burn, and it’s not from the steam in this shower.
He leans down to press his lips to mine, and he opens his mouth almost immediately, his tongue moving against mine the same way it did last night, the same way it did back in the Bahamas.
He lifts me so I’m straddling his waist, the shower still on my back as he lowers me down over his cock. I hold on around his neck as he starts to move, his mouth still on mine, my tits smashed against his chest, our bodies slick and warm from the water.
It’s hot and steamy, literally, as he pumps into me over and over, setting the pace and mimicking it with his mouth as his tongue thrashes against mine. There’s no time for his sexy, dirty mouth as he kisses me and fucks me at the same time, our bodies totally in sync with each other.
Maybe we just did this last night, but each time feels new and different and somehow better than the time before as our feelings continue to grow for each other, as we continue to bond, and as our lives start to merge.
It hits me out of nowhere. My pussy tightens over him as the contractions ripple through me, hard and hot, over and over.
I cling onto him as my thighs tighten around his waist, doing my best to ride it out and continue kissing him through the whimpers and yelps of pleasure as it overwhelms my every sense.
He pulls back, his eyes on mine, and he whispers, “God, I love you.” He follows the words with a growl, and then he pulls out, sets me down, and fists himself to the finish line. We take our time washing each other before he has to get out to get dressed to get to the stadium on time.
He kisses me goodbye, ensures I have a ticket to the suite for tonight’s game, and arranges a ride for me to the stadium with the promise that he’ll send credentials up to my suite so we can ride home together.
Once he leaves, I wander around the family room by myself, and I sink down onto the couch.
It’s even more comfortable than it looks.
I allow myself the space of thirty seconds or so to kick my feet in the air with total and complete giddiness.
A week ago, I was totally heartbroken and had no hope that I’d ever find a way to get in touch with Archer Bradley on top of losing my dream career through my own doing.
And now…
Well, now I’m moving to Vegas to live with him as I head up his foundation. It’s all things I never could have imagined.
It’s happening so quickly. Too quickly, maybe. A part of me wonders if I can really fit into his world.
But it also feels right. If it isn’t right, we’ll cross that bridge when we need to.
I’m nervous to move here. I’m nervous to start a brand-new life.
I may be nervous, but this is also the most exciting adventure I’ve ever been on. If I’ve learned anything through my travels, it’s that I should never say no to a new adventure.