CHAPTER 18 Maverick Jennings
I’m Down for a Hate Fuck
I force myself not to glance out the peephole into the hallway.
Instead, I put on some music. I select my most aggressive and eclectic playlist with everything from rap to metal by artists such as DMX, Kendrick Lamar, Slipknot, and Skillet.
I don’t listen to the lyrics. I just like the loud, pumping beats with songs that make me feel something as they pound in my chest.
I blast it.
Fuck it. I hope she can hear it. I hope she remembers who her neighbor is. I hope she remembers why she’s here.
Who the fuck was that asshole?
He stank of money. More money than he knew what to do with. Has she fucked him? Is he her type?
I push away that hot burn of jealousy that seems to tear up my spine. It’s unfamiliar, and I’m not sure where it comes from. It shouldn’t come anywhere near me right now, yet there it is.
I have no reason to feel jealous. I stake no claim over her.
But I want to.
I fucking hate her. I hate that she’s here. I hate that she’s finding a way in. I hate that she’s affecting me. I hate that she’s Dex’s sister. I hate that Jack hired her.
And yet…
I want to fuck her like I want to take my next breath.
Goddamn.
I need to work out this aggression, so I decide to hit the treadmill.
It’s getting late.
Day is shifting into night.
I need rest. I know I do. I went hard at practice for my first day fully back at it, and I need to cut myself a break. I should get in the shower and jerk off like a normal person, and instead, I’m sprinting on my treadmill like I’m running away from all of this.
It doesn’t help.
I turn up the music.
A good neighbor would use headphones. I never claimed to be a good neighbor.
I run harder. Faster. Uphill to the highest incline.
I’m sweating. I’m panting.
It doesn’t erase the image of her lips.
Her ass.
The way she went into his arms like they fit together.
I hated it. I shouldn’t hate it when I hate her, but I did. I have no reason to be jealous, but I am.
I am.
Who the fuck is he?
Who is he to her? Who is she to him? Why do I care?
My lungs burn as I fight for breath. This is stupid. If I go too hard, I could easily hurt myself before I ever get back onto the field, and that’s the last thing I want. I can’t let her do this to me. I can’t let her take more from me when she already has access to so much.
I force myself to slow down. I can’t stop thinking about her. I turn the music up to drown her out of my head, but it’s useless.
The song ends, and it’s in the dead air between songs that I hear a loud rapping at my front door.
It’s louder than rapping. It’s pounding. Angry pounding.
I stalk to my door. Let’s be honest here, there are very few options as to who it could be.
It’s not going to be my upstairs neighbor since, according to Milton, they’re snowbirds who are currently at their home in Minneapolis.
It won’t be my downstairs neighbor since nobody lives in the condo beneath me.
That leaves us with exactly one option, and I throw the door open to find her standing there.
Her eyes are a little glassy, as if she’s had a drink or two.
Her face is scrubbed clean of makeup, her hair is piled on top of her head, and she’s gorgeous as fuck.
She appears to have rolled out of bed to come over here to confront me.
She’s wearing shorts so short that they could hardly qualify as shorts and a gray tank top that shows off the hard curve of her nipples beneath the fabric.
Fuck.
I can’t take my eyes off her tits.
“Turn that down!” she screams at me. She’s furious with me, but I don’t miss the heat in her eyes as they flick down my abdomen.
I’m not wearing a shirt, only a pair of basketball shorts, and I see the way her eyes flick down to my external obliques that create that V-line by my hips that make women forget their own goddamn name.
“Or what?” I snarl as Korn taunts the two of us with “Coming Undone.”
“Or I’ll call Milton and have him tell you to do it since you clearly have no respect for your neighbors!” She’s still screaming despite that heat in her eyes.
I point to my chest, which is still heaving from the exertion of my workout. “I have no respect? What about you and your random guests hanging around outside our two doors? For all I know, he’s a crazed superfan.”
She scoffs. “Right, like he was here to see you.”
“Who was he?” I hiss.
“None of your goddamn business.”
“If you’re trying to get inside my head so you can know every last piece of who the fuck I am, then you better think twice about keeping me on the outside.” I can’t help the growl in my voice at the words.
“You’re not letting me in!” she yells.
I throw my door wide open as my eyes flick to her tits for no less than the tenth time since this conversation started. Conversation…if you can call it that. “Come the fuck in, then.”
Her eyes widen as I walk over to switch off the music.
She doesn’t cross over my threshold.
“Too scared to step foot into the lion’s den?” I sneer, walking back toward the doorway.
“More like too scared to shake the beehive,” she mutters.
I take another step toward her, and another, until I’m standing a foot away.
I could reach out and pull her against me, but she takes a step back into the hallway.
I follow her step for step, and she backs up until she runs out of space.
Her back is against the wall next to the elevator, and I keep that same foot of distance between us.
My eyes flick down to her lips before they move back to her eyes, which are wide with fear.
I close that final gap. My sweaty body presses against her soft, cool frame, and a gasp parts her lips. I lean down and run my nose along hers like I’ve done twice now, but this time, I don’t have it in me to stop.
“Remember when I said I don’t make mistakes?” I ask softly.
She thinks I’m setting another trap. Maybe I am.
“Yeah?” she says, her voice tentative like a question and breathless at the same time with me so close.
“I lied.” My lips crash down to hers, and she laces one of her hands around my neck, pulling me down with her as I loop one arm around her waist and flatten my other palm against the wall above her head for balance.
Because she knocks me all the way the fuck off balance.
Fucking hell. I hate her, and yet I want to fuck her into tomorrow. I want her to wince every time she sits tomorrow so she can remember who owns her cunt.
I wondered what her lips tasted like since the moment I first saw them.
And now I know.
Magic. Pure motherfucking magic.
Her lips are soft and plush, and at the same time they’re confident and sure.
They part, letting my tongue in, and we kiss as I pull her body closer to me.
Her free hand grips onto my bicep, and my arm automatically flexes with the feel of her hand there.
She moans into my mouth, and that’s it. The signal that she wants this.
I want it, too. Inexplicably, but I do.
I pull back from our kiss, and a guttural sound of frustration rises from her chest.
“Ugh! God! I hate you!” she says, and she balls her hands into fists that she uses to pound on my chest.
It’s cute, really. She’s frustrated.
“Feeling’s quite mutual,” I mutter. I pick her up and toss her over my shoulder, and she’s kicking and screaming as I carry her into my place.
She beats on my back, but I’m used to getting plowed into by defensive ends week after week. It feels like a massage coming from her.
“Put me down!” she screams at me.
“Why?” I challenge as I carry her through my family room and attached kitchen, down the hall, and toward my bedroom.
“Because I hate you and I’m capable of walking myself!”
“Yeah, well, if I give you that chance, we might both change our minds, and I can tell by the way I had you moaning during that kiss that it’s not what you want.”
She doesn’t have a response to that other than a small gasp, but she does manage to stop kicking and screaming.
We arrive in my bedroom, and I toss her on my bed.
I walk around to the drawer where I keep my condoms, grab one, and toss it to her.
She sits up and glances at the wrapper where it landed on the bed beside her.
“Your call, babe. I’m down for a hate fuck if you are.” I raise a brow and wait.
Her jaw drops and her eyes widen.
I take a few menacing steps toward her until I force her legs apart and I’m standing between them.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t want this.
I see the way your lips part when you’re studying me.
I heard that little moan. I felt the way your hips shifted against mine so you could feel how hard my cock is for you.
So tell me, do you want me to fuck you, or do you want to quietly slip out and pretend this never happened? ”
A flash of intimidation passes through her eyes as she looks up at me from where she sits on the bed, though her next words contradict the flash I saw. “On the field and in the bedroom,” she murmurs.
“What?” I demand.
“The two places where your arrogance takes over.” She purses her lips.
“There’s a difference between arrogance and confidence.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
Jesus, she’s sexy sitting there on my bed, her eyes gazing up at me with heat and need as her nipples form tight peaks beneath her shirt, begging for my mouth.
I don’t invite women to my bed. Ever. This is my home. My sanctuary. I’m not sure why I carried her in here and didn’t carry her through her own door, but here we are. Some instinct inside kicked in, and I had to get her into my territory. On my home turf.
“Arrogance overestimates one’s abilities,” I say, and I lean down. She leans back with me until she’s lying on her back and my body is hovering over hers. “There’s no misjudgment here. I know exactly what I’m doing on the field, and I know exactly what I’m doing in bed.”