by Kata Čuić
Amira’s black eyes soften. “Your emotions are blurring what is actually a very clear picture in reality. Mike isn’t just a friend to you. His girlfriend is not just a woman that you don’t care about, by extension. Anyone who does not feel for those people as deeply as you do would not have intervened for her safety. Mike and Rob are the family you chose a long time ago. You love them as much as you love your brothers by blood.”
“Mike, Rob, and I are blood brothers,” I remind her.
Joined forever—for better or worse—by someone else’s blood.
Amira already knows that whole story. Just like Lexi knows the whole story about Amira. No one gets all of me. A few select people get a few pieces. I sprinkle my problems around on a wide load, so no one has to bear the whole burden. Not like I have.
Something Mike said to me last year when I showed up drunk at his door rushes to the surface of my swirling thoughts.
You never gave her all of you.
He was talking about the woman whose blood bound us together. No one knows that same woman was a replacement for one I never thought I could have. He doesn’t realize I held back because I’m still not sure I can have what I’m afraid to take.
Amira rises from the couch slowly and approaches me like I’m the one who has a concussion and might get violent with her. Her black eyes are sharp, her mouth parted slightly. Her voice gives nothing away. It’s even, steady—a reminder. “What do you want?”
I can’t. I still can’t do it. I know how it will end. I’ve seen it all before.
If sex is the only thing she’s willing to give me, then I’ll take it. It’s all I ever wanted anyway. Before.
With our gazes locked, I push down on her shoulders. She follows easily, getting on her knees before me.
Her mouth kicks up at the corner. “Do you require pain relief?”
I nod. My knee isn’t too bad right now, but my heart fucking hurts.
She sighs as she unbuckles my belt, pulls the button of my slacks free, then slides down my zipper. She’s not slow for seduction’s sake. She’s methodical. “I guess you’re right. I’m breaking another rule.”
I wasn’t going to bring this up if she forgot she made that rule, but she obviously hasn’t. “You said you wouldn’t get on your knees for me. You don’t have to now. I’m not demanding. I’m asking.”
“Maybe I want you to demand,” she whispers. Her lips spread into a wicked grin I’ve only ever seen in a completely different context. She still pushes my buttons, but I think she used to enjoy doing it in college for her own amusement. I was always her guinea pig, and she was always researching, testing, discovering my hard limits through trial and error. She never needed me to teach her the rules. She was only ever trying to learn mine.
I fist my hand in her hair and tug until she’s staring at me with her wide, black eyes. “Fuck my cock with your mouth. Swallow every last drop.”
She licks her lips. “Like a good girl.”
I stumbled on some of her real rules by accident six years ago. Rules I blurred over time. Rules I purposefully forgot because I was never going to be the one to follow them.
I tug harder. Her eyes grow blacker.
“I haven’t had a gorgeous woman suck me off in years. So, you’d better make it good.”
She frees my throbbing dick from my boxers and licks the precum from the crown with a wide, flat tongue. “Will there be penalties if I do not meet your standards?”
From a guy who used to get blowjobs as easily as breathing? No. Not really. A few sucks, and I’ll be coming down her throat like Niagara Falls. She needs the threat of punishment, not me.
If we can’t give each other everything, then I can give her this at least.
I tighten my grip against her scalp until she winces. “If my knees aren’t shaking and I’m not regretting my choice of standing up without support? I’ll swat your ass five times. If I don’t throw my head back and scream? Ten swats. If you gag, bonus points. I’ll eat you for hours. If you spit, sputter, or waste a single drop? Twenty swats.”
She presses her thighs together. “Do you want me to say yes, sir or yes, daddy?”
I almost, almost laugh. Amira isn’t the passive-aggressive type, but she’s definitely mentioning me telling Dr. Waters that I’m her baby daddy without coming right out and ripping my dick off. She’s fondling it in ways that are already spreading tingles through my muscles.
Maybe she’s not as pissed off about my spur-of-the-moment word vomit as I expected her to be. Maybe she’s been setting this trap the whole time.
That’s part of what keeps me so fucking addicted to her. I never know what I’m going to get.
I tap her forehead with my thumb. Hard. “No teeth.”
She makes a damn good show of wrapping her soft, hot mouth all the way to the base before slowly sliding my cock to the tip. She swirls her tongue around the crown.
I’m definitely regretting not having something to hold onto. “You’ve been practicing.”
She sits back on her sweet ass and increases the pressure of her hand around my base before warning, “If you call out another woman’s name while your penis is in my mouth, I will bite it off.”
I’m skilled at playing many games, but not this one. I release her hair and wrap my hands around her jaw. “There’s only you.”
Her eyes dim, and my dick downshifts a gear. It’s too much. Neither of us wants to hear it.
I slide my fingers back into her thick, black hair. She’s the leather, but I’ve got the reins. “I’m going to fuck your mouth now.”
She opens her mouth wide and lets me slide my cock all the way to her throat. She swallows against the head.
Fuck.
I have nothing left to teach her. She’s already perfect.
She’s also Amira. We’re different; we’re the same. She wants to pretend her life isn’t the way it is for a while, but I don’t have that luxury.
I grind out through clenched teeth, “If you need me to stop, then pinch my thigh as hard as you can. Otherwise, I’m going to fuck your throat until you can’t talk tomorrow.”
She releases me with a pop and a furrowed brow. “I need to be able to talk at work tomorrow.”
I chuckle and pet her cheek. “Good girl.”
The rules don’t always have to be etched in stone. We know each other’s limits. We know where to bend and where to break. We also know what isn't up for negotiation.
“You ready for this?”
Her eyes are half-lidded even though she’s the one giving me pleasure when she licks my crown again. “Please, Daddy.”
I guess I know where her limits are about the baby, too.
“Will you stop? You’re driving me crazy.”
I glance at Alex from where I’m busy dusting the dog figurines that line the mantle. He’s sprawled out on the chaise of the sectional sofa, an ice pack on his knee. The Sharks won the first game of the season, but the second game was a terrible loss. Not only did he not have Monday off as a reward for a job well done, but practices have also been more intense. He’s worried about Mike, too. Without the free time to fly to Albany to visit his friend, his anxiety has been through the roof all week.
That makes two of us.
“They’ll be here any minute,” I remind him.
“Yeah.” He aims a deadpan glare in my direction. “I know. Stop cleaning. Nothing was dirty in the first place. It’s a fucking mansion. If they don’t like it, they can go stay at a hotel.”
“We don’t have to go through with this,” I insist. I’m not talking about giving them the guest room upstairs that has a brand-new bedroom set. “Just because Dr. Waters thinks you’re the father doesn’t mean everyone needs to be told that lie.”
He winces. “He might not be the only one who thinks that…”
Cancel the anxiety. I’m spiraling straight toward outright panic. “Alex? Who else would think that? And why?”
He scratches the back of his neck—a telltale
sign of discomfort that he’s not really trying to hide. “Remember when Charlie caught crabs from the Shark Tank?”
“I never said that.” I never said anything.
If Charlie decided to tell his teammates that he contracted a different STI, then he hasn’t shared that information with me. Our sessions have been focused on helping him maintain who he is in the greater landscape of belonging to a very elite club. Balancing gratitude with maintaining realistic personal limits is difficult for the average person. For a professional football player, it’s almost unheard of.
For a woman who has to confess to her very traditional parents that she’s pregnant out of wedlock? Also a double-edged sword. I’m grateful for the easy out Alex seems all too willing to provide me, but I’m also wary of his motivations.
“I had a few tequilas,” Alex begins. “I might have said something about you being pregnant to Mayview. When he assumed the baby’s mine, I also might not have corrected him.”
“So, the whole team thinks you knocked me up?” I don’t know whether to castrate him or kiss him. See? Double-edged sword. Currently leaning toward castration though.
It’s hard enough for a woman to make it in a man’s world, regardless of expertise. Even if a man in my position suddenly admitted he was about to become a father, he wouldn’t face the same kind of scrutiny that’s coming my way.
For as much as my traditional Lebanese parents differ from modern, Western culture, they also fit in rather well with America’s Puritanical roots.
Alex doesn’t meet my gaze as he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, the whole team pretty much thinks that.”
I inhale then exhale a cleansing breath, trying to find a silver lining in this situation that I never imagined myself being in. “You don’t—I dunno—feel the need to set them straight and let everyone know you’re still an unattached bachelor who pays strippers to keep up his reputation as a quintessential manwhore?”
“That arrangement works out as well for her as it does for me,” he snaps before he softens. “Maybe for the guy who everyone believes is a quintessential manwhore, this might be my only shot.”
Something about the way he mumbles that last part subdues the anxiety of my parents’ imminent arrival. If he’s only trying to distract me, then I’ll take it. “What does that mean? Your only shot at what?”
He shrugs. “I’m the guy women call for a good time. I’m not the man women think of as husband or father material.”
“That’s by your own design,” I remind him, but my heart isn’t in the rebuke. “You were the one who taught me that love is a fairy tale.”
He nods. “I haven’t been given too many reasons to think otherwise.”
“Is that why you’re claiming to be the father?” I fire back. I have to preserve myself somehow. I need a logical reason to cling to. “Because you secretly want to believe in love?”
He’s already reached for it once. Eva Falls rejected him to work out her marriage to her current husband—Alex’s best friend, Rob. Never in all my years of psychotherapy training did I learn the skills to unpack that mess, let alone help Alex work through it. That’s the whole reason I recused myself from being his therapist. I’m too close to the situation.
He stares at me like he’s jingling the keys to that lock. There’s still something in his eyes that I can’t pinpoint. No amount of study will reveal it to me until he’s willing and ready. The most experienced therapist in the world can’t help a client who won’t reveal all his secrets. “I think you and I both stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.”
“So, what? You helped me avoid an arranged marriage only to saddle yourself with one?” My training has taught me that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again, always expecting a different result.
A slow grin spreads across his face. “You wanna marry me, Brain?”
I call his bluff. “Are you asking?”
He opens his mouth to respond, but the doorbell cuts him off.
I’m not sure whether I’m grateful for the interruption or terrified. I’m literally shaking from head to toe, so I’m probably terrified. There are too many emotions currently electrifying my body to define a single one.
“Calm down. Just stick to the game plan,” Alex advises as he rises from the couch. He throws the ice pack down on the coffee table that I purchased last week.
I’ve been working double time at the Sharks complex to help my players while spending the evenings trying to make this sterile mansion look like a welcoming home. Alex gave me his credit card and told me to go wild. I might not be able to be his therapist, but I think I’ve done a great job as an interior decorator.
I shake the duster that I’m clutching like a lifeline at him. “What’s the game plan? Do we even have a plan? Really? It’s more like a book of loose rules that neither of us follow.”
He raises an eyebrow with his hand around the doorknob. “You’re going to be a basket case the whole time they’re here, aren’t you?”
I nod. I have no reason to deny the truth in this case.
“All right.” He shrugs. “So long as I know what I’m up against.”
Oh, he has no idea what he’s up against. He’s going to find out as soon as he opens that door.
The sound hits me before I even see their faces. An argument in Aramaic that immediately turns into greetings in English.
Mother speaks first. “Yes, hello there! Our bags are in the trunk. You may fetch them after showing us to our daughter.”
My jaw drops to the floor. I knew she would be uncivilized, but I didn’t expect she would stoop this low.
For his part, Alex grins.
Oh, no.
“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Deep.” Is he really using a fake Southern accent? This will not end well. “Right this way. Please, come in. Welcome to Orlando. I trust your flight was pleasant.”
A slender hand extends beyond the open door. She grips Alex’s bicep. Grips it!
This is…somewhat unexpected. Mother doesn’t make a habit of touching strangers. Or touching anyone at all, really. I can count on both hands the number of times she hugged me as a child.
“I suppose you’re strong enough. It is rather disconcerting that you’re not wearing a uniform however.”
Alex’s back is to me, but it shakes with silent laughter. “The lady of the house prefers a relaxed atmosphere. As long as I do my job well, she pretty much lets me have free rein otherwise.”
That’s not necessarily a lie. I let him have free rein with my body. He always does a very good job.
I heave a bracing breath as she steps into view.
Her sharp, kohl-ringed eyes land on me immediately. “Mahbub! Your new home is beautiful!”
I do not have enough experience with that amount of praise from her to know how to respond. “Thank you?”
Father steps in behind her, glancing around and nodding his approval. “You’ve done well for yourself. I did not know sports psychologists have such high salaries.”
Sports psychologists don’t. The players who they help do.
“Make yourselves at home,” Alex says from the open doorway, still using that stupid accent. “I’ll be right back with your luggage.”
I shoot him daggers before he disappears. He’s already breaking the rules. The game plan was that he wouldn’t leave me alone with them as much as possible. In hindsight, that was never going to be an option. He’s a professional football player who has precious little free time during the season.
Mother molts her happy expression the second Alex is out of earshot. “When we gave you a year to get your life started, I truly did not expect you to obey.”
Some things haven’t changed at least. I’m still a rebel, and they still aren’t offering any real praise.
Father furrows his brow. “You said on the phone that you were living with an old friend from college? Is he currently at work?”
“No, he’s fetching your luggage,” I mutter, my face hotter tha
n the surface of the sun. While I thought it prudent to prepare them for my new situation, I wasn’t exactly forthcoming either.
As expected, Mother’s face turns a furious shade of red. “You are living with that man?”
There’s no point arguing that he’s a famous national celebrity to make him seem more appealing. When I say football, my parents automatically think of the sport that only Americans call soccer. They wouldn’t be impressed if he was a soccer player either. Nothing but a doctor or an upstanding businessman will do. A very specific one that they’ve had in mind since I was five in fact. Dr. Joseph Abboud runs his own internal medicine practice, in addition to being a faithful Maronite Catholic. He’s also ten years my senior.
Imagine. A five-year-old basically being engaged to a fifteen-year-old. Disgusting.
Father turns around when he hears Alex enter the house.
He’s loaded down with a full-size suitcase in each hand and overnight bags slung over each shoulder.
“There has been a misunderstanding,” Father says, extending his hand. “My apologies. And you are?”
“Ammi, Abbi, this is—”
Alex drops one of the suitcases with a thud then takes my father’s hand with his panty-melting grin. “I’m Alex. Your future son-in-law.”
I’m never going to call him Brawn again. I’m going to call him Rule Breaker.
“She made me sleep on the couch last night!” I tell Gorge. Then, I wince as Dr. Waters sinks the long-ass needle into my knee. Steroid shots are great for med-free pain relief, but they hurt like a bitch going in.
Dr. Waters and Gorge both chuckle.
“Don’t strain yourselves from the weight of your sympathy.”
Gorge slaps me on the shoulder. It’s actually a great distraction from the searing burn that spreads through my knee. He knows what he’s doing. He’s up next on the table. “I have zero sympathy for you. Why the hell would you tell her parents you’re getting married?”
He knows better than to talk about the locker room bet in front of the good Dr. Waters. The guy knows his way around pro athletes, but he’s still not one of us.
