Playing to Win: A Contemporary Romance Box Set

by Romi Hart

  Friday nights were always busy nights for us. My father usually confined himself to the kitchen to make sure everything ran efficiently. It was a good thing we were especially busy that night because Alex had shown up at the hostess stand, asking Nia if he could see me. My dad was too swamped in the kitchen to see him.

  It was a stroke of luck our regular Friday hostess, Viv, a high school senior at Gainesville High, had the night off for Winter Formal. Viv was a sweet girl, but she ran anything out of normal protocol by my father. She was a good kid like that. If she’d been there, I would have been busted. But my dear cousin Nia, knowing how my father would react, escorted Alex to the buey haven behind the restaurant.

  I was in the kitchen helping Lance, our salad guy, catch up on his orders when Nia skimmed by me whispering into my ear, “Man. Cave. You.” Nia and I had been talking cryptically like this since children in an effort to evade and confuse our parents. I knew exactly what she meant.

  Hurrying to the cave, I found Alex, head tilted up in awe, admiring my father’s handiwork. He turned around to the sound of me opening the door. Locking the door quickly, I ran to him and jumped up, wrapping my legs around his waist. “What are you doing here?”

  “I had to see you.” Alex kissed me deeply, holding me up with his strong hands.

  I could feel Alex hardening as we kissed. My limbs tingled down to my fingertips and my toes. I wanted him badly, but I jumped down off him, immediately straightening my chef coat suddenly nervous about the fact my father was only a few yards away in the kitchen.

  Alex reached for my hand. “I bought condoms.” I looked up at him, my eagerness brimming. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

  The words spilled out of me quickly. “I’m ready.”

  He pulled me to him. “Can you stay the night with me tonight after work? I promise I’ll bring you back as early as you need to be back here for work.” His face was strained. From the looks of his pants tented high at the crotch, his entire body strained in desire for me. I felt a tingle between my own legs wanting him just as much.

  “I’ll meet you two blocks from here on Magnolia and Union. Wait for me. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  Alex’s brown tourmaline eyes gleamed. “I can’t wait, Jasmine.” He kissed me on the lips.

  “Hurry! Before my father sees you.” Alex ran out of the cave quickly. Taking deep breaths, I gazed at the Barossas that had been maturing for six months, above my head. My father planned to allow this slab of meat to be used within the next week. Before that, the Barossas had been an eight-year-old slate grey ox who followed my dad in the paddock with charming obedience. Soon guests of the restaurants would enjoy the ox, finally awarding him the freedom of no longer being under my father’s command. The Barossas, a dead ox slung up in my father’s lair, had more chance of freedom than I did.

  Despite the realization of this hard reality, I took a chance. My body couldn’t ache for Alex much longer. I needed him that night.

  Ambling into the kitchen, I feigned a pained face of nausea, bent over and holding my stomach with my hands. My brother was preparing cecina de vaca, looking over to me, “Jas, you okay?”

  I shook my head, grimacing and still gripping my stomach. “No. I thought I had just a cold or something, but now my stomach hurts.” Lying to my brother was tricky. We knew each other so well. Either he picked up on my acting or I had genuinely fooled him, but he stepped away from me with a foul look on his face. “Gross. Go home. I’ll tell Dad you aren’t feeling well.”

  “You think you’ll be okay tonight without me?” I suddenly felt guilty for leaving all the restaurant work on my brother’s shoulders.

  He kicked me in the butt with his Dansko shoe. “No one wants to catch your diarrhea. Get out of here.” He then laughed hysterically. At nineteen, he still loved diarrhea jokes.

  I walked out of the restaurant stooped over. The staff wished me a good night with sympathetic nods and pats on my back. When I was a block away from the restaurant, I dropped my sick act and ran the rest of the way to meet Alex.

  8

  Alex

  Against my better judgment, I went to El Buey to see Jasmine. I knew it was a risky move with her father being there, but I had to see her. After soccer practice, I swung by CVS to pick up some condoms. Once I had them in my hand, the thought of being able to use them with Jasmine, uprooted any common sense I had in my head.

  I thought of her smooth skin on my own. Her long pliable limbs embracing me passionately. The way she bit her bottom lip when I fingered her. I became a madman on a mission to see her, even if for just a few stolen moments.

  My expectations for the night were low. Maybe I would be able to snag a quick kiss or two from Jasmine before she hurried back to the kitchen. In the buey lair, when she encircled her legs around my waist, kissing me zealously, I knew she wanted me too. I took a chance when I asked her to stay the night with me with little to no real expectations she’d accept my invitation.

  Flabbergasted when she said she would, I sprinted to my Range Rover, shaking with excitement. I drove to Magnolia and Union immediately and parked with an immense hard-on. My iPhone, hooked up to my car stereo, queued up the next NPR podcast in line, Hidden Brain.

  The topic was the hookup culture on college campuses. A sociologist, Lisa Wade, studied the culture of sex on campuses for five years. With a steady no-nonsense voice, she described how college students went out of their way to conduct their sexual relationships with a high level of meaninglessness because those were the supposed norms in today’s youth sex culture. An unnamed girl said that she had friends who had several drunken sexual encounters but had never held hands with someone. I briefly wondered if the girl was actually talking about herself.

  The podcast, in no way, helped with deflating my mammoth hard on, but it warmed me to think about how Jasmine and I had something special. We were beating the odds as college kids and not falling into a meaningless hookup trap. I loved holding her small soft hands in mine. It was unimaginable to think we could have skipped those tender moments and went straight to sex. I was more ready than ever to be with her that night.

  It drove me crazy that Jasmine had to hide everything from her father. I wanted a chance to prove to Jose Fontaine that Jasmine was not a hook up to me. She meant so much more, but Jasmine insisted we kept everything a secret. If only I could talk to him, man to man, he would see that his daughter was someone I cared for deeply.

  Shankar Vedantam from Hidden Brain went on interviewing other college students my age who had a vast collection of hook up adventures but barely any meaningful romantic experiences to speak of. I listened, trying to patiently wait for Jasmine to appear, feeling genuinely sorry for the people revealing their sad gloomy romantic lives.

  After a few minutes, I saw her sprinting across the intersection, her raven hair floating behind her. My stomach dipped at the sight of her, excited that she was there and we were moments away from finally being together.

  Jasmine climbed into my Range Rover, breathless. She’d ditched her chef coat revealing a tight white tank top underneath. The rise and fall of her breasts peeking over the top of the tank top’s low neckline enchanted me.

  Strapping the seat belt around her, the cross strap laid snug between her breasts pressing them down, making them look even more enticing. I fantasized holding those soft fleshy mounds in my hands while my mouth kissed them. Jerking me out of my fantasies, Jasmine pecked me on the cheek with urgency. “Alex, let’s go! Hurry!”

  I roused myself from my trance and drove us to my apartment with my cock rigid underneath my jeans. Forcing myself to concentrate, I tapped off NPR on my iPhone. People talking about sex, even if in a clinical sterile manner, and Jasmine sitting next to me with that white little tank top almost made me explode in my pants.

  As we drove, Jasmine noticed my stiff dick rising from my lap. From the corner of my eye, I saw her bite her bottom lip as she looked at it. Her hand naughtily petted my eager cock
. “You’re hard for me already?” she murmured.

  “I’ve been hard for you since I met you.” I yelped while she unzipped my pants reaching in for my excited dick. Glancing over, I saw her lick her full red lips causing me to inadvertently swerve. I composed myself quickly, steadying the car and focusing on the road.

  We were five minutes from my apartment. If Jasmine kept going, I’d surely blow my load all over the steering wheel. I grabbed her hand with my own. “If I let you stroke me, we will definitely get in an accident.”

  She smiled. “Okay.” She bit her bottom lip again, looking down at my giant cock. “I can’t wait to feel you inside me.”

  I rolled down my window to feel cool air on my face. The next five minutes driving home were torture. I wanted Jasmine so badly my teeth ached.

  When we finally got to my apartment, we tore each other’s clothes off as soon as we stepped inside. I laid Jasmine down on my bed, gently spreading her legs open with my hands. My body quivered with anticipation as I kissed her body from her nipples down the curve of her waist and then further down between her legs.

  Spreading open her soft pussy lips with my hands, my tongue lapped at her clit. Her moans were richly sensual, purring out from between her lips. “Feels so good, Alex!” When I licked harder and faster and slipped two thick fingers into her wet pussy, she quivered, softly murmuring, “Oh my God.”

  Determined to have her come around my fingers, my tongue circled her clit with tenacity while my fingers dipped deeper inside of her. Her body shuddered even more. Finally, she breathlessly uttered, “I’m coming, Alex!” Her body jerked up and back as her pussy squeezed my fingers with force.

  I grabbed a condom quickly, rolling it down over my thick cock. Jasmine pulled me to her with sultry eyes. I kissed her softly, loving the way her bare breasts felt against my chest. Gripping my cock tightly, she guided it into her dripping pussy. I pushed inside her, feeling her warmth and tightness.

  She gasped faintly. I stopped pushing, worried I had hurt her. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, encircling her arms and legs around my body. “Keep going. It feels good.”

  I thrust gently in and out of Jasmine’s tight little box, wanting to savor the deliciousness of it. Extending my arms to hover and see Jasmine’s face, I watched as each time I plummeted my heavy cock inside her, her face twisted in pleasure.

  She looked up at me with her pretty brown eyes. She looked so beautiful and sexy with her dark hair falling around her plump breasts, the pink nipples protruding between the strands of hair.

  Pushing into her deeper, Jasmine responded with louder moans. “Alex! Alex!” The sound of her voice smothered in sexy breathlessness was too much for me to take. I came with force groaning loudly and squirting my load into the condom.

  Collapsing beside Jasmine, I took her into my arms. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Jasmine.” I held her close to me, our sweaty bodies satisfied and spent.

  In a dreamy whisper, she said, “I’ve fallen in love with you too, Alex.”

  We grinned at each other, both of us feeling the tug of sleep. Happy to have Jasmine in my arms, I closed my heavy eyes. I wanted the night to last forever as we fell asleep blissfully in each other’s arms.

  9

  Jasmine

  The next morning, my iPhone woke me with a jolt. Groggy from a long deep sleep my body needed all week, it took me a few moments to realize my terrible blunder. In horror, I saw my father’s name flashing on my iPhone screen. Too terrified to do anything, I stared at the screen in shock, not even tapping the ignore button, just staring at the screen while it rang.

  As soon as the call was sent to voicemail, I opened my phone to find my father had already called me 36 times that morning. 36 times. The first call was at 5:12 AM. My heart leapt out of my throat when I saw that it was already 12:19 PM. I’d missed morning prep for brunch. Brunch had started nineteen minutes ago.

  How could I have been so irresponsible?

  In my exhaustion, I had slept right through my alarm. I had never overslept before in my life, not even a single day in the first weeks after my mom had left. She had been my alarm clock for school. When I woke myself up naturally without the need for a clock or a mother, I comforted myself that there was one less thing I needed my mom for.

  Every morning, I’d wake Joseph up, who as a child, was not a morning person. It took fifteen minutes of shaking him, turning on the lights, and finally splashing water on his face to get him out of bed. He, a couple years younger than me, needed a mother, and I stepped in as best I could to fill that role.

  Panic rose up from the stomach into my chest as I looked at how many voicemails my father had left. There was no way I could handle listening to his disappointment and betrayal that would surely be in his voice. My mind jumbled, trying to figure out how to fix the situation.

  Joseph had sent me a slew of texts. The first one at 5:20 AM.

  -Where R U?-

  -Dad is pissed!-

  -Jas, R U ok?-

  -I’m getting worried…-

  -What are you doing???-

  -WTF. You’re freaking me out. You ok?-

  -Text me ur ok!-

  -Hellooooo!!!-

  Feeling terrible for lying to my dad and little brother, I stopped scrolling through Joseph’s texts. They were worried about me, probably thinking I was dead somewhere in a ditch. I’d never spent a night away from home. As a little girl, I adamantly refused the invites for sleepovers, too worried about who would make breakfast for my dad and brother in the morning.

  Who would wake Joseph up? Who would make my father’s espresso in the morning? Who would make sure Joseph was dressed properly for the weather?

  I tapped my screen to text my little brother back. Suddenly, my phone rang again. As if it had burst into flames, I threw it down onto the comforter still staring at the screen: DAD.

  My dad was most likely worried and upset, but since those were complex emotions, he would just be furious.

  Alex woke up just then, rubbing his eyes and groaning. “What’s going on? Who keeps calling?”

  Abruptly mute, I just pointed to the phone with my hand clasped around my mouth. Alex looked at the screen: DAD. His eyes popped open, fully awake. He sat up with a resolute look on his face. “Just tell your dad I will take you home right away.” My phone continued to ring, each ring intensifying my anxiety. My nausea felt like it would soon turn into actual vomiting. Alex picked up the phone and handed it to me. “Also, tell him I need to talk to him, man to man.”

  What was Alex talking about? Talk to my father? That definitely could not happen.

  Alex’s ridiculousness snapped me back to reality. I grabbed the phone and answered. I strained my voice to sound nonplussed. “Hello? Dad?”

  My dad’s bellowing voice thundered into my ear. “Where the hell are you? Joseph told me you were sick and asleep in your room. But guess what?” I cringed at his rhetorical question. “You weren’t in your room this morning.”

  “Dad…” I stammered.

  My father continued hammering into my ear. “Do you know how worried I’ve been all morning? Do you know how many times I’ve called Shands Hospital? Every hour! Asking if you’re there: dead, unconscious, or maimed!”

  When he took a breath, I finally edged in a few words. “Dad, I was feeling better after a good night’s sleep so I got up early for a run.”

  He grumbled, “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  "I had my phone on ‘Do Not Disturb.' I hate being interrupted when I'm running. I just forgot to turn it back off."

  My father grunted into the phone. I knew my father’s grunts well. This grunt meant, “Oh, okay.”

  To add believability to my lie, I casually added another one, “Is everything okay? Joseph told you I’d be staying home today, right? I’m feeling better, but I just don’t want to get anyone else sick at the restaurant.”

  I could hear as my father shifted positions on the phone. He was most li
kely pacing in his den. “Yes. Everything is okay. Your brother didn’t tell me that.”

  “Ok. I’m just at CVS right now to pick up some maxi pads. Do you need anything?” At the mention of womanly troubles, my father always retreated quickly.

  On cue, my father mumbled into the phone, “No. See you at home.”

  As soon as my father was off the line, I scrambled out of bed hastily, trying my best to ignore Alex’s irate expression. Retracing my steps from last night, I searched for my clothes. I picked up my bra and tank top in the hallway. Alex followed behind me, fuming. “When are you going to start standing up for yourself?”

  Clasping my bra, I did my best to hold in my own simmering anger. Coolly, I responded, “It’s not the time to talk about this.” I continued on the search for my clothes.

  Alex stepped in front of me, grabbing my black work pants off the living room floor before I could get to them. “How long do you think you can go on like this? Working yourself to death? Hiding from your father that fact that you’re in college?”

  Ripping my pants from his grip, I turned away from. “Until I graduate.”

  Alex flung his hands in the air in frustration. “That is ridiculous!”

  I snatched up one of my socks that was somehow dangling from a ceiling fan blade. "You don't understand the entire situation, Alex. You don't know my father."

  Alex talked over me, determined to get out whatever was on his mind. “And only spending less than an hour a day with each other? Seriously, is that all you can ever give me? What kind of relationship is that?”

  I saw my other sock next to the coffee table. Leaning down to pick it up, I said, “That’s all I can give you right now.” I scanned the room for my shoes. “And you knew what you were getting into, Alex.”

  He stepped around to face me. The fury in his eyes washed over with calm. “That was before I fell in love with you.”

  I released a frustrated sigh. “I love you too.”