Trying to Score

by Kendall Ryan

  “Are we that obvious?” I giggle across the table.

  Teddy shrugs. “Who cares? Worst-case scenario, she recognizes me and tells people Teddy King was drunk in here on a Friday with his smokin’-hot girlfriend.”

  I roll my eyes. “Thanks for the compliment, babe.”

  He stops in mid-sip of coffee, shaking his head. “No, you can’t call me babe. I call you babe. You have to come up with your own nickname for me.”

  I scrunch my nose, thinking it over. “What about baby?”

  “No way.” He scoffs. “I once was hooking up with this girl who kept calling me baby over and over again in bed. Like she didn’t know how to say anything else. It was one of the worst hookups I’ve ever had.”

  My eyes narrow, giving him a challenging squint over my coffee mug. “Really? That’s the worst you’ve ever had? I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “Okay, okay.” He leans back in the booth, folding his arms over his chest. “I’ll tell you my worst if you tell me yours.”

  “Deal.” I grin.

  “You first, though.” His full lips seem to be permanently amused.

  Ugh. Of course he’s making me go first.

  Luckily, our waitress reappears, buying me a little more time to think about it as I place my order for a side of fries. Meanwhile, Teddy orders what sounds like half the menu. The only thing worse than an athlete’s appetite is an intoxicated athlete’s appetite. The dude can seriously eat.

  The waitress leaves to put our orders in with the cook, and as soon as she’s out of earshot. Teddy leans across the table, narrowing his eyes at me. “C’mon. Worst hookup story. Tell me.”

  “Fine.” I give in on a sigh. “There was a guy in law school. We hooked up two, maybe three times at my place. But then the first time I went back with him to his apartment, it turned out he had a dog. And this dog absolutely would not leave the room while we were trying to, you know, do the deed.” I wiggle my eyebrows.

  Teddy throws his head back in an uproarious laugh. “C’mon, Dawson. You just have to lock eyes with the dog right away and show your dominance over it. Let him know who’s gonna be the one getting petted tonight.”

  I hold my hand to my mouth to keep myself from spitting coffee all over the table. “Gross, TK!” Once I’ve swallowed my coffee and gotten my giggles out, I prop my chin in my hands and blink expectantly at him. “Your turn.”

  “First, I refuse to believe that’s your worst story, but all right, fair is fair.” He scans the room to make sure no one is listening in, then wags a finger at me. “But all I’m saying is I wouldn’t be telling you this if I were completely sober, okay?”

  I blink at him again, not saying a word until he spills.

  “Okay, so there was this girl, kind of a jersey-chaser type I met when I first started playing for the Ice Hawks. I took her back to my place and she tried to blow me.”

  I frown. “Tried to blow you?”

  “Yeah. Tried,” he says, his eyes widening. “And by that I mean she just, like, held my dick in her mouth for a few minutes. She didn’t even move. She just held it in there. And then after a while, she winks up at me and says, ‘Did that get ya?’ I didn’t know what the fuck to do, so I said, ‘Yeah, thanks.’”

  This time, there’s no holding back. I cough once, sending coffee all across the table until we’re both absolutely cracking up, fumbling with the napkin dispenser to get it cleaned up before the waitress sees.

  “I didn’t even get to the end!” Teddy protests. “The next time I saw her at a bar a few months later, she was full-on making out with a girl. So I guess my dick turned her off of men for good.”

  I scoff as I press another napkin into the spill. “Teddy, your dick didn’t turn her into a lesbian.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” His voice is serious and his eyes are on mine.

  Suddenly, my mind is racing back to junior year again, sitting on my dorm-room floor with Teddy’s arms wrapped around my waist as he shifted me into his lap so I could feel the pressure of his bulge pushed against me.

  “Not a loud drunk. A fun drunk. But not as fun as you are in bed.”

  I look up from the spill and my eyes lock with his for a long, quiet moment. We’re not in college anymore, but in his emerald eyes, I still see that same man from my dorm room. The one who kissed me and ground his hips against me and brought me to the edge over and over and over.

  “It just didn’t,” I whisper, my voice shaking as I try desperately to steady my breath. “Trust me, Teddy. I know.”

  8

  * * *

  Second Chances

  Teddy

  “Trust me, Teddy. I know.” Sara’s voice is soft but sure, and it sends a tingle drifting straight down to my balls.

  Shit. I guess she does know from personal experience.

  My heart beats faster, and I can’t help but wonder if she still thinks about hooking up with me. Probably not. I mean, it’s ancient history, right? But right now, she’s looking at me with those gorgeous sky-blue eyes, and I have to wonder.

  Damn, that’s an arousing thought, and my body responds accordingly. Which is a little inconvenient for me because we’re seated in a booth across from each other at a diner exchanging bad hookup stories. Weird, I know. But there’s something so freeing about being with her.

  At the engagement party tonight, I had to be on, the pro athlete everyone expects and wants a piece of. But now, with Sara, I get to be myself, and I didn’t realize how nice that actually feels. I don’t have to try to entertain her or put on some show.

  I know it’s petty, believe me, I do. But the lesser evolved parts of my brain couldn’t resist the opportunity to make my ex a little jealous—and Sara is the perfect woman to make anyone’s ex jealous. She’s a successful attorney, wicked smart, driven, and beautiful. I’m not going to lie, a huge kick of satisfaction surged through me when I introduced Sara to my ex and her new fiancé.

  Kelly’s lips pouted into a frown as she assessed Sara, and her fiancé, Tuck (seriously, who names their kid Tuck?), looked like he’d swallowed his tongue. It was priceless.

  All in all, it wasn’t a bad night. Sara and I laughed all through the event, and I even remembered to snap a selfie of us and post it to my social media, so LaShonda should be pleased.

  A few seconds later, our food is delivered, and we dig in. While we talk, I can’t resist prodding Sara a little more. What can I say? I’m a sucker for her laugh.

  “So, there’s no way that lame dog story was your worst hookup ever.”

  She pops another fry into her mouth and nods. “I swear. It was beyond weird.”

  I concede the point, passing her the ketchup when I see she’s running low. “Fine.”

  “What about you?” She leans forward, grinning. “That BJ story is the worst you’ve got?”

  I shrug. “It sucked.”

  “Not literally,” she says with a chuckle.

  “Still such a brat,” I mutter, grabbing a napkin and pass her one too. “Okay, hookup horror stories aside, tell me the worst thing someone could do to turn you off in bed.”

  Call me crazy, but I really love this topic we’re edging around. Past hookups. And it has everything to do with the fact that she was one of the best I ever had. I have very fond memories of our time together—even if it was forever ago. And I secretly hope she does too.

  “Let’s just say I’ve developed a no-phone policy during sex.”

  I squint at her. “Tell me some knucklehead didn’t answer the phone in bed.”

  She shakes her head. “Nope, he was texting during. Talk about a kick to the ego that my naked body rated less exciting than his text thread.”

  My gaze latches onto hers and narrows. “That’s bullshit. I can attest to the fact that your naked body could make a grown man forget his own damn name.”

  What? She brought up our history when she insisted my dick wouldn’t turn a woman off men for good. Can’t I bring it up too?

&n
bsp; “It’s been a while, TK,” she says, her voice soft, unsure.

  “You’re like a fine wine, babe.”

  She grins at my implication that she’s only gotten better with age, which is absolutely true.

  I love this—the talking, the flirting, the subtly bringing up our past. The situation in my pants, however, is less than thrilled.

  Too fucking bad.

  I’m having way too much fun to stop now.

  “What about you?” she asks, dragging a soggy fry through her ketchup as though she’s disinterested, but I can tell she’s into this conversation too. First, there’s the quick pulse thrumming in her neck, and second, she’s leaning in toward me across the table. “Any turnoffs?”

  A million thoughts flash through my brain at once. I have a lot of turnoffs, actually. Crying after sex is an obvious one. That’s not exactly a turn-on. Neither is being self-conscious about your body, or refusing to undress completely even after I’ve assured you I like your body.

  Sara was never like that, though. She was confident and assertive in the bedroom, or the dorm room, as it were. She never hid from me or acted embarrassed.

  “Gagging noises is a weird one,” I settle on. “On the one hand, it’s kind of a compliment that my dick is big enough to choke you, but I’m always legit concerned I’m about to be thrown up on.”

  Sara shakes her head, a smile on her lips. “And here I thought you were going to say performing oral sex on a woman or something.”

  “God, no. I’m always down for some pussy eating.”

  “Oh my God. Gross, TK.” She laughs, but it comes out a little breathless.

  “Nothing gross about it, sweetheart.” I lean forward, placing my elbows on the table. “My theory is you’ve gotta treat it like a big plate of barbeque ribs. Dig in. Get messy. And expect to be there a while without caring if you’re ever going to finish.”

  “You’re doing God’s work,” she jokes, meeting my eyes with a grin.

  “Do unto others.”

  Sara giggles, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

  Don’t look at her tits.

  “Oh, I’ve got another one,” I say, trying to distract myself from her perfect chest. “There was once this girl I was making out with who spit in my mouth with no warning. I learned that day I don’t like having my mouth spit into.”

  Sara’s eyebrows raise briefly, and then her calm expression is back. “Poor, naive TK. She was probably an alien sent from another planet to lay an egg in your throat.”

  I burst into easy laughter.

  This. This right here is what I love about being with this girl.

  She catches me off guard, and no part of her is impressed that I’m a hockey player. We’re just two people with a shared history, making each other laugh. Even if this is a fake date, it’s hands-down one of the best dates I’ve ever been on.

  It seems as though Sara isn’t done reminiscing. She gets a faraway look in her eyes as she pushes her plate away, and I get the sense she’s still thinking about the past.

  “Why didn’t I ever do anything fun and reckless, just for me? Like . . . I don’t know, get a tattoo, maybe something cute on my lower back?”

  “You don’t put a bumper sticker on a Mercedes,” I say teasingly, my voice low.

  She laughs again. “You were the only fun thing I ever did, Teddy. And that video was pretty reckless.”

  “Yeah, it was, wasn’t it?”

  “God, what were we thinking?” She makes a low sound, shaking her head.

  “Me? I was thinking with my dick. I have no idea what your excuse was.”

  “I guess I was thinking with my vagina.” Her eyes meet mine, and there’s a slight blush to her cheeks.

  I chuckle with easy laughter. “God, I’ve missed this, Sara. Us. Carefree. Laughing. Hanging together.”

  We spent so many years hiding our past from our friends and pretending this never happened. What were we thinking?

  “I missed us too,” she says softly.

  After we’ve finished eating and exchanging dirty stories, I settle our tab and decide I’m more than sober enough to drive home.

  With my fingertips trailing along her spine, I escort Sara toward the exit with a satisfied feeling bubbling in my chest.

  Game-time decision. Do I invite her back to my place or not?

  I lean down and whisper near her ear, “Thank you for coming.”

  She looks up at me with a surprised expression. “I had more fun than I thought I would.”

  “So, what you’re saying is I’m not a bad fake date, after all?”

  “You’re not so bad for a fake boyfriend.” She sighs, a little smile lingering on her lips.

  Who am I kidding? Of course I’m going to invite her back to my place.

  “Then I’ve got just the thing to push this date over the top,” I say with a grin.

  “And what would that be?”

  “Peanut butter ice cream. My place. You in?” I’m banking on the fact it’s still her favorite, and when I see the smile tugging at her lips, I know I’ve won.

  She doesn’t hesitate. “Let’s roll.”

  Something changes during the car ride over. The air grows thicker, hot with unspoken tension, and the minute we reach my apartment, it all comes to a head. Sara has gone totally quiet on me, and I have no idea what she’s thinking.

  Is she going to flee? Back out on the whole fake-relationship thing we’ve got going on? What could have taken root in her head from the time we left the diner till now?

  “You okay? You went kinda quiet on me, Dawson,” I say as we step into my apartment, and I close the door behind us. I left a light on over the kitchen sink, so there’s a soft glow to guide us, but it’s dim and the apartment is filled with shadows.

  For a second, I think she’s about to make some smart remark, maybe call me out on my promise of ice cream, but then she nibbles on her lower lip and meets my eyes. “I want to see it.”

  I don’t have to ask what she wants to see, because one look into her eyes and I just know.

  The video.

  “I don’t think that’d be a very good idea.”

  My reluctance doesn’t dissuade her. After slipping off her heels by the door, her long toned legs carry her toward my laptop, which is sitting on the kitchen island.

  “It’s not on there,” I say as she fiddles with it.

  “Then show me.”

  Against all better judgment, I lead her down the hall toward my study, which I use as a home office. It’s where I pay bills and watch sports tape, and the room contains little more than a desk and an office chair. There’s a sad faux plant in the corner and a dusty box of tax returns in the closet. But on the computer perched on the desk is the video she’s asking to see.

  “For the record, I still think this is a bad idea.” I pull off my suit jacket and loosen my tie while I wait for her to change her mind.

  “I’ve never seen it,” she says, standing beside the desk with her hands on her hips.

  It’s obvious I’m not going to deter her. When Sara wants something, she goes after it. We’re a lot alike that way.

  Sinking into the leather armchair in front of the desk, I fire up the computer and locate the file in question. Even the thumbnail image arouses me. There’s nothing sexy about it; it’s actually an extreme close-up of her thigh. Sara probably can’t even tell what it is, but my dick knows what’s about to go down and stands at attention, eager to be put in the game.

  “Last chance to back out,” I murmur, my finger hovering over the mouse.

  Sara shifts restlessly beside me, leaning one manicured hand against the desk as she gives her head a firm shake. “You know I’m not going to back down. Just show me.”

  Her tone leaves little room for argument, and I’ll admit, I’m more than curious about what her reaction will be when she finally sees this video after all these years.

  I take a shallow breath and click PLAY, bringing the video up to full-size. />
  The first few seconds are of us getting situated on my bed. But once we do, the video versions of us are kissing, my hips happily grinding against hers. She’s wearing only a pair of white cotton boy shorts and a lime-green bra, and I have on a pair of gray boxer shorts.

  I remember the emotions surging through me like it was yesterday—the heart-pounding feeling in my chest, the horny anticipation running through me, the excitement of being on camera, how her soft skin felt against my fingertips—all of it.

  Daring a quick glance up at her, I notice that she’s flushed and her breathing is little more than shallow pants.

  The video version of me slowly peels her panties down her legs and then tosses them over the side of the bed. Her hands shove into the back of my underwear, pulling my ass closer. I help her, pushing my boxers down and out of the way so she can grind her wet center all over me.

  God, I remember how good that felt. A warm shudder pulses through me at the thought of how wet and needy she was.

  I want to make a comment, maybe ask her if it’s like she remembers, or say something, anything to lighten this intense mood that’s settled around us, but there are no words. This video is the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever done, and now I’m sitting here with my costar reliving our porno debut. And there’s nothing rehearsed or awkward about the way we moved together. Even back then, we were red-hot combustible chemistry, and there was an ease about us being together.

  Onscreen Sara makes a pleasure-filled sound, and real-life Sara looks unsteady on her feet. The moment I finally sink inside her on the video, real-life Sara stumbles forward and sinks into my lap.

  “You okay?” I rasp, my voice husky.

  She swallows and then nods once. “This is . . .”

  Intense.

  Hot as fuck.

  Excruciating.

  Inappropriate.

  There are so many adjectives flitting through my brain right about now.

  Sara makes a move to extricate herself from my lap, but my forearm tightens around her waist, and she settles in against me once again. I’m more than happy to let her use me as a chair, even if I’m certain she can feel the hard ridge in my dress pants pressing against her ass.