The Casanova Experience: A Friends to Lovers Romance (Ballers Book 2)

by Mickey Miller

I didn’t breathe from the time he’d said the L-word to when the light turned green and we traveled a quarter mile. By then, I was gasping for air. I blindly watched the small town of Murphysboro go by. The snow was falling harder now, and Chandler turned on the windshield wipers. I replayed what Chandler had said in my head and my breath caught. “Did you just say you loved me?”

  “Yes,” he said, in a matter of fact way. As if he’d considered all the options, the ones that included liking me, or liking me a lot, and the only logical emotion left was love. We found The Southern Grill and pulled into the parking lot, but neither of us budged. He took big breaths and looked me in the eye as he spoke. “I don’t give a shit if you don’t love me back. I’m done playing coy with you and trying to be your amigovio or some ambiguous thing. I need more. I want more. You.”

  It’s everything I could ever hope to hear. But I’d learned that with us, it was never that simple. I still couldn’t bring myself to offer my heart to a man who lived an ocean away. Saying that word—which I’d said in the past but had not completely meant—put me out there in a way I still wasn’t ready for.

  “I feel that way about you too. Probably since we met the first time in Spain,” I said, trying not to lose control over my emotions. “But Chandler, our lives are on opposite ends of the world. You don’t want the things I do, remember?”

  He clenched his jaw, his eyes still not leaving mine. “I had a tryout yesterday for the NBA. Detroit offered me a spot on the team. It’s not Chicago, but it’s closer to you. I don’t care if you don’t reciprocate, or you think I’m too fucked up to love. I’m going to chase you until the day I die, Amy. I’m not going to end up like Jack fucking Whitehead, too busy sleeping around to love. I’ve reached the end of the road, and it’s you. Only, it doesn’t feel like the end of the road. It feels like the beginning. If you just give me one damn shot.”

  My belly fluttered. “You’re moving back here?”

  “Yes,” he replied firmly.

  “For me?”

  My heart pounded as I looked out the windshield. The snow had begun to pile up, and the outside world was disappearing. The heat was still running inside the truck, and I was getting hot as hell. I took off my jacket in between waiting for Chandler to respond. At the moment, he was staring out the window.

  “For you and me,” he stated. “It’s time for me to move on from my past. I know it’s a big step, me moving back to the States, but I need to know if there’s even a chance for us to make it.”

  Chandler had placed his hand on my jean-clad knee at some point. I hadn’t even noticed. He brought hand up to my waist and pulled me toward his side of the truck. The cup divider in the middle prevented us from totally touching. I faced him and ran a hand through his hair. It seemed like the right thing to do, comfort a man who had just tried to come to grips with a demon of his past that was still very present in his mind and life. I didn’t know if it was subconscious, but his hand squeezed my thigh. I couldn’t help melting inward at his touch. I still wanted him, dammit. And I was beginning to think maybe I was the one with trust issues.

  “No one can hear us right now,” I said. “So you can tell me if you’re feeling weird about this whole day, this whole situation here with your—father.” I gulped as I said the word ‘father.’ Was Chandler okay with me calling him that? “Jack, I mean. And I feel like it’s all my fault.”

  He reached up to my head with a hand, and, gripping me, pulled me into him for a kiss. “Will you shut up for one damn second?”

  The kisses began slowly. He ran his hand gently along my hair, my back, and caressed my neck. He pulled back, and the distance was almost painful. “You haven’t really responded to what I just said,” Chandler went on. “I said I love you.”

  “I, I don’t know what to say. I’ve thrown that word around before, and I don’t think I meant it.”

  “Well, I’ve never said it, not once. And I mean it. And I don’t give a shit if you say it back or not. I only want to hear it if it’s the truth.”

  “Fuck, Chandler.”

  “You want me, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I mouthed. I ran my hand from his chest down his abs but stopped before I arrived at his belt. Desire flowed through me as I recalled the countless hours we’d spend with our bodies wrapped around each other in Barcelona. Here he was wearing his heart on his sleeve, and my brain was struggling to even give him a chance.

  My body, however, had already made up its mind about what I wanted to do with Chandler.

  His large hand wrapped around my waist, he glanced around the interior of the truck and then tipped his chin to the back seat. I smiled.

  “You want to fuck me in the back of the truck?”

  “No, you want to fuck me in the back of the truck.”

  My lips parted. “Is it that obvious?”

  “It is when you know what to look for. And I do.” He smirked. That classic, cocky, Chandler smirk was back.

  I giggled as he grabbed me by the waist and tossed me into the backseat.

  Fuck, I loved it when he was bad.

  He jumped in the back with me and I straddled him. I grinded my body against him, my jeans against his.

  “I want you so bad right now, you have no idea,” he said.

  “Well, judging by this”—I reached between his legs and squeezed his firm cock—“I have some idea.”

  He groaned and looked at me, darting his eyes all around my body. I took my hand off him, sighed, and hugged him, resting my head on his shoulder.

  “Something is bugging you,” he said. “Spit it out.”

  I took a deep breath. “You’re right. Something is bugging me. I guess I just…can’t believe this is a thing. You and me. Me forgiving you. I think I’m crazy. With all the girls in your past…I trust you. I’m fucking crazy. I believe you don’t have a kid, now. I believe that Nina, and Norma, and what’s her face…I believe you when you tell me they meant nothing. Tell me I’m not fucking crazy.”

  Chandler took a long pause and pulled my body closer to his. “I’ve never settled down in the past. You know that. I’ve never lied about anything to you. I’m not a relationship type of guy, that’s for sure. I’m just not built for them. Shit, it’s probably hardwired in my genetic code. Look my father.”

  My body reacted strongly to that. A wave of emotion coursed through me. “So you’re not a relationship guy?”

  “No, I’m not,” Chandler shook his head.

  My heart sank and I tipped my chin down. My eyes were wet with tears. I was sitting here, straddling the man who said he loved me, but he still said he wasn’t a relationship guy. I cried hard.

  Chandler matched my chin with his finger and brought it up again. He was smiling. “I’m not a relationship guy. But I am an Amy’s guy. ” He kissed me lightly on the mouth, then continued. “I don’t want to end up like Jack motherfucking Whitehead, drinking Keystone Light at noon on a Saturday by himself because he’s got no love in his life. Seeing…him…that was the last straw that made me realize that what I thought I didn’t want was just me running away.” He paused, letting that sink in. “I’m done running. I want fucking you, Amy. And yeah, I thought I didn’t want that whole family, marriage, kids, husband thing, and I don’t—unless it’s with you. Are you hearing me? I love you. And I’ve known it for a long time, too.”

  My chest rose and fell. “Since when?”

  “Since the first time I saw you at Doña Maria’s house. Amelita.”

  “Oh God.” I let out a moan. Hearing Chandler say my Spanish name, I tried to keep a cool head—to put all of this in perspective.

  I looked into his green-blue eyes. I caressed his olive-tan skin, and I saw honesty. I saw a man who was submitting himself to my will. I could take his love and toss it aside, assume he was as insincere as the four men who’d told me they loved me before.

  But his eyes told the truth. Everything was better with him. He was a drug I wanted for life.

  “I love you too,
” I finally conceded.

  “Goddamn it feels good to hear you say that.”

  Chandler wrapped his arms around me in a squeeze so tight I thought he might break me. He pulled my arms back, and his eyes seared into me.

  Suddenly, we dove into each other like wild animals in mating season. My jeans and shirt came off and so did his we were down to our underwear in under thirty seconds. He ripped my bra off and I gasped, but it was what I wanted. He dragged his tongue from my neck between my breasts and circled my pink nipples.

  The want we had for each other was gone. Desire was also gone. Both had been replaced with a pure, feral, need. Our love had been declared—after five years.

  I lay down on the seat and his thick, hard cock ground against my thigh. I slid his briefs down and he did the same to my panties.

  “Fuck me, Chandler,” I panted. “Fuck me.”

  I was so wet. He had no trouble sliding inside despite his girth. Once he was in, I wrapped my legs around him. Despite the cold weather, our bodies were hot and sweaty, pressed against each other.

  “Wait,” I whispered in his ear.

  He stopped, running my hair behind my ear and looked at me with worry in his eyes. “What? Everything okay?”

  “Yes. It’s perfect. Too perfect. This is how we’re meant to be, and I just wanted to feel you linger inside me for a moment before you fuck me senseless.”

  His Adam’s apple shifted in his throat. “Fuck.”

  I felt his dick twitch inside me as I swallowed him whole with my pussy.

  Slowly, we began grinding our hips against each other. He fisted a bunch of my hair, and our eyes locked the whole time we fucked.

  The crescendo was slow and steady. He thrust in and out with a one-two rhythm for a few minutes. Soon, though, we couldn’t get enough of each other. We bucked, flesh on flesh, like it was the last fuck of our lives.

  I couldn’t scream anything coherent. I just moaned and reached my hands behind me on the goddamn window identical to that scene in Titanic.

  He growled as he thrust deep, powerful strokes into me.

  I came hard, clenching all around his dick. “Chandler,” I managed to breath into his ear. “I fucking love you.”

  “God, I fucking love you, too.” Chandler yelled. I cried out, and the earth shook as he came, shooting his hot strands of cum into me.

  “For the love of Christ, Chandler,” I said as he finally finished. My smile turned hazy. “How much did you come?”

  “Just need to make sure you know you’re fucking mine.”

  We changed spots, Chandler lying across the back seat inside of me. I collapsed on top of him in a pool of post-coital sweat.

  “I love you, Amy,” he said again, craning his neck to kiss my forehead.

  “I love you, too, Chandler.”

  I smiled as I snuggled into his chest. Maybe the world outside was cold and harsh, but together, scarred as we were, we were a goddamn beautiful thing.

  The End

  Mickey Miller

  You’ve reached the end, dear reader. Before you go, I have a couple of things I want to tell you.

  First you rock hard for reading this book. I mean that. And I want to reward you for turning the page past the end. That tells me you might want more Chandler and Amy.

  Therefore, if you sign up for my newsletter, I will send you the Bonus EPIC-logue featuring one more scorching scene with Chandler and Amy. Once you are subscribed to my newsletter, reply “Give me more!” to the confirmation email, and I will send the epilogue to you personally.

  Here is the link to sign up: http://eepurl.com/cjHaxD

  If you’re already signed up just shoot me the same message at mickeymiller@mickeymillerbooks.com and I will send it over to you!

  Second, I do a live feed every Thursday evening in my Facebook Group for my fans, Mickey’s Misfits. I love interacting with readers, so I hope you’ll stop on by! Just search ‘Mickey’s Misfits’ on Facebook and the group will come up. Request approval to join and myself or my personal assistant will approve you.

  Questions? Comments about the book? feel free to email me at the address mentioned above. I love hearing from readers!

  Also by Mickey Miller

  Playing Dirty: A Bad Boy Baseball Romance

  Mickey Miller books cowritten with Holly Dodd:

  Dirty CEO: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

  Hotblooded Prizefighter: A Bad Boy MMA Romance (coming May 16th)

  My next series, Blackwell After Dark, is a small town romance series. The first book is called Professor With Benefits. Here is the first chapter as a sneak preview just for you. Enjoy :)

  Professor With Benefits

  Coming in June

  Chapter One

  Cole

  Never sleep with a student. Shit, I could have told you that. I went to Harvard. I don’t need to go to a damn seminar to know that’s a bad idea.

  Nevertheless, on the morning before summer school begins, I pile in with all of the other Blackwell University professors into the auditorium for the annual seminar on sexual harassment.

  The crowd’s voices are a low rumble as we wait for the Dean to step up to the microphone and address us. A newcomer to Blackwell University, I ease back in my seat and take in the site of my brand new colleagues.

  Dean Meryl Allison sits center stage in front of the podium, waiting one more minute so the last of the faculty can arrive. I estimate she is in her early fifties, and she looks good, if I might add.

  She smiles out at the crowd, legs crossed as she sat on a stool in front of a microphone. She sat with an exaggeratedly straight posture. Her skirt is hiked up her thighs, which are tanned and attractive. I also note that for a seminar on sexual harassment, the cleavage of her breasts is shockingly visible, in an irony probably only I find funny.

  Hell, she’s a solid two decades older than me, but I’m man enough to admit she is what my buddies and I would refer to collectively as a MILF.

  Her husband, also a tenured professor at the school, sits next to her. He is a short, bald man with glasses, wearing khaki shorts, a hawaiian shirt, and gym shoes with white socks.

  The contrast between their two appearances is striking. I immediately wonder what this guy has to have married a woman like this. Is his family rich? Did he used to have a killer head of hair back in the day? Is he secretly packing? I wonder what their sex life is like.

  I chuckle. I’m only five hours into my two year contract at Blackwell and I’m already cracking dirty jokes.

  Dean Allison steps up to the microphone and begins to speak. “Thank you all for coming. We are here today, as you all know, to talk about how to prevent sexual harassment on campus. Attraction is not okay,” she says, emphasizing the not. For those of us who have been here for a while, it’s obviously nothing new that attraction is prohibited with students, and it’s highly discouraged to be attracted to other faculty members.”

  “Unless it’s true love!” some joker shouts out from the front row. The Dean’s expression doesn’t change, but her husband’s face turns red.

  She tips her chin up and continues. “We are a civil society, and that of course means no relationships between our own kind. Because when there are relationships between us…”

  “There is no screen between us,” the crowd chants in unison, and my eyes go wide.

  Am I crazy or do these people sound like a damn cult, repeating what their leader says. Are we in first grade where all we do is repeat after the teacher?

  Dean Allison nods slowly and deliberately, apparently satisfied that the group is repeating her words. I scratch my head as I sit in my chair in the back row. The guy next to me nods a little too vigorously, as if he’d just heard the best gospel sermon of his life. I scrunch my face in confusion. I mean, I get it. Even though I’m on the younger end of the faculty, fucking around with a student isn’t something I’d ever consider. It’s not worth running the risk. There are plenty of fish in the sea, so why not find one of the mill
ions of women who aren’t students at the school where you teach?

  That being said, I’m teaching a class on sexual psychology this semester, and attraction isn’t something you can legislate.

  Attraction is not a choice. Acting on it is. I can’t control what gets me hard and what doesn’t. But I can choose what to do with that information.

  I zone back into the Dean’s talk. She’s been droning on about this shit for several minutes. “So there is absolutely no showing interest in members of the opposite sex unless you know they are interested in you. This goes for professors with professors, students with students, and it should be a rule of thumb for the whole world, really.” The crowd laughs again, and I feel like a fucking crazy person. “If someone shows interest in another person--an inappropriate touch, or a smile for example--and that interest is not wanted, well, that is the definition of sexual harassment. And we don’t want to get fired now, do we?”

  “No,” the crowd murmurs back, and I feel even more like I’m in the middle of a George fucking Orwell dystopian novel. The guy next to me has his eyes closed and shakes his head ‘no’ like a wet dog.

  Fuck this. Even if I’m not hooking up with a student, I’m not about to let the Dean get off scot free without any intellectual challenge.

  I raise my hand and clear my throat noisily.

  A literal gasp goes up from the crowd as I do. Apparently members of the faculty aren’t used to people questioning Dean Allison’s authority. Her eyes grow wide.

  “Uh, this isn’t really time for questions,” she scoffs.

  I stand up. “I’ll be brief,” I say firmly. I project my voice, a skill that I think most of these armchair academics have forgotten. The room is so tense I can feel the nervousness emanating from my colleagues. “I get the whole point of this thing. Don’t have affairs with students. Of course. But professors and professors? Look, if we can’t show interest in the other party, how does anyone have romantic success around here? The nature of romance is the occasional failure. You ask a girl out to see if she’s interested. She says no sometimes.” I shrug and smirk. I haven’t had a girl turn me down for a date in ages, but that’s not the point. Logic is the point. “That’s how the game is played. And you’re saying that’s sexual harassment? Or did I miss something.”