"Go on, get it," he slurred, his hand sliding up to wrap around her head, fingers tangling into her bleach bottle blonde hair. He tugged her face down towards his crotch.
The woman resisted for a second, and then gave in, flashing another smile up at him. She dropped her head down, and a moment later, Chase felt a pair of warm, wet lips wrap around the head of his shaft, slurping up and down.
Glancing up, Chase saw his buddy DeShaun staring across the VIP at him. The African American man's mouth hung slightly open, his dreadlocks twitching slightly back and forth as he shook his head in amazement.
Chase just grinned back. "Gotta get my money's worth, huh?" he called out to DeShaun, hoisting up his wine bottle, and then resting its base on top of the stripper's head to push his cock deeper into her mouth.
"You crazy motherfucker," Deshaun returned, but he smiled as he said it. "You know that you'll catch shit for this tomorrow at the team meeting, right?"
"Fuck all of them," Chase declared back. "They won't do anything to me. They need me, especially with the postseason games coming up."
After a moment, DeShaun shrugged. "True dat," he admitted. "And whatever helps you keep on throwing those laser passes, man."
Still smirking, Chase settled back, trying to focus his fuzzy, alcohol-soaked brain on the sensations rising up from between his legs. He wished that he remembered the stripper's name. She had probably told him at some point, but he'd immediately forgotten it as useless information.
"What's your name, baby?" he slurred, patting the woman on her head.
She pulled his dick out of her mouth, with a sound a bit like a cork popping out of a bottle. "Crystal, honey," she replied.
"Well, you're doing a good job, Crystal - keep sucking." Chase didn't care that the name was fake. Hell, he might not even come, given his drunken state.
But none of that mattered. He took another pull on the champagne bottle, closing his eyes and listening to the stripper slurp on his dick. He was a winner, he reminded himself, and he was bulletproof.
Nothing could bring him down. He was a winner, and winning felt good.
Chapter Two
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
Seth Chase opened his eyes, and immediately wished that he hadn't done so. He felt as though the morning light penetrated straight through his eyes and into his brain, burning away the pleasant fog left behind by the alcohol and leaving searing pain in its place.
For a minute or two, he just squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on breathing. He couldn't remember much of the previous night. They'd won their game, of course, and then he knew that they'd headed off to get drunk, celebrate, and see some titties.
He definitely remembered the club.
He dimly remembered some strippers and a VIP booth.
Chase sat up, groaning at how even that single movement made his head spin and his stomach twist itself into knots in protest. He felt soft sheets slide off of him, and forced his eyes back open.
He'd managed to find a bed, it seemed. He had crawled partway under the tangled covers on a large white bed, although he'd apparently disagreed with the pillows; most of them were now on the floor.
The bed also wasn't empty, he realized a moment later.
Grimacing a little, Chase tugged the sheets back, revealing a prone, curvaceous, and most definitely nude female figure beside him. His memory still felt full of holes and untrustworthy, but he was pretty sure that he recognized the woman as one of the strippers from the previous night.
The woman yawned, stretching out her arms and rolling partly over before grabbing one of the remaining pillows on the bed to pull up over her head to block out the light. Yep, Chase thought to himself. Definitely a stripper. Normal women don't have fake tits like that.
Not bad, though. He reached out and gave one of them a squeeze, and the woman murmured softly in her sleep.
Chase peeled the rest of the covers off of him, unsurprised to find that he was completely naked as well. He flicked his dick, wondering if he could convince the stripper in bed beside him to give him another round, but even morning wood wasn't enough to overcome the amount of metabolized alcohol clogging up his system.
Probably for the best, anyway. If he tried to do any sort of repetitive movement, he was relatively confident that he'd puke before he came.
Chase turned and pulled his legs over off of the bed and, with an effort, hoisted himself up to his feet. Looking around, he spotted his pants, crumpled up in a heap on the opposite side of the bedroom. He crossed unsteadily over to them, dug his phone out of a pocket.
Before getting dressed and leaving the room, Chase paused to tug the covers the rest of the way off of the stripper's naked body, and took a couple of pictures with his phone's camera. He grinned to himself as he saved the pictures to a folder filled with similar images.
At least he hadn't woken up with a dude in his bed. That had been an awkward morning, even more than usual.
With his pants still unbuttoned and unzipped, his cock hanging out, Chase found the bathroom and let loose. He pissed for at least a full minute, and even Chase found himself marveling at the darkness of his urine.
"Gotta get some water," he muttered to himself as he left the bathroom, not bothering to flush.
Still shirtless, Chase poked his head into the other rooms in the hotel suite, making sure he wasn't leaving any of his fellow players behind. Once he'd convinced himself that he was the only other man in the suite, he left, carrying his shoes in one hand. He pulled them onto his bare feet in the elevator.
"You serve breakfast in this place?" he inquired to the young woman standing behind the reception desk in the front lobby.
"We do, sir," she replied, her eyes sweeping over him and taking him in.
Chase watched. Her expression started off as dubious and judgmental, but it softened as it passed over his muscled, powerful physique. By the time it had climbed up to his face, she looked openly approving. Now, all it took was the little spark of recognition to seal the deal...
"You're... Are you Seth Chase?" the front desk manager asked, her eyebrows climbing up on her forehead.
He nodded, flashing her the best aw-shucks grin he could manage through his hangover. "Yeah. Sorry, I had kind of a crazy night."
"Well, breakfast is right down that hallway and to the left," she told him, pointing with one finger - although her eyes lingered on his bare chest. "And don't worry - you paid for everything last night and left your card on file. Let me know if you need anything else."
For a moment, Chase considered stepping back behind the counter and letting her drop to her knees and blow him. His stomach lurched again, however, and he decided against it. "Thank you," he said, flashing her one last rogue's grin before heading off to breakfast.
In the hotel's breakfast area, Chase wolfed down at least two plates' worth of food, loading up on the bacon and ignoring the "please take two pieces only" sign. Not bad for hotel shit, he considered, chewing a mouthful and swallowing.
It wasn't until halfway through his second plate of bacon and eggs that Chase finally looked up at the clock mounted in the breakfast area. "Shit," he cursed as the numbers on the clock swam into focus. "Mother fucking shit."
He jumped up, leaving the plates behind, and dashed out into the lobby once again. Ignoring the shy little smile and wave from the front desk receptionist, he hurried out to the front of the hotel. He waved his hand wildly at the nearest cab, parked in the hotel's drop-off turnaround.
"Get me to the stadium," he ordered the cabbie as he piled in. Thankfully, he found the lump of his wallet in his pocket, and he pulled out a couple of crumpled bills. "And step on it - double if you run the red lights!"
With a squeal of tires, the taxi peeled away from the curb. Chase thumped back into the backseat, grabbing around for the seat belt.
Actually, he reflected as he looked up over the center console at the clock on the cab's dashboard, he was already late. What was wrong with another couple minutes?
"Change of plan," he told the cabbie. "There a decent fast food place around here? I want some food."
Ten minutes later, the taxi dropped Chase, and his bag of McDonalds, outside the stadium. Doing his best to not choke on the rest of the double cheeseburger in his hand, he hurried into the stadium's employee entrance.
The security guard on duty grinned at him. "Morning, Mr. Chase," he called out. "Better hurry - they're doing a meeting in the locker room, and the brass is here. Some new hire, meeting everyone - you'll want to make a good impression!"
Chase rolled his eyes. It seemed like the owners were bringing in new employees just about every other week, doing whatever they could to fill seats. Chase didn't care about any of it - he just played, aiming to win. In the end, he knew, none of the owner's other actions would matter, if Chase didn't win.
"Any chance of a lift, Jim?" he asked the guard.
The guard's smile broadened. "Yeah, you got it, Mr. Chase. For you only, you realize."
"Thanks," Chase replied, as the guard pulled around the little golf cart at the security checkpoint. "I owe you one."
"You owe me a hell of a lot more than one, by my count," the guard replied, grinning as Chase clambered into the back of the golf cart. "But someone's gotta look out for you, given all the shit you get up to. What was it this time?"
"The usual," Chase replied, as Jim the security guard mashed the accelerator to the floor and the golf cart roared down the inner hallways of the stadium. "Here, check this out." He dug out his phone, pulling up the picture of the naked, sleeping stripper.
"Whoa, now, I'm a married man!" Jim protested, although he certainly took his time in handing the phone back to Chase. "She looks like a very classy lady."
Chase shrugged. "Fake tits and robbing me blind in the strip club? Fuck her."
Jim clucked his tongue. "One of these days, Mr. Chase, you're going to meet some woman who turns your whole life upside down," he commented. "And oh man, I hope that I'm there to see it."
Smiling, Chase held his tongue. Jim always made comments like this, and for some reason, Chase just couldn't bring himself to pop the security guard's little bubble of optimism. Besides, it was always good for him to have a friend on the staff.
The golf cart pulled to a screeching halt in front of the home team's locker room. "Here we are, Mr. Chase," Jim announced, as Chase climbed out of the back of the cart. "Remember, don't scare off the new employee yet, we need to fill the stadium if we want to earn our salaries!"
"Thanks, Jim," Chase called, as the golf cart pulled away with a squeal of tires.
He headed into the locker room, running one hand through his messy hair. Maybe, if the meeting was going on out on the green, he could grab a shirt from his locker and maybe gargle something for his breath-
No such luck, he realized a second later, as two dozen faces turned to look at him as he entered the locker room.
Some of those faces wore grins - those were the faces of his fellow players, many of whom had been out with him the night before. Chase saw DeShaun openly laughing, his dreadlocks shaking as he shook his head in mock judgment.
Most of the faces, however, wore frowns of irritation or annoyance. Among those frowning faces, Chase spotted one especially broad and florid one. "Morning, Jed," he greeted that face.
Jed Benson III, the third in a line of billionaire industrialist tycoons, just sputtered something unintelligible in response. The man had owned the Hawks for over a decade, and in that time, Chase had never seen him anything but red-faced and irritated. Even when they won games, the man always seemed to have a bee sting on his balls.
"Chase, where the hell have you been?" Benson spat out. "We've all been here except for you! This kind of unprofessional conduct-"
"Look, I overslept after celebrating how we won our last game," Chase cut in, emphasizing the word 'win.' "But I'm here now. What's going on?"
As Benson tried to sputter out some kind of response, Chase ran his eyes over the other faces standing in the group. He recognized some of them, and his mind vaguely identified them as team managers, assistant coaches, water boys, and other administrative additions to the team. Most of them looked mildly annoyed, more that this meeting was taking up their time than that Chase had dared to show up late, shirtless, and stinking of alcohol.
But there was one face that Chase didn't recognize. He blinked, focusing in on the newcomer.
No, she was definitely new, he thought to himself as he took her in. He would remember her if he'd seen her before.
Short, quite so. Pale skin, wavy brown hair escaping a ponytail, perky figure, a pair of green eyes sparkling behind black plastic glasses that Chase guessed were more for appearance than for sight issues. She looked young - he pegged her as no more than a year out of college. And she looked far too excited for this early of an hour.
"Anyway, now that you're finally here," Benson finished, "I'd like you all to meet Kaylie Tense, our new social media manager."
He waved a hand at the young woman next to him. "And I expect," Benson continued, glaring around at the players, "that you will treat her with respect and courtesy."
Chase didn't bother to conceal the roll of his eyes.
Social media. As if this woman could do anything to help this team's social media presence.
Chapter Three
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
Oh god, Katy, keep it together, I thought to myself desperately. You can handle this. This is just the start of a new job, just like every other job. You've got this. No problem.
My mental platitudes, however, didn't do much to calm my rapidly beating heart or help my shallow breathing as I looked around at the massive, hulking men standing around me.
Who was I kidding? I couldn't even convince myself that I could handle this.
I, Katy Tenner, brand new college graduate and just a little over five feet on a good day, was totally out of my depth!
Right. Don't look at the men. The boss guy, Benson, whatever his name is, is talking. Try and focus on that.
God, why couldn't I focus? Why was my heart pounding so fast? Why did I have to feel so scared and nervous??
With a supreme effort that probably could have won me the Superbowl if I played football, I dragged my attention back to the present. Benson was still speaking, and I tried not to stare at how red his face looked. He punctuated his every word with a wag of his fingers, and I could see little droplets of spittle and spray flying out into the air. I tried to take a surreptitious step back to avoid being caught in that disgusting mist.
Unfortunately, my movement seemed to draw the man's attention. "And this, finally, is our new social media manager, Kaylie Tense," Benson shouted out, his hand reaching out and wrapping around my shoulders.
I considered struggling, but the big football team owner's grip felt as strong as iron. "Uh, Katy Tenner, actually," I corrected gently, trying to smile around at the men standing in the circle around us. God, why were they all so big and muscular and bulging? It was like I was back in high school all over again!
Benson didn't give any indication that he heard me speak. "She's going to be working to try and correct some of our shitty-ass image," he thundered, glaring around at the football players. "So you sorry lot had better cooperate with her, or else she'll smear your tiny dicks all over our fan pages! Won't like that, will ya?"
I grimaced as two dozen pairs of suspicious and untrusting eyes turned to me. "Really, it shouldn't be too bad," I piped up, aware of how high and breathy my voice sounded. "I'll just be writing little articles to endear you to fans, posting some semi-candid pics, getting more fan engagement, stuff like that. I'll try not to get in your way..."
My voice trailed off as my eyes moved over to one of the men currently regarding me with a skeptical expression, his arms crossed on his broad chest. I knew him, of course, and not just because he'd stumbled into this meeting a good fifteen minutes late.
There was no way, not in a million years,
that I'd fail to recognize Seth Chase.
I'd followed his career, his meteoric ascent - first with amazement, then with despair, and then with a slowly growing sense of awe at his sheer resilience. The man embodied every single public relations disaster I could imagine, and yet he never seemed affected by any of the chaos swirling around him! The tabloids loved him, the reporters hounded him, and Seth Chase never seemed to care in the slightest about changing his ways.
Oh, and I'd heard somewhere that he was actually pretty good at football. I didn't bother with any specifics, but I assumed that he had to be halfway decent, or else the Hawks wouldn't have put up with him for so long.
He, I knew, would end up being my biggest problem.
At least, that's what I told myself that I should be thinking, as I looked back at him, trying not to give the impression of a deer in the headlights.
Inside my head, however, another voice had suddenly popped up, making a comment in the way that fashion designers sometimes do while they tap one finger against their chin, their head slightly tilted to one side and with their lips pursed.
He's kind of cute, in a manly, all-American sort of way, that voice inside my head pointed out to me. He's got those big shoulders, that light hair, those blue eyes that always seem to grab you. And you've seen his dick enough times in the papers to know that he's pretty loaded down there, too.
I bit down mercilessly on that voice. Those tabloids were exactly the reason I'd landed this job. After seeing his players' names splashed across the headlines of the celebrity pages too many times, Benson finally agreed that the Hawks needed a publicist, someone with enough social media savvy to spin the constant flood of embarrassing images into something that could actually seem positive.
And thus, me. Little, green, untrained, nervous-as-all-hell me, working my very first "grown-up" job after college.
Oh god, Seth Chase was looking at me. Why was he looking at me?
Sure, the rest of the team was looking at me, too. Some of them looked considering and open to the idea of getting mentioned in the papers without having the word "drunken debauchery" in the same sentence. But most of them looked resentful, as though I was here to bring an end to their partying.
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