by Imani King
Mack washes all the worry and concern away when he rolls me to my back and kisses me again, deeply, drawing my bottom lip in.
The tingling sensation takes over my body again, and I submit to my desire. Mack’s insistent length is already pressing against my thigh, and there are so many ways we haven’t yet explored each other’s bodies. For now, I let our problems fade for a moment and take him in before I have send him home to his own place so no one catches on.
There are so many questions left unanswered… but what harm could we do right here, just the two of us? Even as I ask the question part of me is aware I'm lying to myself. What harm could we do? A lot of it. We could end Mack's career. We could end my career. I just can't say no to him. Being away in California was the only thing that allowed me to tell myself such a laughable thing. Now that I have to be around him again, it's all come back in a flood of memories, sensations, old longings I thought had been left tin the past a long time ago.
We’ll take care of our situation, and then no one will ever know. At least, that's what I tell myself. That's what I have to tell myself, because to do otherwise would be to admit that I just don't think I can stay away from Macklin Pride.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My head is pounding when I wake up, not in that hungover way I'm used to, but in a way that signifies I was having the best sex of my life last night, and I might have spent every last ounce of energy I'd been saving up for the pre-season, and hell, maybe the entire season while I'm at it. In fact, I'm quite likely dehydrated. I turn over and realize that this is the first time I've slept with a woman where I knew her full name, her history, her likes and dislikes, and the way she styles her hair in the morning to boot. If you'd asked me a month and a half ago, when Renata was in the back of my mind instead of in the front of it, I'd have told you that it didn't make any difference which type of way you had sex with someone.
But I know her.
Each piece of her. The good parts and the bad. The pushy, over-confident mask she shows everyone, and the inner sweetness, the part that she barely shows to anyone besides me and Wingate.
She showed that to me last night, that vulnerability. She'd kept it hiding the whole time she was here, going through the motions of getting me that fake fantasy girlfriend that all the men in the league are supposed to have. She'd gotten lost in her craft, and there was no room for that other side of her to escape. Until I touched her, until I felt her, until I made her scream my name.
Even thinking about her makes my cock start to stiffen, and I want to run back over to the guest house and have her again.
But this is a day full of interviews, meetings, workouts, and practice as we head to the pre-season.
I roll out of bed and pull on my work out shorts and shirt. The biggest thing I have on my mind is a protein shake and a cup of coffee because I can’t think about Kinley or the whole stupid engagement anymore. Not until this afternoon, anyway, when we have our interview.
“Just get through it, Mack. Get through it, and we’ll figure something out.” I mutter the words to myself, and when I walk into the kitchen, I’m expecting an empty blender, an empty counter, and no response. Instead, Wingate is standing right there, his long arms crossed. This time, he’s wearing a pair of reading glasses, jauntily sitting on the tip of his nose. I roll my eyes, ignore him, and pull a couple of bananas off of my banana rack and stick them in the blender with a half cup of peanut butter and some of the chocolate protein shit that Darius gave me last week.
“You know, I’ve been reading over this contract, Mack. And I’m not seeing anything in here about either of you sleeping with other people.” He pushes the glasses up to the bridge of his nose and noisily rustles the papers.
“I never should have given you a key. ‘Come over any time,’ I said. ‘Make yourself a protein shake and get some weight on you.’ But no, you use this as an opportunity to come and harass me in my own house.”
“And you use Renata being back here as an opportunity to get your dick wet.”
I growl and angrily turn on the blender. The thick concoction slows down the blades, but I add a dollop of yogurt and half cup of milk to loosen it up. The blender still slows down, and I smack at it, ignoring Wingate shuffling papers next to me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say between blender smacks.
“I saw you waltz down there last night after you thought everyone had gone home. And as I was still getting the crew to clean up—I noticed you were still there two hours later.”
“So?” I finally get the blender working again and pour the concoction into a glass. I drink it while I get to work on the coffee, reminding myself to drink some water after all this shit. I do think I might be dehydrated, come to think of it. The shake tastes thick and comforting, and it helps me ignore Wingate’s eyes, searing into me. I shrug for emphasis.
I’m not listening. I’m an adult man, an NFL superstar, and I do what the hell I want.
“If you look online, you might be singing a different tune.” He picks up his phone and flicks through it. “Here’s a good headline. ‘Kinley Edwards in Tears over Fiancé’s Supposed ‘Secret Lover.’ That one was in Star, so no one takes it too seriously.”
I glance at him, my stomach sinking. “Does that article mention the fact that she’s been screwing the wide receiver since before she met me? Yeah, that’s right. She has. And she tried to sleep with me too.”
“Nope, there’s nothing in the article about that. Which means it didn’t happen. Not in the eyes of the public. Now I don’t know how anyone got this information—maybe Kinley’s onto you. Maybe she’s playing you to get more money or more sympathy or I don’t know what the fuck she wants. But she’s scary as hell. I don’t know what Renata’s doing with you, but she’s a lot less savvy than I thought if she’s messing with a man who walked out on her—”
“I didn’t walk out on her,” I snarl, slamming the shake down on the counter. A few chocolate-colored droplets spill out onto the counter. I’m seeing red, and suddenly, six years worth of secrets start bubbling to the surface. “It was Dad. He was the one who made that deal with Renata’s old man. Rollins Young came to Dad and said he’d extend the debt over ten years if I got away from Kinley. That I wasn’t good enough for her, and he was willing to stake the fate of his farm—of both our farms—if I got the hell out of the picture.” I lift one shoulder and shrug again, like everything I said is no big deal. There’s a pulsing pain behind my eyes, and I think of the tens of thousands of dollars I send each month—pay back plus interest, plus enough to maintain the pigs and cattle and the corn production. And for what? This life?
I look over to Wingate, and his mouth is hanging slightly open. “But your brother Jared… Renata called me right after, and she told me everything he said. And you were nowhere to be found.”
“You’d run off too if you were caught between two families. Dad and Mom would have been homeless. Rollins was threatening to sue us, to call the police on us, have Jared and Dad taken away. Rollins even threatened… you know what? It’s all done. It’s in the past. And right now, I have the chance to be with Renata for a little while before she decides to go back to her big life in California. If that pisses off Kinley or anyone else, I’m very, very far from caring.” I sigh and clean the specks of protein shake off of the counter with one of the fluffy white towels my designer picked out. Suddenly, this house seems oppressive in a way it hasn’t before. For all of my time in professional football, it’s been a tribute to my old relationship with Renata. But here we are on the cusp of a likely disaster. All caused by me, by Renata, by the secrets and miscommunication and the history that stands behind us.
“Jesus, Mack. It’s your career on the line. It’s not just yours—it’s mine too. And if this all falls through, it could be Renata’s. You picked a fine time to go chasing after all this. And a fine time to tell me all this.” His voice goes quiet, and he scoots his skinny self up to sit on the counter. “I spent years hating the p
art of you that left Ren behind, you know. I loved you all the same because you’re my cousin and my best friend—”
I look down, chest clenching tight. “Don’t go getting all sentimental now.”
“I’m not. You’re still an asshole. You kept all that hidden from everyone to protect your family. That’s noble and all, but you threw a big part of yourself away. No wonder you slept with all those women—”
“I’m not anymore. I made up my mind. She’s back. And if she gives me any sliver of a chance, I’m with her and only her.” I look up at Wingate and take a long swig of my cooling cup of coffee. “For the rest of my life, if she’ll have me. We’ll work up to that, of course. But there’s nothing that won’t make me try.”
Wingate hits his head against the front of the kitchen cabinet. “Macklin, you’re engaged. There’s a solid contract that says you’ll stay engaged for the first five months of the season. There aren’t stipulations in the actual contract, but Eddie’s made it clear to both me and Renata that you’re gone from the team if it doesn’t go through. You know Kinley’s been sleeping around, obviously. But you don’t know how long or with whom, do you?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Don’t care either.”
“You should. She’s Eddie’s son-in-law’s sister. She’s been sleeping with every roadie and any fan who asks. And she’s been drinking her way through the tour. Because she’s around the team all the time and always over at her brother’s place, it was beginning to reflect on Eddie. It took me a while to dig this shit up, but this is why they’re both so hell bent on this engagement. And when I say you’ll get fired, you will get fired. I don’t think that’s sunk in. That means no money to funnel into this big ass mortgage, or into the mortgage on the apartment in New York, the one you never go to. It means the death of my career. And if you care about Renata like you say—well, you don’t want her mixed up in this. You do this engagement thing for the full time, and then you let her go back to Cali. If she’s still interested in you by the end of the season, maybe you can get to Cali and woo her back here or whatever you intend to do. But for God’s sake, don’t screw this up for all three of us before then.”
I bring my hands to my face and slump down against the counter. “Now that you put it like that…” I let Wingate’s tongue-lashing sink in. He’s very good at correcting my idiotic ideas. This might be the most idiotic idea I’ve ever had—getting Renata back when I’ve got one deal with my brother and Ren’s dad, and another deal with a sociopathic country singer and the bullying owner of my team. Kinley’s been texting me every five minutes of every day, telling me she loves me, that she’s looking forward to her first time with me. And just about everyone on the team knows she’s sleeping with everyone but me. She’s got one steady one she goes home with on a regular basis, and it seems she’s got the wool completely pulled over his eyes.
“You have one more event with Kinley Edwards this week, and then you have a break from her. You can get everything sorted with Renata and make whatever plan you want, but please don’t fuck it up before then, cuz.”
Wingate hops down and walks up to me, pausing to pat me on the shoulder before he heads back out to his own estate. The estate he could lose because of me. “Wingate…” I start, but nothing appropriate comes to mind.
“You’ll get it together, man. You always do.”
I watch my cousin as he walks out.
He’s right. I do get my shit together, most of the time.
But this seems like one tangled mess that doesn’t have the kind of simple solution I’m hoping for.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The headlines we keep seeing have to be from Kinley, each one worse than the last.
Linebacker Bad Boy Cheating on his Country Princess?
“Big Mack” at It Again—Will He Ever Stop and Think of His Team?
Kinley Edwards Forgives Him Again, Saying True Love Always Wins…
Accusations of cheating and canoodling behind the young country star’s back run rampant. But like Mack, I know there’s no real relationship. They’ve never slept together, and they’ve only been in the same room a handful of times. Kinley made it more than clear she wants Mack, body and soul, but that wasn’t part of the agreement. Love and affection weren’t written into the legal agreement, and somehow, that seems to enrage her even more. She wants her claws in Mack. When he didn’t let her into his bed, she decided she would retaliate—first by picking out select team members to sleep with. And then, when that didn’t work, she started to accuse Mack of cheating.
If they had a real relationship, I guess she’d be right. But the contract we drew up excludes fidelity as a stipulation of the engagement. The way Kinley sees it, though, she controls what happens and what doesn’t. And if Mack’s not sleeping with her, he’s not submitting to what she wants.
With each phone conversation, she sounds more and more insane. And now, she’s roped Eddie Davidson into her web of lies and deceit. Again, Mack is the bad guy. They’re using our own ideas against us, and with each passing day, we sink deeper and deeper into it until it appears there’s no way out. Kinley Edwards has us by the proverbial balls, and she’s not relenting. If Mack doesn’t carry out the engagement, there’s no telling what she’s capable of. And with Eddie in her pocket, she’s got a lot more power than she should have.
The engagement party comes and goes without incident, but the news stories about Mack stay constant. He and Wingate are over at the guest house at all hours for the next week, arguing and pacing and grinding their teeth. Apparently there’s some conflict that’s gone on behind the scenes that I know nothing about—something to do with family and cousins and all the secrets that Mack’s family has hidden over the years.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to know. But it can wait. There is one task at hand -- preventing Kinley from losing it completely -- and that comes before anything else, especially Pride family drama. I know it all has something to do with me, but they’re not budging. We tentatively called her and offered to cancel the engagement, but the very idea seemed to make her livid. There was so much anger in her voice over the phone that my pulse started to quicken, thinking of the things I’ve done with Mack behind closed doors. If she found out her suspicions were real, that there was a real issue instead of one she made up for the press—I’m not sure what she would do. Or what she’s fully capable of. I wouldn’t put anything past her.
And now, she’s pulling on her connection to the team owner, saying that she’ll make sure Mack never works again, that she’ll make sure he’s done for good in the entire sports world if he doesn’t follow through with the contract. In some of the conversations I’ve had with her, she’s ranted and raved, driving the point deeper and deeper until I feared she might explode over the phone. She even mentioned that she was planning to get him to marry her at any cost. When I told her it wasn’t part of the contract, that marriage was now out of the question, she said she’d find a way. And then she hung up with a finality that felt terrifying.
Here we are now, at the beginning of the preseason, and the big kickoff party at Mack’s house is already starting.
But Mack is here, walking back and forth down the hall, unable to bear the weight of what we’re doing. I don’t want this any more than he does, and now the shame is weighing on me most heavily.
He turns to look at me, and I’m struck by the trouble in his eyes. Something in my chest tightens, and my stomach threatens to drop out of my body. I can’t deny how this man makes me feel, and I can’t leave him now.
He frowns in my direction and goes back to pacing. “I’ll do anything to get out of this, Renata. But it seems like they’ve got us.” His fists are already clenched, and he’s pacing. I’m clutching a cup of coffee hard and watching him as he goes. He’s angry—and I don’t blame him. I’ve never gone against my instincts before, but this time, I sure as hell did.
He clouded my judgment.
Kinley Edwards seemed like the perfect sol
ution, and it seems she’s been slowly leaking things to the press about her suspicions regarding Macklin—and the press loves anything to do with Macklin Pride. When I started messing around with this client, I didn’t count on the hunger of the media. It’s been a long time since I’ve dealt with a true bad boy—and it seems that, in the NFL, Mack has the reputation for being the baddest boy of all.
“I know, Mack. I did it to you.” I slide down into the dining room chair, my body crumpling with shame. I look over at the house where Mack lives, the house that I wanted, the one I imagined with him. There’s a girl inside that house who’s more than a girl—she’s manipulative, she’s reckless, and she’s caught in a whirlwind of power she doesn’t fully understand. She’s drunk on it—the power of being famous, of having a famous fiancé, of having the power to tell him he’ll need to marry her or else.
Mack slows down and then comes to sit next to me on the couch, taking my hands in his. I almost recoil, thinking that Kinley probably has someone watching us, watching Mack’s every move. But I let the comfort of this small touch take me over, knowing that this magic time between me and Mack may soon fade out into eternity.
“I was the one who fucked up bad enough that we needed a supremely quick fix. I was about to lose my job that week, and you knew the way to make it better.” He shrugs helplessly, and a wave of warmth comes over me. The things I feel for him are rooted so deep that there’s no way I could escape them, not really. When I first came out here, I had myself convinced that I was over him—for the most part, I thought I was. Sitting here, my hands in his, I can see that’s not true.
“And I was the one who told you to do it. I was the one who picked Kinley, and I knew she had some kind of connection with Eddie. I just didn’t know what she’d be like when it came down to the wire.” I tap my nails against the coffee cup. I had them painted bright red two days ago, on a whim. It seemed like the thing to do, as a wanton woman sneaking around behind a young woman’s back—an evil young woman’s back, but behind her back nonetheless. Behind everybody’s back. “She’s got Eddie on board with her little schemes, and he tells me he’ll get you fired if you don’t keep on with this engagement.”
