My heart ached for him… and my body longed for him.
“You have my help,” I murmured. “You have all of me, I swear.”
Kieran leaned closer, neither of us daring to breathe. It was as though all time had stopped and we were the only two beings left in the world, alone in a lonely dimension. He slowly reached up to cup my face, his eyes searching mine. We sat this way for a moment, just drinking in each other’s presence, both of us wondering what would happen next.
And then all at once, our lips collided in a passionate, desperate kiss. I hardly knew what I was doing, I was so inexperienced and out of practice, but he guided me gently. He pushed me down onto my back, straddling me and pressing soft kisses into my lips, my jaw, my neck. I moaned when his hands slid up under my blouse to cup my breasts, his thumbs tracing over my nipples lightly at first, then more roughly.
His kisses increased in intensity, his teeth grazing my skin and making me lurch upward into his touch. I needed more. This was so vastly different than the only other time I’d been intimate with a man. Kieran was never forceful, even though his movements were aggressive. He read my body language and responded accordingly. I peeled off my shirt and he did the same, revealing his hard chest and rippling abdominal muscles. While I stared at him in awe, he pulled off my jeans and panties, and then unclasped my bra, letting my breasts spill free.
I hadn’t been naked with anyone else in over a decade. I self-consciously reached to cover myself, recoiling from his sight. But he gently pinned my hands back down on either side of my head, his blue eyes drinking me in like I was the most magnificent thing he’d ever seen before. Wordlessly he stood up and unzipped his own jeans, letting his pants and boxers fall to the floor. He stood before me utterly exposed and beautiful.
His cock was standing fully erect, its enormous length both exciting and frightening me. I flashed back to the agony of my first time years ago, the blood staining the bed beneath me. I winced and Kieran moved back over me to kiss my lips and stroke the hair back away from my face, his fingers slipping down between my thighs to stroke my slit softly. I let out a soft gasp as he manipulated the tight little bundle of nerves there in a way I’d never felt before. It was an indescribable sensation, almost overwhelming in its pleasure. Kieran leaned down to swallow my cry as I felt a wave of shocking bliss overtake me, my body convulsing with the first orgasm I’d had in a long, long time. Years.
“Oh my god,” I mumbled, closing my eyes. Kieran kissed me and then bent to lightly nip at my breast, his lips closing tantalizingly over my nipple. I shivered at the pleasant sensation and he guided my hand to his cock. I felt its silken length in my hand, starting to stroke up and down. He groaned into my skin, moving with my rhythm.
“I need you, Dani,” he whispered. I could already feel the slickness between my legs, my body crying out for him to fill me up.
“Please,” I whimpered, clutching at his back. He positioned the head of his cock at my wet opening, and after a moment of torturous hesitation, he pushed inside, sheathing himself fully inside of me. We both cried out in pleasure as he began to slowly move his hips, his length sliding in and out of me. It felt so different from what I’d grown to expect, from what I’d had years ago with that awful boy who used me. This was something altogether new and wonderful and beautiful.
Kieran leaned in to kiss me deeply, his tongue invading my mouth. I kissed him back, breathing raggedly as my second orgasm approached. With a groan, the pleasure overwhelmed me and made me tremble with climax. Kieran was close behind, his thrusts picking up the pace until he was ramming into that deep, forbidden spot within me over and over again. I was still shivering from my orgasm when he came, shooting a hot stream of seed into my clenching cunt.
“Dani!” he called out before collapsing on top of me, covering my face with kisses. we embraced each other hungrily, stroking each other’s faces and hair, our lips finding each other’s again and again. Lying on the couch in the waning noon sunlight, we fell asleep, tangled up and totally content, despite the whirlwinds of trouble brewing on the horizon for us both.
CHAPTER 10 - KIERAN
I could still smell Danielle on me the next day, and that only fanned my fire as I drove to Ms. Washington’s office again, knowing full well what I was going to see happen in a few minutes. It took a lot to get me to wear a button-down shirt and a tie, and even though the thing was so old that my muscles were threatening to burst out of the ensemble, I thought I looked decent enough. I’d tried to make my curly hair a little less messy, too, but some things were just beyond the scope of reality.
I’d made a point to show up more than a few minutes early to this meeting. Paul and Janet had demanded to meet with me again to “discuss” the contract they were still trying to sell me on, but I was well past the point of trying to talk things over in polite privacy. If they wanted to talk to me again, they could do that with my lawyer present. And that was exactly what was going to happen today.
My car pulled up at the office, and I headed inside, giving a smile to the clerical workers up front. Without a moment to lose, I made my way through to Washington’s office as the secretary let me know she was ready to see me.
“Mr. Michaels,” she greeted me with a knowingly apprehensive smile, “glad you could make it early. I hope you’re ready for today.”
“Something happen?” I asked with a raise of my eyebrows as she rose to shake my hand.
“Nothing I imagine you aren’t expecting,” she said, glancing to her computer screen. “I’ve been receiving a string of furious emails from them since you talked with them in their office. I’m not the type to say ‘I told you so,’ but…”
“I know you told me so,” I said, holding up a hand, “but that was something that needed to happen. These people have been in my life a long time, you know? I’m not the kind of guy to forget things like that, even if the people are going through a hard time.”
Washington smiled at me, and there might have been some appreciation in the gesture. “Well I can assure you that your sympathies will get you far when you’re looking for a team that will appreciate someone of your skills, Mr. Michaels. But for now, let’s worry about extracting you from what’s turning into a hairy legal matter.”
As if on cue, we turned our heads at the sound of shouting in the front office, the secretary’s voice trying to talk over a couple of belligerent ones.
“Please, if you will have a seat, we’ll call you in when Ms. Washington and her client are ready to-”
“Don’t you fucking give me that line,” Janet’s voice snapped, and the next moment, Paul flung the door to the office open, and he and Janet strode in, slamming the door in the secretary’s face behind them.
I took a seat in a chair beside Washington’s desk, and both of us gave the two polite nods as they stalked in, glaring daggers at us and everything in the room.
They were in a bad place. Both of them had bloodshot eyes with dark circles under them, Janet’s hair was disheveled, and Paul’s shirt was buttoned wrong. I held back a face, but a glance over at Washington told me she was downright insulted by the way the two of them were presenting themselves, and her jaw was set.
“Mr. Franklin. Ms. Walker. Thank you for meeting us here today,” she said, gesturing to the chairs on the other end of the desk. “Please, have a seat.”
“I don’t think I need to do that,” Paul snapped, crossing his arms and walking around the room, casting suspicious glances everywhere. It was like he was checking the room for bugs, or something.
“...very well,” she said with a glance to me that said this was going to be a hell of a meeting. “Let’s get started then. We’re here to try to settle this dispute between the two of you and Mr. Michaels over the renewal of his contract.”
“Yeah, how about you stop fucking around with him for money and tell him he has to sign his contract so we can get on with our lives?” Janet snapped, and Paul strode forward to join in the attack.
“This
is football, lady. Football. You don’t get to just pick and choose what team you want to play for one day or the next, you get hired onto a team and you stick with it, plain and simple. We tried to get that basic goddamn idea through that dense skull of his,” he said, pointing a meaty finger to me, “but you’ve been jerking him around and making him think this is more than just a little ego trip of his. Do you know the first fucking thing about him? He’s an egotist, this is just a power trip for him. And if you think this is some kind of ‘case’ for you to strike it rich on, you’re gonna be more disappointed than the two of us are right now!”
He breathed heavily, and we gave him a few moments to calm down before I spoke up in a much calmer and slower voice than I wanted to let loose. This was the one day that I really needed to keep it all under control.
“With all due respect,” I started, and I saw Paul’s eye twitch, “while I know that changing teams isn’t something to take lightly, I’ve been on your team for a long time, and I’ve never had an issue like this before now. I…” I looked over to Washington as I struggled to remember the precise line she helped me recite over the phone, and she gave an encouraging smile. “I feel that my professional goals don’t align with those of your team any longer, and in light of the offers I have received from other teams, I am requesting that you engage in negotiations with them to transfer me out of this team to one of theirs.”
“Well well well,” Janet said mockingly, “looks like this old bat taught you some fancy words to say. Do you even know what you’re saying, you dumbass?”
“He’s formally requesting,” Washington said firmly, “that you consider offers to be transferred to a different team, as he has a legal right to do. And I feel the need to remind both of you that you have a legal obligation to entertain his request.”
“Fuck. That,” Paul said without missing a beat. “Kieran is ours. He’s been ours from the first day we dragged his sorry ass out of that suburb, and he’ll be ours until we retire him.”
“Mr. Franklin,” Washington said sternly, “I would advise that you speak as professionally as this situation demands. What you say could have legal ramifications if this dispute escalates.”
“Escalates?!” Paul exclaimed, and Janet was practically shaking behind him. “Kieran escalated this the moment he dragged you and all those other teams into this dispute, you hack. None of this would have happened if you didn’t think you could get a pretty penny out of him.”
“I’m providing a service to help Mr. Michaels exercise his legal rights,” Washington said tersely.
“You’re leading him up a path to get his ass kicked in court,” Janet spat. “Don’t think I know what you want. You’re just waiting to be able to take us to court, and then you’ll get a big, fat paycheck out of all of this. Do you know who, exactly, we have on our legal team? Howell. Branston. Erikson. Mikhailovic. Don’t pretend like those names don’t mean something to you, I’ve got connections so deep in this city that Kieran will lose that whole fucking house of his by the time we’re done cleaning the two of you out in court.”
I was staggered by how they were going about this. They were out of sorts, but their threats clearly hit home with both of us, but I was amazed at how utterly they were ignoring my presence. It was like I wasn’t even here. It just made me think back to Danielle, back to the time we spent together, and how she made me feel...well, like myself.
It was strange. We hadn’t known each other for that long, in the grand scheme of things, but there was something about her presence that just made me feel at ease. Maybe there was more than guilt and appreciation for her skill that made me want her being my sole interviewer. I wished she was here, sitting beside me.
“And besides,” Janet said with a wicked grin, “he tried to blackmail us when he spoke to us last.”
Washington suddenly looked at me with an arched eyebrow, but I was able to keep my composure.
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” I said, and Washington gave me the faintest shadow of a nod of approval.
“Don’t play dumb,” Paul said, narrowing his eyes at me. “You just want to air out all this dirty laundry. That’s not gonna happen, you little worm. There’s no case here, and we’re finished.”
Without another word, Paul and Janet turned and strutted out the room, leaving me and Washington in the office alone. She took a deep breath after a few moments.
“You’ve got a lot more patience than me for putting up with that all these years,” she said.
“Well,” I replied, “do what you’ve gotta do in this career. Guess it’s silly to ask how you think that went, then?”
Washington tilted her head from side to side a moment. “Not as bad as you’d think--for you, at least. Most of what they’re saying is bluffing, I can tell. You most definitely have a case to press a lawsuit against them. They clearly offered you a deal that’s raw by most standards, you disputed it, and they’re belligerently refusing to cooperate with your request to be moved. It’s a solid foundation to go on. But Kieran,” she said, looking at me with some genuine uncertainty in her eyes, “I won’t lie, that’s a dream team of lawyers they listed off. Howell and Branson have gotten players off the hook for hit-and-run manslaughter before, with witnesses. It won’t be open and shut by any means.”
“I figured,” I said as I ran my hand through my hair. “They have deep pockets. Fuck, I hate when people with money get off so easy.”
“Hey,” she said, looking me in the eye, “I didn’t say this was out the window. Not by a long shot. I’m going to go ahead and put together what we’ve got for a lawsuit, see what strings I can pull on my end, and we’ll see just how much leverage they’re actually able to bring to court when the time comes.”
“Thanks,” I said, giving her a nod. “If you need to reach me, you know how. In the meantime,” I said, heading for the door, “I’ve got a few things I need to work out…”
***
The training dummy I was wailing on at the Fighting Chance went sailing across the room as I landed another solid punch, and I grunted as I walked over to pick it up.
This gym was where I came to blow off steam. And God, did I have a lot of steam to blow off. I rained down a flurry of blows on the training dummy once it was back on its water-filled stand. I was relentless, just blowing off as much of my energy as I possibly could on this thing. There was nothing I could take out all the aggression on in person, so this piece of synthetic material weighted down with water would have to do.
There were other exercises I could be doing. I practiced parkour a lot, and that was something that I could have a hell of a lot of fun with in a city like Vegas, but I didn’t have the focus for that right now. The thought that I could get back to practically scaling buildings on a whim after all this blew over, though, was something that kept me going, to some degree.
There was something else that fueled my blows, too. The fresh memory of Danielle’s hair in my hands as my tongue delved into her mouth, the feeling of her tight cunt around my cock, her heat spurring me onward as my breath panted in her ear.
The feeling of warmth in my chest just let me put that much more energy into my blows, and once again, I knocked the dummy over, this time sending it rolling towards the door as I rolled my shoulders back with a grunt. As I strode over to the door, it opened, and a familiar figure stepped through and raised an eyebrow at the dummy.
“Got a little aggression to work off, Kieran?” asked Marc Montoya with a laugh, and I smiled, stepping forward to meet him in a firm handshake
“Maybe a little,” I laughed back. “What are you doing here, ya son of a bitch?”
“Came looking for a sparring partner and heard the sound of someone’s ass getting kicked from all the way in the lobby,” he said, nodding to the training dummy, and I scoffed.
“Well if you want to get your ass kicked instead, I’m happy to oblige,” I said with a grin, and Marc stepped in to slip on the pair of sparring gloves he’
d brought with him.
“I dunno, that dummy seems to be doing a pretty good job of keeping you down,” he joked, and we started boxing with one another after moving back to the center of the room.
Marc was a good guy. Every bit as muscular and agile as me, but with his darker skin and black hair, we couldn’t have been more of a contrast as we struck each other on the sparring mat. I moved around him, getting a few blows in before he’d dish them right back, and where it was a struggle to keep my mind focused on the training dummy, Marc had no trouble in keeping my mind focused on the task at hand and off the turmoil outside the gym walls.
That was the beauty of the Fighting Chance. All the athletes here were determined to keep themselves focused on what they really loved, and sometimes, coming to the ring to get your ass kicked was the best way to knock some sense into you. And that was exactly what I needed right now. That was exactly what kept me going, the thought that at the end of the day, no matter what some stuffy managers or team owners or their lawyers dictated, I could come back to a place where I knew people would have my back.
Game On (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) Page 9
