by Aubrey Irons
Daryl chuckles and claps me on the back. “Twenty-three, a first round draft pick, a sweet new bachelor pad up in the hills, and a forty-mil contract.” He snorts. “And now is when you decided to settle down with one woman? The fuck is wrong with you, rookie?”
What’s wrong with me indeed.
It’s the question that’s been looming over my thoughts ever since Natalie locked herself away in her room after our craziness in the living room the night before. It’s the question rattling through my head ever since I almost followed her up there like some sort of pussy-whipped, well, pussy.
Fucking married life, man.
I needed to get out. And hell, I should be here, even if I hate the place. I’m a damn NFL player; it’s practically in my contract to be out at clubs acting like a rock-star.
Eli cracks up as he and Daryl clink beers over the pounding of the house music. “You’re in your prime, young buck!”
I get that the whole marriage thing has to be a secret, even to guys on the inside like Eli and Daryl who for all I know have the same sort of arrangement going on with fake media-wives of their own. Except - as Derek reiterated by way of yelling when I called him after the thirty-nine text messages, six voice mails, and an email the size of the Old Testament he’d left when my phone was off - “you just don’t talk about it.”
Apparently, these bullshit “image-wives” are commonplace, except it’s like that fight movie - “the first rule of fake wives club is, you don’t talk about fake wives club.”
This town is insane.
This whole “image” thing rests on me showing the American public that they don’t have to lock up their daughters whenever my face shows up on the television. It rests on me looking like I’ve turned the corner from wild, womanizing, party boy to the sagely, family-friendly, Disney-fied married man. It’s about showing the world that I’ve put all my wickedness behind me, all for the love of a woman.
Which is of course all complete bullshit, but that sweet, sweet endorsement money is pretty damn motivating.
“I mean, she’s a great girl,” Kyle says, taking a pull from his beer. He grins my way. “You know, I’m proud of you man. I think you’ve really turned a corner with this one.”
I shoot him a look. He knows the truth, and while an outsider might look at it as him “protecting” the secret, I know the little shit well enough to know he’s messing with me.
He grins back, chuckling to himself.
Asshole.
“Yeah, well, hope you enjoyed all the pussy you got up until this very moment, kid.” Eli chuckles, shaking his head. “Because that ship has sailed. Great girl or not, good fucking luck getting laid now.”
I clear my throat, ready to play the part. “Hey, I mean, I went into this knowing it meant one girl from here on-”
Eli and Daryl laugh, and I furrow my brow. “What?”
“One girl?” Daryl snorts.
“Yeah, bro, I didn’t mean your days of chasing college girls and cheerleaders were over, I meant your days of using your dick at all are over. Period.” Eli grins as he clinks his bottle of beer against mine. “Welcome to married life, kid.”
I frown. “You’re married?”
“Fuck no!” He laughs, almost spitting beer out of his nose. “Cause I’ve done it twice. Daryl’s in the middle of dropping his third right now.”
Daryl shrugs. “This life doesn’t mesh with the normal life, kid. You’re rich, you’re young, you’re traveling all the time, and every single girl you meet wants a piece of you. There ain’t no room for ‘one and onlys’ and ‘happy ever afters’ with that kind of pressure.”
“Oh, but happy endings you get whenever you want though, buddy.” Eli grins. His eyes light up. “Ooo, we should set you up with Lori, from the cheer squad.” He pantomimes crossing himself. “A mouth like a fucking artist, let me tell you.”
I frown into my beer as Eli and Daryl crack up again and the music pounds loud around us.
Like I said, I hate clubs, but now and again, you just gotta get lost outside yourself somewhere.
Accosting me at my fucking house is a new one, but being rich, young, and famous drags all kinds of leeches like Tina out of the woodwork. Tina, who’s still trying to threaten me with with this media bullshit about me knocking her up, which would be a pretty fucking amazing feat considering I’ve never laid a hand on her, much less ejaculated inside her.
Except Derek’s right. If she puts up enough of a stink about this, it’s going to get ugly.
“QB! Let’s go!” Daryl nods his chin at me with a small army of club girls giggling around him. “We’ve got the limo outside, gonna head to that new club.”
I turn back to Kyle who grimaces as we both knock back shots and slam the glasses back on the bar top.
“You ready?”
He makes a face. “Nah, I’m out, man.”
I frown. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, it’s late,” he says with a shrug.
“Kyle, you’re a newly minted millionaire, you’re twenty-three, and you’re at a club in LA with three professional football players.”
He laughs. “And now I’m going home.”
I shake my head at him. “Do you even comprehend how many different ways you could be getting laid right now?”
He grins and claps me on the back. “I got stuff to do, man. And hell, don’t you have practices starting in like two days?”
“Yeah, but we’ve got four guys worth a collective hundred million dollars, a limo, a city to conquer, and that-” I stick a finger back in the direction of the club-girl army.
Kyle shakes his head. “Dude,” he leans in. “You know I fucking hate clubs.”
“Well, me too pal, but I happen to really like the girls who come to them.”
He grins and shakes his head. “How about the one waiting at home?” He clicks his tongue in the way he does that makes it sound like he’s scolding you. “You know, your wife?”
I give him a look. “Really?”
“Fake, real…whatever man. I’m just saying.”
“Saying what.”
He laughs and holds his hands up. “She seems cool, that’s all.” He shrugs. “Seems like she could be good for you.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t see her storming away and locking herself in her room like a total drama queen.”
“After you pulled something stupid, I assume?”
I frown as Kyle rolls his eyes at my silence.
“You got the part where she’s my employee, right?”
He gives me a look. “Oh, that’s the issue here, huh?”
I flip him off. “I do have lines I don’t cross, you know.”
Kyle hoots. “Married women, groupie skanks, that professor of ours back in college - oh, the barely legal junior commissioner’s daughter?” He scratches his head and gives me a faux-sympathetic look. “Sorry, was there a line there somewhere I missed?”
I scowl at him.
“Just sayin’, man,” he says with a shrug. “Might be nice to stop pulling the same shit everyone expects you to pull. Aim higher, man.”
I raise a brow at him. “Nice pep talk, really.”
He grins and shakes his head. “Sorry. Look, ignore me man. I’m the guy that’s about to go home and code until five o’clock in the morning.”
“Rookie! Let’s go!” Eli hollers at me from the door to the club.
Kyle claps me on the back. “Go out and have fun, man.”
Gee, thanks.
The problem is, he’s right, and I know it.
The problem is that the whole limo-ride over to this new club - with two scantily clad models, or actresses or whatever the fuck they are squirming on my lap - him being right and who he’s right about is the only thing playing through my head.
And I’m very quickly not feeling this at all.
The same two girls are all over me once we’re in the next club - dragging me out to the dance floor and grinding against me. One’s got her lips on my ne
ck while the other one starts to pull my hand under her skirt.
And all I can think about is Natalie, and the other night.
“She’s not wearing any panties.”
“Huh?”
I blink back to the here and now, there on the dance floor of that shitty club. The girl at my neck giggles this awful laugh as she leans into my ear again. “She’s not wearing any panties,” she whispers again, nodding at the other girl grinding on me trying to pull my hand under her skirt. The girl at my neck traces her fingernails across my chest through my shirt. “Neither am I,” she husks.
Fuck this. I can’t do this.
I pull away from the two girls. “Maybe some other time, honey,” I mumble, ignoring the looks they give me. “You know, poor Daryl over there is going through a divorce, why don’t you go say hi to him?” I nod towards my teammate who already has four club-girls all over him before I turn and just walk away.
And part of it is press, sure…at least, that’s what I’m telling myself as I grit my teeth and storm out of the club. Part of it is wondering about whatever pictures will show up on gossip blogs or on Facebook or whatever of me cavorting around drunk at some party with an armful of scantily clad girls when I’m supposed to be a newly minted married man.
But that’s really all secondary bullshit, and I know it. Because I’m not thinking about the girls all over this club that’ll say yes to whatever I ask.
I’m thinking of the girl in my house that keeps saying no.
I’m thinking of my wife.
And this is a problem Because this whole thing is supposed to give the appearance of me being less of a pussy-chasing horn-dog, not actually stopping me. But somehow, for whatever bewildering reason, Natalie Ames is in deep.
And I want to go deeper.
I want more, now.
I want to feel her, skin-to-skin, with those long legs wrapped around my waist. I want to feel her honey dripping down my cock as she rides me, and I want to watch her face go to pieces as I slip those legs over my shoulders and fuck her hard and deep.
Hell, I’m paying her enough.
The thought stings through my head like a bard, and I scowl as I slam the door to my Vanquish shut.
Fuck no.
She’s right. The idea of that being some sort of trade-off for the money makes the whole thing sound sordid and dirty - and not in a good way. And besides that, I’m sure as hell not paying for sex.
I mean please, it’s me.
I don’t pay to get laid, and especially not when it’s my damn wife.
So, Natalie wants to say no because of the money, even though its fucking obvious how much we both want this?
I grin as I turn on the car and rev the engine.
Sounds like a challenge. And if she thinks I’m the kind of guy that shies away from a challenge, well, she hasn’t been paying attention.
My cock throbs in my pants as I roar back through downtown LA towards the hills, my mind on one, single thing.
I’m going to have her begging for it, and that’s a promise.
22
Austin
The house is dark, but there’s the faint sound of music from upstairs.
Where’s my wife.
I can’t stop saying it. It’s like there’s something possessive about the way it sounds that pulls at something primal and something caveman inside of me.
I follow the music up the stairs, hearing it get louder and louder as I make my way down the hallway towards her bedroom door. There’s no plan here, only this burning, roaring need to bring this whole thing to a head, right here and right now.
No more games. No more using this idea of us being employer and employee as this absurd excuse to deny the obvious magnetic pull between us.
I pause just outside her door, the sound of loud, raucous country music blasting from her room.
I grin. None of that obnoxious club music, no bullshit light beer, and no clingy club-skanks with their hands all over me.
Looks like the party was right here all along.
I grin as I twist the knob and swing the door wide open.
I freeze at the sight of Natalie, standing right there in the middle of the room.
Totally. Fucking. Naked.
She shrieks instantly, jumping away and snatching at the covers on her bed, which only has the effect of presenting her perfect, sweet little peach of an ass to me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!?”
She whirls back to me, holding a sheet to her body as she reaches over and turns down the music. She glares at me. “Ever heard of knocking?”
“Yeah, but I’m seriously inclined to skip it from now on.”
Her face goes bright red and she glares at me again. “Well?” she says indignantly.
I grin as I lean against the door frame, my eyes hungrily taking in the scene in front of me. “I mean, it’s nothing I haven’t seen bef-”
“Would you please look away?” She groans, shooting me a look.
“No.”
The room goes still as her eyes go wide. There’s country music playing softly in the background, a warm breeze coming in through the double doors from the terrace, and damn if I can’t stop staring at how fucking beautiful she is.
We stand there for a moment, both of us glaring at the other, our eyes saying all the shit the silence isn’t. There’s a flush to her cheeks and something she clearly wants to say hanging on her lips.
But we say nothing at all.
I can feel the blood and beast roaring inside as I move into the room, my eyes locked on her standing there as I step towards her.
“You can’t just come in here,” she says softly, still holding that sheet to her flawless, nude body.
“It’s my house.”
Her lip quivers. “Well it’s my room.”
I take another step towards her, my eyes never leaving hers. I watch as she rakes her teeth across her bottom lip, and that small little gesture gets my cock throbbing hard as stone.
“What do you want.”
“I just wanted to say goodnight to my wife.” I watch her chest rise and fall with her breath.
“Where were you.”
I grin. “Hey, just like a real married couple.”
Her cheeks flush and she drops her chin down to hide the small smile there.
“I was at a club with some friends.”
She looks up, her eyes flashing something she’s clearly trying to hide, and I keep going, because I have to push this.
I have to push her.
“Just some drinks, some dancing.” I pause. “Some girls.”
I can watch the fire blaze up in her bright blue eyes when I say it, her whole body tensing as she bristles.
“Good thing we’re not a real couple or you might just be jealous.”
She swallows quickly and nods icily. “Good thing.”
I step closer.
“You said goodnight, you can go now,” she says quietly, her eyes flitting across mine and her perfect pink lips pursed like a thin white line across her face.
I’m rapidly approaching the point of no return here. She’s standing there like a fucking goddess, chewing on her lip, her eyes flashing fire at me, and her pulse beating quickly in the hollow of her neck. I can see the hard nubs of her nipples poking teasingly out from the sheet in front of her chest.
“Not yet I didn’t.”
“Well say it.”
Jesus, I want her. I mean I really want her - her as in all of her, not just her body, as much as I want that.
And it scares the shit out of me.
I want every single inch of her, her present and her past. I want to know her better than anyone has before. And I want her because she’s not throwing herself at me - because she’s at no point ever wanted me for what people think I should be from the media bullshit and the hype surrounding me.
She stands there, defiant, holding her ground, not giving in, and not doing what so many other girls I know would do here in
this moment.
And that’s when it hits me.
I want her because she doesn’t want me.
I move closer, and I can’t even stop myself.
“Austin-”
Her eyes dart across mine as she clutches the sheet in her fists.
“What are you-”
“Saying goodnight.”
And then I’m kissing her - kissing her harder and fiercer than I’ve ever kissed a woman in my entire life. I’m pouring every single thing I have no fucking clue how to say into that kiss as she melts into me.
It’s fierce, and wild, and she’s moaning into me, kissing me back.
But there’s something missing, and I know it. This is need, not want. Her tongue is sliding into my mouth, and my hands are moving down to cup her perfect, bare ass. And I’m roaring inside for this. I’m tied up and twisted in her arms with those satin lips against mine.
But it’s not quite right, because she’s right with what she said before.
There’s a power dynamic here that feels fucked up and wrong. Because damn if she isn’t kissing me right back, and molding that tight little body against mine through the sheet, but I know it’s because I’ve pushed and teased and wound her up to this moment.
And with literally any other girl, I’d be more than fine letting this happen. Anyone standing here basically naked in my arms and I’d be bending her over that bed, tangling my hand in her hair, and sliding every thick inch of my cock deep inside of her.
But this isn’t working, not like this.
Not with her.
Because I want her to want me, not just give in to me.
Every other part of me but that one traitorous thought screams at me to shut the fuck up, but it won’t be ignored.
She has to want me.
And that’s going to be the fun part, if I can survive it.
She’s sucking at my lip as I pull away, moving my mouth to her ear to brush against the lobe there.
“Natalie.”
“Yes?”
I growl into her ear. “Natalie.”
“Austin-”
“Goodnight.”
She freezes as I pull away, grinning.
She blinks, her breath coming in staggered gasps and her lips bright red and marked from my kisses.
