Rough & Ready

by Tracy Wolff

  “Isn’t that what I’m doing?” he asks, thrusting his hips against me so that I come down hard against him. Pleasure skates along my nerve endings, drowns the last of the memories, and with them, the last of my fear.

  “Please,” I tell him, rocking against him a little so that we’re both seeing stars. “I want you to be on top this time.” I want it to be good for him, as good for him as his going down on me was and if that means he’s on top, then I’ll find a way to be okay with it. This is Tanner, I remind myself as I tug at his shoulders. Tanner, who would never hurt me.

  His hand comes up to my chin, his thumb rubbing across my lips in a move that sends shivers down my spine and heat through my sex. “Are you sure?” he growls, his voice so deep now that I can barely understand his words.

  “Yes,” I tell him, tugging at his shoulders in a desperate attempt to get him to top me. “Please. Please, Tanner. I want you. I want—”

  His mouth slams down on mine and then we’re rolling to the center of the bed. But he’s still not on top of me. Instead, we’re side by side, my leg draped over his hip and his arm wrapped around my waist, holding me to him.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him again, trying to roll him.

  He kisses me to shut me up, then says, “You want me to top, so let me top. I want you any way I can have you, Elara.”

  “But I want to give you what you want—”

  “You’re what I want,” he says with a wicked grin that curls my toes and has my nipples beading against his chest. He leans forward, kisses me. Then lifts his head and asks, “This okay?”

  “Yes!” I wrap my leg tighter around his hip, arch against him as heat thrums through me. “Please, please, yes.”

  It must be the confirmation he’s waiting for because he thrusts deep, his hand holding my leg up so that he can open me wider, hold me closer, take me higher. Over and over he thrusts into me as pleasure sizzles along my nerve endings, burning through every part of me. I’ve already come so many times that it never occurred to me that I could come again, but as Tanner slips a hand between us and strokes his thumb across my clit, I know that I’m closer than I could ever have imagined.

  “Please,” I whimper, kissing his chest, his arm, his shoulder—whatever part of him I can reach. He’s hot and sweaty and hard, so hard, and that only takes me higher as he thrusts into me as deep as he can go. “Please, please, please.”

  “I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he tells me for the third time tonight. “You can let go. I promise, I’ve got you.”

  The words—coupled with one last look in his eyes—is all it takes to send me careening over the edge. My orgasm rips through me, a wild, out-of-control ride that has pleasure sweeping through every part of me as my body convulses around him.

  “Fuck,” Tanner growls and then he’s coming, too, heat flowing from him to me and back again as he empties himself inside me in a series of long, deep pulses that touch me so deeply that I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.

  Chapter 20

  Tanner

  “Elara Vance?” Hunter says the second I walk into the cardio room. “You’re dating Elara Vance and you didn’t think to say anything to me.”

  “I didn’t know it would matter to you,” I tell him, leaving out the part about me not knowing who she was until a few minutes before I introduced them. Besides, after what she told me last night, that’s the last thing on my mind.

  I didn’t want to leave her this morning, didn’t want to let go of her when the alarm on her phone went off and she all but pushed me out of her arms, out of her bed, out of her house. I know it’s because she didn’t want me to be late for training camp, but my job was the last thing on my mind. All I wanted was to hold her until I could convince myself that she really is okay.

  “Didn’t know it would matter?” Hunter squawks as he finishes his warm-up and boosts the speed on the treadmill up to a fast jog. “Are you fucking kidding me? It’s Elara Vance, the best center to ever play for the Phantoms. Maybe the best to ever play for the WNBA.”

  Yeah, she’s all that, I want to say to him. She’s all that and more and it still wasn’t enough to keep some chickenshit motherfucker from hurting her. From fucking drugging her and raping her in her own fucking bed just for his own sick pleasure.

  Now that she’s not around to distract me, to beg me to kiss her and make love to her, the rage is back in full force. It’s seething inside me again, roiling around until all I can think about is wrapping my hands around the throat of the asshole who hurt her and squeezing until his fucking eyes bug out of his fucking head.

  I’ve never understood men who get off on hurting women, have never understood what fucked-up power trip they’re feeding or how they can live with themselves once they’ve done it. I sure as shit can’t understand how some fucking baller could be such a dickass coward that he’d drug his own girlfriend just to tie her up and hurt her when she’s asleep. What kind of sick motherfucker—

  “Hey, are you even listening to me?” Hunter demands.

  I swallow down the fury, try to focus on stretching out as I turn to look at him. “What?”

  “I was telling you how I tried to ask Elara out her last year as a player. I got as far as introducing myself at a party before she shot me down, hard. Said she didn’t date ballers, ever.”

  “Yeah, she’s mentioned that.” And nope, there’s no tamping this shit down. It’s like every breath I take is just delivering oxygen to the flames.

  “Yet, she’s dating you.”

  I shoot him a hard glare. “Your point?”

  “That you must be doing something right. Jesus.” He holds his hands up in an I surrender-type gesture. “Who the fuck pissed in your granola this morning?”

  I just shake my head, afraid that if I try to answer, the whole sordid story will come pouring the fuck out of my mouth and it’s not my story to tell—especially not in the middle of a room full of pro athletes who might actually know Elara.

  Eventually Hunter gives up trying to talk to me and boosts the speed on his treadmill until he’s in a flat-out run, one that keeps him from doing anything but breathing and concentrating on not falling off the damn machine.

  Which is more than fine with me right now. Yeah, I want to talk to him about what Elara told me, but the truth is even if we weren’t in this damn room, I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to say. I can’t think clearly around the fury in my head, can barely breathe around the weight that’s been sitting on my chest since last night when Elara told me what had happened to her.

  I keep thinking about Jeremy Knox and Steve Bradford, keep wondering which one of them it was who did this to her. I’m glad I ruled out LaShawn—I’ve always thought he was a great guy. Part of me wonders if he knows, wonders if he’d tell me if he did. And how the hell would that even happen anyway? How the fuck do you ask a guy if he knows about his ex’s asshole ex who used to beat and rape her while she was fucking sleeping? Yeah, pretty sure that plan isn’t going to work.

  But something has to because I need to know who it is. Need to know who’s going on, living his like nothing fucking happened, while the woman I’m starting to fall in love with suffers every time she climbs into her own goddamn bed.

  Fuuuuuuuuuck.

  I want to hit something so bad I can taste it, want to take a baseball bat to every machine in this goddamn room and maybe—maybe—it’ll alleviate one percent of the fury inside me right now. Maybe.

  Since beating the shit out of the workout room isn’t in the cards, I turn up the speed on the treadmill and start running as hard as Hunter. Because right now, it’s that or let my fucking head explode.

  I need to know who the fuck he is.

  I don’t know what I’m going to do when I figure it out, but I’m going to do something. Because no way does that motherfucker get away this. No way does the son of a
bitch just get to keep on playing ball when he fucking preyed on the woman who loved him—the woman he was supposed to protect. And no fucking way does he get to keep on keeping on when he fucking hurt Elara the way he did.

  No fucking way.

  Goddamn, motherfucking, sonofa—The curses just keep coming, words and rage pouring through me as I run, like gasoline on a five-alarm fire. All I can think about is Elara, all I can see is her curled in on herself as she tells me what happened. Elara, who’s always so strong and powerful and in your face, looked devastated. No, she looked broken, in a way I’m not sure can ever be fully put back together again.

  I mean, sure, she’s done amazing things since it happened. Had a great career with the WNBA. Built an amazing rec center where she impacts the lives of who knows how many kids. Made a life for herself away from the son of a bitch who hurt her when she was at her most vulnerable.

  But that didn’t stop her from crying in her sleep last night after we made love and it didn’t stop the nightmare that had her screaming at six this morning. I should know—I’m the one who jumped out of bed, terrified that me being too close was hurting her even though she never woke up. And I’m the one who eventually crawled back in beside her and whispered to her that I’d take care of it. That I’d make it so he could never hurt her or another woman ever again.

  I aim to keep that promise. I will keep it—I may not know how yet, but I will. As soon as I figure out who the fuck he is.

  “Whoa, whoa, Tanner! What’re you doing, man?”

  I come back to myself to see Lacey dialing down the speed and the incline on the treadmill I’m on. A glance around shows that Hunter’s long gone and Vik and Darnell are staring at me like I’ve lost my damn mind. And maybe I have. God knows, there’s nothing in it right now but Elara and a red haze of rage so all-consuming I can almost taste it.

  “I think that’s enough treadmill for today,” Lacey tells me after she finally gets me slowed down to a walk. “I know we’ve got you working out on the field with the receivers and running backs, but no one expects you to run faster than they do, dude. Especially when you’ve got the incline all the way up. Why don’t you head on into the weight room, get some of that energy out in there?”

  I nod, wiping my face with the towel she hands me. Then, as soon as I’ve got my breath back, I ask the question I didn’t even know I was going to ask. “Do you know?”

  She looks at me, baffled. “Do I know what?”

  It was a dumb question, one I had no business asking—especially here in the middle of the training room. But I still want to know the answer.

  “About Elara,” I ask.

  “Elara? You mean about how she yelled at you in the locker room?” She turns white under her perennially tanned skin. “I’m really sorry about that—”

  “I don’t give a shit about that,” I growl as I take a swig of water. “Do. You. Know?”

  She looks confused, wary. “I’m pretty sure I don’t even know enough to know what you’re talking about,” she finally says. “Do you want me to call Elara—”

  “No!” The word comes out a little more forceful than I intend, but I don’t care. It gets the job done. And at least now I can be reasonably certain I’m not working with a woman who knows how hurt Elara was and who did absolutely nothing about it.

  “I’m good, thanks,” I tell her right before I drain my water in one long swallow. I sound abrupt as fuck, but it’s absolutely the best I can do right now.

  Then I head for the weight room.

  Hunter and Shawn are already there when I walk in. Shawn’s on the bench press and Hunter’s spotting him. They stop talking the second I walk in, which is a pretty good indicator they’re talking about me. Not that I give a shit right now.

  I think about taking one of the benches on the other side of the room, but I know my friends well enough to know they’ll just move over to where I am. So fuck it. I walk over to the bench next to Shawn’s and start loading up the bar with as much weight as I can handle.

  Sure enough, as soon as I do, Shawn’s bar clinks into home position. Then he and Hunter are both crowding around me.

  “What the hell was that in there, man? It’s like you didn’t even hear me when I was talking to you.”

  I didn’t, but no need to tell him that. “Nothing.” I add another weight to both sides and lock them in place.

  “From what I can tell, it was definitely something,” Shawn says. “And judging from the look of you, it’s still something. What the fuck is going on, Tan?”

  I just shake my head before lying down on the bench and putting my hands in position on the bar. Maybe lifting until my arms are Jell-O will help calm me the fuck down, because the treadmill sure as shit didn’t. But Hunter puts a hand on the bar before I can even get it off its rest, then pushes down to keep it in place.

  I press harder, enough to lift it an inch or so off the stand, but with the weight I put on—combined with Hunter’s counterpressure—that’s the best I can do. “What the fuck, asshole?” I finally demand.

  “Okay, that’s it,” he snaps, eyes narrowed in the way he gets right before he runs the ball seventy yards through an entire defense to get a touchdown. “What the fuck crawled up your ass between last night and this morning?”

  “Do you know Jeremy Knox or Steve Bradford?” The question comes out before I even know I’m going to ask it.

  “Who?” Tanner looks baffled. “The basketball players?”

  “Yeah, the basketball players.”

  “This about Elara?” Shawn asks, surprised. “You two looked like you were having a good time last night.”

  “And what the fuck do two L.A. ballers have to do with the story?” Hunter adds.

  Before I can figure out how to answer either question, Shawn walks over to the main door and slams it shut, right in two rookies’ faces. Then he locks it.

  “Use the fucking weight room next door,” he shouts when they rattle the door, start to yank on the handle.

  They must take him at his word, because the rattling stops. And no one else tries to walk in, either. Then again, my temper is legendary. It takes a hell of a lot to get me riled, but once it happens it takes a long fucking time for me to come back down. Maybe they’re all just trying to stay the shit out of the blast radius.

  “Now that we’re alone, you want to tell us what the fuck turned you rabid?” Hunter demands. “Or are we just supposed to guess?”

  There’s so much I want to say that I don’t even know where to start. At the same time, though, this is Elara’s story, not mine. I don’t have the right to tell it—even to my two closest friends.

  At the same time, though, I need to get some perspective. Need to find some fucking chill before I see Elara again, cuz God knows that woman’s been through enough.

  “Knox and Bradford are two of Elara’s exes.”

  “And?” Shawn asks warily, but I can see in his eyes that he already knows what’s up. Because he knows me, and knows that the fastest way to make me batshit crazy is to mess with a woman—especially if it’s a woman I care about. I couldn’t take care of Allison and I sure as shit couldn’t save her. But that only makes me more determined to take care of my sisters and now Elara, only makes me more determined that she never suffer again the way she did all those years ago.

  “And we were talking last night. She told me some really shitty stuff about her past, including the fact that one of her exes hurt her.”

  That’s about as explicit as I feel comfortable getting, but it’s obvious they know what I’m saying—and what I’m not. “She didn’t tell you which one of them did it?” Hunter asks. “Just that he was a player?”

  “Yeah. I spent three or four hours combing through articles online, trying to figure out who her exes are. Based on what she said, I narrowed it down to the two of them.”


  “What kind of dick hurts a woman like that?” Hunter growls. “How fucked up and cowardly do you have to be?”

  “More important than why he’s fucking twisted is how are we going to figure out which one it is.” I don’t think Shawn even realizes his hands are clenched into fists. “I mean, if your girl won’t tell you.”

  “And what are we going to do about it once you do figure it out?” Hunter demands.

  “We?” I ask, brows raised.

  “Yeah, we. Obviously.”

  The fact that they’re with me on this matters. And it also gives me the first whiff of sanity I’ve had all damn morning. And that sanity finally gets me thinking. “First thing I’m going to do is figure out how to calm the fuck down. After that, I’m going to start asking around. The shit he did to her…you don’t just start with that shit and you sure as hell don’t end there either…unless someone makes you.”

  Hunter’s face turns dark, and I can see the wheels turning as he tries to figure out just how bad of shit we’re dealing with here. “So you don’t think she’s the only one.”

  “No fucking way. She hasn’t gotten there yet, but I know it in my gut.”

  “Okay, then. Someone has to know something,” Shawn says. “You can’t hide that shit forever, no matter how many people you threaten. Knox and I share an agency. I’ll see if my agent’s heard anything. And Hunter knows everyone—he can put out feelers, see what comes back.”

  “I do,” Hunter agrees with a nod. “I’ll see what I can see. But again, what are we going to do when we find out?”

  “That’s easy. I’m going to try really hard not to kill him. Then I’m going to hire a private detective to get as much dirt on him and his bullshit as I can. Once that’s done, I’m going to burn his life and his career—contract, endorsements, everything—to the motherfucking ground. And no one is going to stop me.”

  “Stop you?” Hunter says like the idea is ludicrous. “You mean stop us. And I’d like to see them try. Whoever hurt her is going down hard and there’s not a damn thing anyone is going to be able to do to prevent it.” He glances at me then. “We’ve got your back on this, Tanner.”