by Melody Anne
He pulled off his shirt and knelt between her legs, nuzzling her thigh. He stroked his hand up her leg, from her ankle to the edge of her underwear, leaving a trail of goose bumps in his wake. Slowly, he rose to his feet and settled on top of her. His hands found her bra strap and eased it off her shoulder, revealing her nipple. He pulled the pink bud into his mouth, lavishing her with his tongue. She struggled underneath him as he teased her relentlessly, trying to wrap her legs around his waist to find some relief, but she was trapped beneath the heavy weight of his thighs. She writhed uncontrollably and gripped his shoulders. His powerful muscles flexed beneath her hands.
Heat built in her core like a bomb ready to explode. One touch was all she needed to set her off, but Gabe denied her release, moving on to her other breast instead. He suckled her until she whimpered and begged.
“Touch me. Please, Gabe, I’m so wet.”
He released her nipple slowly and raised his gaze to hers. A wicked grin spread across his face. “I don’t believe you.”
She gasped.
He gripped her inner thigh firmly, possessively, and rubbed small circles with his thumb. “I need to see for myself.” He slunk down her body. The roughness of his jeans created a delicious friction against her hypersensitive skin. He kissed her knee and worked his way up her thigh. He paused a fraction of an inch from the spot she desperately needed him to be. His warm breath teased her, like a whisper of ecstasy and agony.
She mustered her resolve, knowing he wouldn’t move until she begged. “No more waiting. I need you.”
He licked, sending the most delicious sensation through her body, working his tongue with preternatural skill. In what must have been a fit of insanity, she reached for his head and urged him to stop. “Wait. Together. I want you to come with me. In me.”
He studied her intensely for a few beats with a predatory gaze, then nodded. He rose to his feet and unzipped his jeans. Lainey didn’t wait patiently. She launched forward and tugged them down. His boxers came next. She wrapped her hand around his beautiful erection, greedily stroking while he leaned over and reached for a condom in the nightstand.
“If you don’t slow down, we won’t be coming together, babe.” He handed her the wrapper, letting her unroll the condom along his thick, heavy length while he stood in front of her like an all-powerful god and caressed her hair. Even though he’d teased her into a frenzy of need, she worked slowly to savor the moment, not knowing how many more chances there’d be to have him in her grips like this.
Gabe, however, was clearly no longer in the mood to wait. He pressed her shoulders back until she was once again resting on the bed and entered with a swift, demanding thrust. She wrapped her legs around his waist, meeting him thrust for thrust, as though even microscopic distance between them was too much to bear. His eyes never left hers as he made love to her, driving himself into her body like he was trying to give her his soul. When the first whisper of glorious climax left her lips, he cried out with her.
WITH TWENTY-FOUR HOURS of near flood-level downpour, they spent the next day and night doing nothing but making love in every room of Gabe’s house. When the morning of the final battle rolled around, dread crept upon Lainey. Their time together was almost up, and Gabe still hadn’t asked her to reconsider their deal. Though he made love to her like she was more important to him than the air he breathed, he’d never once brought up the word “love” since he’d teased her a week and a half ago in her apartment. It was all coming to an end.
She rolled over in the bed, careful not to disturb a still-sleeping Gabe, whose arm was slung around her chest, holding her tightly to him. Some people looked younger, more vulnerable, when they slept. Not Gabe. He looked like a man, confident and sure of himself. His perfect, kissable lips beckoned her. She brushed her own against them, delighting in the moan that rumbled from him as he snuggled more closely to her.
“Are you up?” she whispered.
He ground his hips into hers, pressing into her core with his erection. “In more ways than one,” he said, eyes still shut.
Lainey freed her arm from his embrace and swatted his shoulder. “It’s game day, remember? No sex on game day. Your rules.”
His expression sobered. With lightning speed, he shifted on top of her and kissed her like his life depended on it. “Maybe it’ll be canceled,” he said when they came up for air.
She raised her eyebrows doubtfully.
“Well, if we can’t have amazing monkey sex this morning, then let’s at least have some coffee. Hang on, I’ll be right back.” Stark naked, he disappeared into the hallway.
He reemerged with two mugs emitting waves of aromatic heaven throughout the room. One was a typical white mug that probably existed in every household across the continent, and the other a decidedly atypical hideous green-and-red mess.
“My mug!” She reached for the disaster she’d painted more than a week ago. “I forgot about it.”
“No way. Finders keepers. This one’s for you.” He lifted it to his lips, out of her grasp, and held out the white one to her. “I picked it up with my plate a few days ago.” It was stupid and inconsequential, but seeing him with her ugly mug at his lips made her heart melt.
She was about to take her first sip when her phone interrupted her. “Who would call at this hour?”
“Ignore it,” he said, pulling her mug out of her hand and setting it on the nightstand with his. He planted gentle kisses on her spine as she reached for her pants on the floor.
His phone buzzed a second later. With a heavy sigh, he leaned over, perfect ass on display, and dug his phone out of his jeans, which had also been lying on the floor for the past two days. He answered tersely, swore, then hung up and tossed his phone on the floor. She ran her hands along the hard muscles that corded from his shoulders to his back.
“Almost half an inch of rainfall over the weekend. The powers that be are saying Chester Stadium isn’t fit for a charity match.”
“The game’s canceled?”
“Nope,” he said ruefully. “Last-minute venue change. We’re playing at Cricket Field this afternoon. Rain doesn’t damage Astroturf like grass.”
She tried to think of something kind and reassuring to say, but she couldn’t. The irony was too much for her. She fell back against the mattress and laughed. He shot her a pointed glare, which only made her laugh harder, chest heaving with exertion as she tried to calm herself.
After a few moments, he cracked a smile. Then gave a small half laugh, half exhale. And then he was done for. He dropped down beside her laughing.
“Wow, perhaps life doesn’t always go exactly as Gabe ‘Hometown Hero’ Havelak plans?”
“You’re in my bed, aren’t you?” He tickled her sides mercilessly, making her scream.
“Okay, okay, lesson learned. Do not tease Gabe,” she said when he released her. “Honestly, it’ll be fine. It’s one game. Nothing bad will happen.”
“What about you? You’re the captain of the Falcons. Doesn’t that worry you?”
“I’ve been through worse before, and I came out okay.”
Lying next to her, he grabbed her hands and held them to his chest. “You missed out on the most important moment of your life. I hate that that happened to you. I would move mountains to let you relive that day properly.”
Her heart squeezed. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. But I meant what I said. I’m a fighter, and so are you. If I’m not meant to win a championship with the Falcons, then so be it. I’ll pour my heart and soul into whatever new team I’m on until I get that trophy. So will you.”
“That’s the difference between you and me. You’re at the beginning of your career. You’re young and hungry for the win. I’m at the end, and I know I’ll never win the World Cup. Hell, I doubt I’ll ever come close to an ASL championship, but even if I did, I don’t know that I’d want it if it wasn’t with the Surge.”
“You really love your team, huh?”
“I
t’s not just the team. It’s everything. This is my home. I know I’m getting old, and if I get injured, I’ll be traded in an instant. Here, I’m the Hometown Hero. I don’t want to play out my days as a New York Nobody or—”
“A Houston Has-been? Pittsburgh Passed-over?”
He tickled her again, making her squirm and squeal. The torture didn’t end until he planted a steamy kiss on her lips.
“We can’t cancel the game just because of Cricket Field. The whole city is choosing sides and rooting for their favorites. Think of how many side bets rest upon our shoulders. How many little boys or girls are about to be disappointed when their idol is bested.”
Gabe laughed. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that, and what it means for our fans. I’ve got an idea.”
Lainey kept her mind open as she listened to his proposal. By the end, she was more excited for this dreaded day than she’d ever thought possible.
22
This is it, folks. Today is the day we declare the winners of Seattle’s Battle of the Sexes. Will it be our beloved, longtime fan favorites, the Surge? Or will the new kids in town, the explosively entertaining Falcons, walk away with the championship? Fans are filling the seats at Cricket Field to find out. Hold on, what’s happening? It looks like Havelak and Lukas have yet another unexpected twist in store for us . . .
GABE HAD NEVER DISAPPOINTED his fans before, and he wasn’t about to start now. If they were going to sit out in the rain to watch him, Lainey, and their respective teammates battle it out, he was damn well going to put on a good show.
Seconds after the coin toss, five Surge players walked over to the Falcons side of the field and switched jerseys with their counterparts, shocking the crowd with their refusal to allow one sex to be declared superior. The decision to mix teams was one Gabe and Lainey had come to with surprising ease. If their own relationship were any kind of example, Seattle’s soccer community would be stronger if the Surge and Falcons were allies instead of adversaries. Luckily, their teammates all agreed. Turned out Gabe and Lainey had been the only ones taking this rivalry personally all along.
Gabe forced out all negative thoughts about the damn potholes beneath his feet and readied himself for the game of his life. The ticket holders didn’t seem to mind the last-minute venue change, despite the metal benches being ice-cold and none of the concession stands serving beer. Still, he needed to suck it up and play out one more match on this uneven shit hole for the sake of the fans. It was one game, and if he was cautious, he’d make it through unscathed and never set foot on this field again.
From across the field, he made eye contact with Lainey, who’d been strategizing with Aiden at center field. She mimed shooting him with a finger gun.
“Don’t let her get to you,” Alyssa said cheerfully, slapping him on the shoulder. “It’s a friendly competition.”
“She looks like she wants to rip out my guts and eat them for breakfast.”
“That? Nah. That’s her friendly face.”
“What’s her not-so-friendly face?”
“You ever come up close to a hungry grizzly bear in the wild? It’s kind of like that moment the grizzly goes from stalking you to devouring you with its giant teeth.”
Gabe took the time to process that thought and nearly missed the ref’s whistle. Lainey tapped the ball to Aiden standing a couple of feet next to her, and then the two were off like dueling streaks of lightning, winding through Gabe’s team with a series of superfast give-and-go passes. Before he had a chance to react to the attack, Lainey fired a shot from the edge of the box. Helplessly, Gabe watched the ball sail toward the far corner of the net. Joe dove valiantly, but it was out of his reach.
The ball hit the post with a ferocious boom, rebounded out toward a defender, and eventually bounced out for a corner kick.
Lainey shrugged, but her eyes sparkled dangerously.
Game on indeed.
He’d been worried about playing against women and whether his naturally larger size and strength would be too much. Not that he dared mention that to Lainey, of course. But he had once witnessed a man break another man’s ankle with nothing but the force of a simple, clean tackle. Some level of restraint was necessary, but not so much that Lainey would spot it as a weakness and take advantage of it.
With that last shot, though, the gauntlet had clearly been thrown. Gabe didn’t hold back for the corner kick. He jostled Lainey relentlessly as they awaited the kick, bumping her and tugging at her jersey. When Aiden finally launched the ball their way, Gabe used all the force in his body to rise over her and clear the ball with a fierce header, nearly crumpling her in the midair challenge. His raw pride was summarily replaced with regret. Did he hurt her? Did he bring up traumatizing memories of her head injury?
Lainey accepted the hand he reached out to her, pulled herself to her feet, and dusted the mud and grass off her shorts. The sparkle in her eye and wicked smile were still there.
For the next hour and a half, Gabe and Lainey led their respective teams in one of the liveliest and most entertaining and competitive games he’d ever played. Apparently the mishmash of Surge and Falcons, which was intended to foster sportsmanship and a positive respect for the gender differences for their fans, did not diminish the fighting spirit in anyone. Everything was going so well, he almost forgot about the bloody curse.
The score was 2–1 for Lainey’s side, with about twenty minutes left. Gabe sent a long pass slicing through the midfield to Jaime, who was making a phenomenal run to the corner. She picked up the ball without breaking her stride, driving toward the box. She blew past the Falcons midfielder on the left flank. Johnny cut back to help his flailing defense, and went in for a tackle. It was a clean contact, but Jaime, who had momentum on her side, managed to push past Johnny’s outstretched foot. Excitement swelled in Gabe’s heart. This was a lucky run, and nothing would get in her way . . .
Jaime stumbled a half step after Johnny’s tackle. She cried out and went down hard, clutching her right leg.
Johnny jogged to Gabe, a look of horror in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt her! I swear it was a clean tackle.”
Gabe put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “I know, I saw. It wasn’t your fault.” He knew his leadership meant a lot to the younger player.
Alex Martinez, who’d been assigned as the physiotherapist on call that day, jogged out to Jaime on the ground. Gabe breathed a sigh of relief. Alex was the man he most trusted with his limbs and could work miracles on anyone. Before he even reached her, Jaime jumped up to her feet and bolted down the field.
“I’m fine! I’m fine! I’m fine!” she yelled as she ran away from Alex. Even with a limp, she was wicked fast. However, Alex wasn’t much of a slouch, either. To the crowd’s amusement, he chased her around the field, keeping stride with her feints and evasions.
Gabe laughed. “I think she’ll survive, Johnny.” Who would’ve guessed the feisty Canadian was deathly afraid of a little physiotherapy? Alex eventually caught up with her and flung her fireman-style over his shoulder and carried her off the field while she pounded on his back and whined.
Once a substitute player made it onto the field, the ref blew the whistle and the ball was in play. They rallied back and forth, each player giving everything they could until Gabe’s team finally snuck another goal past Dunkers before the final whistle blew.
They were going to sudden-death overtime. Adrenaline pounded through his veins. The thrill of victory was almost in his grasp. Just one more goal and the Battle would be over. All he had to do was keep his team in formation and hold off the counterattacks, and victory would be his. The teams regrouped on their respective side for the kickoff. Lainey tapped the ball to Aiden, who took off straight down the field, weaving through Gabe’s team with quick give-and-goes just as before. This time, he was ready.
He moved to cover Lainey as she cut toward the net. Aiden’s sharp pass was intercepted by another defender, but it rebounded awkwardly into her path. Gabe launc
hed himself in her direction, just as Lainey went in for a one-touch shot. The full force of their bodies collided just as a long, shrill whistle filled the air. The crowd roared. Whether the fans’ reaction was because Lainey scored or because Joe saved, Gabe didn’t know. All he could focus on was not crushing the woman beneath him as they tumbled along the ground.
They came to a rough stop, shreds of their skin from their knees and elbows left feet behind on the slick, razor-sharp turf. Gabe braced his elbows next to her head and looked down at her. The world around them faded to the background in this perfect moment. Her chin was slicked with mud, wisps of frizzy hair surrounded her face like a halo, and her entire face was redder than a tomato from the exertion.
“Are you planning to get up soon?” she asked. Her smile made him the happiest man in the world.
“Can’t,” he grunted.
Her smile vanished, and her brows furrowed. “What’s wrong? Oh god, is it your knee? Are you okay?”
He chuckled and kissed her lightly on the nose. “My knee’s fine. This is the problem.” He ground his hips against her, letting the full weight of his inopportune erection settle on her.
Lainey’s eyes almost bugged out of her head, and her red cheeks deepened to a near purple. “Oh! Um . . . think about Brussels sprouts. Shower mildew. Taxidermy!”
It took him a moment to figure out what she was doing, but once he caught on, he laughed harder. “Okay, that worked.” He started to get to his feet. Their teammates were creeping toward them, clearly wondering if there was a problem. No doubt, the fans were probably starting to worry if he was okay.
He helped Lainey up, then waved reassuringly to the crowd. It was the perfect moment.
He tugged Lainey’s hand just as she began to walk away and whispered in her ear, “I’m in love with you, Lainey Lukas.” He didn’t care whether she felt the same way, all he knew was that it felt damn good to finally say it.
She gasped, so quietly he almost didn’t notice it. Then she turned toward him and smiled warmly. “Yeah? Good thing, ’cause I just kicked your butt.” She pointed at the ball languishing at the back of the net.
