Neutral Zone

by Amber Lynn

  It’d been a rough night, with very little sleep. Not the best for trying to solve his problems with a clear head. He had to figure out the game aspect of things and whether he had a way to get out of the contract.

  He’d shown up just in time to hear Nina claim to be his girlfriend. He didn’t think for a second she thought of herself as such, but she had said it to try to get Isabel to leave. Their contract said they couldn’t use those words to define their relationship, and he had a witness that could back up her using the word.

  It seemed like a cheap way to get out of the deal, but he was scrambling to find something in case the team lawyers decided Nina was full of shit when she said their contract and her buying the team didn’t matter. For some reason, Brady didn’t want things to be over because of that technicality, even though he was pissed at Nina. It felt like a pussy reason to break the contract.

  He was the first to arrive at his lawyer’s office, where they’d decided to have the meeting. Brady liked that it was in his court, instead of the team’s lawyers. There was no reason to really bring home-court advantage into the meeting, since it was hopefully going to be quick and straightforward, but Brady felt he needed to win something.

  Luke was sitting next to him at the table, with a stack of papers in front of him. Brady hadn’t brought anything, and was in fact still wearing the suit he’d worn the night before. He figured he needed to dress up for the meeting, and it was handy. Not exactly anymore handy than the five other suits he had in his closet, but it matched his mood.

  “Is there a particular way you want to handle this? I’m surprised they jumped so fast at an eight o’clock meeting, so I’m a little worried what they have lined up for us.”

  Brady heard the concern the night before when he’d instructed Luke to make some calls. Brady wanted to believe the lawyers were going to come in and reiterate everything Nina had already said, but there was a part of him that was afraid he was about to hear he was either traded or being sent to the minors.

  Picking up and starting new somewhere else wasn’t a horrible idea. Maybe a new city and new friends were exactly what he needed. A place to clear his head and get the temptress living at his house out of his mind.

  “I just want to hear what they have to say. She says that everything’s fine, but I’m inclined to take that with a grain of salt.”

  “I don’t blame you there,” Luke said as he sorted through his pile of papers and took out a sheet.

  As he busied himself making notes, Brady looked around the room. It was a task that took only five seconds, since the room was basically the table, a sidebar with some coffee set up on it and a bookcase full of law books. Brady had been in the conference room a couple of times, and nothing seemed to change.

  “So you know how we set up all the stipulations in the contract of things we had to follow, like living together and stuff?”

  Brady hadn’t mentioned the girlfriend thing yet and had convinced himself he’d only bring it up if he had to, but he wanted to gauge whether it made a difference first. There was plenty of legal mumbo jumbo in the document that he wasn’t really sure the extra things they added meant anything.

  Luke looked up from the paper he was engrossed in with an eager look on his face. The lawyer had flat out told Brady the contract was stupid, and he shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Brady was pretty sure a portion of the guy’s soul had been crushed when Brady signed it. Luke was a good guy as far as he could tell and really tried to look out for him.

  “I’m familiar.”

  Brady nodded. Of course Luke was.

  “What if someone broke one of the smaller stipulations. I know the gist of the contract was that we didn’t sleep with anyone else, but what if I decided I didn’t want to live with her anymore?”

  The lawyer smiled and rolled his eyes slightly. He flipped through the papers in front of him again until he found what he was looking for.

  “I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long, given what I’ve heard about your houseguest.”

  He put the paper down on the table between the two of them and pointed to a spot on it. Brady rubbed his eyes really quick, hoping to get the sleep out of them, so he could attempt to make sense of the words.

  “I wouldn’t recommend breaking any of the commandments section,” Luke said as Brady tried to understand what he was getting at. “If you could get her to do it, that’d be another story, but if you do, the stipulation is you’re basically her slave for a month. Given how things seem to be going, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Brady’s brow furrowed as he tried to read where in the words it said that. He’d looked closely over the contract and didn’t remember anything that said slavery was in store if the contract became void.

  It must have been in the big words that Brady didn’t understand. He hadn’t looked them up as he read, mainly because it would’ve made him look stupid. He was feeling plenty stupid hearing the stipulation.

  “And what if she breaks them? Is she my slave or something?”

  He was sure he’d have been clued in on that part if that was the case. When they’d gotten down to listing things that could break the deal, he’d just had fun throwing out ideas. He’d thought they all circled back to the whole whether they were having sex or dealing with the agreed upon punishments.

  “Now that would be fun, but no. I thought I pointed this all out to you just before you signed. They added the punishments for breaking minor offenses when they realized they weren’t there. I wasn’t about to bring up they’d forgotten them, because I wasn’t sure you’d be able to keep them all straight and the whole castration thing was already bad enough.”

  Brady was sure he had pointed it out, but at the time, Brady was more focused on the end of the contract and not reading through all the big words. Obviously, it sounded like that was coming back to bite him.

  “So, what happens if she breaks one of the rules?”

  Luke sighed. The sound wasn’t too encouraging.

  “In layman’s terms, she has to give you a blow job. They worded it a little differently, but essentially that’s it. You break them, you’re her slave. She breaks them, you get head.”

  It was hard not to laugh or at least scoff at the news, but Brady kept it in. The lead-up to it made it seem like he was going to be punished for her messing up.

  That answered whether he’d be able to use the girlfriend slip to get out of the contract altogether. Brady surprisingly wasn’t too upset that the answer was no. His pants even started feeling a little tight at the thought of a blonde down on her knees sucking him off.

  He’d only gotten mildly hard walking in and finding Nina practically naked the night before, which was pretty much a miracle. His sex drive had been put on the back burner for the night, but clearly, it wasn’t down for the count.

  “Good to know.”

  Brady was going to mention needing to work on his reading comprehension, but the door to the conference room swung open as Luke’s assistant ushered in three men. Coach was the first guy through, and the small smile on his face seemed at least slightly reassuring. The next guy looked vaguely familiar, but Brady didn’t know his name or where he’d seen him.

  The last guy in the group was a surprise. Brady’s eyes widened as he looked over to Luke to see his expression. Luke had already switched to his neutral lawyer face, so seeing Nina’s lawyer in the group didn’t change anything.

  “Thanks for coming in so early. I don’t know about you guys, but my doors usually aren’t open for another hour.”

  Luke stood up and reached across the table to shake hands. Brady thought it best that he did the same, even though he was feeling a bit off balance. He’d been pretty specific that he didn’t want Nina involved in the meeting, and even though good ol’ Smitty wasn’t Nina, he represented her.

  “I know what you mean, but given the circumstances and the parties involved, I figured it best that we get everything taken care of as quickly as possible.”
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  It was the man Brady really didn’t know who lead off for the other team. The three of them hurried to take their seats after hands were all shook. Brady was trying to get a read on what was going on. The lawyers didn’t seem to be smiling, but the fact that Coach still was continued to feel like a good sign.

  The men across the table seemed to be right around the same age, probably mid-forties. Coach was kind of short, with a bald head and sort of beady black eyes. He looked a little like a cartoon character. The villain in a cartoon to be more specific.

  The other two were easy to pick out as lawyers. They just had the look about them, better than everyone else and suitcases at the ready. Their hair was dark, probably with a little help from some dye. Smitty had a pair of thick black glasses on, and his hairline was disappearing at a faster rate, but other than that, Brady thought they looked pretty similar.

  “What’s he doing here?” Brady asked as he pointed to Smitty.

  The man’s name was Hal Smith, but Brady had decided early on in their dealings to give him a nickname. It seemed to unsettle him a little and that was Brady’s goal.

  “Well,” unknown guy said as he popped open a briefcase he put on the table, “since this is a team matter and he represents the owner of the team, we were instructed he should be at this meeting.”

  That only made things more confusing. Everyone in the room except Luke worked for Nina, so she was already well represented.

  “I’m here to back up any of the statements you’ll hear and provide further proof if requested.”

  Brady looked over to Luke again for a sense of what was going on, but his lawyer was too focused on the paperwork coming out of the suitcase. Brady could care less about the paperwork until he understood why the meeting was already starting off differently than he’d planned.

  “We’re pretty sure this is going to be a short meeting. We’ve already explained to Mr. Bennet here that there isn’t any issues with Brady playing while he and Ms. Hughes fulfill their contract. She made that very clear in every meeting we had leading up to the acquisition. As you can see on this paper dated from back in July, she had us research league rules about owners having relationships with players.”

  Scrunching his forehead, Brady looked at the lawyer and tried to figure out if he heard him right. He didn’t say anything that Nina hadn’t already told him. That wasn’t quite true. Nina hadn’t mentioned she’d been looking into the topic for at least a month before she brought up the bet with him.

  “So she planned on sleeping with the team?”

  Brady was completely confused. He glanced at the paper, but he’d already proven that reading contracts and such wasn’t his specialty.

  “No,” Smitty said quickly. “Not the team. Just you. She started looking into buying the team back in April just before the end of the season. My instructions were to do research about whether or not sleeping with you would hurt you in anyway. The paperwork from July is the team verifying my findings.”

  “Wait just a second. Am I a bonus prize for her buying the team?”

  His hands reached up to rub his temples as Brady asked the question. He was starting to regret wanting to get Nina’s statements proven by outside parties. They were just as confusing as the woman herself.

  “Again, no.” Smitty was a little more forceful with his response. “I can’t say I know how Nina’s mind works, nor do I ever want to, but I know the acquisition of the team and her contract with you are two completely separate business deals as far as she’s concerned. She just wanted to do research upfront to make sure things were copacetic when your relationship finally went to the physical level.”

  “She’s been planning on us having sex since April and took until three weeks ago to decide to go through with it?”

  Brady got up from his chair. The room was a little tight for it, but he needed to walk around. He wanted to hit things. He had no idea exactly why he wanted to, since he didn’t have a clue what was going on.

  “Sort of. Like I said, I don’t know what’s going on in her head, but it’s my understanding she was worried whether even a past romp popping up would cause trouble, so she wanted to wait until the deal was signed to make sure things would work out for both parties. I believe things probably took longer than she wanted, but everything finished up a few days ago and now here we are.”

  No wonder she’d been adamant about the three weeks for their contract. She’d originally tried to make it a month, and Brady couldn’t get her to come off the three weeks. She knew how her talks were going and when things would be signed on the dotted line.

  Brady understood a little more, but it didn’t temper the anger bubbling up inside of him at all. Any of the information he was learning could’ve been shared on her part any time over the months he’d been trying to get her in bed.

  It was all a bunch of shit. He said as much as he stomped out of the room, not caring whether everyone else was on the same page as far as the meeting being over. If Nina wanted to fuck around with his life, without making it clear she was, fine. She hopefully was ready to take just as much as she gave. He was due a blow job, but first he had an aching to show her she wasn’t going to be the sole boss in their deal. For once, he was going to have something his way.

  Chapter 17

  Nina heard the front door slam and jumped at the force that made the house shake slightly. She didn’t think for a second it was another intruder like the night before. The slam was clearly Brady and his meeting with the lawyers hadn’t eased the anger. If anything, it sounded like it’d made him madder, which was silly.

  When the team’s lawyers had called to say he requested a meeting, she’d quickly told them to tell him anything and everything he wanted to know. He hadn’t believed her, so maybe they could spell it out so he’d understand. She even made sure they took Smitty along to back up anything they said. She’d never thought of her lawyer as a Smitty, but once Brady started calling him that, she’d followed along.

  “Nina.”

  The shout was about as loud as the door slam. She didn’t feel any rumblings in the wall, but she would’ve heard him even if she was in the basement or backyard. There was no question in the single word, so he assumed she was there, and he didn’t sound like he wanted to mess around looking for her.

  “I’m in the kitchen.”

  She tried to keep her voice cheerful, but she was scrambling to try to figure out what could have happened to make him even more pissed. It shouldn’t have been possible. All his questions were supposed to be answered and things were supposed to go back to normal. Normal was sort of an odd word for whatever was going on between them, but she didn’t have a better one.

  Nina heard every step as she turned away from the counter with her cup of tea in her hand. She could’ve used a gallon of coffee, but she was hoping the tea would calm the lumps in her stomach that seemed to be dancing anxiously. She didn’t feel nervous often, and when she did, she did everything she could to get rid of the feeling as quick as possible.

  She thought the tea would help, but Brady’s apparent mood made the things in her stomach move around faster. At that rate, a little chamomile wasn’t going to be enough.

  Brady appeared in the doorway only seconds after figuring out her location. He briefly looked at her, in nothing but her robe. It was almost nine, which usually meant she was already in the office or on her way there, but she hadn’t decided if she was going to make it in. Even not knowing her plans, she’d decided a shower was in order and after her tea, she planned on sneaking into the master bath and letting Brady’s massaging sprayer try to work out some of the anxiety.

  Sleep hadn’t come the night before, no matter how many stupid sheep she counted. Brady didn’t look like he’d had a better night sleep, evident from the fact he was still in the same suit. His face remained just as expressionless as it had been the night before. Sometimes it was easy to tell what he was thinking, but other times he was like a freaking wall.

  That e
nigma attracted Nina. She wanted to try to figure out what really happened when his eyes shuttered and serious Brady showed up. Living with him hadn’t made it any easier to crack the code, but she was still trying.

  “Do you want to have sex with me?”

  “Yes,” Nina replied before she had a chance to really think about it.

  The answer seemed obvious and the question rhetorical. If she hadn’t wanted that, she would’ve had him arrested for harassing her a long time ago. The day they met, he’d felt her up in a car. It wasn’t an unrequited touch. In fact, it kind of turned her on that he’d been that bold.

  While she was thinking about how ludicrous the question was and reliving what his hand on her boob felt like, she didn’t register that Brady was on the move. It wasn’t until her tea was torn out of her hand that she realized they weren’t just starting some absurd conversation.

  Her body was turned so it faced the counter and a hand on her back bent her over slightly. His other hand held her left hip.

  “Are you sure you want to have sex with me? Because I’m not in the mood to be gentle right now.”

  Nina thought about it for only a second before nodding her head and whispering, “Yes.”

  They’d been building up to the moment for so long that she felt chills run over her skin just thinking about the fact it was finally happening. She bit her lip, hoping whatever Brady had in store would be worth the price of admission. When she felt Brady forcefully push himself inside of her, her mouth opened wide in a silent scream that quickly changed to something the neighbors could probably hear.

  The scream was only partially because of the pain of the invasion. There was no denying it hurt for the two-inch-wide dick to invade her body without foreplay, but it was a delicious pain, easily erased by how full she felt.

  Nina reached her hands out on the counter, trying to find something to hold onto and squeeze as Brady held himself inside of her. The flat cold surface of the granite did little to help the situation. Instead of gripping onto something, she let her hands lay flat against the counter.